Never Again With Relatives!!

[Dizneydawn]

Hi - read and caught up with everything just this morning!

Your posts have confirmed my direction in life and some decessions I have been contemplating.

I decided a year ago to purge my father from my life because he is so negative and after 37 years of forgiveness - I needed to be grown up enough to know that what I needed to forgive him for is not being a good Father. I have done that - but that does not mean I need to re-open the door and keep eating the apple if ya will.

Now I am on to my mom and youngest sister and quite frankly some other spoiled rotten people in my life as well. Why stress over birthdays, kids events, phone calls etc. if the other half of the wanted relationship is not willing to reciprocate. You cannot have, control or be both halves of a relationship (unless you have multiple personalities) so why try?

Family is who you are born into but that doesn't mean if it is not a healthy relationship, you have to continue with them. Once you are an adult - it is a choice and you choose to be cr@pped on over and over. For me - the why I was choosing it was what I needed to figure out.

This Thanksgiving and Christmas will be spent with my kids and fiance and one sister. I will not stress and cook and have anxiety over people who will just ruin the day anyway. This Thanksgiving I am choosing to be thankful for the people whom I love and show love back. Even if it is not as many as I would like, it is more than some people have and for that I am grateful!

Sorry for the rant but this whole topic has been plaguing me and doing what society says is right over what is right for you and your health is a hard action to take.

Look at how overly kind you were because what you wanted was so special to you and your Dad. The problem is that it wasn't special to M or J and thus you could have stood on your head and whistled the "Star Spangled Banner" with a flock of doves shooting up behind you with Jesus, Martin Luther King and Mother Theresa holding hands, floating above and they still would have not enjoyed it.

People who are not happy do not appreciate anything because they look to others/things to make them happy. They cannot look at themselves or their participation in their own place and decide on how to change their lives to fix anything.

You tried, God bless you for that. I kept thinking of how many people you did not impact positively because of the energy it took to deal with two people who were ungrateful.

How many people would you have touched standing in line, giving advice to? How many people and things did you not enjoy and share because of the stress? Their life sucking energy impacted your joy and the joy you would have passed onto others.

Pretend she is a gnat and squish her between your fingers, place that squished mess onto your shoulder and "Flick it and Forget it."

You are a good person - more giving than most. Next time donate that money you spent on them and be a big brother or sister and take a kid or family to Disney that would appreciate it. I have always wanted to walk up to a family buying tickets for a day at a park and just offer to pay their day. They worked for it, they saved for it and they choose to make it a priority to take their family. How awesome would it feel to help them out!

 

[JLTraveling]

Sorry for the delay in responding to everyone! For my own sanity, I needed to take a few days away from thinking about the whole situation, to try and get my own equilibrium back. I've also slept a good portion of the past couple of days. It's amazing how exhausting dealing with that sort of behavior for over a week can be!

Dizneydawn, thank you for your incredibly insightful and helpful post! I read it to Dad, and we were both truly touched. Everything that you said makes perfect sense. I am truly happy for you that after so many years of disappointment, you have found the strength and courage to purge the negative influences from your own life. If through the sharing of my experience, I was able in some small way to help you solidify the choices you have recently made, and renew your resolve to see them through, then as far as I'm concerned my entire situation was worthwhile. It truly makes me happy to know that some good can come from bad.

I love the gnat analogy, and I am trying to do just as you said, "Flick it and forget it." I have now blocked her on FaceBook (thanks, thegreggersmom, I didn't know I could do that!), though not before she got several more digs in. She is really, truly, amazingly furious with me, to the point that she's started some terrible arguments on FaceBook with my friends. But I can make the choice not to let her affect me any longer.

I truly appreciate everyone's concern and support. I would blog the last two days of the trip, but there's not much to say. Dad and I are planning to stay in the area through the end of the month, and we have APs, so we decided not to bother going back to the parks those two days. Instead we hung around and enjoyed the condo, ordered pizza, watched TV and just relaxed. We met an incredible family reunion group, some of whom were staying in the condo next door. There were 26 total in the group, and they sort of adopted us into the clan. That was really nice, and much appreciated!

We're headed to Atlanta in a couple of weeks to see the So You Think You Can Dance tour. Next month is a Europe/Transatlantic cruise if we can swing it, otherwise a Western Caribbean cruise, and then we're on to New Orleans for Christmas (though we'll probably come back to Orlando for a week or so to enjoy the Disney holiday celebrations!). So life does go on.

Thanks again for all of the support and well-wishes! I don't know where I'd be without my DIS family.