bigAl, if I find it, you'll be the first to know how to get it.
Andrea, if I have any revelations on doing the right thing vs. revenge, you'll be the first to know.
petiteflower, you're too wonderful for taking such an interest in what's going on. I thank you so very much. More later, because I want to address everything, but I'm copying and pasting something below from one of my first threads (sooooo very funny, re-reading this now, that *I* referred to his mom as June Cleaver. Weird!):
My H's family has an interesting past. My H can go a month without talking to them, but feels guilty after a while. His mom is like June Cleaver (isn't that her name??). His dad, well, he's apparently changed a lot in recent years. I've only seen him as very affectionate and loving toward his wife and sons.
There's a 9-year age difference b/w my H and his older brother. When his older brother was 18, he was apparently hanging out at a bar where many of the area's gays would meet. Dad found out his son was going to be there one night and went tearing out of the house to the bar. Mom made a warning call to the bar -- too late. Dad drags son out of the bar and home, kicks him out of the house, the family, and so on...
Classic, eh?
My H was a tender 9 years old at the time and witnessed the fiasco. From then on, Dad made my H "the man" -- had him in the garage working on race cars, throwing wrenches, cussing fits, God only knows what else.
This is where my H's temper came from -- and why, I believe, he never really cared to be around his dad.
But since we've been together, I've only seen his dad as very loving. Later found out it was b/c Mom (i.e. Betty Crocker) finally threatened to leave b/c Dad was a tireless workaholic.
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
I never understood my H's bitterness toward his dad. I never pursued it much. My H just said he didn't like his dad b/c of how hard he was on him and how he treated his brother -- though my H and his brother aren't really that close. Brother has a great partner now -- seems very content -- but has tried to commit suicide, even recently, and got in trouble with drugs when he was younger.
But my H has always be very pleasant to his dad in front of me. They still work on cars and hang out in the garage any time we're all together (which is only two or three times a year).
His mom and I have talked about this in happier times. We cried together b/c of it. All she wanted was for her son to be better than his dad was. She regrets being such a doormat, though she says she understands why she did it at the time. And she hated to know my H was showing some of the same behaviors as his dad (working all the time, mainly).
She said she was proud that her son had found somebody who wouldn't be a doormat. Obviously, though, that has come back to bite me in the you-know-what.
I don't really know the point of all that. A)I believe it may somehow explain my H's apparent fear of becoming a biological father, especially if something happened b/w my H and his dad that I am unaware of. B) It shows how my H's family responds to family crises. C)It just feels good to get it off my chest.
Don't get me wrong. My H is a wonderful man -- I know you read that a lot, but he really is ... or was. Look at how he took my two daughters in like they were his own. I think he ran so far from his family because he wanted something different than they offered. And we created something different. He treated me and my daughters like we were princesses. That's why it's so hard to understand what he's done now. When he worked too much, I called him out for it, and he took notice and changed immediately. Him turning out to be like his dad was a very bitter subject -- one that I only brought up twice, and those were times of desperation for me...
