When possible, I now know to abstain from people whose words, actions, and proclaimed values are not aligned, those folks are not for me, even if we are married, have children, or are related by blood. This– is acceptance–acceptance of my needs and the choices of others. I do not have to reject them or myself. While I cannot change a person OR my needs, I have learned to practice boundaries which allow me to care for myself, through limited proximity. Unfortunately, I am not able to protect my sons as I am, myself.
Today, as work is slowed by Covid 19 quarantine, I am obsessing abut how my sons were hurt by the collusion of my female sibling and their father to gather without me, repeatedly–probably justified as having been done only for my mother. After her memorial service, my son asked: “If we were so important to your mom, why were we only barely mentioned once (in her very own and very long end of life monologue)”?
I have no decent answer. I tell them that they should never have been dragged into the mess. What was done to them was unwholesome, unfair, and unkind. I share that “how my family and your father do love is very confusing and different from the love that I understand and choose”. My hope is that they will elect to mimic more kind and wholesome examples of love, connection, and family.
My sons agree that is not possible to be loving (kind and fully honest) while also feeling entitled, trying to get even, be perceived as right, better than, or in charge. Domination and manipulation of people and their perceptions is unwholesome and unloving and seems inextricably linked to eggshell dynamics, estrangement, pain, and addiction(to all sorts of things).
Choosing benevolently can be difficult and does not always feel immediately good. However, doing the thing which is easy and feels at once satisfying is not an acceptable alternative. That momentary pleasure/relief is followed closely by insecurity, distrust of others, frustration— mental dis-ease. I speak from first and second hand experience. So odd to consider how politically correct actions are frequently lacking in full honesty, deadly, and cruel but legal and accepted by those who benefit. I have heard it said that anytime there is suffering, someone is profiting. Always. Hmmm
