Thursday, November 23, 2006

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope you all enjoyed yours if you are celebrating today. We had a good day. For a change, we spent it in town instead of going to my parents. Come to find out, this was only our 2nd Thanksgiving with Hubby's family. I can't believe I let Mom guilt me into going to her house each year and neglect his family like that. Whatever it takes to keep momma happy.

She wasn't happy today. In case you don't remember, I've backed off quite a bit from my mom since her birthday in August. I'd love to have a better relationship with her. Right now, she takes me for granted and I'm always the bad kid while my brother is perfect. I'm the one that's there. For all the details, check out this blog. Anyway...we decided that we were going to spend Thanksgiving here with the family we never spend Thanksgiving with. The few times I've spoken to mom this week, she has mentioned us coming up there and I keep telling her that we aren't.

Usually, for mom and dad's birthdays and holidays, I call them first thing in the morning. I didn't do that today. I knew that Gary wasn't going to call until around 3pm our time, so I was planning on calling around 2. Besides, mom can call me as easily as I can call her. Mom ended up calling me at 2:30. I lost track of time. I was playing with the nephew and holding a month-old baby (I can't have children, so I hold all the ones I can). I told them happy Thanksgiving, asked what they did, and asked if they had a good day. Mom said no, they didn't have a good day. I asked why? It took her about 3 minutes before she answered. I couldn't hear her crying or anything. I almost thought I'd lost connection because I couldn't hear anything on that end. When she finally started talking again, she didn't sound like she was crying, so I don't know what the deal was. Probably just to make me feel guilty. It didn't work.

What's funny is that just last night, I was telling Hubby that even though I know my parents love me; I also know that they don't accept me. They tolerate me, but don't accept me. I even told him that if we were not related, I wouldn't want to spend time with them because of the negativity and the bummer (downer) feeling I get every time we see them. It is in no way a "relaxing" experience.

Now that Mom's best friend is moving to town, she is going to be worse (read more judgmental than ever). When this friend was visiting the same time we were a few years ago, Mom said that Hubby and I were "heathens" and kept going on and on about things she knows I don't agree with and tried to pressure me into saying I believed the way she does. Why in the world would I put myself into that situation when I don't have to?

I felt bad about upsetting my mom. If the whole situation didn't bother me, I wouldn't be blogging about it here. I'm too nice a person to let it NOT bother me. Mom knows that and uses my soft heart against me any chance she gets.

What's worse? I'll tell you....my dad's birthday is Saturday. I'm gonna call. I can already hear him tell me that I hurt mom's feelings by not calling. I know he's gonna. That's a given. I'm sooo tempted to tell him that my life doesn't revolve around her. I know he wouldn't like that at all and would have so much more to say to me. If I had more of a backbone, I would probably say just that. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can totally relate with what you wrote about your relationship with your family. I think I had the same discussion with my hubs yesterday after figuring out I'm getting the cold shoulder from my family right now.

You can't pick your family...but why does it make us feel so bad when we don't have the relationship with them that we think we should have.

Hugs to you today!

Kari said...

I have no idea why it hurts so much when we don't have the relationships we think we should have. Thanks so much for your hugs.

I'm both saddened and glad to know that I'm not the only one who has these kinds of relationships with my family.