GALing and Boundaries with XH

[AntoniaB]

Thanks Kaffe and cat--and my sister actually has CoD no more as I loaned it to her! So I'll read it again.

My dad is actually in his best mood if he drinks, and I'd say when he does drink, it's usually late at night after mom goes to bed. All the time he is abusive is when he's not drinking, and the best way to describe his behavior then is to say he has severe mood swings.

My mom's biggest problem is that she has tried to make us all "appear" to be a perfect family my whole life, and I guess in dad's way he has too, and they have always placed the bar for me and my siblings SO high to be SO high-achieving and perfect. Our parents live to brag about us. It took me a long time to figure out that a significant amount of the blow to my self-esteem when XH cheated on me came from THEIR reaction to this. They kept saying things like "things like this don't happen in OUR family." And it's not like once my mom ever said "Antonia you are beautiful inside and out, he doesn't know what he's doing, this is not your fault." It's not that they said it WAS my fault, but in a way they did by acting like I wouldnt' have gone through this if I'd married the right person, who came from "a better family that wasn't physically abusive."

If I or my siblings ever failed at anything, we were never taught to fail with grace or that failure was ok. Instead, we were told "well you'll simply TRY HARDER next time, and you will KEEP trying or you're a quitter." To me, this sends a message that somehow you failed the first time because you were not good enough. Result? Low self-esteem, beating yourself up when anything goes wrong.

The SHAME of what XH did in cheating was what kept me stuck for so long, and the shame I felt didn't come from my friends' reaction to what he did, but my parents' reaction. It also led me to keep saying XH was "crazy" and "never had a point about me ever being WRONG in our marriage" way back when he first cracked. I came off entirely self-righteous to him when he first reached out for help. I told HIM to just press on and "do better." I treated him the way my parents treated me when he fell apart. I had always had the bar too high for him. And I'm sure for someone who was in the early stages of MLC, I made it worse for him with my holier-than-thou attitude.

I did exactly what I was raised to do. I can't take it back.

So now I see all too clearly how their expecations on me made me treat my XH the same way, and how even now, they still have these absurd expectations. I can't start to tear up without my mom thinking I'm having a breakdown. Everything I've been learning talks about how you should move through the phases of depression and acceptance and all that and accept them and let them pass as they cycle. No matter what I tell her or show her in a book about that being normal, she will say things like "well, you've been down the past few weeks, WHAT DID YOU DO TO BRING THAT ON?" "You talked by email to XH, and that made you sad, YOU SHOULD NOT TALK TO HIM EVER."

The really ironic part is that they are Catholic. And they both profess how superior they are in terms of a religion because they are Catholic. And yet they are the most unforgiving people I've ever seen. They just do not forgive or forget if anyone makes a mistake or isn't perfect, and LIFE is about learning to live with ups and downs. Not with them.

My mom many times will say "well I think everyone can benefit from a little therapy." Then I say "but you have never gone to a therapist." And she says, "well I have good friends and I have God so I don't need to go."

"Overbearing" is exactly the right word. My siblings and I get a guilt trip laid on us if we try to go together anywhere without my mom or we get flat out told we aren't allowed to go out and do adult things, like have a few drinks at a bar and NOT take the kids. My sister's kids are 14 and 11 and my mom acts like my sister is a negligent parent if she leaves them alone for an hour.

Basically my parents treat us all like we are still teenagers and they won't allow us to be grown ups and independent. It's really messed up ;-)