Damn, Voldy sounds like she's wired really tight, and her FOO issues are coming to roost here? I can't believe how well your D20 handled the situation. Kudos to her!
A few years ago I had an assistant whose parents emigrated from Vietnam for college, got married and then became citizens. She has an older brother. I also have cousins who are half Chinese as well as very close business relationships with a long time manufacturing partner. So what my asst told me was nothing I hadn't heard before, straight from the horses' mouth.
When she worked for me, her parents had been divorced for awhile and her mom passed away. My business partner and I gave her a few weeks off to tend to the details, as she was the executor of her mom's estate. When she returned, she came into my office and just sobbed. And it kind of surprised me that her sobbing had relatively little to do with her feelings about her mom's passing, but a whole lot to do with the yucky stuff she was processing.
W is such a bright and beautiful girl. She had her shite together from a young age - she saved her money and bought and rented out properties, put herself through school and was super industrious. And she was involved in a a horribly physically abusive R with a LT BF who ultimately went to jail for beating the crap out of her.
She had a good R with her dad, who was genuinely puzzled at their D and never understood why her mom was so angry with him enough to D him. They managed to set things aright before her mom died, but there was a long time in between. Her older brother is successful, but after he graduated college, he distanced himself from his mom. He'd be respectful and come to the expected gatherings, but he didn't do any more than that. (She had to spend time with her niece away from their mom, as this was his condition. Sad.) She was also successful, but was treated like crap. The B+ she got in math made her mom angry and instead of being happy for the daughter that graduated with a degree in CS with a 3.8 GPA, her mom told her how stupid she was for not making that a 4.0.
If she stopped by her mom's after work, her mom berated her for not coming sooner. If she wasn't there at noon to walk her mom's dog (by this time she was nearly bedridden with cancer), she was yelled at. You'd think that someone on their death bed might decide to be kinder? Yet no. Her daughter was the only thing she had left in this world, and she treated her horribly.
So when she vented to me as she sobbed, she let herself be angry. And she let me know she appreciated it, because in her culture, it would be frowned upon and she didn't trust her relatives not to berate her too. But now that I'm old, I know that people who judge so harshly are generally treated this way too. Somehow they say to themselves that since they turned out fine, their kids will too.
Voldy sounds like my assistant's mother. I haven't talked to her in awhile, but I hope she's doing well. At my suggestion, she went into counseling to let this stuff out and figure out why she's attracted to men who abuse her. She saw the link and decided that it was time to deal with it. I miss her. In the 23 years I've been with this company, she's one of 3 people who left that I cried about. I adored her.
I'm so glad your daughters have you for their dad. You're fully present with them and see them as people and not objects. I applaud you for forging through with someone so clearly unhappy. I can't blame you for how you feel. She'd make me hate her too.
Hope you are celebrating your awesomeness this week! 'Cause you are!
"There are only 2 ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
