What's new
By:
Filters

Today has been a bad day

Hitman

Hitman

Well-Known Member
I know folks have worse days than I had today, but I need to vent.

A few years ago I had a bust-up with my dad and sister. She interfered in something I was organising and then my dad decided to stick his oar in and rang my wife and abused her (told her he'd never liked her, and neither did my late mother, amongst other things). So I rang him and told him to go to you-know-where and that my sister could go with him.

My sister kept sending my kids birthday and Xmas cards though. It was my daughter's birthday recently and in it was a note saying "Auntie's moving soon, this is my mobile number." which my wife and I thought a bit odd, and obviously intended for me, not my daughter. My kids barely remember my sister and dad, they saw them so rarely anyway. Then a change of address notification from my sister arrived - with just her name, not her husbands.

So I figured my sister was desperately trying to tell me she needed to see me, so I put aside my anger (and boy am I angry) and went and saw her. What I guessed had happened was what had happened; her husband of over 25 years had left her for another woman. So we talked for a while, but then she brought up dad. She kept saying "there's two sides to the story" and "it was all a big misunderstanding" but couldn't seem to grasp the essential problem; when things went pear-shaped, dad had said to her, "I'm going to ring Wendy [my wife] and tell her exactly what I think of her." Which he did, which was why my wife was so upset and why I am so angry. But my sister seemed to think this shouldn't be a problem and even implied it was all MY fault. Really? So my dad says things to my wife that she says are so bad she doesn't even wanted to tell me what he said, and this is my fault? And I'm supposed to just forgive and forget? Heck, I told my sister that Wendy has said she would never forgive him, and neither will I, but I don't think it registered. Same old same old - how I feel just doesn't matter to my family.

Anyway, although I fell sorry for my sister and what's happening to her - it's barely been a month since they separated and her not-yet-ex is already engaged, yet he took years to marry my sister (and even then they eloped, which broke my mother's heart) - I left feeling just as bitter and angry as before I went to see her.

Not looking for compassion, sympathy advice or anything, just wanted to let out my rage.
 
Glad you could get it out, Mantis. You didn't ask for advice, but here it is..

It is admirable that you stand with your wife. There is only one person you choose in this life, your spouse. You don't choose your mom or your dad, you don't choose your children.. and in order to have a marriage that works, you have to he strong with and for one another. (Not to say you must always agree)

However, holding onto anger and rage is pointless.. completely. I suspect if you sat down with your wife, told her the anger has made you tired and you want to let it go (you can still vehemently disapprove of what was said/done but just move past it emotionally), you could both get there and find happiness/peace in the void left behind by letting go of the anger.

I'd recommend you try it, I bet you'll be glad you did.
 
That's tough, man. Hard to lose family relationships but honestly you've got to set your priorities and it seems most natural to me that if you love your wife and are committed to her that if your side of the family has driven a wedge between them and her that you stick with her. It's up to them to mend that bridge. But as much as possible I'd suggest putting aside your pride and letting them know that you want that bridge.

I lost my father to suicide and my mother to cancer. My father was a shock. I hadn't seen him in two years but was about to move back home and I knew he wasn't happy but I was excited to reunite and have a man to man relationship with him. Thought it would make a difference. Never got the chance to find out. After my father's death my relationship with my mother soured. I had always been very close to my mother but a few issues that came up in the wake of my father's death made me see her in a new light. It was tense all the way up until she found out she had stage 4 terminal cancer. Honestly, and it hurts me now to say it, but I was relieved. I watched her die and didn't feel much either way.

Then my life fell apart and I didn't care if I lived or died or if my family survived my destruction. I hope this doesn't sound too sappy but I'm honestly crying as I type this. I've lost a lot of pride. I've lost a lot more than that. I probably should have done a lot of things differently, but once it's too late it's too late, if you know what I mean. Don't sit on your high horse and watch the foundation beneath you get washed away. The fall can be hard.
 
Here's a little story my dad passed along to me...

AStoryTo Live By
by Ann Wells (Los Angeles Times)

My brother-in-law opened the bottom drawer of my sister’s bureau and lifted out a tissue-wrapped package. “This,” he said, “is not a slip. This is lingerie.” He discarded the tissue and handed me the slip. It was exquisite; silk, handmade and trimmed with a cobweb of lace. The price tag with an astronomical figure on it was still attached. “Jan bought this the first time we went to New York, at least 8 or 9 years ago. She never wore it. She was saving it for a special occasion. Well, I guess this is the occasion.” He took the slip from me and put it on the bed with the other clothes we were taking to the mortician. His hands lingered on the soft material for a moment, then he slammed the drawer shut and turned to me. “Don’t ever save anything for a special occasion. Every day you’re alive is a special occasion.” I remembered those words through the funeral and the days that followed when I helped him and my niece attend to all the sad chores that follow an unexpected death. I thought about them on the plane returning to California from the Midwestern town where my sister’s family lives. I thought about all the things that she hadn’t seen or heard or done. I thought about the things that she had done without realizing that they were special. I’m still thinking about his words, and they’ve changed my life. I’m reading more and dusting less. I’m sitting on the deck and admiring the view without fussing about the weeds in the garden. I’m spending more time with my family and friends and less time in committee meetings. Whenever possible, life should be a pattern of experience to savor, not endure. I’m trying to recognize these moments now and cherish them. I’m not “saving” anything; we use our good china and crystal for every special event-such as losing a pound, getting the sink unstopped, the first camellia blossom. I wear my good blazer to the market if I feel like it. My theory is if I look prosperous, I can shell out $28.49 for one small bag of groceries without wincing. I’m not saving my good perfume for special parties; clerks in hardware stores and tellers in banks have noses that function as well as my party-going friends’. “Someday” and “one of these days” are losing their grip on my vocabulary. If it’s worth seeing or hearing or doing, I want to see and hear and do it now! I’m not sure what my sister would have done had she known that she wouldn’t be here for the tomorrow we all take for granted. I think she would have called family members and a few close friends. She might have called a few former friends to apologize and mend fences for past squabbles. I like to think she would have gone out for a Chinese dinner, her favorite food. I’m guessing-I’ll never know. It’s those little things left undone that would make me angry if I knew that my hours were limited. Angry because I put off seeing good Friends whom I was going to get in touch with-someday. Angry because I hadn’t written certain letters that I intended to write-one of these days. Angry and sorry that I didn’t tell my husband and daughter often enough how much I truly love them. I’m trying very hard not to put off, hold back, or save anything that would add laughter and luster to our lives. And every morning when I open my eyes, I tell myself that it is special. Every day, every minute, every breath truly is a gift from God.
 
Good job guys.
I appreciate the sharing
 
I tend to think that forgiveness is overrated to a large extent. Have you just tried to move on without thinking that there had to be some aspect of forgiveness involved in the process?

Maybe it's counterproductive to expend energy trying to forgive - use that energy to try for a new relationship with your sister. What ever happened, she's right - there are two sides. You don't necessarily have to understand the other side if you each can just accept that you see it differently, put it in the past and move on.

A cordial relationship with a sister you see on an occasional basis doesn't have to have perfect trust and understanding.


Sent from the JazzFanz app
 
I'm sorry you've had a bad day. Family is a tricky situation.. most of my family I don't hate but am forced to stay away from, and have stayed mostly away from for going on 6 years now.

To that, I'll say this: Family is what, and who you make it. Don't buy in to blood is thicker than water, it's just going to hold you down. There comes a time in every person's life where you've just gotta do what's best for you and yours. You create what is you and yours.

It's very much that simple.
 
For me, if someone cannot accept my wife and love her as a full on member of the family then they cannot accept me or my kids.

you absolutely made the right call. Your Dad needs to come back and unconditionally apologize. period.
 
Surely said:
Here's a little story my dad passed along to me...

AStoryTo Live By
by Ann Wells (Los Angeles Times)

My brother-in-law opened the bottom drawer of my sister’s bureau and lifted out a tissue-wrapped package. “This,” he said, “is not a slip. This is lingerie.” He discarded the tissue and handed me the slip. It was exquisite; silk, handmade and trimmed with a cobweb of lace. The price tag with an astronomical figure on it was still attached. “Jan bought this the first time we went to New York, at least 8 or 9 years ago. She never wore it. She was saving it for a special occasion. Well, I guess this is the occasion.” He took the slip from me and put it on the bed with the other clothes we were taking to the mortician. His hands lingered on the soft material for a moment, then he slammed the drawer shut and turned to me. “Don’t ever save anything for a special occasion. Every day you’re alive is a special occasion.” I remembered those words through the funeral and the days that followed when I helped him and my niece attend to all the sad chores that follow an unexpected death. I thought about them on the plane returning to California from the Midwestern town where my sister’s family lives. I thought about all the things that she hadn’t seen or heard or done. I thought about the things that she had done without realizing that they were special. I’m still thinking about his words, and they’ve changed my life. I’m reading more and dusting less. I’m sitting on the deck and admiring the view without fussing about the weeds in the garden. I’m spending more time with my family and friends and less time in committee meetings. Whenever possible, life should be a pattern of experience to savor, not endure. I’m trying to recognize these moments now and cherish them. I’m not “saving” anything; we use our good china and crystal for every special event-such as losing a pound, getting the sink unstopped, the first camellia blossom. I wear my good blazer to the market if I feel like it. My theory is if I look prosperous, I can shell out $28.49 for one small bag of groceries without wincing. I’m not saving my good perfume for special parties; clerks in hardware stores and tellers in banks have noses that function as well as my party-going friends’. “Someday” and “one of these days” are losing their grip on my vocabulary. If it’s worth seeing or hearing or doing, I want to see and hear and do it now! I’m not sure what my sister would have done had she known that she wouldn’t be here for the tomorrow we all take for granted. I think she would have called family members and a few close friends. She might have called a few former friends to apologize and mend fences for past squabbles. I like to think she would have gone out for a Chinese dinner, her favorite food. I’m guessing-I’ll never know. It’s those little things left undone that would make me angry if I knew that my hours were limited. Angry because I put off seeing good Friends whom I was going to get in touch with-someday. Angry because I hadn’t written certain letters that I intended to write-one of these days. Angry and sorry that I didn’t tell my husband and daughter often enough how much I truly love them. I’m trying very hard not to put off, hold back, or save anything that would add laughter and luster to our lives. And every morning when I open my eyes, I tell myself that it is special. Every day, every minute, every breath truly is a gift from God.
Click to expand...

Living for today or tomorrow both bring their own measure of happiness. Live only for tomorrow and you won't enjoy it when it gets here. Live only for today and you'll become lazy and soon not enjoy anything. Happiness lies in the balance, and picking what to enjoy now and what to enjoy tomorrow.
 
This topic is pretty close to home for me. I haven't been on speaking terms with either of my brothers for about five years. I haven't even seen my older brother in about three years. Over much the same as your situation. They both decided one day to take out all their own troubles on my wife, berating her in a spot where I wasn't around. To me, that speaks to their character, not my wife's. my older brother spent five minutes yelling at my wife, telling her that she is the main reason behind every problem our family has, blah blah blah. The irony there is that nobody in my extended family really has anything to do with him either. None of our cousins really like him (by their own admission). When everybody heard about what happened and the things he said, they all laughed at the irony as he is the elitist prick who views himself so far above everybody else. A couple years ago, my mom said the only thing she wanted for Mothers Day was to have all four of her kids and all of her grand kids in the same room at the same time. Guess who refused to show up? Yep, my awesome older brother.
Like I said, when someone acts like that, they're usually transferring from themselves to someone else.
 
my two bits. . . .

I can relate to the OP on a number of items, but I think Surely and Moe have the better way forward.

Some things happen in life that can't be fixed. The practical answer is to adjust yourself.

"Forgiving" is sometimes a grandiose way of not really understanding or setting things on a good foundation going forward. It implies you're "right" and they're "wrong", which may or may not be the case. When I want wisdom for the ages, I study my cows. I have pushy "Boss" cows, I have cows that just avoid them all they can. The Bosses come looking for them to push them around some more, won't leave them alone. Some of the "Boss" cows are really fine animals, good mamas, and sometimes I even call them "Guard Cows" because they will watch out for all the calves. But sometimes I have to send a really obnoxious "Boss" to the butcher already. . . . and sometimes I have to send a really pathetic weakling to the butcher, too. It's not about the cows, really, it's about the calves. The kids.

Everybody has a positive value, value them for whatever that is. Everybody has their problems. . . .keep them in mind when dealing with them, take extra precautions if necessary to not get hurt. Expect people to do what people do, and adjust yourself to it. I grew up the "babe", my mother's youngest. Everybody pushed me around, nobody listened, or cared. I could tell ya'll a hundred stories like the OP. My wife grew up the oldest in her clan, she's the real "Boss" in her own mind, and habitually treats all her siblings, and me, like children who have got to be "told" everything. . . . the smaller and less important the matter is, the more of a habit it is to "Boss". Her mother, brothers and sisters don't need me to tell them what's going on. I rarely have to even act like I need their understanding. . . .

Yesterday we did a road trip to make a sale, to Boise. It was dark on the way home, we stopped in Burley for some supper. I said I wanted to drive, she said "No, I don't want to get home at 1 AM" She is an aggressive driver. On the way up, someone changed lanes unnecessarily right in front of us, leaving us oh maybe four feet of clearance as he cut in. I opined that that is an example of why not to be an aggressive driver, why you should give yourself as much space on the road as you can, instead of being "pushy" with everything in front of you. She got mad, told me to mind my own business etc etc. It's true that I meander quite a bit and probably am not as safe a driver as she is, even with my campaign for the wide open road, and I drive a little slower than most freeway traffic, which is in itself a danger. So anyway, I chose to let her drive, expecting her to just get tired and beg me to drive in an hour or so, and played "Candy Crush" on the ipad. I distinctly remember looking up to see the moonrise, and had a few moments of wondering why the moon was on the right side of the freeway while rising, and again a while later had the same idle question. . . .

Quite a bit later, I looked up and saw a town that hadn't been along the road on the way up. . . . and looked for a sign. yep. Pocatello. And I had to tell my wife to be sure and take the right hand fork at I-15 to go to Salt Lake. . . and even then it didn't register with her. . . . she had taken the wrong road home. . .. should've been I-84, not I-86. She got mad and blamed me for letting her go wrong. I said the only problem was her attitude.

we got home at 1:30 AM, I might have got us home about 1 AM with my slowpoke meanderings on the shorter road. The "bother" I experience with my "Boss" wife is offset by several orders of magnitude for the good she does me in consequence of her actual caring about everything the way she does, by her impatience with poor results. . . .by the good that comes from me realizing she's not going to put up with crap. . . .

The things we all argue about playing "King of the Hill" are pretty laughable, really. Not worth the bother of hating others or feeling all piously "right" one way or another. But I realize even my opinion here has the same defect in that it principally is a sort of mirage of back-patting sentiment. . . . gotta even take this crap to the practical level and just set myself a little lower than the angels, maybe about the same level as other mortals. . . but to actually "make progress" with other people, it needs to be the art of serving others better than myself. . .

The people in my life who have done me the most singular and outstanding acts of assistance have often been people who were somehow, sometime ago, the ones I knew as "enemies", who somehow had at that prior time been engaged in doing me in, in some symbolic manner. . . . they got over hating me because after a while they realized I wasn't the problem they thought. . . . largely because I realized what their priorities were, and addressed them, and served them somehow. . . .

Take people "as is" and love them for the good, and prudently deal with the bad. The bad might not last. Sometimes what you think is "bad" will have a positive turn, either by some unexpected consequence or in some turning for the better.

I say life is a gift from God, what we choose to make of it is our gift to God and/or others. Most of the battles I "won" had no positive long-term consequences, almost all of the issues where I put others first, did have positive long-term consequences. . . .

The Chinese view of life, with the mutually-enfolding "yin" and "yang" of it all, might be a sort of mysticism bordering on Christianity, but is right in its essential truth. . . every problem is in fact most importantly an opportunity. Your decision to deal with it positively and constructively can make it a turning point for the best.

In the OP, the artful way forward is to drop the subject, argumentatively speaking, and just do stuff that the wife needs, and do other stuff for the dad and sis that they need from you as well. The answer is not in the argument, but in the needs behind their arguments. And yah, you've got needs too, I know. . . . so do I. . . . but neither you nor I are going to "win" in other people's heads by putting our own needs first. . . .

So I've been too long gone from my bros and sisters. Dad and Mom are gone. Those left are all old folks now. . . Gotta make some calls. Later, gators. . . .
 
Last edited:
The good news is, you made it through today. The better news is, tomorrow is an opportunity for something better.

Keep your chin up. As Princess Elsa sings in her ballad that I've heard one million times:

It’s funny how some distance
Makes everything seem small
And the fears that once controlled me
Can’t get to me at all

Let it goooooooooo!

;)
 
Lots of good posts in this thread. Thanks everybody it made my day better to read it all.
 
green said:
The good news is, you made it through today. The better news is, tomorrow is an opportunity for something better.

Keep your chin up. As Princess Elsa sings in her ballad that I've heard one million times:

It’s funny how some distance
Makes everything seem small
And the fears that once controlled me
Can’t get to me at all

Let it goooooooooo!

;)
Click to expand...

LOL.. wait.. what??!!! A million times???
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top