I often wonder what the hell I am doing with my husband. I love the guy to pieces and we get along great, but we just have the oddest differences and opinion's that usually would break a marriage apart. Then, all this shit started to happen in my life. With my family of origin. People betraying me, liars and haters who have not guts to tell you to your face how they feel. For years, they hated me behind my back and me, going through life in my simple little bubble thinking that the terrible things that hurt me were just "accidents"... only to find out after years of abuse the obvious. For the longest time, my husband would say to me "why do you keep going back? Every time you go see them, you come home crying." I would say "They're my family, they love me they just have trouble showing it". Well, they didn't have trouble because they didn't love me. I should have listened to my husband.
On his end, his father died when he was 7 and only has his mother and younger brother as family. His mother did remarry but she married for money and now has anger issues because she ended up raising her husbands kids, compromised her kids and is forced to solitary confinement because of RA. My husband and his mother never got along and he would always tell me to just "let them go" when talking about my family. He seemed so happy when we moved out as kids (I'm talking 19 and 23) and finally didn't have to live under her spell anymore. His life got quieter while mine spent the following years with the aforementioned blog posts of lying, backstabbing and whatnot.
Then...
The children were born.
And when there are children, there is jealousy. Our son was born a week after his step-fathers granddaughter was born. EXACTLY a week. And every single year, when we throw our son his birthday party, there is some kind of fucking stunt pulled by this prick of a stepfather we have inherited to try and trump my kids birthday. The first year, he accused me of being a racist (and my best friend is Porto Rican , married to a black man with two children of which I would trust my life with), the second year they showed up an hour late and left after only 15 minuets (my son didn't even know Grandmom and "Grandpop" was there) and this year.... this year... it's a BASEBALL GAME. They're from Philadelphia and are Phillie fans. It's cool, whatever. I get the passion Philly fans have for their teams. But when you leave me a voicemail, the day before you're to fly in for my sons birthday, that says "we have a problem with tomorrow. I have Phillies tickets for tomorrow's game. Can we come today around noon? I have tickets"... Um... no! I had things to do and, lets not forget you see your grandkid once a-fucking year...
My husband about flew up to them to punch him in the face for thinking a baseball game was more important than your Grandkids birthday. And, with all the loss our son has suffered with people in my family leaving him, my husband and I feel extremely protective more than ever. Instead, he opted for my suggestion: the more sane idea of picking up the phone and calling his mother. She tried her best to derail the conversation; blaming and yelling at him for his mistakes instead of staying on task and trying to understand why it's not ok to tell your Son that his son is not worth flying down to see for his fifth birthday because the Phillies MIGHT win game 6. MIGHT.
Then the Phillies lost.
The day of my sons party, we got up early. I told him he needed to call his mother and tell him that she can come but to leave her husband home. She has his brother she can fly down with, who was willing to bring her down to us that day and the arrangements were made before hand for that to happen. But, since the Phillies LOST, they LOST!! my husbands brother was called off and about to leave the airport and my Mother-in-Law and her husband were coming too.... well, no. Not this year. Not another stunt. I am glad we called when we did because they were headed to the airport when we caught them.
After an hour of yelling back and forth, getting no where with my husband getting so angry that tears were streaming down his face.... I took the phone from him.
"Hi Mom," I said "look, I understand that this is a painful situation but I feel that, at this point, it wouldn't be a good to have your husband at our sons party". I told her that her other son that is flying out in an hour was willing and able to take her to us but she refused. All the wanted to do was argue. I don't even understand WHAT THE FUCK she was arguing because nothing of it ever said "no matter what, I am coming", which is what any logical grandparent would do. But this one... THIS ONE fought to bring her lying, conniving, sabotaging husband along to a party he was not wanted at. It came down to this "Mom" I said "Right now is not the time to be discussing this. There is obviously issues we need to discuss. I feel very badly. I understand that you are standing in your position and I am in mine. So, for now, please stay home. I feel as if his being there would create tension and anxiety. This needs to be a good day for my son." And I hung up the phone.
My Brother-In-Law and his girlfriend showed up at the party an hour early with a bag from my Mother-in-Law. I wish I had seen it was from her when they first came in because I would have taken it to the back and sent it back on the plane with him. But since my son was right in the middle of opening his gifts, I couldn't take the gift away from him when it was handed to him for opening. As far as his party went, it was the first time in all his birthdays that there wasn't any drama or troubles. We had FUN!
Afterwards, I had some time to think. And it suddenly dawned on me. After all these years of wondering why I was with the man I am with; even with all our differences....
We have the same family backgrounds. I just found out mine a little too late. Having us together makes it easier to handle times when the people you love don't love you back. But when you have someone who gets it, understands how you feel and can talk to you when your down at your lowest, it makes all the differences irrelevant. Flirty. Interesting. See, both my husband and I were born into dysfunctional family units (as with most people, you just don't know it). Darkness, reputations, false promises, manipulations, power struggles; we've both grown up around it yet we were the ones to not buy into it. We were magnets to each other even as young "kids" because a part of us knew as we grew older, we were going to need someone who understood the shoes we stood in.
So even though I was Republican and he a Democrat when we met, he likes Dogs and I like Cats and have totally different opinions on if the cup is half full or half empty; it works because we understand each other. And in times when you feel like nobody understands you, that is a very awesome thing.
By the way, you will also see me Bitching about this very dear husband of mine. I have street-smarts and commonsense and my husband? He could tell you anything you wanted to know; he's a math book, history book, science book and spelling book with an IQ over 160 all rolled into one... but he can't find it in himself to replace the toilet paper, pick up his socks, and he falls up the stairs. I balance him out by keeping him straight on track and he balances me by always teaching me there is more to a book than the words.
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