It seems like I'm only blogging when I have something to say that I can't post on Facebook. I really wish I could change that attitude. I find a catharsis to writing and I think I do well at it. Maybe people would even read if I posted often. Anyhoo, there is this little nagging issue that keeps popping up in my life and I find myself, once again, struggling to let it go. A good old-fashioned blog post may be just the trick. I love talking, even if it is just to myself. I am a bit of an emotional mess sometimes, particularly when it comes to this issue, so I am even more inclined to talk it out. Again. For the 3rd time. Since midnight.
Long story short, my husband has family that has made some questionable choices about his life in recent history. The aftermath of these choices is vast. My immediate family is estranged from this side of the extended family, and the estrangement encompasses more and more people as time goes on. This is unfortunate and often surprising. People who I thought were in agreement with us have now jumped ship, and others who I assumed would stand on the OTHER side of the line in the sand are actually standing here with us. It's not really about who is on what side though, as long as my better half and I are next to each other, nothing else is really important. But it is interesting to note who landed where. I think like a social worker, so this is interesting to me :shrug:. The "main event" happened over a year ago, although the dysfunction in this family was occurring long before I was in the picture.
When the big bang was occurring we spent a considerable amount of energy and emotion figuring out where we landed. It was a bit of a complicated mess and it took some time to sort out which emotion went where. Some emotions were acknowledged and then summarily dismissed, others stuck around to simmer for a bit. Still others keep popping back up. In case you were wondering, cutting ties with an extensive family is maddening, satisfying, painful, time consuming, emotionally exhausting, and a number of other descriptors too numerous to list. It feels like, after a year of navigating this uncharted water, that we should be at another shore. Instead I am realizing we have just been landing on a series of stable islands only to be launched back to sea again. As long as I can see that we are making progress I guess that will have to do.
Last night we were launched back to sea after feeling quite content on our little island for months. My oldest brother in law, who fancies himself as the family's voice of reason, the success story, had a bad accident. His life isn't threatened and he is home recovering so I don't have to feel guilty about talking about this. I can only assume he is on some seriously good pain medication that has stripped him of the filters he normally hides behind. I say those words with great intent because I feel he does, indeed, HIDE behind his mask of civility. I have said since the beginning that if this family would just REACT, any genuine reaction would do, then this whole mess would have been over in a month or 2. Of everyone involved, I had the only reaction I feel was genuine. The old "if we all just stuff our emotional baggage we can go back to 'normal' sooner" ideal is very much at work with this family, and my ability and willingness, lack of shame, in expressing my emotions definitely influenced events. So when my husband texted his brother to say something along the lines of "get well soon", the response was, shall we say, uncharacteristic. I haven't seen the texts myself but there was an interaction that prompted my husband to call me from work, where we proceeded to rehash and reassess all of our decisions to this point.
In a nutshell, we are the bad guys. Our decision to remove ourselves from this family were unjustified. Our emotional reactions were inappropriate. The information we based our decisions on was fabricated. We have torn this family apart. On and on, ad nauseum. Nothing new here. It was clear that my brother-in-law had recently spent time with key members from this side of the family because the arguments they use to support their misguided opinion of our decisions is based on fiction created by those few key players. Normally, he at least pretends to be making an effort to be neutral and caring. These text messages were downright aggressive, and it was interesting to see the switch (social work brain, remember?). In one conversation they can both assert that we have been wrong all along, and admit that we are right, and still somehow manage to blame us for the confusion. An example: This whole mess started with our belief that one person was engaging in illegal behavior, possibly with our kids nearby, definitely with other kids nearby. The family insists that this is not possible. Except that I only knew about it because they told me. So last night, after a string of "you are all evil" kinds of messages to my husband, my brother in law says "He's doing really well, and there doesn't seem to be any indication that he'll fall off the wagon again". Does anyone else see the contradiction here? Aside from the fact that my minor in psychology taught me enough about drug addiction and codependency to know that codependent folks don't make good assessors of how well somebody is doing with addiction, it should be easy for any outsider to see how illogical this argument method is. You accuse me of being wrong, admit that I am right, and then expect ME to apologize for your inability to admit that the problem is not on my side of the line. I told my husband "this is way above my pay grade". I am interested in how this is all shaking out, but I have absolutely no idea who would be qualified enough to make sense of this mess. Of course, professional help is out of the question because I am the only one who will admit there is a problem, so around we go.
The end result of all of this was a 2-hour long, regularly interrupted, re-hashing that we must go through periodically until the end of time. Did we do the right thing? Could we have done more? Have the negative effects of this decision caused irreparable damage to our kids? What have been the unforeseen consequences? Can we live with this decision? Last time we took stock of the situation it took a few days. I am obviously still working this all out, but I don't feel the anxiety I felt last time. I count that as a victory. Our children are safe. All of the work I did to become a social worker (still lots to go but progress is progress) is safe. Our family has identified benefits to removing ourselves from the situation, and the negatives have been overcome with surprising ease. We are happy. We navigated months of Whooping Cough (another post, lol) without a shred of "family" helping us out. We go to work and school and on vacation and care for each other. The laundry and the dishes are sometimes done, the animals get fed, the world turns. We COULD have reacted differently, kept emotions to ourselves, changed how we worded things or how we reacted, but the end is still the end. We may have had a slow burn instead of a flash bang, but there is still an explosion.
I can already see the shore of our next stable island. I think it's a small island though because eventually my pain-medicated brother-in-law will read his messages with a clear head. I cannot guess how that follow-up conversation will play out, I just know it will eventually get to us. Until then, I'm digging my toes in the sand and pouring myself an island fru-fru drink ;).
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