Way to tell her she fucked up, Margo

That's it, Margo, tell 'im how it is...

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DEAR MARGO: My wife and I have been married 28 years. My m-i-l stopped being part of her grandchildren's and our lives years ago. She has bad-mouthed my wife all over her small hometown and once told us that "we never did anything for her out of love." We dropped her from family events (birthdays, Thanksgiving and Christmas) after my f-i-l died. I still feel somewhat guilty for her being alone, but my family (including my wife) reminds me of the miserable shrew she is. Why do I feel guilty?


--- MR. X

DEAR MR.: You feel guilty because this woman is your wife's mother, and part of you believes, "My mother, drunk or sober" -- a takeoff on "My country, right or wrong" -- which is to say that some people feel being related by blood is reason enough to submit to a punishing relationship. I am not one of them. It has always struck me as masochistic to maintain ties with someone who is in your life simply because of DNA. I hope you can work on ditching the guilt, whether it's through books or a counselor. I don't know what else you have on the old girl, but the extreme coolness between you seems reason enough to keep a distance. I do believe that people, shrews included, earn the relationships they wind up with. Call it karma.

Way to call it Margo!

I totally agree. Nobody, related to you or not, has the right to make you miserable. If she's a toxic troll, then kick her to the curb. Love and respect are earned, not a gimme just because she gave birth.

I'm eternally grateful I have a great family. Many of my friends aren't so lucky.

I think her advice is pretty sound. It took a lot of years and a lot of abuse befopre I kicked my adoptive mother to the curb. it wasn't easy but it had to be done. If I grew up in an Asian country where it's all respect your elders, yada yada yada, I'd go nuts.

Wow, Rose...it takes a ton of emotional strength to go through something like that. I'm glad you made it with your mind intact.

We've all seen how horrible family situations can get. If you have the capacity to get out of the steaming pile of shit, you're one step ahead of the multitude.

Rose you are one strong woman.
I just got the courage to kick my whole family to the curb a few months ago. I must say the weight is gone and I am free. I have never felt better about a choice, which tells me it was the right choice.

I was raised with an intense sense of loyalty to famblee and friends being the "right" thing to do and the correct way to be. However, I always felt it was a faulty way to live and I began to break away from that mindset at a rather young age. I don't have any famblee or friends who I remain in contact with "just because" we went to school together or because they are related to me by blood or marriage. There are some I tolerate and am outwardly polite to out of respect for their spouse, kyd, or parent for whom I still care about. It's an outright LIE which has been perpetuated for centuries that a kyd will ALWAYS love their mother, just because she gave birth to them, and adopted kyds and kyds with shitty mothers have known this for years. However, because society has drummed it into their heads that they should love their birth mother no matter what, these kyds are consistently emotionally and sometimes physically hurt over and over and over again in an attempt to get their moomie to love them.

I hold a VERY unpopular notion that except for in very very rare cases, an adopted chlyd should not meet up with their birth mother later in life. At the very least she was an irresponsible teen moo who was pressured into giving up that kyd in which case she has likely remained unchanged and has continued to make selfish and stupid life choices. In most every single case, at least in The United States, a woman can keep her baybee and get public assistance if necessry, IF she really wanted to keep the kyd. Considering they can also get college grants, they can ALSO continue their education, unlike days of past. These adopted kyds need to face the fact that their birth moo chose herself and her OWN feelings when she GOT knocked up and then FURTHER chose herself and her needs when she gave them away. If the kyd is a product of rape, I don't believe there is any way in hell the birth mother could help but harbor resentment toward said kyd either, regardless of what they might say.

I have known three adopted adults who actively sought their birth mothers when they were in their 20's and it ended up being nothing but trouble, a VISIBLE heartache to the adoptive parents, and caused problems. This was especially true of one whose bio mother later went on to marry her bio father and pop out 3 more kyds in rapid succession, but gave her up for adoption just because they weren't "ready" yet. Then there was the one who found out that he already knew his birth mother as she was his father's sister, so he had always known her as his aunt. Quite naturally he was upset because she had this whole famblee immediately after he was given away and she had popped out his cousin/brother just 10 months after his birth, but she kept that baybee. Actually, he had never even liked that aunt and she admitted that she had always resented him because she had hated the bio father after he had refused to marry her. The last one was able to locate his mother, but received word that she had no desire to meet him, which was very painful for him and I can not comprehend this.

So, just because someone squats out a kyd does NOT mean that they automatically deserve some sort of reverence or special treatment. Becoming a mother does not equal unconditional love from the kyd, in my opinion.

Oh yes, I can say "Amen" to the idea of looking for one's birth mother to often be a bad idea. My adoptive mother was very open and gave me what little info the adoption agency gave her. She also had a last name for me.

About six years ago, my ex wanted to do something nice for me and she went on Ancestry.com and started searching the family boards under my birth name. Well, sge found a post that seemed to fit my description and I e-mailed the woman who posted. Well, damned if she wasn't my birth sister! She had been searching for me for 25 years (long story there) and it took my ex one evening to find her. Well, we met and as expected there was no bond since my great aunt had taken her in before I was born. Needless to say, everything was the way my adopted mother told me it was.

I'm not in touch with my sister because she is a breeder....totally involved with her kids and fucking grandbrats. I asked for something that she could have easily run off on the printer of her computer and sent to me, but nope...the grandbrats trumped everything else as always. So fuck her. In my mind I am still an only child and prefer it that way.

Kim said:

I was raised with an intense sense of loyalty to famblee and friends being the "right" thing to do and the correct way to be. However, I always felt it was a faulty way to live and I began to break away from that mindset at a rather young age. I don't have any famblee or friends who I remain in contact with "just because" we went to school together or because they are related to me by blood or marriage.

AMEN. My extended (distended) famblee on my dad's side has NEVER been close, emotionally or geographically. I've met some of his siblings ONCE in my life, when I was 10. As they've all gotten older, dad has been saying shit like "You really should go see your aunts and uncles. They are getting on in years." (Never mind that they all live thousands of miles away.)

Even when I was much younger, I did a silent "WTF" to this. ALL those years we were growing up, dad made no effort to keep "the famblee" in touch. So now that they are all getting old, he's trying to assuage his guilt by telling ME that I should go see them? I don't even KNOW these people and wouldn't recognize them if they walked up to my face. Fuck that shit completely!!

Yeah, I can understand a major WTF with the family closeness bullshit. I actually found relatives after my mum's death that are worth knowing. They respect my being transgender and CF...how many famblees can say that?
But they are in Michigan and I will soon be in AZ, so I doubt anything much will develop. How can it when I am a couple of thousand miles away and a completely different lifestyle?

That's just a couple, though out of several dozen. Most of my famblee are dyed-in-the-wool homophobes and baybee rabid.

I have met my blood brothers and I love them both and they complete me.

"You can't slit the throat of every cocksucker whose character it would improve."
-Al Swearingen

That is wonderful, Red Rose. It truly is. I had hoped that I would form a bond with my birth sister, but it became obvious early on, that her kids and grandbrats are her priority. Not much you can do when she makes it obvious she is not interested in a close bond.

I am so happy you have birth family that you have a firm bond with. It really is wonderful.

One of my brothers was able to alert me to a hereditary medical condition that probably saved my life.

We also both have very mild forms of OCD that I have been able to show him can be used constructively. Of course, he needs to work on the involuntary organizing of other people's spice racks, but we'll get to that.

"You can't slit the throat of every cocksucker whose character it would improve."
-Al Swearingen