Christmas is Coming

This is a milestone I dreaded a little bit. With the exception of last year, hubbie spent every Christmas Eve with Mother in Law JB. Last year, he was out of work in his field, so he was working at a Big Box. He couldn't make it. It was a three hour drive. He worked late because the store didn't run straggling customers out and also getting ready for the day after Christmas sale. I hope he does not feel guilty about missing his Mother's last Christmas Eve. There was no reason to truly suspect it would be her last. She always said it would probably be her last, but that was her "woe is me" act. She had been saying that for 15 or 20 years. She was not worse off healthwise last year than any other year. As I have posted, her death was quick -- it was kind of a surprise. Hubbie's sister said that she didn't call anybody when JB went into the hospital because "I expected her to be home the next day like usual, so there was no more reason to call anyone than any previous hospital visit."

Anyway.... that was last year. I was braced for hubbie to be moody and upset over the loss of his mother all year, especially around holidays. He has been moody from time to time. But he has always been a little bit of a moody person. So far, I have not noticed any extra moodiness.

At least I don't have to worry about what she's going to try to pull to get extra attention, such as the Christmas incidents that I just posted about on my other blog.

So far so good!!!!

Today Would have been JB's Birthday

OK, so I know it wasn't her fault her birthday was in December. But it was frustrating that with the limited number of December weekends, the first one always had to be left open just in case she decided to throw a party and hubbie had to go.

I was worried that he would be thinking about it today and be moody. So far, he's been pretty nice. Well, pretty much his usual self. His usual self can be kind of moody.

When Feb 8 gets here that year of firsts without JB will be over. While this year, I have finally felt I could live my life, next year will be even better!

1st After the JB Nightmare Anniversary - Ahhhhhhhhh

We had a wonderful day.

On at least three wedding anniversaries, I suspect that JB called Hubbie right at supper time.

The first one I know for sure. 2003. We were in the car at 6:00 on the way to a restaurant. JB calls to ask Hubbie if we are going to be going to her house Thanksgiving. This was at least 15 years into our marriage. In my previous post, I noted that Thanksgiving is almost always at our house... started that way due to his work schedule.

He said that she didn't know it was our anniversary. Yea, right. I was sitting in the car right next to him when he answered. I did not hear our anniversary mentioned.

The following year, we stopped off to visit a friend on the way to dinner. Right at 6pm, his cell phone rang. He silenced it. I later looked at his call stack and the call had been deleted. I am 99% sure it was her. (2004)

2005, I don't know if she tried calling or not. I suspected a possible pre-emptive strike on hubbie's part -- that he may have noticed the pattern.

On our 20th anniversary, we went to Disney. We were looking at the Christmas lights at Disney Studios. At 5:45 PM, I noticed hubbie messing with his cell phone. I am 99% sure it was her calling. (2006) We were busy on vacation, he may have forgotten to make a pre-emptive strike. When we were deciding what to do for our 20th, my main wish: As far away from home as possible. Reason that I didn't tell him: to be away from JB's reach.

No known problems in 2007 and 2008. Possible pre-emptive strike of hubbie contacting her earlier in teh day.

2009 was a wonderful anniversary. No cell phone calls all day!

The ahhhhhhhh part of the day is that it was unplanned. I did not feel like I had to find something to ensure that our time was filled so that JB couldn't make up an emergency that was bigger than our anniversary or just a plain old excuse to bother us.

This was a nice day. The first day of the a great year! Last year wasn't so bad either! I didn't really even think of her until I got online to write this post!

Thanksgiving: Another Ahhhhhhhh Moment

Thanksgiving every year my side of the family has all come to my house and I cook. This is my sister, parents, and 3 nephews. Sometimes my BIL, too. He works at a hospital and can't have both Thanksgiving and Christmas off, so it makes sense for the whole family.

I just found out today that one of the nephews has H1N1. My husband has a chronic (autoimmune) lung condition called Sarcoidosis, so getting any kind of lung infection, including the flu is very dangerous for him. He hasn't been able to get his H1N1 shot yet. (He's in remission from his condition right now. When he's in remission, he gets stupid and won't do any of the things he's supposed to do, then gets sick again. MEN!!!)

My Parents and Sis's family live next door to each other and have no boundaries. It's like one big family with two buildings for their home, the way that they go back and forth. So with a total of seven of them, one with H1N1 and none have gotten shots either, I'm kind of figuring it could still be going around Thanksgiving. I'm banning them from the house if anybody is sick the Sunday before and anybody else hasn't yet been sick yet. I just can't risk DH getting it. From what I've read, it attacks the lungs pretty bad.

I already told hubbie that nephew has H1N1 and Thanksgiving plans could be changed on account of it.

The ahhhhhh moment? Last year, or before with JB living, I would have NEVER given him that much advance notice that a holiday might be up in the air, for him to get time to blab to her and suddenly be planning on spending it with her. I am so relieved to be free to live my life without looking over my shoulder all of the time.

Goodbye message

I posted about my plans to not attend church on All Saint's Day as JB passed this year and I have conflicted feelings about it.

I realize now how I can use that time to start the end to the bitterness that I feel.

I have posted on a support board for a long time.

I used to visit the ILs regularly. I did NOT want to. A cutoff was not for me at the time. I thought I had to go with him in order to protect my interests. Both JB (evil MIL) and EJ (evil FIL) used DH. I felt like by going with him whenever he went, I first knew what was going on, and second, prevented some of the worst abuses. (Remember, what they wanted from him was his paycheck and for him to do any work that needed doing.)

That part of the saga ended on Halloween in 2002. The night before Halloween, Hubbie and I had a guest over for supper. But his parents called and he went off to take the call. Not in private, but in secret. I could tell from some of the side of the conversation that I was hearing that it was something serious and that he was going to come through for them. I asked him what was going on. He said "nothing". I knew he was lying. The content and context of the phone conversation was much more serious than his leaving table with a dinner guest.

So I came home from work early the next day and snooped through his office for info. I found that he had fed-ex'd something to them. (I later found out that it was a large check made out to a used car dealer.) But more than that, I found out that the ILs and Hubbie had been going to extraordinary measures to keep secrets from me. The nature of those extraordinary measures upset me so bad that I felt like I was living with a stranger, I was crying at work. I took a sick day to put my ducks in a row in case of a divorce. It was one of only two times I ever thought about divorce.

The power of having been on the support board led me to two things the first was that I realized a cut off is possible. For all of the bad, Halloween 2002 was also the first of my freedom days. I realized that since Hubbie and ILs were going so far undercover, that all of my painful journeys to the ILs were a waste of time, and therefore I was never going to see them again.

I cannot honor EJ for All Saint's Day. But the night before is All Hallow's Eve when we are supposed to chase the evil spirits away. I am going to use that night to chase away an evil spirit. Not that of MIL, but the spirit of my pain and anger and resentment. I am going to use that as a night to start chasing away all the negative emotions that I have bottled up in 20+ years that I knew her.

The other thing that I gained from the support board is I did go into counseling as well. I tried to take Hubbie, but that was another disaster I won't get into. But I found a good individual counselor after that experience who helped me immensely.

I know that there will still be rocky places in the road, such as Christmas, her birthday, and the "one year anniversary" and perhaps some after whenever SIL decides what to do with "the estate". (AKA haunted white elephant farm)

Ending it all and getting total freedom

The upcoming All Saints Day got me to thinking deeper. I am still in the support group. Staying there keeps me from putting the JB nightmare behind me.

I have two date goals in mind. The first is Halloween/All Saints day. The second is the one year anniversary of her death.

I was a member of the support group before they moved to their current server. I originally joined under a different user name, but changes in my status and being afraid that my user name would make me get caught there made me decide to change my user name.

Many people on the board had cut off their in-laws and were in counseling. I did want to do counseling. But I was afraid to cut off the in-laws. JB and EJ (her evil husband) were taking advantage of hubbie. That would have been no big deal if it only affected him. However, it affected me to. I felt that accompanying him whenever he was around them was a two fold advantage. First, it gave me knowledge of what was going on. Second, perhaps there would be less happen when I was there to "protect" hubbie. I really hated going there. I hated two Mother's days in a row spent there. I hated every Christmas Eve. The place was full of negative energy and totally dirty. I did not eat there, I did not want food poisioning. I filled myself up with Cheese Doodles and KK's at the gas station we stopped at on the way to their house. I also used the restroom as the bath at MIL's was also pretty disgusting.

Then when eating time came, I tried to find the lowest risk dishes and eat as little of them as possible. I also carried snacks and drinks and had them in the car.

That was only one small bit of what was bad about being there.

Then Halloween 2002 came.

Halloween 2002 can only be described as a wonderful terrible day. The night before Halloween, DH was on the telephone with his parents. He left a dinner with guests to go to his office and talk to her, not just in private, but in secret. When I asked him what was going on, he said "Nothing.". So the next day, I got nosey. I did find out what he was up to, which was upsetting. It was a big deal. It was later that I found out what was really going on that day. I also found more than that. I learned that there was a deep scheme going on, that the ILs were going to extraordinary measures to get their way with DH and were succeeding. I have never posted the particular thing that I found, and likely never will. But it was so disturbing that I felt like I was living with a stranger. I was unable to concentrate at work and could not stop crying in a friend's office -- I don't cry in front of people easily. I even started looking into what my rights were in the case of divorce.

There was some good that came of this. First, I realized that no matter what I did, JB and EJ were going to get whatever she wanted from my hubbie. I was immediately free to cut her out of my life, to never have to see her again. All of those painful trips had been to supposedly protect my and hubbie's interests. But if they were going to go around me anyway, I was not succeeding. I decided that day never to see her again. I did not tell hubbie. He was not communicating with me, he was going to extreme measures to not communicate with me. I finally looked after myself. Hubbie did not get his first inkling until December 23. I was getting ready to go to my sister's house for the day. In years previous, I had taken vacation and spent Dec. 23 with my sister. He had picked me up at her house to take me to the craptaculars at the ILs, then after that, we drove to my parent's to sleep and for Christmas morning with them and my sister. Then home. So when I was getting ready to leave that day, he asked what time he could pick me up and where. I said no time, I wasn't going, I'd just meet him at my parents. Of course, he hit the ceiling. He did not go to my parents, but went home and then back to my sister's Christmas morning. (5 extra hours of driving for him to do this, as our families now happen to live close together, but a good distance from us.) We did not have a good Christmas together, but I still had a good one with my sister's family and with my parents.

So that's a lot of background. But Halloween is an anniversary of sorts. I have somewhat gotten over the pain of the day. The day is the anniversary of me being freed from seeing the ILs. FIL died about six months later. I did see JB at FIL EJ's funeral, but it was the last time I saw her alive. I started counseling the following January (a year and a half later). So Halloween was the beginning of my freedom. I will now make it the end of the nightmare as well. I do not feel like lighting a candle to her on All Saint's Day. Halloween, or All Hallow's Eve is the night before All Saint's Day. The day to chase away all evil spirits. I will light a candle that night. Not a candle to her evil spirit. But a candle to the end of the pain and baggage that I carry around because of her.

I will be around the board a lot less after that, but will be around some until just after the year anniversary of her death. I suspect that the holidays will be odd this year, and the anniversary will be strange, but I am looking at this time as the beginning of the end of my pain and tehe beginning of my healing. I may need some hugs when DH starts acting out on his grief and through some of the other stuff.

I will continue to post on my blogs.

Also, if any of my support group friends are ever in my area, I would love to meet them at a restaurant somewhere for lunch! PM's are forwarded to my Yahoo mail account, so just shoot me a message and we'll find a good safe place to meet.

Update to Breast Cancer Post

I just realized that I posted several months ago that my sister may have breast cancer while complaining about JB saying that she had it when she didn't.

My sister's news is good. She did not have breast cancer. (and she's not doing a JB and parading around pretending that she does)

Thank God for my sister's good health.

All Saints Day is Coming

I go to church regularly. Hubbie does not go with me as we don't see eye to eye on religion (he's more conservative).

JB went in the hospital on a Thursday and died on Sunday. In Sunday
School class, I requested prayers for hubbie (I did not request any for JB). I admitted that JB and I were "not close", but it was to be difficult for hubbie.

So everyone wanted to be updated of course so I let them know when she passed. Everyone there made a big deal about MY loss. I felt like such a hypocrite. Some of the people there know the truth of my relationship with JB.

Irony: I had just made the prayer request and the Sunday School teacher had prayed for the family when I got the call that they decided to "pull the plug". Later that afternoon, I was back at the church, waiting to donate blood when the call came in that she had passed.

The Women's group traditionally buys a book for the church library whenever a member of the group has a family member who passes away. The member is supposed to write a dedication in the book before it's put in the library. The president of the overall women's organization is one of those who knew the truth, so I talked to her about being uncomfortable with it, about feeling hypocritical about the whole situation. She simply stated to put something generic in it, that others have certainly had books dedicated to people who they have "tense relationships" with. I don't know what happened behind the scenes, but I have not been asked to sign a book to this date. I suppose I need to think of something diplomatic, honest and Christian to write if that comes up.

The reason that I am writing now is not about the book but about the upcoming All Saint's Day. At the church, a candelabra is at the front of the church to honor all who have gone to heaven -- church members and church member's friend and family members.

They are asking people to send in names of people who they want honored. I am not going to send in her name as, even though I am Christian and try to be a good one, and it's a nonchristian thing to say, I feel that she went the other way. I feel like honoring her is hypocritical.

If it ended there, it would be fine. But I fear that a candle will be placed there in her honor anyway. During the service, they ask that any loved ones who wish come to the front to light that person's candle. That I cannot do. I can't pretend. Sitting there when her name is called out would call unwanted attention to me as well. (In person, I am someone who likes to fade into the background anyway.)

I am going to skip church that day. What I just thought of was this. My beloved next door neighbor also passed in the past year. The lady who I so wanted to trade for my MIL. I used to attend the church that she attended -- I changed churches because there were some opportunities to grow that were not available at the older, smaller church. But I remain friends with all of the members. Instead of skipping church, that will be a day for me to visit my old church. To honor my next door neighbor. I just thought of that as I was typing.

So if I had not thought of going to the old church, would that make me a coward to stay home on a morning that I would ordinarily attend. My attendance is pretty much regular. I miss if I have company or a trip or something, but I almost never just sit home on Sunday morning. I am always doing SOMETHING Sunday morning. Usually it's church.

If I didn't have the alternative that I now realize that I would REALLY like to do, I would stay home rather than take the chance of having her name called out and having to figure out what to do, coward or not.

Labor Day -- Another Holiday, another Ahhhhh

Holidays are so much better now that MIL and FIL are both Down Below (and I don't mean in Australia -- that's Down UNDER)!

I have a convention for a hobby that I am in that starts the Sunday before Labor day and ends Labor Day Sunday. This convention is about three hours away, so I spend a night. The two biggest days used to be Saturday and Sunday before Labor Day. I started going Friday and Saturday so I could "be home in time to have dinner with" DH. That was basically to keep him from disappearing the entire weekend to the In-laws.

As I stated before, it was not him visiting them that bothered me. It was that when he visited, he spent hundreds of dollars on them and they wore him to the bone (sometimes literally) with chores. He would come home bruised and cut from jamming his hand while fixing something or something. And he would never bring tools or old clothes with him. So he ruined a set of clothes and had to buy new tools when there. THen he came home in a bad mood. So my reasons for not wanting him to visit were money, and his mood when he got home.



Now I still go Friday and Saturday and get home in time for supper on Saturday, but that is because those are now the two main days. Sunday is a winding-down day and there are more people in attendance on Friday than on Sunday.

Sometimes in past years I left before I really was quite ready on Saturday so I could be home in time. This year, I actually left a little earlier than that, but it was because things were winding down, not because I felt like I had to leave when I did. Again, it's a shifting of the traditions and when other people are there and things are going on. When I first started going Friday and Saturday, there were very few people there Friday. I had to pry myself away by 3pm Saturday. This time, I was really ready to go by 1pm, having done all I wanted and seen all who I wanted to see. So I left then, and took my time getting home, stopping at an outlet mall and doing what I wanted to do.

This year, I went the had the schedule and dates I wanted to go for no other reason than that those were the two "most fun" days.

Fake Breast Cancer

Several years ago, JB had a lump removed from her breast. Hubbie's sister called pretty soon after and told us that it was very tiny and it was not cancer.

The rest of her life, she presented herself to the world as a breast cancer survivor. I know breast cancer survivors and they have been through hell getting through it, not through getting one benign lump removed.

Now my sister may have breast cancer. They say probably not, but I am nervous for her. We won't know for a couple weeks. It brought me back to being angry at MIL for saying that she'd had it when she had not.

How I Celebrated the Six Month Anniversary

When I got the call informing me that I was Free of JB, I was sitting in line at a blood drive at my church to donate blood.

Yesterday was the six month anniversary.

Today, the church had the second blood drive of the year. What better way to celebrate than donating again?

Six Months !

OK, it's Aug 9 at 12:20 am, and I am only now getting around to posting. Technically, the six month anniversary is over as of about 20 minutes ago

In some ways, it does not seem like I have been free of JB for a whole six months. In others, it actually seems like a nightmare much longer ago than that.

I do feel a sense of relief over many things. One is having holiday time to share with hubbie and not to have to worry about that phone ringing for another contrived emergency that happens to fall on a holiday or birthday. I don't have to wonder if the phone is going to ring during supper on our anniversary in a couple months. I don't have to worry about hubbie wanting to go to roach haven for Thanksgiving dinner.

Emotional Support from my Parents

I was at my parents last night. My Mom has too much curiosity about my MIL's house.

Sister in law thankfully inherits the white elephant. Hubbie has been going and helping her clean out when he gets a chance. I am fine with that as long as he doesn't bring anything home with him (which he does, but that's not the issue here). She is recently separated, and is unable to get help from her hubbie or anyone else.

I was telling my parents some of the things that hubbie is doing to help her. My Dad kept saying that SIL inherited everything, she should have to do it, that my hubbie shold not have to. I told him that SIL is not demanding anything out of him, that she needs help and it's perfectly OK with me if he helps her as long as that is what he wants to do.

All those years of my Mom mostly and my Dad to some extent taking up for MIL/hubbie when hubbie was expected to go above and beyond the call. "Well, she's his Mother....." "She has a hard life......"

She had a hard life because she sat on her butt doing nothing.

Now SIL really needs some help. She is in her mid-50s and alone. She has to figure out what to do with all of that big mess that MIL made, and they think he shouldn't help her.

I suppose this post ended up being more about my parents than my MIL. But to me, an ongoing part of the IL problem was that they never were supportive of me being hurt when DH was enabling MIL. That made me feel more alone (until I found all of you). But now when he is helping someone who needs it, they think he shouldn't.

Part of it is that my parents are always obsessing over who gets what and who was treated unfairly when someone dies. They believe that my hubbie was treated badly because SIL inherited. Me, I think that SIL was treated badly by getting stuck with it and hubbie finally got a blessing.

I do think that they are just now starting to realize what I have been through for the last 23 years.

Remodeling

OK, it's not exactly remodeling, or is it? We are getting new windows, doors, and siding on our house. We have needed to do this for years. The new doors are beautiful. Hubbie really likes the picture window in our kitchen. I am looking forward to no longer having bits of siding rotted away and the extra insulation we will have.

If JB had still been living and found out she would have been whining about needing her house redone too. She would have been partly right. Her house does need all of these things. But if you have read the haunted house postings, you know this is just a start for what that house needs. But she never cared enough to try to take care of what she had.

I am feeling an ahhhh moment, knowing that we are only getting this done for one house and not for two. When JB was living, whenever we got something major, she suddenly had the "mee tooo, I neeeeeeeed it worse than you attitude", and DH usually complied by buying for her. Which is why he is now broke.

Ahhhhh. We don't have to worry about the IL repercussions of getting our house redone.

Financial Responsibility - Dodged a bullet

Something was just posted on the bulletin board that shocked me. It turns out that adults can be held legally responsible for taking care of their parents. I thought it was not true, but sure enough, it's in North Carolina Law.

§ 14-326.1. Parents; failure to support.
If any person being of full age, and having sufficient income after reasonably
providing for his or her own immediate family shall, without reasonable cause, neglect to
maintain and support his or her parent or parents, if such parent or parents be sick or not
able to work and have not sufficient means or ability to maintain or support themselves,
such person shall be deemed guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor; upon conviction of a
second or subsequent offense such person shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.
If there be more than one person bound under the provisions of the next preceding
paragraph to support the same parent or parents, they shall share equitably in the
discharge of such duty. (1955, c. 1099; 1969, c. 1045, s. 3; 1993, c. 539, s. 227; 1994, Ex.
Sess., c. 24, s. 14(c).)

Here is a link to the page:
http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/pdf/ByArticle/Chapter_14/Article_40.pdf

I am so thankful that JB did not know this. She would have held it over hubbie's head and he would have thrown it in my face and complied.

Whew! Dodged a bullet on that one.
Ahhhh, don't have to worry about that.

I'm Hurting

My neighbor's daughter just came by. She was looking for her father. She wanted to drop off her 4yo son because her hubbie's grandmother was at the hospital dying. She did not make it to the hospital. She got a call that the grandmother had died while at our house. Her hubbie had not made it either.

Hubbie advised neighbor's daughter to go to the hospital anyway. He was talking about when his Mother JB died and wanting people there.

He called me the morning that JB died and told me that they were going to remove life support. But he did not want me there. He called me after she died, but he did not want me to come. He did not want me until the wake/funeral.

I did not care to be around her, but I wish he had wanted me around to support him. I have always been hurt about that. It's another way she drove a wedge between hubbie and me.

As Time Goes By

July 4^th came and went. Then the 5 month anniversary of freedom day came and went, without incident.

I'm taking a beach trip with my she-geek friends next weekend. I think I'll bring a couple bottles of cheap champagne for a belated celebration. A couple swallows for she-Geek K and me. A bottle and a half for the others - she-Geek's L, R, A, & B.

Field Day / Reunion /Ahhhh!

This weekend is the ham radio field day weekend. I am a ham radio operator. Most years, there is a family reunion on the second day of field day. (Field day is the forth Saturday and the following Sunday. The reunion is the Fourth Sunday, which usually follows the forth Saturday, but occasionally follows the third Saturday)

Because I dreaded hubbie being snowed in by JB and his mood after a visit, I was not able to enjoy Field Day weekend. Before I quit seeing JB, I often had to leave field day and go to the reunion.

Even when hubbie didn't go to the reunion, he often went to JB's that weekend which mean $$$$ spent.

This year he is working so he won't be going. In past years, I would have been happy he was working and therefore unable to attend. This year -- it really doesn't mater. If he wanted to go, I don't think it wold bother me like it has in the past. I would not go because I'm going to be at field day.

I was right about my feelings

You know how you sometimes tell yourself you feel something, but you doubt that you feel that way?

Well, I confirmed how I feel. I always got upset when hubbie wanted to visit JB and did NOT want him to go. I always told myself that it was just her, and it was only because I knew that his visiting her was going to cost us dearly --financially and emotionally. He always had to buy her something when he went or as a result of going. She'd lay the guilt trip on him about going. He often had to do physical labor repairing stuff too. It would bug me when he'd fix things for her he wouldn't fix for us!

Then the whole trip -- because of how things are there would get him into a funk. He would be very hard to get along with for days after.

He wants to go see his sister now. I really don't mind. I don't have those feelings. I did ask him to not go this week because we had company over. But he has a couple days off next week and he might go. That is fine with me. It isn't stirring up any emotions of fears within me. I'm pretty neutral about him going. I don't feel all "oh yippeee, he's going about it." But more like "That's fine. Hope it works out for them." I even asked him "Did you get up with your sister?"

There is even a family reunion this weekend. I always dreaded him going. If he wants to go this year, that's fine too!

So, it's not his family that bugs me, just his parents and their attitudes.

More About Phone Calls

I now think that MIL was playing games with the phone up until she died. I posted about how she would hang up when I answered and later tell hubbie that I had pretended not to hear her. AFter that, I started specifically reported every hangup call I got to him. There was one that was pretty obviously her. After that, she only called him on the cell phone.


I still got the occasional hangup. I finally accepted that now these were the normal hangups of robocallers or rude people with the wrong number. A lot of them were late at night. But MIL has been dead for 4-1/2 months. IN THAT PERIOD OF TIME, I HAVE NOT HAD A SINGLE HANGUP CALL. So now, I again think that maybe those were her.


I really did not suspect her until after she died. There were several reasons I didn't think it was her before. First, it was only 3 or 4 calls a month -- nothing so excessive it could not have been wrong numbers. Second is that it was so much more like 15 year old behavior than 75 year old behavior -- even if the person had lots of other problems and faults. And third, she only called DH's cell when she wanted to talk to him since the incident of me yelling across the house.

But another reason TO suspect is that these calls is the timing. They happened around 4:30 pm or just before midnight. She was a night owl -- forwarding emails all night long.

I am pretty sure that she knew that hubbie got home around 5:30 and I got home around 4 and that DH goes to bed around 10 and I stay until after the weather on the 11:00 news, or sometimes later. These calls were before he got home and after he went to bed -- times that I would be the one to answer the phone.

It just occurred to me to day that she was checking to see if I was still in his life and hoping I wasn't since I cut her out of mine? The calls were at the times that I would normally be the one to answer and not him.

Finally, Validation from Mom

When at my parents yesterday, my Mom was asking about the after the funeral luncheon for MIL. I happened to ask Mom why she did not go.

But an invitation was issued at graveside for EVERYONE to attend. I kind of expected her to show. I did not say anything to her at the funeral like "are you coming?" I did not want her there because she is always trying to get me to "make nice" with the ILs and I was not up to the pressure of Mom's hounding me to be the bigger person and being around the ILs at the same time. In fact, my Mom was the most stressful thing about MIL's funeral.

But to the topic of this post. My Mom often says "I feel sorry for JB....", "I like JB", "She probably just (fill in blank as excuse for JB's bad behavior)", "JB has had a hard life", "You need to suck it up, I put up with a lot from my ILs for your Dad", etc.

Sunday, Mom asked me about the dinner. When I answered her, I threw in "why didn't you go?" Not that I wanted her to and not that I asked her. I expected her to say that it was because she didn't get a personal invite.

I loved her unexpected answer. Mom said, "I am not comfortable around your hubbie's family." Of course, I took the chance to say "ME NEITHER."

We take every little bit of validation we can get from the normally unsupportive.

But of course, she isn't comfortable around them. If they weren't my in-laws, she'd talk worse about them than I do -- seeing as how Mom has her nose in the air and ILs are white trash. She did not say why she wasn't comfortable, but I already know.

New Problem

This isn't exactly a JB problem. But I found out something disturbing about another member of the family. I can't get into it. But it is disturbing enough that I need to follow up and get more information. Hubbie has known about it for at least a week and maybe for months and never told me. This could cost me another 2K and lots of time to find out what I need to know and why it was kept from me.

The Funeral Panties

Here is a picture of the material from the panties mentioned in the post about JB's Funeral.

How EJ (JB's Hubbie) and JB Died

FIL - EJ died from a hospital pneumonia. He went in complaining of stomach pains. They never found what was causing them. I didn't know if I believed him or not, but he did go through a lot to get attention. They did endoscopy, colonoscopy and other tests. This was after him going in several times, being given Prilosec, and sent home. To my knowledge, they never tested him for food poisoning or food-derived illnesses. Re-read the nasty house post -- think that was a possibility? When they were getting ready to send him home, his lungs started filling with fluid. Hubbie said he didn't have the strength to fight it because he'd had nothing to eat for a week due to the tests. Hospital Pneumonia.

(I described the house nastiness in my other blog)

MIL-JB went into the hospital complaining of vague stomach ailments as well. When she had been there for about 24 hours, she went in to "septic shock". Her blood pressure dropped and she became unconscious. She had just eaten when she went to the hospital. I did some looking. There are some forms of food illness that can (rarely) cause sepsis. There are some hospital bugs that go around that can cause that too.

The hospital is not a good one. My own Grandmother died in the same hospital. GM was old and had incurable cancer, but there is a good chance that a medication error shortened her life. (Which in my GM's case was not necessarily bad considering her age and condition.) Also I had an Aunt that died due to a cancer that was not diagnosed that SHOULD have been diagnosed and would have been curable if it had been. Her Dr. was at the same hospital.

I still wonder if both MIL and FIL initiated their final stays due to undiagnosed food borne illness considering that it's really not checked for that much, they both had gastric complaints, that there was lots of potential for food poisoning in their house. With an already incompetent hospital, would they find something an competent one usually does not find?

Another Ahhhh Moment

Hubbie has been particularly sweet the past week. Going over and above the call to help me with some things without me even asking or thinking that I might want help. He also had offered for us to take a little romantic getaway this weekend. That probably won't happen due to some other outside things, though, but we discussed a rain check.

The Ahhhh part? When a man gets sweet, a girl wonders what he is up to, right? Whenever he was nice, I used to not be able to enjoy it because I wondered when the other shoe was going to drop. What was it that JB wanted him to do for her that he had already agreed to? 75% of the time, I was right. The rest of the time, he was just being sweet.

Now, MIL - JB is dead, I don't have to worry about what he is up to. I really can't think of anything he would be up to that he would need to butter me up. I'm pretty laid back. The things that he wants to do and does -- other than supplying JB with an infinite paycheck -- have never bothered me. (Some even things that would bother other girls). I actually think he should do more for himself.

So, I can enjoy him being nice. Ahhhhhhhh.....

God's Hand in JB's last day and Afterwards

I am Christian. Not a holy-roller type, pretty mainstream. I go to church and Sunday School most weeks. JB was a particular challenge to me. I know that you are supposed to love your enemies, turn the other cheek, try to reconcile, etc. My preacher said that some people are hard to love....

When she was in the hospital on life support and hubbie was there with her, I was left at home, not by his side where I thought I should be.

(1) The Sunday during that time, when prayer request time came around, I hesitated even mentioning her, because I was conflicted. I wanted her to die. I know that is not the Christian way. Finally I told the class her condition that I was conflicted. Her Dr. had said that there was no hope. But was my wanting her to go off life support because I wanted her gone or because it was the best thing? (I didn't say that much...) My Sunday school teacher then led us in a prayer with the various prayer requests. For JB, she turned that situation over to God.. She prayed that the family make the right decision and for me to deal with the "strained relationship". Not 5 minutes later, hubbie called my cell phone. With medical and pastoral advice, they had decided to remove the life support. To this day, my teacher and I both believe that God had a hand in that decision. The timing was too eerie.

(2)
Then later that afternoon, she died. I was scheduled to give blood that day at my church's annual drive. I knew that she would not last long off of life support, but since hubbie did not want me to go join him, I figured that I had might as well go on doing what I would be doing if the situation did not exist rather than sitting at home waiting for him to call. He called my cell while I was at the blood drive to let me know she had passed away. I was in the waiting area between registration and the couches. In fact, my number got called while I was on the phone with him, but I signaled the next person to go on. I doubt they knew what I was talking about on the phone. It turns out that there was a problem with his donation. His bag got busted and his was unusable. Mine turned out fine. Later, I found out that MIL JB had received blood and that she and I had the same blood type. I always thought that I would not want her to have any of my
blood, but she would not have gotten it anyway, we were in different regions. But I think that at least it is good that I was able to replace in some sort of way what she had needlessly consumed.

(3)
Everyone kept saying that they would pray for me. I felt that I did not need prayers, because I was not upset for her death. I even felt like a hypocrit. I did say "thank-you" to most people rather than "that's ok, we didn't like each other anyway."

It turns out that I did need the prayers. One of my preachers mentioned that often the death of one who you don't get along with is sometimes harder. But really, it wasn't. If you read my initial posts on this blog, you will see that my feelings were pretty neutral -- neither happy nor sad.

But I did have some needs. I did not want to sleep at JB's haunted and nasty house when in her town for the funeral.(you can read posts about that as well...) I did not want to sleep at my Mom's house 40 miles away either. My Mom would be barking judgmental orders and asking nosey questions. I just wasn't in the mood for my Mom. I also didn't want to do the extra driving. So, I told hubbie that I was getting a hotel. He objected. He wanted me to stay with him at his Mom's house or with my Mom or sister. I would have been fine staying with him -- at the hotel, but not at JB's nasty house. I wanted somewhere I cold take a shower that did not have visible mold. I wanted a bed to sleep in that was somewhat clean. Hotels don't always have that either, but I felt my chances were better than that. With him grieving, I couldn't say that to him. But I did have the excuse of that there was only a double bed and he hogs the whole bed in a double bed. He offered to sleep on a sofa.

My best friend from work found out that I needed support. Without question, she called her hubbie. She left straight from work and followed me to hubbie's home town. We stayed in a hotel room together. She stood by my side at the wake and spared me my Mom's criticisms and gave me someone to talk to rather than the Clampett's and the Darling's. (No, that's an insult, the Clampett's and the Darling's are rednecks. ILs are White Trash.)

I feel that she was my guardian angel, sent by God as an answer to all the prayers prayed for me. She enabled me to stay in a comfortable room that at least appeared cleaner and to have some support at the wake. When I called hubbie and told him that friend was coming and we were going to stay in the hotel together, he never objected to the hotel.

In my ladies group at church, we are supposed to keep an angel notebook. I had not had any "angel encounters" to list, until then. To me, my friend that night before the funeral was an angel, sent by God. Everyone agreed. I am still awed at what she did that for me.

Thousands of Dollars in Tupperware

I wrote about going through JB's Tupperware and the smell getting to me.

Now, I am realizing more. There were six bags of Tupperware plus the "hostess kit" which had all kinds of strange gadgets. As I was searching the web for what some of these gadgets might be, I was coming across some of the items and how much they originally cost.

There is at least enough in each bag to have cost $1000 new. And the stuff in the bags is a drop in the bucket compared to what this woman had in Tupperware. She didn't have all the various kinds of eating plates in there. None of the oven stuff or microwave stuff. Really, none of the stuff that I remember seeing. If it was made by Tupperware in the 1980s and 1990s, she had at least one of them. WHY???? Why, for example, did she have not one, but two dill pickle holders in the stuff that hubbie brought home? And how many more did she have.

I can really think of lots of things that she had that would have filled those bags several times over. There were canister sets, baby toys, and all kinds of gadgets and gizmos. I would bet there was $50k in Tupperware in that house, not in value, but in what she spent on it. She had to pay for what she had herself. She also had to pay for the stuff that she had in her kit. Guess that's why she had at least two of a lot of stuff. She had some to take to parties and just as much again to use. Then there is the Tupperware that she gave away during her lifetime.

She also had to pay for all supplies used to sell Tupperware. Including a per item price for the order forms and catalogs. She also had to pay for the "hostess gifts" and door prizes given away at the parties. She had to eat the price herself of Tupperware that did not get paid for by customers.

Most months, she sent them money.

It would not make me mad if this had just been in her estate and she had squandered away hubbie's and SIL's inheritances on it. But during the time she was at the peak of being involved with Tupperware was also the time that hubbie was at the peak of supporting her.
I had once figured over $100K that he gave spent on them for things like the mortgage, cars, major appliances, etc. Now we can add half as much again for it. All the money that she spent on Tupperware, whether her own or hubbie's could have gone towards paying her living expenses and other expenses that she expected my hubbie to pay for her.

Ohhh that smell

There are two things covered in this post. Part of this was posted on the MIL support board, but I have added some information to this, including what comes first, also removed some changes in fact. Sometimes when posting on the support board, I change minor facts that do not change the gist of the story just for disguise. In this case, on the support board, I was talking about boxes and left what was in the boxes kind of generic. The true story is it was Six Large garbage bags full of Tupperware.


But first some back story that will seem totally unrelated until I get to the end of the posting.

I love strawberries and making strawberry pies. Last year when eating strawberries, I noticed I was itching some. I made two strawberry pies yesterday -- one for Mom and one for us. After eating a small piece, I was itching all over. Last year, it was only around my mouth and wrists that I was itching. I ended up taking some benedryl, but it didn't help. I really hope it isn't strawberries.

When hubbie went to help his sister clean his Mom's house out, he called and wanted to know if I knew anyone having any yard sales. There was a lot of extra tupperware that they did not know what to do with. I told him that I did know of a couple charity groups having some. So he came home with SIX large garbage bags full.

My Mom and sister found out about it and they wanted to go through it. I didn't want anything from JB's around because I didn't want anything to remind me. I decided to look through it and see if there was anything that I wanted myself. I had gotten rid of everything that comes from her house because it only reminded me of her, but it seems that not having the stuff doesn't get her off the mind, so what the heck? My friend was coming over yesterday to look through it and see if there was anything I wanted.

I mentioned in a blog post yesterday that when I started going it I smelled the smell of her house. I can't really say what the smell is, but it is it's own. I never thought much of her house having a smell before, until smelling it out of place. Friend, Mom, and sis did not notice any smell when going through the stuff yesterday and today. And when friend was over yesterday going through it, I did not smell anything during that time.

OK, so last night I am itching, thinking that unfortunately it was from the pie.

The hard part came when t I bags in my van today to take to Mom's for Mom and sis to look through. When I left home, the smell hit me again, quickly and unexpectedly. I had sort of forgotten it was back there. But the smell just hit me so that I could not ignore it. The smell emanated the van so much that I didn't think I could get out of the neighborhood. And it even hit me in the stomach to almost making me nauseous. I thought I was going to have to turn around. Luckily, it is a nice day. I opened the passenger side window, the sun roof and the back vents and ran the outside air fans on full blast and got away from most of it. When I got back home, the bags of stuff that they didn't take went out of the van and into the yard immediately. Hubbie got home right after I did and carried them back to his workshop. I left both sliding doors, the sunroof and the hatch open in the yard for a while to air it out. In the garage, I left the side doors and sunroof open a while longer. Smelling it made me feel kind of nauseous. I also started itching again when I was smelling the smell, so I wondered if the itching was because of smelling that tupperware/garbage bag/JB smell instead of the strawberries.

I also have a nauseous feeling and still kind of smell that smell. Now I wonder why I feel nauseous. I used to feel nauseous at her house all the time and I sort of thought it was the stress of being around her. Now I wonder, was the nausea from the stress or from some kind of fumes from the stuff in her house? Or did smelling that smell bring back the feeling and make me feel nauseous again -- was it in my mind?

I ate more strawberries and I am also itching again. Is the itching from the strawberries, from the Tupperware, or from the MIL-related stress? The benedryl didn't work last night. I am getting ready to go take some more.

And now the memory of that smell is ingrained in me and I am smelling it right now, even though the stuff has been taken back to hubbie's workshop until a charity yard sale he is taking the leftovers to.

I am also grinding my teeth again. My physician had recommended that I get counseling because teeth-grinding is often MIL-related. I did not get counseling then, but got counseling later on account of MIL.

Oh and when it goes to the yard sale -- it is going in the bed of the pickup truck. I don't know if I will be transporting it or if hubbie will be. But, if it is me, hubbie will le me drive his precious truck. It's not going back inside my van again.

First MIL-free Mother's Day - NOT!

My first "MIL-free" Mother's day was far from MIL-free. This is because I took some thing from JB's house that my Mom and Sister were interested in to them. And my Mom had to keep talking about her and her family. Mom is way too interested in what is going on with getting rid of JB's house, who is going to do what with it, etc. She also wanted to know all about the grandchildren and great-grandchildren and what they are up to.

I guess I should have told her that I don't want to talk about the in-laws, but maybe it got it out of her system for a while.

Lesson learned today: Cut Mom off at the beginning of any conversation that has anything to do with the in-laws. I had made it a forbidden subject in the past because she always took up for them. But, the things that I am telling her now, there is not even another side to them. She is acting like she has shocked and that she is hearing these things for the first time. (I have been with DH for 23 years!)

The Tupperware

JB was a tupperware dealer at one time. She was obsessed with the stuff.

After giving all away that she could get rid of, Hubbie's sister sent the rest home with him to dontate to our church yard sale for missions. For years, she gave everyone tupperware and her relatives already had lots. A friend of mine wants to look through it before I donate it to see if there is anything she wants.

I long ago got rid of a bunch of my tupperware to keep from having things around that remind me of her. As it turns out, it didn't get her off of my mind. So I was thinking, maybe I should look through it first to see if there is anything in there that I can use. There are SIX LARGE SIZE garbage bags full. I opened the first and started looking through it. It turns out that when I opened it, it smelled like MIL's house. Smelling that smell brought back horrible feelings. So I decided not to try to get any out. I am supposed to let my friend look through it tomorrow and my Mom and sister look through it on Sunday. I am not sure how I will handle it.

That was the first time I have gotten that pit in my stomach since she died.

Mothers Day is Coming

I can say Ahhhh as I remember past Mother's Day horrors and realize that won't be happening this year. I know that I shouldn't have tried to keep hubbie from seeing his Mother. But to me, him seeing his Mother meant (1) She was going to guilt him into buying her stuff and/or giving her money. Expensive stuff. (2) He always came home in a bad mood.

I do feel bad for hubbie this weekend at the same time. My beloved next door neighbor died last December. She had kids my age. Her family was a close one -- one that anyone would wish to be a member of or marry into. I saw her daughter tonight -- also a good friend. She said that this week was going to be the hardest for her with Mother's day coming. Her saying that made me sad for hubbie and what this weekend might mean for him.

Anniversary Date

Today is the 6 year anniversary of being 1/2 in-law free -- free of JB's hubbie.

Hubbie finished a class tonight that was one he had an attitude about and did not like or want to be in.

We celebrated with cake. He was celebrating the end of his class. I was celebrating....

I actually MISSED her last night - sort of

There used to be many times that I would imagine myself calling JB and telling her what I really thought. I never did for several reasons.

First, it would have caused big trouble between hubbie and me. I am sure that she would have immediately called him and tattled on me, possibly embellishing the story a bit to fit it even more to her advantage.

Second, it would not have done any good anyway. She would not have gotten it. She would not have felt sorry for the problems she has caused. It would simply be ammo in her case for going back to hubbie.

But there were many times that I rehearsed what I would say to her "IF" I gave her a piece of my mind. Last night, I was thinking through one of those scenarios. The thought occurred to me, "now I'll never be able to tell her what I really think of her." She's gone. There was a little empty space there. But it's an empty space that I can deal with.

Still another Ahhhh Moment

There was a post on the support board today about upcoming Mother's day.

Since I don't even have kids, I had tried to keep hubbie from realizing when Mother's Day was coming -- not turning the calendar, switching the TV during commercials, throwing out sale papers, etc. I am sure it was all in vain. I am sure that JB made sure he knew anyway.

When hubbie and I first started dating and were first married, he didn't even pay much attention to Mother's Day, but later he did. In fact, the last time that I saw JB may have been Mother's day 2002. Two Mother's Days in a row, I was demanded to go to MIL's instead of to my Mom's for a craptacular that SIL put on at MIL's house.

This year, Ahhhhh.

The Funeral

This is a copy of what I posted to a support group, but something I had been meaning to add to this. It is about attending the funeral. If you read the board, there are a couple embellishments to what was on the board, especially the last paragraph.

When I heard that MIL was sick and "unresponsive", I got excited and almost happy. Three days later when they decided to remove life support, I had less emotion.

As far as the funeral went, I attended the wake an the funeral, and both were pretty much OK.
My only fear was expressing the wrong emotion -- either crying because I get caught up in the moment no matter who died -- or grinning. If I cried, it would appear to be crocodile tears and not what it was since people know we didn't like each other. However, what surprised me was how NEUTRAL I felt about the whole thing, so I managed to keep up the neutrality through the funeral. I stared at the coffin the whole time and thought to myself over and over again "It's all over, she is in there."

One thing that was going around the support board is that wearing red at the funeral is a sign that you don't like the person. I could not find any references to that on the internet, but I did read that it wasn't a proper color to wear :) To the wake, I wore a dark blue dress. Under it I had on Christmas panties that had the words "joy" and "peace" on them (in red). ..And I had on a red bra. The next day, for the funeral, I had the perfect outfit. It was a suit that had a black skirt, a black jacket trimmed in red and a red shell top. Just subtle enough. Wearing mostly black with some red mixed in. At the funeral, I wore the same red bra (I had only worn it a couple hours the night before) and red panties. Oh, and to be sure, I had hubbie pre-approve the outfits when he was home right after the death. I neglected to say that red had any meaning, but I presented several things and steered him towards picking that suit.

Since there has been some amusement from the support board posters about the panties, I may take a photo of part of the material so it can be better described.

My biggest problems with the funeral were sleeping arrangements and my Mom.

I did not want to sleep in MIL's nasty house, I wanted something clean. I did not want to go to my Mom's house, because she is always riding my back to turn the other cheek. I also wanted to avoid my Mom who would be hanging around at the wake and the funeral telling me everything that I did wrong. I reserved a hotel room in town, but DH didn't like it. I had an angel save me. My best friend from work, without question, left straight from work, wen to the wake with me and stayed by my side at the wake and overnight with me at the hotel. She's a keeper! She treats me better than anyone in my family or his and I let her know how special she is. (IL's town is about a 3 hour drive from where I work).

There was a picture posted taken at DH's first wedding. I found it to be amusing that it was there. It was a pose in the front of the church of JB, DH's ex in her wedding gown, and DH's ex-inlaws. DH was not in it. Considering how he feels about her and the wedding, he did not know it was there. My "miss proper" Mom was mad about it being there, but I think it's funny, whether it was there as a dig at me or not. The funniest thing about it to me is that JB was wearing the same dress that she wore to our wedding 5 years later. I had heard that she used the same dress!

JB's family consisted of a son, my hubbie, a daughter, SIL, two grandaughters, a grandson and some great-grandchildren.

They don't like the nephew's wife either. I'll post more about that separately, but she is considered an outcast. Somehow, the two of us ended up sitting together and enjoying each other's company at the post-funeral luncheon. I find her to be a nice and pleasant person. In short, to hear hubbie talk, all of nephew's faults are because of her and all of his successes are in spite of her, but the family has never given her any reason to not want to be around. Sound familiar? I'll put more about her in a separate post.

First JB-Free Holiday(s)

It's Maundy Thursday, tomorrow Good Friday and Sunday Easter. If the phone rings, will I feel the usual holiday weekend panic out of habit?

It's that peaceful ahhhhh feeling again. No summons to rescue JB this time. No emergency that only hubbie can handle.

Buuuutttt....
Hubbie may be sad. First holiday without Mother. JB's hubbie, (hubbie's dad) was in the hospital at Easter 5 years ago. It was the hospitalization leading up to his death. I don't know if hubbie remembers that he was in there over Easter or not. If he does, he'll be doubly sad. I won't remind him and make him sad if he's not already.

On that Easter Sunday when hubbie was with his parents, my dear sweet next door neighbor invited me to join her family for their Easter lunch. It was so sweet. That next door neighbor also died unexpectedly in the past year. I remember thinking when she died how unfair it was that someone like my neighbor had to die when there was so much evil in the world like JB left behind.

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Milestone

Two months today I have been free of JB.

Know what I was doing when she died? I was sitting in line at a blood drive. I thought I should have been with hubbie as he was going through the pain, but I was not wanted there. I had made the blood donation appointment a month before, having no idea that JB was going to fall suddenly ill two days before. I was in the line between checkin and getting stuck. In fact, they called me up next to get stuck while I was on the phone with hubbie. I let the next person go.

Then come to find out that JB had gotten some blood in the hospital and we are the same blood type. How strange is that?

Finally A Little Support from Mom!

My Mom is rarely supportive of my problems dealing with JB. Whenever I would tell her of a problem, she would say something like "well she probably just..... " "I feel sorry for her....." "I'm sure she has it bad...."

I had lunch with Mom and Dad today. They were asking all kinds of questions about what is going to happen to haunted house. Mom admitted that she has never been to JB's house except around the time of my wedding (that would be twice in 1986). I talked to her about the condition of the place. She said several things that indicate that she understands.

First, that with the house in that kind of condition, it is good that hubbie did not spend the money to add the master suite onto the bottom floor that JB was begging for. That it would have been worth the money to get a modular.

I didn't even tell her all of it! I told her about the shower in the kitchen, the plywood insert that replaced the former patio door with a regular door cut out of the plywood, about the funny stairs and the low ceiling, the fixture-less bathroom.

Second, she called it a white elephant after I gave partial description of it, and agreed that it is best that he did not inherit.

We even talked about any possible value to the land. Which now is negligable. Mom thought it might have commercial value. But no, there is some valuable land around there, but it's the land on the highway. She's one lot off of the highway, so it's residential. Dad pointed out that it's also off the end of a runway and next to a train track. Maybe 20 or 30 years from now, it could have some development value, but right now, it's too far off the highway to be valuable commercial, too close to the highway for residential value (notwithstanding the train track and the runway). The land probably is not worth the cost of buldozing the place. They agreed that sitting between commercial property and the runway and the airport is probably not high dollar.

It is less of a feeling of exhaustion to have them agree with me this once. My parents have so often took the other side in JB/FIL issues that it just added to the toll that the whole situation took on me.

(Thank you JB for one thing ... for not burdening my hubbie with that white elephant.)
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Still nice not to think of things

We had severe weather today. I looked at the weather map earlier and saw it was over JB's house. First thought, out of habit "if lightening hits her house and burns it down, I hope she dies in it so she we won' t have to deal with hubbie going to fix her problems or moving her in here with us." Followed closely by hoping the ligntening or a tonrado did get it and her with it.

Then that feeling of relief again. That's another thing that I can get out of the habit of thinking about/worrying about.

Although lightening burning down the house would still be a blessing. There wouldn't be all the hassle of SIL figuring out what to do with it and hubbie having to help her with it. I am SOOOOOO praying that SIL will sell it and get the last remnant out of our lives.

So Nice Not to be Worrying

I sent an email today to someone I know who also has had MIL problems. This girl was physically assaulted by her MIL. I often wished that JB would do something concrete that I could point at so that hubbie could see her true colors. She was too smart and just pulled her passive/aggressive stuff on me.

Now I no longer have to worry or care of hubbie sees her for what she was. Since she's finally dead, it's over. There will be no more trouble out of her.

All I feel when something like this comes up is relief that I don't have to think about it any more.

Another thing I no longer have to worry about

That is JB coming to live with us.

That would not have happened anyway. If she had moved in, it would have been with him, not with us. Her moving in would have been a deal breaker. I would have moved out. Fortunately, we never had the discussion. I think Hubbie knew the answer without one. So, I didn't worry about that one very much, but it was in the back of my mind.

I think that JB wanted it though. She always had a way of making comments about other people's situations that were really Passive Aggressively made out her own situation.

The last time I saw her alive was during the time after FIL died. When I was at her house, she was talking to somebody (I am not sure who) about a "friend" of hers. She said that "her friend" didn't want to move away and leave her home to live with her children in another city, but sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do. Was that said for me to hear? I don't know for sure, but I thought so.

During the Hurricane Isabel incident in my last post (less than six months later), I did worry about it. Hubbie wanted her to come stay for "a few days." I had a fear of the meaning of "a few days." I did not tell him that, I only told him that I would not be there when she was there.

Severe Weather

Earlier, I said that one of the weights off of my shoulder is that I feel that I no longer have to plan for special events six months in advance in order to keep them for my little family. (Hubbie and me only, as we never chose to try to have children)

Another weight off of my shoulders, I don't have to include "what about MIL" in my disaster plan.

I don't mean the disaster of MIL herself, but the weather emergency plan. We live on the East Coast which means Hurricanes. Whenever getting our "kits" together and making plans for "what if", I also had to plan for/against her for my "emergency preparedness" routine. We live about 100 miles inland. JB was about 30 miles inland. The biggest damage is usually closer to the coast than JB unless it's a high category when it hits. (Usually confined to the immediate coastal area.) We were actually hit worse than she was in the time we lived here. One pretty bad one hit the coast South of her but the eye made a straight line from the coast to where we live. She just had a lot of rain, but we had trees down all over town, were on emergency power for a week, etc.

She hasn't had one that bad since before I knew her. Lots of people had trees on houses, we were lucky. Our cul-de-sac was blocked so we couldn't get out until the men cut up and move the tree, and we had water get into our basement, but no trees on the house.

We do have a generator. We had one when it was a geeky thing to have one -- before they were popular. I knew that if anything ever happened at JB's house and not at our house, hubbie would be trying to get that generator to them, even though he says that it's too difficult to get back out of the place where we have it. He'd find a way for them. For a long time, was often looking at generators and wanting to get a second one -- in case ours breaks when we need it he claimed. Yea, right! He was looking at smaller ones. We all know that it was so that if something happened, he'd have one to carry to his parents house to use. I told him no, he didn't need it and he never got a second one. Now, (I think I may test the waters and see if he still wants a second one?)

Whenever a hurricane was approaching Hubbie was worrying about her as much as us! It got much worse after evil FIL passed. When Isabel was approaching the east coast and we did not know where it would hit and thought it would be a bad one, he wanted to go get her and bring her to our house. This happened a few months after JB's evil co-hort, my FIL died. When hubbie said he was thinking about going to go get her and bring her back to our house, I told him that I supposed I could find another place to stay. He said "why can't she come stay here for a few days?" I said "she can, but I won't be here." I don't know if he came up with this idea on his own or if it was prompted by her "poor widow me" game. (It's really 50/50!)

He made the right decision. But it did drive me to drinking the next night. He was out that night at a class or meeting or something. I drink very little -- some champagne on New Years Eve and maybe one or two more drinks during the year, but more than half a drink more during the year is a heavy drinking year for me. If I do have a drink, it's usually wine or a mixed drink, almost never beer. That night, I had TWO BEERS.

When Isabel did hit land, she hit hard, but not in either of our areas. JB just got some rain, if that. It only affected me because I had a business trip to Washington DC (Rockville Maryland, actually) the next week and they were hit almost as hard as we got hit by the one I mentioned getting us earlier earlier.

Any other reasons, do you ask, besides the obvious, did I not want her to come stay for "a few days"? I had the fear that the few days would be the rest of her life.

Two side effects of this. First, whenever it comes time to get our emergency plans together, I am checking out what hotels might be available, (though I have a friend I can probably stay with).

The second side effect of this is that I realized during the approach of the storm how little I really care about my HOUSE. It's an OK house, I'll probably live here the rest of my life, but I'm not so attached to it that I cannot part with it and be happy somewhere else. And unlike hubbie, I at the time, had enough money squirreled away that I could have bought another house. I found myself thinking -- if they want it let them have the damn house, but it will be empty. The two of them can enjoy it together. Most of the furnishings are ones bought from my salary while all of his salary was spent on keeping his family together. Some others were hand-me downs/family pieces. What he had when we got married he left in his single-wide which he gave to his Father to rent out.

I even found myself making an exit plan, thinking about what kind of house I wanted if I had to live by myself, etc. It was the second closest that I ever came to thinking about divorce. All of this was the day after he said something about going to get her.

So, when forced to make a choice, he did choose me. Maybe I should have forced him more often?

As I have said before, Thank God Its Over. All of those agonizing thoughts that I had to go through mostly on my own.

Now, I don't have to include "what about MIL" in my disaster plan. How to get my stuff out of the house and where to go if she comes here. She won't be coming here.

To repeat myself from previous posts, I'm so glad it's over. The weight of the world is gone from my shoulders.

Original Phone Games

It seems that somehow I deleted the original phone game post, so I'll rewrite that story today.


One evening when hubbie and I were arguing over the evil JB and even more evil FIL (who he still does not realize were evil), he accused me of pretending that I didn't hear them when they call. I just accused him of lying. He said, you have answered the phone and said "hello" a few times then hung up. I've called them later the same evening and they would say "Oh, I you got your phone fixed.... we called earlier and your wife couldn't hear us."

Then I started thinking about it. Maybe it wasn't him lying, it was the ILs lying. Sometimes I would get dinner time phone calls where whoever was on the other end didn't say anything. I didn't think too much of it. It did not happen very often. Tape-delayed telemarketer, kid with wrong number? We didn't have caller id so I really didn't know. It was not often enough to get paranoid about it or connect it.

After that whenever the phone would ring and nobody would say anything, I'd treat it as if it was the ILs on the other end doing just that. If hubbie was around, I'd hand him the phone and say "whoever it is won't say anything." If he wasn't around, when he got home, I would say "call your parents." He'd say "why, did they call." I'd say "somebody called, but whoever it was didn't say anything." Funny thing is I think he did start believing me because he did not argue.

Finally a few months later, I got one of those phone calls about 5:30 pm. When hubbie got home, again I told him to call home, that whoever was there didn't say anything. About an hour later, the ILs call (again) to tell hubbie that niece had her baby. I knew that he was talking to them, so I was in the next room yelling at the top of my lunghs "mighty damn funny!!!" over an over again.

After that, he started exclusively communicating with them over the cell phone. The hangup calls at dinner time did slow down a whole lot (a whole lot being from 2 or 3 a month to 2 or 3 a year). There have been hangup calls at other times. I still got paranoid, but kept telling myself that I shouldn't.


The more recent ones were more like they were annoy me rather than tyring to get hold of him. They came at times that he was not going to be home.

But guess what, maybe I should have.
I have not had one hang-up call since before JB died!
And it's coming up on three months.
To quote myself all those years ago, "Mighty Damn Funny!"

Thoughts for Future Posts

I started this because I wanted to get all out. The following are some subjects that I will touch on.

• Going out to eat (in public - gasp!)
  
• Them visiting my home


• Disrespect of plans that we already had
  
• Condition of their kitchen (On Other blog)



• Setups
• Medical Crying Wolf
• Her total envy of me
  
• Seven deadly sins
• Mis-Treatment of niece-in-law (she obviously hates both women who married into the family)
  
• Their blatant and unashamed racism - they are proud to be racist
  
• Them attending a KKK meeting (on other blog)
  
• Using racial slurs against their own biracial great grandchildren (and they got the race wrong on top of it)
  
• "Robbing" my Hubbie to pay my SIL
• Lifestyles after I lost my job in the 1990s - theirs and ours
  
• A couple positives
• Family reunions


• Late night phone calls


• What it was like attending the funeral



• What it was like when she was sick
• JB flipping me the bird (on other blog)
  
• JB making sideways comments about other people which were really comments about me.

The Gifts they have given

These are from JB and her hubbie.

For our wedding:
A cordless iron and 2 folding chairs.
Not nice ones, just ordinary ones.
The cordless iron was the iron itself. You sit it in a base to heat up, then use it then put it back in the base and wait for it to get hot again. (We got both parts, point is, it was AC operated, not battery operated.)

Other times:

A weight watcher's cookbook. At a time when I was about 130 lbs and MIL was about 300 lbs.

Used Tupperware

Items retrieved from her Mother's attic after her Mother died. (This is what she gave everybody, and bragged about it.)

A block of wood that had been painted and had various dollar-store figures superglued to it. There was no scene created, it was pretty random. This is what FIL gave everybody two years in a row (not two years ago, as I posted, he was already underground 2 years ago) (pictures)

A hollowed-out tree stump that had been painted gray with a plant pot in it with some sort of strange vine.

A mail box (really!)

More used Tupperware

Potholders

A photo mug of hubbie's adult niece.

A cookbook from a fundraiser for drug abuse prevention. The strange thing about this cookbook is that the first section was beverages and had quite a few of the alcoholic kind in it.

Flashlights

More About My Feelings About JBs Death -- FREEDOM

I said earlier that I was not sad. But I was not happy either. I was sad for hubbie.

What I feel is a weight off of my shoulders. Relief. Relaxed. The afternoon after having had a nightmare the night before. Like I am breathing fresh air. It's not that I am happy over her death. It's that I now feel free, hence the name of the blog. I am Free of JB, but even more, I am free.

The whole nightmare of the last 23 years seems like just that, a nightmare that I woke up from a little while ago. The whole ordeal of JB seems like something in the distant past.

I feel like my married life is about to start. So many things, that I will discuss in a new post, can be different now. Easier. The gist of it is that I can be more relaxed. I don't have to be sure to make plans ahead of time if I want to get particular dates ahead of MIL getting dates. Before, if I wanted to have July 4, Easter, etc. with hubbie, I had to make plans far ahead of time. Now I am free to take things as they come, free to wait until the last minute to plan, and free to change plans at the last minute.

I feel free to not have to have locks on the closet doors to keep the clan out of what's private when hubbie is hospitalized in case JB and the clan come to my house due to his condition.

75% of the fights hubbie and I have ever had have been over his parents. Now we are free to have our married life on our own -- to succeed and fail at on our own, without the outside inteference.

Haunted House

If you look at pictures of haunted houses, they are generally in disrepair.

I don't think MIL's old house is haunted, but who knows. Really, I would think that MIL's and FIL's spirits would be too lazy to come back and haunt someone.

When I approached MIL's house after she died, I had not been there for 5 years.

Here is what I saw before I entered.

Windows out upstairs -- or maybe you would just call them redneck windows. Formerly clear (but now cloudy) plastic and duct tape upstairs. Many of the existing glass windows are cracked.

Siding in bad shape. Moldy and some of it falling off.

Cinder block steps to one door chipped

Side porch replaced with rickety deck which has a ramp instead of steps. It isn't exactly a handicapped ramp, too steep and not strong enough.

Sliding glass door removed. Replaced with plywood filler with a regular door in it.

Inside:
A shower had been installed in the kitchen. The only privacy for that shower is a shower curtain.

The orange textured carpets had not been cleaned in the 23 years I have been visiting. They were already worn out when I started visiting.

I am told that all of the fixtures were torn out of the upstairs bathroom to fix a plumbing leak and never replaced.

The house was build stupid too. The ceilings are lower than normal. The stairs are bad at the bottom and the top and the steps themselves. At the bottom they deadend to a blank wall with only a couple feet of clearance in front and none to the left. The steps are a little shorter than normal steps so it feels strange going up them. And the top step is even shorter. And of course, the rail is rickety.

The house does not have central heat or AC. There is not any clearance to add duct work -- esp with the low ceilings. An AC window unit was added to one room. To prevent blocking a window, a hole was cut in the side of the house. The hole is bigger than the unit, so the gap was filled in with the plasticy-type spray insulation.

The downstairs is old worn out paneling.

Sister in law is thinking of selling her house and fixing up this house to live in. Hubbie says it's better than his nieces home as well. How bad can their homes be, considering the condition of this one. Frankly, I have a hard time believing that the land that it sits on is worth as much as it would cost to bulldoze the place.

But the point of this blog post is that even though there are not any ghosts hanging around the house, from the outside it can appear to be like a haunted house. Of course, if her broom was still parked in the driveway, it would help the appearance of that!

Emotions, or lack Thereof

JB, the Evil MIL died in early February, which is in my original post. She contributed to the 23 years of my life before that being total hell.

I am normally a very emotional person. I get caught up in the emotion of things, even if I don't share the actual emotion. This includes things like movies and TV shows. I can see a story on TV about someone losing a loved one and I am a mess of tears.

In the months before MIL passed, I experienced the deaths of several people who were not people who were close to me. And I had a hard time not boo-hooing my eyes out.

Then MIL passes. A moment that I had both awaited and dreaded for several years.

I feared my emotional response to it. I feared that if I cried, it would look bad as everyone would find it to be crocodile tears. They would not be tears for the loss of MIL, just tears of being caught up in the moment.

I also feared the opposite response. That I would have to fight to mark the smirk off of my face.

Evil MIL JB has caused me in many ways to not be myself. This was another. When she died, nothing. I did not involuntarily cry or laugh either one. I did experience some emotion when she was sick. Hubbie called me and told me her symptoms before leaving for her bedside. I just knew that this was it. They had to put her on life support after he got there. At that time, I was a bit giddy. But when the time of death, and the festivities afterwards, I was going through the emotions.

It would also not be in my nature to wish somebody dead. But in counseling, I did realize that I knew that the problems would not end until after they were both dead -- for a while.

I did stare at the coffin during the funeral, with the thought in my head, "This is what I have been waiting for. She is actually in there."

Another Phone Game

I just posted about MIL and/or FIL hanging up on me when I answered the phone.

*NOTE: That post disappeared, but I reposted the story on March 30*

I remember one time about 20 years ago having a strange conversation with a secretary at Hubbie's office. This was before voice mail when the secretary answered the phone and gave you a message slip when you did not answer. Hubbie was not in his office very much. He did have a pager that you could call when he was not in his office due to the nature of his work.

I called hubbie's office one day and the secretary picked up. When she asked if she could take a message, I politely declined and said that I would page him. She answered "why didn't you just hang up on me like you usually do?" I don't remember how I responded, but I found it strange.

Now reflecting back on the ILs hanging up when they called the house and hubbie not answering, can we guess why the secretary was hung up on a lot?

Another thing that happened was when hubbie had the pager, he'd get a lot of calls on the pager that were invalid. I don't remember exactly, I believe that they had a bunch of jibberish instead of a valid phone number. Want to guess who made those calls?

No More Telephone Games

This story goes across many years.

Hubbie knows that I don't like the ILs. The thing of that is, he accused me of acting on it when I didn't. He was caught between believing me and believing them.

One of the things that happened was a "telephone game". I did not know this was happening for quite a while.

They always called at dinner time. When, I was closest to the phone so I answered. When he was closest to the phone he answered. As we know, this is a time for many phone calls

Sometimes I would answer the phone and get a hangup call. This only happened every week or two, so I thought very little about it. Just assumed it was a tape that had not yet kicked in or a youngster or other rude person who had the wrong number.

Then during a fight about the IL's, Hubbie accused me of pretending that I didn't hear anybody on the phone whenever they called. At this point I had not added things up yet, I just accused him of lying because I really thought he was making it up. He went on to say, "I have been right in the room with you when you said "hello, hello", acted like you didn't hear anybody. Then my parents would call later in the evening and say "Oh, I see you got your phone fixed." Again, I just accused him of lying.

A few minutes later it occurred to me that the hangup calls must have been them. They hung up when they heard my voice (actually, they stayed on the line -- I did not get dial tones) then they said that I had done that to them.

I knew that telling hubbie what I figured out would do not good, so new stragegy.

Everytime I got a hangup/nobody saying anything call:
if he was home, I'd hand him the phone and say "whoever it is won't say anytying to me."
if he was not home, as soon as he got home I'd say "Call your Mother." He'd ask if she called. I'd say "somebody called and did not say anything." In neither of these cases, did he argue with me. I think maybe he figured it out.

Whenever I did *69, I got a message that they could not trace the call. (They were long distance...)

The next pivitol incident in this chain was the day his niece had a baby -- their great-grandchild. I believe it was their fourth? But this niece was their favorite grandchild. One afternoon, the phone rang at a time that he might have been home but he was working late. I think it rang multiple times that afternoon, I would not testify to being sure to that either way. Anyway, one time or multiple times, the caller said anything, so I told Hubbie when he got home to call his parents. When he asked why, I said because the phone had been ringing with nobody there. A few minutes later the phone rang and he was closest so he answered. I could tell he was talking to his parents. So I started screaming at the top of my lungs "Mighty Damn Funny, Mighty Damn Funny", something he often would say about things that he accused me of doing in relation to them. When he got off the phone, he told me about the baby. He told me what time the baby was born, which was before the first phone call, and he also said that they had been at the hospital at some time and had just gotten home. The "time" he gave of course was before I was called.

But, I do believe that after that he believed me and not them, but he did not tell me that. That was the last time that they called the house to my knowledge. After that (except for one time that I'll blog about later), they only called his Cell.

I also quit getting dinner time hangup calls.

Coincidental?


I have been hung up on the phone since that happened, though. I still suspected that they may be behind it for some stupid immature reason or another. FIL died in 2003. MIL died 2 months ago.

Here is the strange thing. Not one hang-up call, even the less frequent ones I got after the niece giving birth since MIL died?

Coincidence?

The beginning, or The End, Which Is It?

OK, so she is gone. After all these years.

It has been over a month now. I expected to be happy. In truth, I felt no emotion at all.

The biggest emotion that I feel is when people tell me they are sorry. Especially when it's someone from church. I feel so hypocritical. I am fine. Life is going to get better. No reason to feel sorry for me.