mother-daughter realtionship troubles (sry, long)

[GrnEyedGemini]

My mom and I used to have a really close relationship the whole time I was growing up, living in her house. I could tell her anything and trust her. I moved out when I was 19 (I am now 24). Our relationship didnt change that much until 2008.

May 2008 my mom told my dad she wanted a divorce. (It's actually her third divorce, and he was technically my step dad, but he's adopted me since, so he's my dad.) It was a big upheavel like a divorce normally is. However, it came out two months later that she had left him for his best friend of twelve years. That was a big betrayal to the family as a whole, from both him and her. I could have probably gotten over it in a while, as I did with every other divorce she has dragged me through. BUT. The man she left my dad for, and has now married, is a convicted child molester, a registered sex offender. He has five children by four different women...and does not pay a cent in child support. He has never held a job longer than 6 months. The jobs he does get are under the table cash jobs. He has a notorious record of sleeping with underage girls, like 16, 17 yr olds (He is 37 yrs old, my mom is 41). When I was a teenager, 13..14 yrs old, he used to stare at me when he'd come over...make me feel really uncomfortable. And because he was my dad's best friend for twelve years, we KNOW he used to cheat on and hit his other girlfriends. A man of such character, right? Ok...so other than the fact that he purposefully broke up a family so he could fulfill his selfishness, he is a generally all around bad person...I DO...NOT...LIKE...HIM!!! AT ALL!! Cannot stand the sight of him. I absolutely cannot stand being in the same room. He gives me the creeps and always has. I never could understand why my dad was friends with someone like him.

So anyways, enough with my ranting about him. The present situation I am writing about today comes after a tense relationship between my mom and I. After the divorce was final, i came to terms with the fact that my mom wasn't happy in her marriage to my dad. This realization came after the demise of my own 4 yr relationship, which I wrote alot about on ls. However, even after moving past the anger about the divorce and accepting it, I still have not been able to accept t.j. as her husband. I refuse to even acknowledge him as my step-father....he is NOT my family, he is just HER husband. I literally feel like I cannot be in the same room with him...I feel the anxiety build in my chest and I feel sick to my stomach. I can feel my blood pressure go up (which I actually have blood pressure problems so I'm suppose to avoid things that aggrevate my bp, lol) and the anger boil inside me. I see that the anger about everything has been directed at him, but I feel it is rightly so. He snuck in and stole my mom away from my dad...( a lil back story on that: my Dad was in kuwait and t.j. was coming around to "keep her company".) He is untrustworthy and a bad person. I do not want to be around him. Period. And my future children will not ever be allowed around him. That has created a void between my mom and I. From the very beginning, she has pushed me to accept him. We've fought and argued. To try to fix our relationship, I've tried asking her to come to my house to visit me. I've tried asking if I could come see her when he isn't there. I've tried to get her to go do things with me. Before they got married, we made times when we were going to get together, say I was going to go to her house, then she'd call right before and say something came up. She lives just down the street and around a curve from me, so I drove by on my way to the store, and his truck was there. So, from my point of view, she chose him over me...she could have told him she had plans to spend time with her daughter, but she didn't. A few other times, she was supposed to come see me at my house and she just never showed, or would call and cancel. The worst one was this past Christmas. (She did it to me last yr too.) I have a tradition of cooking a large dinner about a week before Christmas and inviting those who I love and care about. I invitied her but it was understood he was not invited. The day came, I called her, no answer. I text her. No answer. And she didnt even show up. That hurt my feelings so freakin bad. I cried for days. When I asked her the next day why she didn't come thru text cuz thats all she would answer, all she said was sorry. She told my brother it was because my dad was there. But then two days later I saw her at my dads house standing on the porch talking with him...he lives three doors down from me. And then on Christmas morning, my mom was across the street at her renter's house for one reason or another, and I called her and asked her to come acroos the street and get her Christmas presents from me and to just see her, ya know. She said no, she'd come by later. And that was the last time I've talked to her on the phone. For the past two yrs, she hasn't even gotten me anything for my bday...not even a card. She had always, and I mean always done something for my bday...if it was only a card and a hug. And I'm sure the only reason I heard from her was because I called her because I wanted to talk to my mom on my bday. Her bday was Dec 31, and I tried to call her but she didn't answer. So i text her happy birthday. No answer. So I went to her house to take her her presents from me and my brother and she wasn't there, so I left them on her porch along with her Christmas presents. Three days later I talked to my brother, who lives outta town, and he said she has thanked him and my sis in law for their gifts. Yet...I haven't heard a word from her. I am so hurt. I feel even more hurt than I did when my ex and I broke up, and I never thought anything could hurt worse than that. It hurts deeper, if that makes any sense. She's my mom. How can she chose him over me? What ever happened to unconditional love? Instead, she ignores me and lies to me. I feel like to have a relationship with her, it has to be on her terms completely. I have accepted every single man she has brought into my life...all three of her ex husbands were not my real father...The first one I was too young to know any better. I resisted her second husband but relented because I was only eleven yrs old. She even forced me to call him dad. At eleven, I did what I was told and lived according to her terms. When she divorced him and married my now dad when I was 14, I reisisted but found him to be a good man, a good dad. Now, at 24, I am resisting with good reason. That man is NOT a good person. I do not want him in my life. I do not want anything to do with him. I do not want to be around him. That has to do with him as a PERSON!!! Not because my mom divorced my dad for him. Which is what she will not get through her head. She believes I am being stubborn because I'm still mad about the divorce. She believes I refuse to be around him because I don't want to upset my dad. And I have told her otherwise so many times but she won't listen. And now she won't even speak to me or have anything to do with me. I feel that if I force myself to go along with what she wants on her terms once again, I am giving up a part of myself just to avoid conflict. Does that makes any sense? I want my mom back. I miss her so much. The other day i was watching some talk show and the guy was telling the mother to never let a man get in the way of her relationship with her daughter and I busted out crying. Am i in the wrong? Am i ruining this relationship or is she being unreasonable?

[quankanne]

wow, GEG, that's a lot to dump on your child – yeah, the divorce was going to throw you for a loop, but she should understand that eventually, you would make your peace with it.

 

however, knowing "tj" while your folks were married, and the sorry character he was, is a much different thing than the whole divorce issue, and I'm sorry she refuses to see that.

 

when it comes down to it, you need to tell her it's not the fact that she remarried, but the fact that she chose to hitch with an unsavory character, and that you fear he isn't going to change just because he married HER, and that you don't want her to be subject to the kind of pain he's dished out to other women.

 

at some point, she'll get her head out of her butt and see exactly who he is, but until then, you are going to be left out of her life simply because you are so "unforgiving" toward her marrying this guy in her eyes.

 

as much as it kills you, you're going to have to be the adult here and wait patiently for that day to arrive. Because I guarantee, if she "got" him through cheating on your dad, it's not a stable relationship.

[GrnEyedGemini]

I just wish she would straighten up and start acting like a mother again. Fine if she wants to be married to him....its a poor decision but I know my mom well enough to know she is going to do what she wants regardless what anyone says. But I want her to be a part of my life without forcing me to accept that sob. And not just a passing presence every once in a while. I want to be a mother soon and I need her to be there for me.

 

I have tried talking to her. But she won't listen. I say something she doesn't like and gets gets extremely defensive. It's just the way she is. It's like she's stuck in a 16 yr old's mentality sometimes. She can't see it from my perspective. She just wants it on her terms or none at all. And its like she completely ignores all the things she's done that hurt me...like lying to me, chosing him over me, ignoring me, etc. The last time we text she told me that someday we needed to have a sit down discussion and I told her I've been right here. That she knew where I lived and that I've tried to talk to her but she won't listen. Instead she lies to me and ignores me. That she didn't even tell me she married him. I had to hear it from my dad, of all people! How weird was it to hear that my mom got remarried from my dad, especially in this situation? That I'd like to have my mother back. In her response, she didn't even acknowledge what I said, just that she was tired of the fussing and fighting. That she was sick, tired, and going to bed. Oh and btw, she'd like her daughter back. She never acknowledges what she does. Which infuriates me because then she keeps doing it! Then she'll throw me a bone every now and then with texts saying she loves me. I fight the urge to tell her to act like it.