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Home » The Vine

The Vine: May 25, 2011

Submitted by on May 25, 2011 – 3:07 PM27 Comments

I’m just going to launch right in to this one:

Six months ago my father died. Both before and after he died my mother’s brother, J, and his wife, B, made assurances to my father, mother and myself that they would be there in anyway they could to support us, particularly Mum after Dad died.

Both J and B work fulltime and live in a different city to Mum, but B made it clear to Mum that she was welcome to stay with them at any time (they have 3 spare bedrooms); she also gave Mum a key so that Mum could come and go as she pleased. I was witness to this conversation, so I know Mum did not ask for the key.

My mother is retired but volunteers at two local schools. These schools were really the saving grace for Mum in that they gave her a reason to get up and go out, however they closed for six weeks over Christmas which meant Mum had a long stretch with not much to do. So B made the offer for Mum to come and stay with them for a couple of weeks. Mum took this offer, but not wanting to impose too much also made arrangements to stay with my father’s brother and a friend of hers before coming to stay with me (I live in another country). So in total Mum would be with them for only 6 days over the Christmas/New Year’s period. B said she was quite happy with this.

On the last night Mum was staying with them (before flying over to me) J and B went to bed. Then J got up and came through to Mum who was watching TV and told her that he was sick of her using the house like a hotel, he didn’t like her having a key and essentially made it clear she wasn’t welcome in their house. Mum was distraught, so she packed up and spent the night in the airport.

A few days after her return home B called and didn’t apologise, instead she told Mum she needed to see their point of view. Mum can’t see their side of it and is still very hurt and not wanting any contact with them. For the sake of peace in the family she will go to my grandmother’s 80th at J and B’s house, but will be limiting future contact. B has called my mother a few times “just to chat,” and J has not contacted my mother since the event nearly six weeks ago.

This morning I received an email from B. Here is an excerpt:

I know we have upset your mum — and I feel very sorry for that — I do feel I have let your mum and your dad down. I have been talking to her and trying to get back on track again — you know me, I won’t give up — rightly or wrongly! I hope you won’t think too badly of us — I would hate to think that something like this would spoil our relationship. Unfortunately these sorts of things happen in family situations — sometimes there just isn’t a good way to tackle a situation.

Which now makes me feel like I have to get involved. I feel like I have a thousand conflicting emotions/thoughts about how to respond.

My initial response was: Our relationship has changed, you have let Mum and Dad down. You are only trying to soothe your guilty conscience, if you were actually sorry you would have apologised. If you knew how awful these last few months were for Mum you wouldn’t brush this aside with “these sorts of things happen…” and there are many more diplomatic ways this could have been handled that wouldn’t have caused this level of hurt.

However, as the morning has worn on, I have softened somewhat. I feel that I have to back Mum up on this and as long as she can’t forgive them then neither can I. But I feel like my loyalties lie with both sides.

How do I respond without taking sides?

Too sad to think of a clever pseudonym

Dear Clever,

I’m sorry for your loss.

The situation as I understand it is: Mum had a good deal of empty time around the holidays; B invited Mum to stay for about a week and gave her a key; J blew up at Mum for taking advantage of their hospitality and specifically for having a key, which wasn’t Mum’s idea but rather his wife’s, on her very last night with them, which is a weirdly delayed reaction; despite the fact that it’s J who behaved badly, B is the one reaching out to Mum; and despite the bad behavior, B is neither apologizing for it nor even admitting it, just referring to “family situations” so vaguely that it’s hard to tell which one, exactly, she means.

All that review by way of saying that I don’t know how you respond at all, much less without taking sides, because there’s so much I don’t know. Leaving aside the fact that, if J wanted to vent his spleen, he probably should have done so in the direction of his wife, who issued both invitation and key in the first place — what else is going on here? Do Mum and her brother get along generally? Not all adult siblings do, but you don’t mention it one way or the other. Did Mum not acquit herself well as a guest? You don’t mention that either, but the watching-TV detail could read a few ways: she’s innocently watching TV when J freaks out on her…or she’s done nothing but watch TV and get underfoot for nearly a week and J freaked out on her.

Not to make your mother the villain here, obviously. My point is that I have to think there’s more to the story of this brother-sister relationship than what you’ve told me. Again, it’s not J who’s reaching out to Mum, or you; if he feels bad, he’s not saying so, and B isn’t either. (Consider, though, that she’s in a similar situation to yours; she may think J acted a fool, but he’s her husband and she’s obligated to back his play to a certain point.)

And what situation is B talking about — the death of your father? the holiday guest arrangements? the blow-up? the aftermath? I think she probably means that she’s doing her best in the current situation.

But…that in turn probably means that she’d like you to mediate for her. That’s the sense I get from the excerpt above. And you don’t want to, for good reason. I wouldn’t burn that bridge yet — not least because doing so will mean you’ll never get their side of what happened, and it may not expiate them but it could at least explain how things got to such a hostile point out of nowhere — but I would respond, politely but pointedly. Yes, Mum is very upset, as B can imagine. You appreciate B’s efforts to mend fences, and you wish her luck with that. End.

She may follow up and make her desire to put you in the middle more explicit, at which time you can explicitly decline to get involved and remind her that your role here is to support Mum, ahem. She may take you aside at your grandmother’s celebration and give you more background on what really went down.

But until I (and/or you) have more information, I can’t really tell you whether you should pick one side or not. But telling you how to decline to pick a side at all is fairly easy: agree on the facts you know to be true, thank her neutrally for her concern, send, done.

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27 Comments »

  • meltina says:

    I agree with Sars a lot on this, with one caveat: even if B has to take J’s side, that does not mean that she shouldn’t apologize for how her husband handled things.

    Yes, it might be that your mother was a poor guest, but the middle of the night on her last evening there is not the time to bring this up. In the event that your mother was behaving poorly as a guest, he should have either (a) brought it up to her sooner, with his wife present, and very diplomatically or (b) waited until your mother left, and then brought up the fact later, diplomatically.

    I don’t know how tenderhearted in general your mother is, but the fact that she felt a need to leave his house and spend the night at the airport waiting for her flight speaks to being made to feel quite uncomfortable there in short order. And for that, if nothing else, B should apologize, even if your mother is not entirely innocent here, and even if she was 100% behind the spirit of the words, though not the way they were said.

    It sounds to me like B would like to maintain a relationship with your mom, whereas J probably doesn’t. So yeah, limiting contact with them is a good idea (i.e., for her mother 80th’s, she should arrange to stay with someone else, arrive for the party, stick around long enough to wish her mother a happy birthday and catch up with other family, and then tender a goodbye to B).

    Insofar as moving forward from this and onward, it can’t hurt that your mom cultivates more local support now, aside for volunteering at 2 schools. I know it was the holidays so it wouldn’t have worked well for her in that instance, but in general, being a widow with no family nearby means that one’s social support network of friends is make or break here.

    My MIL found herself in the same situation as your mom (suddenly widowed, her children and most of her family living far away), and what helped her survive those first few years (my SIL now lives near her) was both leaning on her existing friends for companionship, and making new friends. After a one year cocooning period right after her husband’s death, she eventually joined a bridge club, and a book club. She took up an exercise class for seniors. She got another dog (she already had one), and made friends with other people who walked dogs in her neighborhood. The thing is, my MIL was not super-social before, but after her husband died, she found that getting out and talking to people was a better alternative than staying in your newly silent house, at least while you get used to living alone.

  • ferretrick says:

    “Please do not involve me in what is between you and my mother. It is not my concern. Thanks for understanding. Best wishes to you.”

  • Jenn says:

    Until you have J’s view on what happened, it’s hard to figure this out. Who yells at his sister (recently widowed or not) while she’s a guest in his house? Maybe it’s petty, but I would want to not do or say anything until J puts on his big-boy pants and apologizes.

  • meltina says:

    As for what you do here, I wouldn’t wait for B to follow up with a plea to get involved. I would make it clear from the get go that your role as daughter is to support your mother, which means that your only response here can be to leave your mother to come around, or not, on her own time. Just say “I don’t wish to get involved in this, I don’t really have the ability to take sides in the situation, and I’d rather not, just the same.”

  • k says:

    I dunno. I get a vibe here that something may be going on with J that may not be generally public and that B is trying to keep rather quiet. I mean, J is Mum’s brother, but B was doing all the reaching out, making all the arrangements, etc., and now B is the one dealing with the fallout of J’s reaction. (Which, by the way, seems utterly bizarre, coming as it did on Mum’s last night there and after the stay and the key were offered by B. Whether Mum was a bad guest or not, that seems like a big red flag to me.) Is it possible that J is experiencing some early symptoms of dementia or other problem? Are he and B the kind of people who would be ashamed or embarrassed to reveal that (if it were known) or avoid seeking out a diagnosis?

    In any event, the way this story reads, there’s something that doesn’t fit — maybe it’s something Mum did or there’s some past baggage that came up, or maybe there’s a medical situation here that’s not public or even acknowledged, and J and B are trying to keep it quiet.

  • Jen S 1.0 says:

    Wow. Unspoken feelings, well-meant invites, deep and unstable emotions: add the holidays and stir.

    A problem here is that dealing with the emotional component of this brew will necessarily mean everyone backing off and calming down, but because the emotions were such a big part of it in the first place, is that even possible?

    I can only go by what you’ve written (and Sars saying that there’s a lot here that needs to be revealed for any kind of accurate advice is 100% right), but it seems to me like this is some kind of culmination outburst from J to your mom that involves tons of stuff only they are privy to, and both you and B are stuck trying to negotiate a family peace with only some 2s and 3s from the deck showing on the table.

  • Whitney says:

    There was an incident in my family recently where two of my cousins ended up suing each other over and they both called my grandmother to try and get her sympathy. She basically told them both “I wasn’t there, I’m not taking sides, but I love you both and I hope you can work it out.” They still haven’t quite reconciled, but either way she still has a relationship with both without having to deal with their drama.

  • WendyD says:

    I wholeheartedly second what @ferretrick said. I’ve been in a position where my mother and her sister (my aunt) have been arguing and my aunt would try and talk to me about my mom and their situation and vice versa. I finally told both of them to leave me out of it. They are adults and need to act as such.

    Sorry for your loss :(

  • Gralnger says:

    You know all those Vine letters where the writer desperately wants the other person (who she yelled at or broke up with) to admit that they were wrong and everything was their fault?

    This is what that letter looks like from the other side.

    *****

    “B should try to talk to Mum”…well, from what we see in the letter, B did try to talk to Mum. The problem is that B seems to be taking the position of “we won’t get anywhere unless Mum admits that the whole thing’s her fault” so communication is probably useless.

    Ultimately I’d say that Sars’ advice is the best. “Yes, she’s still upset, I hope the two of you can find a way to resolve your differences, see you at the party.” Be prepared for the response, which will be “well can you maybe please just kind of maybe sort of talk to her and tell her blah blah yourfaultcakes…”

  • Kristen says:

    Clever, I am so sorry for your loss.

    I’m with Sars in that we just don’t have enough information to make an accurate judgement.

    That being said, my mother was widowed in 1993 when there was no such thing as bereavement committees, or support groups in our area, but now most churches do have them. Sometimes they combine widows with divorcees in order to help more people, but my mom said they really helped. They also would organize dances every weekend so it wasn’t just a support group, it was more of a social network of people who had all suffered some kind of horrible loss. I know my mother found this very helpful over the last… oh my its almost been 20 years! She still goes to the dances. :)

    But yeah, our family really never stepped in to help, she had 5 brothers… and they never really helped, nor did my Dad’s parents or his siblings. The church group really helped her develop her own life, with her own friends who understood her.

  • JenK says:

    I’m sorry for your loss, Clever.

    Is it possible that this is all some kind of misunderstanding based on B overstepping her bounds? Since B is the one who offered up their home but J is the one who was suddenly irritated with your mother’s stay, could it be that B made the offer without consulting with J first? Maybe she made the offer (perhaps not actually expecting your mother to take her up on it), handed over the key, and then forgot about it until your mother made concrete plans to stay with them. If J was not aware of the conversation, then he could have seen this as quite an imposition to stay with them. B, perhaps not wanting to look like a forgetful boob in front of J, didn’t mention the invitation and just hoped that the week would pass quickly and uneventfully.

    Instead, J got angry about your mother’s visit and key possession, your mother is hurt by this unexpected explosion after an invitation to stay, and B is mortified about the whole thing but doesn’t want to ‘fess up and look dumb or make her husband angry with her.

    Of course, I could be completely off. But this was my first reaction to the whole thing. I mean, why a guy blow up at his recently-widowed sister for visiting over the holidays…unless he didn’t know she was going to visit. (Still, even if she did show up at the door out of the blue, this doesn’t excuse yelling at her.)

    Whatever the case, I agree with others that this is really between your mother, J, and B to sort out (or not). If B is that concerned with their relationship, then she can sack up and apologize for a situation that resulted in your mother staying at airport the last night of her visit.

  • Kelsey says:

    I am kind of with K (above) here. When I read this, my first take on the situation was that J is an alcoholic or in the early stages of Alzheimer’s (or the like) and was not…fully control of himself when he went off on Clever’s mum. I assume in this scenario that J’s situation is a Big Family Secret. Following the blowup, J either a) was mightily embarrassed and could not bring himself to talk to his sister, or b) is still not fully in control of his emotions. B is upset about J’s behavior, wants to make things up to Clever’s mum but does not wish to spill J’s secret. That is my thinking, if all went down as Clever said: it just seems too irrational otherwise.

  • Mand says:

    This is Clever (not the most accurate moniker, but I’ll stick with it),

    Mum and her brother have always gotten on well. They are not super close, but they have never had any disagreements and have supported each other previously through difficult times.

    My mother is a pretty good house guest – always arrives with food, empties the dishwasher, vacuums the house etc. She does this without overstepping boundaries, eg she only vacuums because B does it everyday anyway.

    In addition to which over the years she has been readily available to help them, she was an enormous help to them when they had three small children (three under two thanks to a set of unplanned twins) and she and my father regularly cat-sat for them, sometimes just for a few days and on occasion over a month.

    There is more background regarding J. He has some mental health issues; he has suffered from depression for years and has attempted suicide at least once. My mother is not aware of this. I only know because my cousins told me (separately, both swearing me to absolute secrecy.) He is emotionally volatile and prone to acting impulsively. Oddly Mum sees none of this.

    After much thought I have decided not to share this with Mum for two reasons 1) I was asked not to 2) I don’t think it would make much difference. Mum’s thoughts on mental illness are you are either batshit crazy in an asylum or you’re not making an effort to be sane/well/happy.

    The email from B to me was sent in February and I responded with this:
    I hope this situation with Mum is resolved soon. As I don’t know your side of it I can’t really pass comment.

    I have had no further contact from B.

    I have seen and spoken to two of her children. I wasn’t sure if I should talk to them about it – I value my relationship with them and don’t want to jeopardise it over something that doesn’t concern us. However they both brought it up.

    One made the suggestion that the issue was relating to her coming and going without telling them her plans and staying for weeks on end. None of this is true. Mum confirmed in an email to them when she would be arriving, staying with other people and leaving, she also spoke to both of them about it and didn’t stay for weeks.

    The other said she couldn’t see what the issue was. Her parents offered my mother a bed whenever she wanted it, she didn’t think my mother had outstayed her welcome and thought that if they had an issue they could have let the visit end without incident and then wait until next time my mother asked to stay at which point they could tell her it wouldn’t be convenient. She told B this who then didn’t speak to her for a week.

    All in all no further light has been shed on the situation and as the months tick by I get angrier and angrier. I thought that as time passed I would see J and B’s point of view, but I don’t.

    I feel like I have rambled a lot and not offered much more information.

  • Mand says:

    I forgot to mention how much I appreciate everyone taking the time to offer thoughts, advice and condolences.

    Thank you.

  • Sarah D. Bunting says:

    I feel like I have rambled a lot and not offered much more information.

    No, there’s some relevant info in there, I’d say. I don’t think there’s an excuse for J’s behavior, but at least there’s a reason that tracks; it also seems like B expected your mother to shoulder the blame to make things easier for everyone, and when that hasn’t happened…

  • Jane says:

    “Mum’s thoughts on mental illness are you are either batshit crazy in an asylum or you’re not making an effort to be sane/well/happy.” Hmm, that’s probably not too easy on J, since even if your mother doesn’t know it relates to him (and she actually might but not have told *you*), she’s probably given a hint of this belief. No fun to be blamed, you know? That right there could be a reason why he’s been simmering at her for a bit. The portrait you provide in general is that your parents have been the stable family helping the struggling brother’s family. If it’s true, that can be a role that’s hard to live with, but sometimes also that becomes the family story even when help has gone both ways–also vexing.

    But really, I think you need to consider what peace would look like for you here. Fixing the situation between the siblings? I don’t think that’s going to happen. Recommitting to letting go? Definitely one worth considering–it’s not happening so well right now, and I think it’s possible that you’re tying in some of your emotions about your father’s loss to this event, which may be complicating things.

    Another possibility, if you think it would get you somewhere, is making one more try to understand J&B’s point of view. Your initial email wasn’t one that was going to elicit that (and you didn’t want that at the time) but you could consider writing a totally noncombative email to B now saying that you’re sad about the loss of family closeness after your father’s death but you’re still baffled by what led to such a hurtful situation. Could she tell you just what upset your uncle so much? You’d really like to understand.

    I don’t think you’re going to get a clear answer that’ll justify the behavior to you, so don’t go in for that. Just do it if you genuinely think that seeing a fuller picture of your uncle and aunt’s position might be helpful in putting this unpleasantness into a context that allows you to move forward from it.

  • Gillian says:

    The cousin’s mention of “coming and going without telling them her plans,” combined with J’s complaint that she was “using their house as a hotel” struck a chord for me. I once was in a situation where some acquaintances offered me space in their home when I needed to be at an event and couldn’t find hotel space in the area. Not wanting to impose on people I didn’t know well, I made sure to be around as little as possible, thinking this made me a ‘good guest.’ I only found out later that they were looking forward to the visit as a chance to become closer friends, and were hurt that I seemed uninterested in socializing. Perhaps J&B expected the visit to be a chance to talk and do things together, whereas the Mom, in an effort to be an unobtrusive guest, did her own thing without keeping them apprised of her daily schedule, thus unintentionally making them feel like a hotel rather than like hosts? Not that this excuses the poor timing and rude handling of the issue.

  • Cora says:

    One thing no one has mentioned yet is that J, being Mum’s brother, lost his father, too. That is terribly difficult to deal with on it sown, and may have been more so for him, if he’s had a history of depression and/or mental illness. This does not excuse his behavior, but it raises some questions: don’t you think maybe he knows Mum’s opinion of mental illness, and that makes him uncomfortable, because he can’t talk to her about it, even though they’re close? Maybe he really want to talk, but coudn’t, because Mum was too busy making herself busy (vaccumming, etc.), and he lost it. B obviously overstepped her bounds, possibly in trying to make things better between J and Mum. Maybe J has alwasy harbored a sort of resentment towards Mum, and their father’s death brought it to a head.
    Again, it doesn’t justify anything, but the father death is at least as painful for J as it is for his sieter, and grief affect different people in different ways.

  • Cora says:

    Oops — I misread the entry — it wasn’t J’s father who passed, but rather his brother-in-law. Still, if they were close, he would be grieving as well.

  • Kerry says:

    Why do you keep getting “angrier and angrier”? What’s done is done. There was a miscommunication between your mom, and J & B, about the parameters of the visit, and how your mom was to conduct herself. What’s done is done. No one can go back and change it.

    I think what’s best is to just move on. Mum shouldn’t stay with her brother anymore, but that’s not a good enough reason to throw their whole relationship in the bin. J & B did a crappy job of “apologizing,” but it’s possible that they think your mum owes them an apology as well. Forget about it all. Chalk it up to a miscommunication and move on.

  • Lis says:

    First and foremost I am truly sorry for your loss Mand. However, I’m with Gillian here. I read the initial letter and thought “ooh no… Mum thinks she’s being helpful by finding other places to stay and not being in anyone’s hair, but J&B feel like they invited her for a two week visit over the holidays and instead she’s just prancing in and out on her own schedule…”

    This happens to me when I go “home” for the holidays sometimes. Home is in a town I grew up in but for 15 years I’ve lived across the country and while I know that my family would like for me to just stay at “home” for 2 weeks and only see them I have plans with all of my friends who are still there. I know it’s a silly, but some people want you to go visit them and ONLY visit them… the only time it’s not considered rude for me to go “flitting” about is if it’s all of my siblings and cousins going out to a bar or something, because holiday time is family time… if I go in the summer none of this is true, and I can flit about to my heart’s content… guess when I visit now… :P

    What I’m basically saying is that perhaps B felt slighted in some way that Mum did not want to spend all of her time with their family and voiced that to J not realizing that it would send him off the handle and is now embarrassed but still feels slighted because rather than wanting to visit with J&B in their eyes mum wanted to see lots of people… Even though from mum’s POV she was being helpful and not imposing a full 2 week stay on anyone, and even though B said she was totally fine with it, perhaps it still hurt her feelings a bit and she offhandedly mentioned that to J, who then needed to “protect” his wife’s feelings by telling mum what he thought. I know it’s all crazy and irrational but it feels to me like a HORRIBLE misunderstanding/miscommunication on all parts and if everyone could see the other side of things they’d feel better.

    By the way I am in no way saying that what J&B have done is right in any way, just that their motives behind it may actually come from WANTING to spend time with mum and feeling hurt when they felt that she did not want to do the same.

  • Diane in Washington says:

    @Clever/Mand:
    I truly sympathize, having been in a very similar situation, but as one of the daughters of a J and a B. My dad was a charming and helpful bully and control freak who encouraged his widowed sister to spend lots of time with him and my mother – trips overseas, theater, opera, etc. until a blow-up on trip to Italy over the behavior of another, younger guest, who wasn’t following dad’s dictates.
    Needless to say, I had moved far away from control central long before and was nowhere near this event, but of course was expected to take sides, which I did not. Others in the family did and it festered until after both were dead. When she died, he read about it in the obituary column; he already had cancer and then he died. Their other sister came to his funeral, but only for me, she said.

    Like J and your mother, my father and his siblings got along well on the surface, but there were many many unresolved issues dating back to the Great Depression: who got to go to college and be successful professionals (the sisters), who had to leave school and go to work to support my grandmother (my dad), etc. etc.

    I can certainly understand your anger – life is too short and this behavior is all so stupid. But you have to step back and not get involved.

    Stay out of it. Stay out of it. Stay out of it. Give your mother all the support she needs, be polite to everyone else and change the subject if someone starts to sound like they are taking sides and expecting you to do the same. Don’t let anyone tell you who to be friendly with or visit or talk with.

    I’m sorry for the loss of your dad, and I know your mother will be grieving for a while yet.

    Life is just too short.

  • Jacq says:

    Mand, I agree with Kerry. Reading all of this, the phrase that sprang to mind was ‘lest said, soonest mended’. There was An Incident, feelings were hurt, people have tried in various ineffective ways to build bridges, other people have been roped in. Perhaps the best thing is for everybody to just acknowledge that this is one of those times when family members are dickheads to each other and draw a line under the whole sorry affair. Because the only alternative is a long, drawn-out feud between several family members, and that won’t benefit anybody.

    I’m really sorry for you and your mother’s loss.

  • meltina says:

    Mand/Clever:

    I agree with Diane. It sounds like, depression or not, your uncle may be difficult to live with as it is. The fact that your cousins have divergent versions of what happened also suggests that perhaps the problem was not your mother or her behavior, it was his perception of it. Based on the cousins’ own experiences with their dad, they’re drawing their own divergent conclusions about what happened: perhaps one cousin is more aware that there’s a pattern of “dad overreacting-mom covering that up” (which is why she told B that J overreacted, drawing wrath on herself in return).

    Sad to say, if he’s convinced that your mother slighted him somehow, there is no way in creation that he will ever apologize for what he said. While the illness stuff was said to you in confidence, I would want to share it with your mom, if nothing else so that she at least can figure out what happened, rather than be puzzled about it, which would heighten the duration of her hurt feelings. Also, while your mom doesn’t really seem to get how insidious mental illness can be for people, you’d be surprised by her reaction if you told. She might be relieved that she wasn’t the only one to notice that your uncle seemed depressed. She might change her mind about how she feels about therapy/mental illness once it hits close, and even if that knowledge doesn’t help her forgive his actions, it will probably help her to let it go.

    BTW, my mom always voiced similar feelings to yours about needing therapy/being depressed. She always believed people can and should cope on their own. Well, that’s rarely possible when you’re clinically depressed. When I finally went into therapy, I was terrified of telling her about it. I’m not sure what I believed she’d say… perhaps something along the lines of “We’ve brought you up to do better than that” or some such nonsense. It took a year and a half to work up the courage to mention I’d been seeing a therapist and it had been rather helpful to me in many ways. Her immediate response? “Good, because I had been kinda worried about you. I’m relieved to know that you have someone close [she lives halfway across the country] who can help you take better care of yourself.” Not at all what I had expected.

  • Mand says:

    Everyone has made valid points; I’m amazed at how spot on some comments are without knowing the years of family history.

    I have realised that while my initial question was, “How do I respond to this email?” my main reason for writing was to be given some miraculous way to get everyone to make up.

    I spoke to my mother last night and she brought it up again, the incident happened on Jan 16 and she has mentioned it at least twice a week since then, she categorically stated there is no way she will never forgive them. Even if they come to her on bended knee and beg her forgiveness too much time has passed and she “won’t give in.” The lady sure likes to hold a grudge.

    So there is nothing I can do. If I speak to B and/or J my mother will feel betrayed and will feel there is no one on her side.

    I don’t think there is another side to the story as such. I think J reached his limit with having people in the house, over the same period they also had other family members staying at various times, and my mother was the only one there at that time for him to vent his frustration at.

    I don’t think my mother knowing that J has depression will help. My father’s brother recently told her that he is on anti-depressants following my father’s death. Mum told me that this is selfish and he should think of his wife and not be depressed. Also, J really doesn’t acknowledge there is an issue, won’t seek help, and is fairly set in the idea that he doesn’t have an issue, everyone else does.

    In the end there is no solution. If it were up to me Mum would bury the hatchet and move on, but it’s not up to me.

    Thank you everyone for your kind words and advice.

  • Jane says:

    Mand–I’m really hearing you on the “hold a grudge” thing. In general, what I’m seeing is that your mother, brother, and sister-in-law all tend to be really hard on people and not to let stuff go. Your aunt wouldn’t talk to her daughter for a week? Your mother’s condemning her brother for grieving the loss of a parent? Your uncle would rather blame other people than get help?

    Maybe now is the time for you to view this not as a situation you can fix but as one you can learn from. Apparently the tools these people bring to conflict are severity and inflexibility–and you see how well that’s working for them. You can join them in the staying-angry mode (I’m a dab hand at righteous indignation myself, so I understand its pull), or you can see this as a family dynamic that you don’t actually want to copy and instead choose to prioritize, say, forgiving, understanding, and sympathy over rightness and perfection. It’d be a real gift to the next generation.

  • Mand says:

    Another update.

    J called Mum today and arranged to visit her on Friday. He is taking the day off work to drive quite a distance to see her. It seems quite out of the blue, but in many ways consistent with his character.

    Even if Mum can’t see her way to forgiving him I still feel that he has offered an olive branch; so I can contact B without feeling too guilty.

    There is some light at the end of the tunnel.

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