The month of May has been a slow healing process for my family. I don’t remember the day that I let Scott come home for some reason, but I did let him come home. Scott is a different man and is following the path of sobriety. He is working his steps and I know he is different this time. I am working my steps and I am different as well. There has not been one voice raised argument. We argue, we disagree, but it hasn’t happened infront of our children. Scott gets mad, he gets downright pissed and so do I, but we are resolving our disagreements. Life is different. But it is a very slow process. I am letting go of yesterday and focusing on the right now. I repeat to myself daily in all situations, I didn’t cause it, I can’t change it, I can’t control it. Oddly this gives me extreme comfort and I find that I am slower to anger in almost all of my life dealings. Counseling helps. Group meetings help. Being silent and listening instead of running my mouth and letting my thoughts run rampant while people are talking helps.
I can honestly say all of this had little to no effect on my darling little boy Connor, he is so young he just rolled with the punches. Sophia had huge set backs and huge emotional trauma and we are learning how to deal with that and trying to ensure that this does not have a lasting effect on her. She is slowing coming back into her own and it breaks my heart that Scott and I both put her through this. But it was a necessary evil to getting Scott where he needed to be.
Then there is the issue of our families…
I have always been a little uneasy around Scott’s Dad, Stepmom, Brother, and Brother’s wife. I have always felt as though their accusing eyes were scrutinizing me and blaming me for all that was wrong with Scott. This is partially my fault as I would run to them for help. I was too prideful to go to my own family as I just couldn’t bear admitting to my family that I had chosen poorly a second time. I couldn’t bear the thought of letting my daddy be disappointed in me or allowing my mother to cast her judgemental eyes on me yet one more time and giving her yet one more reason to be disgusted by me! In conclusion I have decided it is time to write letters here to my mom, Scott’s Dad & Leslie, and lastly to Craig & Dana…. My beast of a mother is first.
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Karen: (That’s correct you have lost the title of Mother and this is why)
My life changed the day I gave birth to my daughter. I learned what it was to love someone more than myself. I learned what unconditional love is, this strengthened my faith in God. I knew what it was like to be a mom. You always told me I would understand ______when I was older or you will understand _______when your a mother. You are right I understand a lot of things I didn’t understand before motherhood.
I know you believe that I am angry with you over Easter and that I am just being petty, bitter, and angry and withholding your grandkids from you out of spite. You could not be more wrong in your thinking. I think it is only fair that I explain in grave detail to you what you have done and why I will no longer allow your negativity to affect and control my life or for the claws of that negativity to reach out and snag my children causing them to feel as though they are less.
Back in February you kept the kids for a weekend. When Scott and I came to pick the kids up you mad a very clear point of how you would not be watching the kids again in front of your neighbor in your driveway. You glared at me, had hate in your voice, and said I WILL NOT BE WATCHING THOSE KIDS AGAIN EVER, THIS IS THE LAST TIME!!!! I AM EXHAUSTED!!!! This statement and hate in and of itself is fine. But you did it infront of your 4 year old grand daughter who doesn’t understand that it isn’t because you don’t love her, but because it is too much for you. She cried the entire way home and for the 2 hours before she went to bed that Gammy was mad at her and Gammy didn’t love her. You HURT my child. I know that your anger was directed at me as you feel I took advantage of you, but she is 4 and she didn’t know that, and she was HURT by YOU. You were beyond wrong to do that to my child and I will not allow you to cause her pain.
On March 20th my world and the world of my family imploded. My children and I have lived through a hell that I allowed us to endure, I am going to have a very hard time forgiving myself for what I allowed to go on for years inside my home with my husband. I realize that me not telling you and dad ever step of the way about the physical and mental abuse we endured makes it very difficult for you to understand or believe. But until you have been beaten by your husband you can’t imagine the shame and embarrassment that goes along with that. Admitting that to someone who has always treated you as if you were less is not something I was able to do. We have never been friends. I have never been able to come to you with my problems. So why would I come to you with any of what I was going through?
I will forever be grateful for the fact that you and dad took Scott into your home. That you provided him with love and guidance as he began his journey to recovery. This gift that you gave to him and ultimately to my family is priceless. I will always be thankful for it. But here is the rub Karen and it is a big huge giant rub that I will never be able to forgive you for….You judged me, you convicted me without ever asking me, and then you tried to put my children in danger.
You were angry with me over my cruelty to you about Easter. Yes I was cruel, I was angry, I was wrong to say some of the things I said to you. I can admit when I am wrong. Can you? I doubt it. Going to my husband who is a junkie and an alcoholic and telling him about my facebook page and how there are pictures of me with all these men and that you think I am cheating on him and he should print it all off and use it in court against me to get custody of my children was the lowest thing that you as a mother could do to me your child. It doesn’t matter if I cheated. What matters is that you were my mother. You do not have to agree with anything I say, anything I do. You can be downright disgusted by my lifestyle and my choices. But you are my mother and it is your job to love me unconditionally in spite of anything I have done or anything I will do. I do not care if any of your friends are questioning you about me and what I am doing. I do not care if this causes you embarrassment. This does not give a get out of jail free card. You have an issue with my life then you come to me and yell and scream at me that you didn’t raise me that way. You do not go to my husband, the coke head, the alcoholic, the man who beat your and choked your 4 year old grand daughter and try and give him tools to get custody of my children!!! Have you LOST YOUR FUCKING MIND??!!! Being a mother myself I know that there is nothing that either of my children could do that would make me love them any less. There is nothing they could do that would make me be less of a momma bear about protecting them. There is nothing that would cause me to choose someone else over them. Especially what you did. I am a good mother. The fact that Scott loves his kids has never been a question in my mind, I would not keep the kids from Scott, unless Scott was high or drunk. So your “reasoning” is so flawed.
This is just the final straw in a long list of wrongs and hurts you have done to me in my 37 years of being your daughter. I guess this straw broke the camels back because you were not thinking of my children, my husband, or myself. You were thinking about getting even with me. I was cruel and you thought you would one up me and cause grief in my life.
You will never again have the opportunity to harm me or my children. I will not keep Sophia from you, simply because she loves you and she would not understand that I was doing it for her and in the long run she would resent me for it. However, you will never be alone with my child again and the moment you step out of line I will be removing her from your presence. We will not be visiting you on your birthday, on mothers day as celebrating you is on the very bottom of my list of things to do. You will be included on Sophia’s birthday and on Connor’s birthday, these events are at my home, you will be an invited guest and you will behave as such or you will be asked to leave.
I have spent the last 17 years trying to build a relationship with you. I managed to build a beautiful one with my father and we are very close. You know as well as I do that dad doesn’t approve of everything I do, but you now what Karen, he respects me enough to talk to me about it rather than run around behind my back and bad mouth his daughter to other people. I am done extending the olive branch to you and allowing you to beat the hell out of me with it. I can’t control you, I can’t change you, and I sure as hell did not cause you to be the bitter judgemental bitch you have turned into.
I know that one day I will regret that you and I didn’t have a beautiful relationship that I see a lot of mother and daughters out there have. I am so jealous of those women. Maybe if we had I would trust women more and I would have healthy friendships with women and not surround myself with a loving group of male friends. This is truly what causes you and your friends to question my relationships is that they are men. I know that when you are on your death bed and I don’t come you will regret that you didn’t love your daughter the way you were supposed to. That maybe it will cross your mind that you should have forgiven more, judged less, maybe said I love you too, when your daughter said it first, maybe just once you should have said I am proud of you.
I can hear you now saying what have you ever done that I should have been proud of…..Here is a list Karen that if you hadn’t been so busy judging me on, that should have made you proud….
I graduated in the top 10% of my class from high school——Oh but I had the wrong friends and I wasn’t a cheerleader so that doesn’t count.
I graduated from college (the first one in our family) —— Oh but that doesn’t count either because I didn’t leave college married to a frat boy
I became a mom twice!!!!
I worked and supported my family while putting my husband through college for 5 years —— Oh but that doesn’t count because Scott worked some minimum wage paying job that brought home a 1/4 of what I brought home, his salary covered his drug and alcohol habit.
I stood up for my children when they were abused ——– yeah I didn’t learn to do that from you that is for damn sure, you can’t even admit what your family did to me!
I expect that you will be so angry by this that you will not be able to see that whether or not you agree with what I am saying this is how what you did made me feel. It doesn’t matter if I am wrong in my thinking, it doesn’t matter what your intentions were, what matters is how I took it and how it caused me and my children to feel. I suggest you keep this letter and read over it often as the weeks, months, and years tick by and I am absent from your life. When you wonder why doesn’t my daughter call, why doesn’t she visit me, why doesn’t she care? This letter will be your answer. My life is not too busy for you. I am not so involved with my children and their activities. It is an active choice to not see you. I do not like you. The venom of bitterness that radiates out from you is not something that I care to be around. I will not allow that poison to drip from you onto me and my children. It dripped on you from your mother and you soaked it up like a sponge. I will not be poisoned by you the pattern of abuse will end with you.
Lucky Strike No Filter 