Forum

Deedee,


I just noticed your post on this part of the site. Kissing the money off was my choice. He wasn’t nagged by his wife to pay her mother first. Her mother lives with them and so does her cousin. Her brother moved out when he got married. It’s a different culture we’re dealing with. No, the point is that when I asked about the repayment to me, they told me the loans were gifts. It isn’t that they haven’t had other benefits from me either. I paid for their wedding by myself. I bought their baby furniture, diapers & food. I bought my daughter-in-law her jewellery for the wedding. It’s not that I’m rich, it’s that I never had help from my parents, and if I was in a position to help I did.
The whole thing behind this is that both loans came with promises to repay. That they are now saying they were gifts is an insult. I was NOT mentioning the money, and would have gladly let it go, and kept my disappointment over their integrity a private matter not to be shared with them. But to call me names and insult me by saying “gift” changed the dynamics. They WERE, no doubt, already a gift, but it was an unspoken gift from a mother who never brought it up. That they borrowed from her mother and were promptly repaying her, and name called me when I asked about something to come to me….well…this was insulting. You don’t repay one parent ignoring the other.

It breaks my heart so many parents are being estranged by their adult children. My son has now followed his sister’s lead and threatened me with estrangement. I agree that the parent who was rejected by their own parents finds it especially difficult to deal with and recover from being rejected by their children. It is so painful to realize your life is a circle and you’ve returned to the place that brought you the most pain. Being a single mother is even more devastating. All the sacrifices seem to have been for nothing. And there is no understanding that this single mother gave them a far better life than they would have had in an alcoholic, wife-beating home.
I love my children. I respect the fact they have the right to choose who is in their lives, and those of their children. I made that choice, after all, myself, but for much more serious reasons. After years of crying and begging for reconciliation with my daughter to no avail, I had to tell her I understood, that I would always love her and the children and told her goodbye. It was the only way I could see to release all of us from the pain of the anger. She is bi-polar. Preserving her marriage is paramount for her’s and her children’s safety. It was her marriage or her mother. I had to go, and it took me a long time to understand and accept that.
My son has now chosen to demean me, disrespect me and assassinate my character. He is angry that I’m asking for repayment of loans made to him that he promised to repay and never mentioned again. He is repaying his mother-in-law. You don’t repay one mother and leave the one who helped you twice first dangling in the wind. At this point, he’s incapable of rationalizing that he is now Number One child and that I am the only parent with financial substance, and that what he is repaying will be returned to him when I die. And so, he has threatened me with cutting the tie. 
I recognize I may lose all my grandkids and both my children and be left with no family. But to be given rules that are so strict and limiting, to be told how to behave, how to speak, how to look….this is a very high price to pay for the illusion of love. Accepting either of my children’s and their spouses disrespect only brings more disrespect and eventually teaches my grandchildren to disrespect me. I had to step out again to stop a cycle just like when I stepped out to stop the cycle of violence for my children. 
I’m not sure if my heart will ever heal. The words they have told me are imbedded, branded. My comfort level is eroded. I never imagined my family would disappear. I thought it would grow. I hope one day, before it’s too late, to see both my children again. But for now? What satisfaction is there for any of us? Just as when I divorced for their sakes, I have to disengage myself from their lives. It’s the only chance we have. I am their mother. Protecting them is my job. If it means protecting them from more anger against me so that they can raise their children without seeing that kind of anger, then it’s far better for me to release them. I’ve borne pain before. This pain won’t leave, but at least I will have the comfort of knowing they and their children are okay.