I know that I’ve been primarily writing about my son but there are other things that go on in my life as well. Just as everyone has multiple things going on all the time. Sometimes they overlap and sometimes they do not. As the Mother of three I am surrounded by three different life stories that all involve me. Each of my children is different and special in their own way. I enjoy spending time with both of my daughters, it’s usually low stress and fun. I enjoy watching the two of them interact and get flashbacks of when they were younger, jeez do I miss those days. But they still tease each other, tell stories about each other and most of all love each other. Now I’m not saying they agree on everything and sometimes they don’t appreciate the others opinions but they always take a deep breath and suck it up. They are true sisters and nothing will separate them.

They have had their share of trials and tribulations in their lives. They are both single mothers, although my youngest is married but separated for a year and a half now. Her husband has not seen their daughter in 10 1/2 months and rarely gives her anything to help her, luckily she lives at home with us. She works full-time as a preschool teacher and then comes home to deal with a 3 year old, we all know how much fun those temper tantrums can be.

Our older daughter, middle child, broke off her engagement with her son’s father and is Wonder Woman. I mean truly Wonder Woman. She lives 1200 miles away, works full time, has gotten her Master degree, is working on her Doctorate, raises her son, takes him to Karate, works out at the gym, cooks and cleans and still manages to have time to sleep.
Our younger daughter was just graduating with her bachelors degree when she found out that she was pregnant. She had only been dating the father for 7 months. They decided that they were getting married but not until after the baby was born. They lived with us. Everything was great at first, he helped out around the house, we spent time together going to local festivals but that soon changed. The first warning sign was his lack of ability to hold a job, and of course it was never his fault. At first we all thought he was wonderful, but one by one we began to see him in a different light. He was sneaky, he lied, he yelled but he was always apologizing for his actions.
Our Granddaughter was born and we had hoped that this would help him “grow-up”. It did not. Her older sister presented her with information about his past that we later found out went far deeper than the original information. They had a huge fight but I think our daughter felt trapped. We kept telling her she did not have to marry him. She and her daughter would always have a place to live.

A month before the wedding he was running his mouth to people in the city, they didn’t put up with it and beat the crap out of him. We got a call from our daughter asking could her Dad come and pick them up. He didn’t call his parents, he called us. We had the baby so my husband made the 2 hour trip to pick them up.

None of her friends liked him, all advised her against marriage but I just think she didn’t want to back out. She had her dress, the church and the reception and maybe she’d feel embarrassed I don’t know for sure. We told her up until that day that she did not have to do this.

I had heard the fights, the names he called her, the things he said and I did not like it one bit. We did not encourage them to move out because we were afraid for the safety of our daughter and granddaughter. Our daughter was changing in front of our eyes. She wasn’t that smiling, happy, kind and sweet soul anymore. She wasn’t “allowed” to spend time with her friends unless he was there too and he didn’t have any friends. He was completely controlling her. And he just lost job after job, but it was never his fault. The company or business just had no idea how to run things, they wouldn’t listen to him, he knew best.

I dreaded coming home and seeing him. He was always twisting around anything you said. Even though he wasn’t working he sat on our couch all day, never mowed the lawn, never cooked dinner, never did wash or dishes or ran the vacuum. Everything was below him. He always had his opinion about everything and his was always right. He was easily offended and felt as though people didn’t like him. He had a limp that magically disappeared if no one was watching. Family, friends, my parents, everyone started to notice that something was not quite right.

One night when her sister was home, our daughter insisted that she was going out with her for a few hours. My husband had to run an errand so I was sitting in the Living room with our son-in-law while he rambled on about some complaint he had. The next thing I know there are 4 police in my house and he is flying up the stairs. They had come to our house to be sure everything was ok. They had a report of someone thinking of suicide. He had posted a picture on Instagram with an airgun, which looked like an actual handgun, saying he’d be better off dead. A friend in Hawaii saw it and got through to the state police who referred it to the local police. They took him away to get counseling. Sadly he was back in a few hours because he told them he had PTSD from being shot while serving in the marines and felt confined. Then we had several counselors come to out house at midnight to sit with him. In the meantime I had texted my 2 daughters and told them what was going on. They stayed out until the counselors left. He never told my daughter anything that happened.

You see he was never shot, he went AWOL from the Marines after boot camp and then stole military equipment to sell. There were many other “stories” of his life that he told us that were not true.

A few months later, after many other events, the final straw came on the night after their daughters 2nd birthday party. He had called their 2 year old daughter stupid while opening gifts in front of everyone, even his own parents that are mostly out of the picture were taken aback. After the party our son wanted to talk to his sisters and my husband about a medical issue he was having since everyone was home. They went out into our front room and our son-in-law lost it. He began screaming at me that it was his “Right” to know what was going on with our son and it was unfair to exclude him from any discussions going on in our home. This time I couldn’t remain quiet. I told him in no uncertain terms that he had no “right” to be part of a private conversation between my son and his sisters. If our son wanted him to know he would talk to him but this was my son’s “right” to not discuss his medical condition with him. His belligerent screaming continued. My daughter asked my husband if he would diffuse the situation and he told her no. He would finally hear what we all were thinking.

After this my daughter and her husband went upstairs and continued the discussion about his rights. The baby was sleeping in her crib in the same room as their discussion became louder and louder. Of course the nursery monitor was on so we heard it all. He was going to hit himself with a board and claim my daughter did it was just one of the things he said. At one point I had to stop my husband and son from charging up the stairs. I didn’t want to give him any ammunition to use against anyone. Hours later he came down with his bags packed and begged someone to pick him up. My daughter had regained her voice. She was shaken but she was at peace. She told us that it was one thing for him to treat her like that but he was not going to treat her mother like that. It was the straw that broke the camels back.

I’ll continue this saga in my next post. There is so much more, too much more to share in one post. But life is better and my daughter is getting back to herself. Her old personality is shining through again and she is happy.

The Other Family part 2