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I was raised to see the other person's side of a situation, and to apologize when I was in the wrong.
I was raised to avoid conflict and try not to let the sun go down on one's anger.
As a result, I have always been the one to take the high road when there's conflict.
Even if I was totally right in what I did, and was really badly hurt, I made the first move to set things right.
I am tired of it.
I vowed I was through with being the bigger person, and I was never going to be the first to blink ever again.
I had a situation in my personal life this summer that I didn't post about.
I confided to the mods about it because it left me severely hurt with depression rearing its ugly head yet again, and I wasn't up to par as a mod so I wanted them to know why.
It meant that I lost the friendship of my little sister, who has always been my best friend and confidante. The timing was awful because it coincided with another pretty traumatic event, and I no longer had her for support.
It's long and complicated, but I will try to be as brief as I can with the backstory.
In 2010, I began seeing a guy.
He wasn't the kind of guy one would think I would even consider being with.
He has a past.
He came from a bad family environment.
He's had his share of problems, but has been trying to put his past behind him.
I confided in my sister a lot and told her many details of my friend's past.
She was my sounding board.
It's not like I have a lot of people in my life that I can talk to.
My daughter, still mourning for her dad and not real thrilled with me moving on, was certainly not going to be a lot of help.
Anyway, as time went on, my sister sort of convinced me that he was a great guy and to stick with him because she could see that he really loved me.
Fast forward to summer 2011.
My sister's marriage had fallen apart. (He was an emotionally abusive ass and my sister finally got the courage to kick him out.) Her youngest son didn't take it well. He ended up getting mixed up in drug use, specifically marijuana.
He was up to 16 joints a day.
Unfortunately, he is the type of person who does not tolerate the chemical in pot and it caused a schizophrenia-like psychosis in him.
He ended up having a total break and beat the crap out of his older brother and got arrested and charged with assault as a result.
Just after the holiday weekend in July, I got a tearful call from my sister. She told me her son was in jail and could not go home, and they had no idea what they were going to do.
She said she hated to ask, but my nephew had actually asked if he could live with me until things worked through the court system.
Without hesitating, I called the proper channels to have my home closed to foster care. The placement I had was almost at an end anyway, so they made arrangements to have her go home a couple of weeks earlier than planned. (Now, while I have NEVER done foster care for the money, I will say that, since my husband died, it has been a source of income to help top things up with the household bills. I was giving up my only other source of income to help out family.)
Things were OK at first, but my sister had never even entertained the thought that, because she was considered a witness as well as a victim, the courts had issued an order that she was not to have any contact with her son.
She was devastated.
My friend was stepping up and offering a shoulder to let my nephew talk about things. Having been in the system in his younger days, he felt he could help my nephew. They were bonding.
I thought it was great since his own father wasn't exactly the best listener.
One day, I mentioned to my sister an idea that my friend had. He had planned to get my nephew a job so that he was productive and not sitting bored.
My concern was that he would have all this extra money and would be tempted to spend it on pot.
My friend suggested that my nephew give the paycheck to his Mom to look after, and that way he would be able to help out with groceries and stuff.
He knew my sister was struggling on her own and her ex wasn't exactly generous with the support. (They had never gone to court so there was no official order of support for her or the boys.) My friend felt it would teach my nephew some financial responsibility as well as help to take the load off my sister.
Seems like a good plan, right?
That was the beginning of the end.
My sister went ballistic. She wanted to know who he thought he was to be suggesting her son pay room and board when his own son was a deadbeat leeching off Daddy.
She began to use everything I had confided in her about my friend as a reason why he was a bad influence on her son.
My nephew was smoking. He smoked when he moved in with me.
In fact, he was smoking much worse than tobacco under her care!
She blamed my friend for giving him cigarettes.
Yes, that was a huge bone of contention between my friend and me, and I still resent the hell out of the fact that he didn't respect my wishes in that regard, but my nephew's father was also supplying him with cigarettes, but my sister didn't know.
My friend was willing to shoulder all the blame just to keep the peace between my sister and her ex.
About that time, someone from my friend's past approached my sister. The person was an acquaintance of my sister's (as well as mine) and had noticed she had added him on Facebook. He asked her how she knew him.
When she told him, he started telling her all kinds of horrible things about my friend's past.
Instead of considering that most of it was being related from a jaded point of view of an ex-girlfriend who might have an axe to grind, she took it all as gospel.
She started demanding that I not allow my friend to spend any time with her son.
This was pretty difficult since I don't drive and my friend did, and he was driving my nephew to his school work placement as well as on other errands.
My nephew adored my friend.
He was asking to be allowed to go places with him and help him out.
The final straw was a weekend when my friend was doing a drywall job and my nephew asked to tag along.
My friend knew he had punched holes in his own walls at home, so he figured if he worked for a day repairing walls he could learn how to fix his own mess at home and see just how hard it is to fix the holes, and maybe it would deter him from doing it again.
Sounds reasonable. Right?
When I was honest and told my sister that they had done the job that weekend, she was furious.
The next thing I knew, she was calling me at work to tell me that they had gone to court and had removed me as their son's guardian. I knew absolutely nothing about what had gone on in court. I still have no idea what was said about me in court to have me removed as his surety and guardian.
His father had come into my home that day while I was at work and moved him out without a word to me until after the fact.
My sister didn't even give me a chance to talk to my nephew and say goodbye, and she didn't even tell me where he was moved to.
She just said, "He's in a new home now. He won't be there when you get home."
(I found out later that he was moved to live with one of my brothers, and he was now his surety and guardian.)
I was devastated.
I have never been so hurt in my whole life.
I felt so betrayed by all of them.
I had given up my only other source of income on only a moment's notice.
I was getting absolutely nothing in financial support for my nephew the whole time he was here, other than my sister buying groceries when she could.
None of that counted for anything.
All she could see was that her son had bonded with my friend and she was jealous and resentful.
I sent some pretty nasty messages to my sister and her ex and completely severed ties with them.
I called my older sister and vented.
Instead of hearing, "That really sucks and her behaviour was inexcusable," I was getting her playing devil's advocate.
"Oh, Ree, I know she would never deliberately hurt you. She must have felt it was her only option to handle it this way."
WTF??
I messaged my older brother and all I got was some joking, "Now girls, don't fight," type message.
I called my younger brother and he understood, but wasn't willing to be the one to step and tell my little sister to smarten the hell up and apologize.
I pretty much felt all alone.
Shortly after that situation, there were some developments once again in my life that threw it into upheaval. There was some indication that my granddaughter had been sexually molested.
I have had to deal with all of it without the support of my little sister.
It's been really difficult.
So many times I was reaching for the phone because I needed to talk to my little sister and couldn't.
Things with my friend have slowly been going downhill since his other son has come back into the picture.
Daddy is an indulgent enabler who throws up his hands and cries because he thought he would end the family cycle of alcoholism if he didn't drink, yet he supplies his son with booze and drives him to places he knows will end up with his son getting wasted.
He refuses to say no to his son.
We fight constantly about it.
We actually broke up briefly on Christmas Eve, and I have issued an ultimatum that things have to change or I am done. (So far, nothing has changed.)
Now to the actual point of my post.
The depression was getting the best of me just before Christmas.
I was missing my husband as much as I did after he died.
I still hadn't received my apology from my sister but I vowed not to be the one to give in.
I just couldn't do it.
I sent her a message telling her I didn't know what her plans were, but she was welcome to come for Christmas.
She didn't come, but we have started speaking again.
I am happy to have my sister back, even though things are still fairly guarded and reserved, but I am still very angry and hurt that I had to be the one to make the first move and be the bigger person.
It really sucks.
I was raised to avoid conflict and try not to let the sun go down on one's anger.
As a result, I have always been the one to take the high road when there's conflict.
Even if I was totally right in what I did, and was really badly hurt, I made the first move to set things right.
I am tired of it.
I vowed I was through with being the bigger person, and I was never going to be the first to blink ever again.
I had a situation in my personal life this summer that I didn't post about.
I confided to the mods about it because it left me severely hurt with depression rearing its ugly head yet again, and I wasn't up to par as a mod so I wanted them to know why.
It meant that I lost the friendship of my little sister, who has always been my best friend and confidante. The timing was awful because it coincided with another pretty traumatic event, and I no longer had her for support.
It's long and complicated, but I will try to be as brief as I can with the backstory.
In 2010, I began seeing a guy.
He wasn't the kind of guy one would think I would even consider being with.
He has a past.
He came from a bad family environment.
He's had his share of problems, but has been trying to put his past behind him.
I confided in my sister a lot and told her many details of my friend's past.
She was my sounding board.
It's not like I have a lot of people in my life that I can talk to.
My daughter, still mourning for her dad and not real thrilled with me moving on, was certainly not going to be a lot of help.
Anyway, as time went on, my sister sort of convinced me that he was a great guy and to stick with him because she could see that he really loved me.
Fast forward to summer 2011.
My sister's marriage had fallen apart. (He was an emotionally abusive ass and my sister finally got the courage to kick him out.) Her youngest son didn't take it well. He ended up getting mixed up in drug use, specifically marijuana.
He was up to 16 joints a day.
Unfortunately, he is the type of person who does not tolerate the chemical in pot and it caused a schizophrenia-like psychosis in him.
He ended up having a total break and beat the crap out of his older brother and got arrested and charged with assault as a result.
Just after the holiday weekend in July, I got a tearful call from my sister. She told me her son was in jail and could not go home, and they had no idea what they were going to do.
She said she hated to ask, but my nephew had actually asked if he could live with me until things worked through the court system.
Without hesitating, I called the proper channels to have my home closed to foster care. The placement I had was almost at an end anyway, so they made arrangements to have her go home a couple of weeks earlier than planned. (Now, while I have NEVER done foster care for the money, I will say that, since my husband died, it has been a source of income to help top things up with the household bills. I was giving up my only other source of income to help out family.)
Things were OK at first, but my sister had never even entertained the thought that, because she was considered a witness as well as a victim, the courts had issued an order that she was not to have any contact with her son.
She was devastated.
My friend was stepping up and offering a shoulder to let my nephew talk about things. Having been in the system in his younger days, he felt he could help my nephew. They were bonding.
I thought it was great since his own father wasn't exactly the best listener.
One day, I mentioned to my sister an idea that my friend had. He had planned to get my nephew a job so that he was productive and not sitting bored.
My concern was that he would have all this extra money and would be tempted to spend it on pot.
My friend suggested that my nephew give the paycheck to his Mom to look after, and that way he would be able to help out with groceries and stuff.
He knew my sister was struggling on her own and her ex wasn't exactly generous with the support. (They had never gone to court so there was no official order of support for her or the boys.) My friend felt it would teach my nephew some financial responsibility as well as help to take the load off my sister.
Seems like a good plan, right?
That was the beginning of the end.
My sister went ballistic. She wanted to know who he thought he was to be suggesting her son pay room and board when his own son was a deadbeat leeching off Daddy.
She began to use everything I had confided in her about my friend as a reason why he was a bad influence on her son.
My nephew was smoking. He smoked when he moved in with me.
In fact, he was smoking much worse than tobacco under her care!
She blamed my friend for giving him cigarettes.
Yes, that was a huge bone of contention between my friend and me, and I still resent the hell out of the fact that he didn't respect my wishes in that regard, but my nephew's father was also supplying him with cigarettes, but my sister didn't know.
My friend was willing to shoulder all the blame just to keep the peace between my sister and her ex.
About that time, someone from my friend's past approached my sister. The person was an acquaintance of my sister's (as well as mine) and had noticed she had added him on Facebook. He asked her how she knew him.
When she told him, he started telling her all kinds of horrible things about my friend's past.
Instead of considering that most of it was being related from a jaded point of view of an ex-girlfriend who might have an axe to grind, she took it all as gospel.
She started demanding that I not allow my friend to spend any time with her son.
This was pretty difficult since I don't drive and my friend did, and he was driving my nephew to his school work placement as well as on other errands.
My nephew adored my friend.
He was asking to be allowed to go places with him and help him out.
The final straw was a weekend when my friend was doing a drywall job and my nephew asked to tag along.
My friend knew he had punched holes in his own walls at home, so he figured if he worked for a day repairing walls he could learn how to fix his own mess at home and see just how hard it is to fix the holes, and maybe it would deter him from doing it again.
Sounds reasonable. Right?
When I was honest and told my sister that they had done the job that weekend, she was furious.
The next thing I knew, she was calling me at work to tell me that they had gone to court and had removed me as their son's guardian. I knew absolutely nothing about what had gone on in court. I still have no idea what was said about me in court to have me removed as his surety and guardian.
His father had come into my home that day while I was at work and moved him out without a word to me until after the fact.
My sister didn't even give me a chance to talk to my nephew and say goodbye, and she didn't even tell me where he was moved to.
She just said, "He's in a new home now. He won't be there when you get home."
(I found out later that he was moved to live with one of my brothers, and he was now his surety and guardian.)
I was devastated.
I have never been so hurt in my whole life.
I felt so betrayed by all of them.
I had given up my only other source of income on only a moment's notice.
I was getting absolutely nothing in financial support for my nephew the whole time he was here, other than my sister buying groceries when she could.
None of that counted for anything.
All she could see was that her son had bonded with my friend and she was jealous and resentful.
I sent some pretty nasty messages to my sister and her ex and completely severed ties with them.
I called my older sister and vented.
Instead of hearing, "That really sucks and her behaviour was inexcusable," I was getting her playing devil's advocate.
"Oh, Ree, I know she would never deliberately hurt you. She must have felt it was her only option to handle it this way."
WTF??
I messaged my older brother and all I got was some joking, "Now girls, don't fight," type message.
I called my younger brother and he understood, but wasn't willing to be the one to step and tell my little sister to smarten the hell up and apologize.
I pretty much felt all alone.
Shortly after that situation, there were some developments once again in my life that threw it into upheaval. There was some indication that my granddaughter had been sexually molested.
I have had to deal with all of it without the support of my little sister.
It's been really difficult.
So many times I was reaching for the phone because I needed to talk to my little sister and couldn't.
Things with my friend have slowly been going downhill since his other son has come back into the picture.
Daddy is an indulgent enabler who throws up his hands and cries because he thought he would end the family cycle of alcoholism if he didn't drink, yet he supplies his son with booze and drives him to places he knows will end up with his son getting wasted.
He refuses to say no to his son.
We fight constantly about it.
We actually broke up briefly on Christmas Eve, and I have issued an ultimatum that things have to change or I am done. (So far, nothing has changed.)
Now to the actual point of my post.
The depression was getting the best of me just before Christmas.
I was missing my husband as much as I did after he died.
I still hadn't received my apology from my sister but I vowed not to be the one to give in.
I just couldn't do it.
I sent her a message telling her I didn't know what her plans were, but she was welcome to come for Christmas.
She didn't come, but we have started speaking again.
I am happy to have my sister back, even though things are still fairly guarded and reserved, but I am still very angry and hurt that I had to be the one to make the first move and be the bigger person.
It really sucks.
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