A woman with true friends is indeed fortunate, and should give thanks for having such special people in their lives. Sue xx
My sis went to live abroad 18 months before I was diagnosed - I think she was running away from the fact our dad was ill with dementia and he wasn’t going to live very long. At the time she said to me if he died I would just have to contact her to come back. Anyway, dad died when she came back on holiday in 2005, then when she came on holiday the following year I was diagnosed the evening before she was due to fly back again. She asked my OH what she should do and he said he couldn’t make the decision for her (like me he was in total shock as the surgeon had told us 4 weeks before I had a benign fibroid and nothing to worry about).
The upshot was that my sis got up at 4am the next day and got my OH to take her to the airport. After my OH left her he went and sat in the car on his own sobbing for an hour. He has never been able to forgive her for getting on that plane because we know if the boot had been on the other foot we could not have done it. My OH now has no time for her and says she is a selfish bitch on account of being single. I had ended up in hospital very ill last year just before she came over again. She was in no hurry to visit, yet I was in an isolation room. When she did visit the first thing she said was “oh, you are really fat at the moment”. Three months later she was back for a wedding and asked me if I was wearing a wig as my hair is now silver and she felt it would be better covered up. She’s back next month, but renting a place 25 miles away, so I’m making sure I’m too busy to spend much time with her. She flounces in as if nothing has happened and said she felt my brother had tried to make a point of saying how ill I had been. My OH asked her what she didn’t understand about me having a killer disease and she didn’t answer him.
I won’t say where she is, but it’s a tax free income spot and all she ever thinks about now is money. She goes on about hating it there yet she has decided to stay another 5 years. I don’t bother to read her emails half the time any more. It’s so sad as we used to be close despite an age gap. I’ve decided I have to think about myself now, but this is part of the reason I’m having counselling.
It is very sad when families come to all this. Remember life is not a rehearsal, it is a once only event. Make up with whoever it is, even if they do not want to, it is you who are ill so eventually it is they who will have the remorse if they do not make up in time.
Humans are capable of so much kindness but so much hurt ( cannot remember the film that came from but it is sooooo true )
Xx
Terry
and brothers are capable of trying to strangle their sisters… that is why i don’t have anything to do with mine. 2 years ago he was ‘laying the law down’… he knocked my specs off and tried to break them - i can’t see without them. that made me angry, so in trying to get my specs i lashed out and when my mum and his wife came in he had his hands round my throat and i was going blue…
Apparently my brother was ‘upset’… indeed… i just think he’s a word beginning with w…
it upsets my mother but tough. Bobbie - i know these things are hard but sometimes they have to be accepted.
my sister had the same diagnosis as me almost a year to the day before me… he never sent a card, asked after her… she doesn’t care because she has hated him for years.
We were close as children and he apparently cried when when mum told him i had cancer but is so ashamed he can’t talk to me - he said to my mum it’s my fault i hit her (on the breast)… he has a very faint grasp of cancer causation. It is apparently up to me to mend the fences. They can stay broken. When my mum dies i will have to see him at the funeral and that will be the end of it.
Naz is lucky to have a loving family. My brother would not have dared to lay a hand on me if my father was still alive - we are not that sort of family. Dad would have been furious and upset. my brother does the great ‘I AM’ and he is nothing but a bully. He is not a man i can respect or like.
Sometimes cutting people out of your life is like cutting out the cancer. Very hard but you have to.
My sister and i do fine btw… i promise i am not a weido.
So i say walk away sue and feel no guilt
WIth you on that Jen - I think enough is enough. One can only try so often to make moves towards reconcilliation. I have a wee speech made for my funeral (ok, I had a low moment) that states if he is at my funeral my friends are to escort him and his family off the premises!!! Then it goes on to say nice things about everybody else there! Will also make appointment with solicitor to ensure that, no matter what, even if my entire family is blasted out of the sky, my brother gets nowt (under rules of intestacy he’d get everything I own, unless I make provision).
He’s shot himself in the foot with my parents too, and I think the damage is irreversible for them too. What a numbskull.
See my favourite childhood memories for a laugh!!!
Cya in the bar - it’s your round!!!
Sue xxx
Cherub - I’m really sorry you have been treated that way and that your OH didn’t get the support he deserved. I hope the counselling is helpful for you and helps you find peace.
Thanks Sue I had my second appointment with the psychologist yesterday and it’s really helping me see things more clearly now, everything is a bit less of a maelstrom. She said she feels she needs to help me work on sleep disturbances at my next consultation as I have a recurrent bad dream every few nights;she also told me I have to decide whether to confront my sister or not on the issues that are affecting me with her.
The good thing is, I managed to be focused enough to do some work for OHs business last week, so I feel I have achieved something.
Hi Cherub, glad the counselling is helping you focus. Also amazed you did some work! Mind you, I find work keeps my mind off my trivial problems, although I find seeing clients a bit daunting, as I have foregone the wig in favour of headscarves. I have to gird my loins every time I walk into an interview room! I suppose the important thing is that I do it!
Take care of yourself and your OH
Sue -
Coming into this thread so late, I can barely add to it. Except to say I am so sorry it is hurtful to you. And I am equally perplexed by the complications in families. It doesn’t seem worth the anger and hostility to continue to try to reconcile if he doesn’t want it.
I come from an old school Italian family – through and through – the sense of family has always been sacrosanct. Respect for elders, helping each other, etc. But that didn’t stop half of my father’s side of the family from talking to one another, and we’ll not even go into the maternal side. Tempers flared even more there… So have experienced it firsthand.
Only have 1 sister and we are only 4 yrs apart in age but oceans apart in principle. We fought like tooth and nail throughout our youth but have mellowed as we grew. And the fact that she lives 3000 miles from here helps too. She has been supportive - esp now that we are the only ones left in our family. My Dad died in 2002 and it will be exactly 1 year since Mom died June 6.
Life is hard honey. Go with your instinct and listen to yourself. If it seems like you are crashing against a brick wall, you probably are. I deal with that type of issue regularly with a daughter-in-law who really dislikes me. It is just too painful, too sad and too exhausting.
So I’ll give you a friendly hug; just know you can cry on our shoulders anytime.
Emily
xxx
Hi Westside Sue,
Families can be difficult, hurtful, stubborn, annoying, self-righteous, angry, tactless and destructive.
You have my sympathy; I know just how hurtful families can be. However, although your brother and sister-in-law may have behaved atrociously and selfishly for years I don’t think you’ve done the right thing on this occasion.
You say:
“My brother and his wife finally adopted 2 kids last August. I have never seen them. Last Xmas presents were posted for my kids for the first time. I returned the presents and left them on their doorstep. It was too little too late, and why should I buy presents for 2 children I’d never even seen? They only bought gifts so I’d feel obliged to buy for theirs. My daughter wanted to be a “good cousin” and bought the kids presents with her OWN hard-earned money. She was never thanked for it.”
The problem is you have involved these adopted children in a family quarrel not of their making. You’ve retaliated and involved two innocent parties. You ask why should you buy presents for these 2 children that you’ve never seen? Well why not? Let’s face it, If they are babies they need welcoming into their new family just like any other babies. If they are older children they need welcoming even more because they’ve already lost one family.
Also, adults who are not parents can be pretty insensitive about children until they get some of their own. Perhaps they bought the presents for your children because the light had suddenly dawned… They realised that you have children too and that children have feelings and even that it is quite nice for children to get presents for Christmas. If this is the case it would be pretty churlish to throw their gifts (metaphorically-speaking) back in their faces. If the present-buying was simply to get you to buy presents for their kids then that’s their problem; it doesn’t have to be yours. Hurrah that your own daughter is so generous. Even if she doesn’t get a single word of thanks from them she has risen above the arguments and behaved in a mature and thoughtful and delightful way. Great stuff.
So, never mind forgiving and forgetting for the moment - how about apologising? Ring your brother and his wife up. Tell them that you’ve let resentment cloud your judgment, you are sorry about the presents on the doorstep business and that you’d love to meet their children to welcome them properly into the family. Suggest a date and time and go armed with a couple of presents and a bottle of wine. Say complementary things about their house. Tell them their children are lovely. (If the children are older and badly behaved because they’ve had a difficult previous life then avoid looking disapproving - and don’t give advice unless asked.) Suggest an outing that you could all go on together. Smile a little maybe.
Just a thought,
Sue
Thanks Sue, it’s certainly an idea.