whatever people

Ahh, people handle crisis so differently....

Not sure what I was thinking, but I posted my blog on my facebook, where SIL is one of my friends. I manipulated the settings on facebook so that only certain people could see that I had listed a website at all. I allowed my SIL to be on this list... I wasn't really thinking it through, I certainly didn't know what was coming.

And well, she read it. And then she notified DH, as if he didn't know I had a blog. He's never bothered to read this, but she did and apparently thought it was worse that I had posted it than the fact that I had been abused by her brother and was coping this way. DH claims he thought I just wrote about mundane motherhood stuff, I know I had told him it was deeper than that, but to his defense, we really hadn't discussed it at length and he's never really asked a lot of me.

She also notified MIL. Truly, I don't mind that they know, imo, they should know and I am not ashamed. They should have confronted DH and asked him wtf had happened. But they never have! I suppose it's too painful or perhaps they truly don't care?? They have never questioned him! If it were my brother, I would have immediately been on the phone asking, "wtf happened? talk to me!" DH's family doesn't talk about problems, that I know of anyway. Perhaps they do in privacy. In my nearly 10 years of experience with them, however, deep issues are swiftly tucked under the perfectly vaccuumed rug. Instead of talking about feelings, they just get over it instead of addressing it head on. Or do they?

So now MIL has told DH that she has always thought I was arrogant (ahh...character assassinating) and that she wants NOTHING to do with me. Oh, is that so? After supposedly loving me as a daughter all of these years, you are suddenly vilifying me because I wrote a paragraph about my disappointment in you in November? I have an imaginary gag order now?? Now that you know what your son has done to me, you hate me for acknowledging it, for speaking frankly about a difficult subject, for the desire to clarify what I have endured? Perhaps you think I deserved it because I was always so ungrateful and arrogant?

Well, after speaking to MIL, DH was angry too, with me and the whole situation my blog had incited. He began to tell me that I was just looking for sympathy (to which I said, well...maybe I am!!) and that I am just as much as fault for the demise of the relationship as he is. Then he threatened to start a blog detailing how much I suck at housecleaning and such. Seriously. He said that those things are just as important to him as being treated with kindness are to me. He said, as he has before in anger, that I "drove" him to the affair and that he abused me verbally because he can't deal with what a horrible person I am.

I let him read the part of my blog that mentioned MIL. It was from the post titled, Worst Day Ever, in Nov. 2008. He pointed out that it was sarcastic, but not so bad and understandable considering what I was dealing with on that day. I'd had some tough breaks, MIL could cut me some slack, in other words.

Well, by the next day he had totally calmed down and was back to the "I love you's." He even talked to MIL, she wasn't budging. He told me she said something that struck him like a lightning bolt, she literally told him that I should have "sucked it up" instead of blogging my feelings for anyone to see.

DH surprised me then. He sighed and said his mom just didn't know any other way to handle it, and he understood why she was hurt, but that ultimately he realized without someone else telling him so, that his mom was wrong. He said, "what if I had broken your bones? would she expect you to suck it up then??" "Sucking it up" is not an indicator of strength, it's a coping mechanism for sure and can be effective, but it's a better indicator of cowardice. I cried and cried, how validating. And I wasn't even seeking this. I never wanted to drive a wedge between DH and his family. He knows this.

DH gets it. That means a lot to me. He doesn't "like" that I have a blog, but he accepts why it's being written. Out of courtesy, I did temporarily make this blog private so that uninvited readers cannot see it.

Sure, he'll rage at me again for something else, even this again, someday. But he always comes back to rational if I stay firm but tempered, expressinf vulnerability, humility and forgiveness at the same time. I withheld judgment of his mother and sister, instead of saying they were mean witches, I said they are possibly just emotionally repressed and they just don't get it like DH and I do. I forgive them already. Even though DH did all this stuff to me, the verbal abuse, the infidelity, the neglect...he understands the gravity. He really does. If the in-laws don't, that's out of my control.

I am very proud of DH today. Too little too late though. Too bad we have to get divorced. Maybe if he can fix this problem of his and we are both single as we approach our 40's.... :-)

peace and love to in-laws everywhere.