2 Year Anniversary

Two years ago today I became MIL-free.

While I always feared how my Hubbie would handle losing her (he was dedicated to mommy), he has done remarkably well. Only a couple times have I seen behaviors out of him that seemed related to that.

Our marriage is SO much better now. All of the MAJOR problems we have ever had were in-law related.

Now, I feel that instead of always "watching my back" I "look forward" to life. Before, if a holiday, vacation, etc was coming (even bad weather events), I had to have a Plan B for how to keep MIL from causing a problem. Now, I just look forward. Hubbie and I make our own plans and go forward with them. It's so nice.

Oh, and I got the freedom 25 years before I ever expected it. She has centenarians in her family tree. She was "only" 75 when she died. I expected at least 10-20 more years if not more of putting up with her. The last two years of my life have been so much better than the 22 years before that.

Hubbie is out of town tonight. I celebrated by watching The Wizard Of Oz on Video Tape (I'm going to make a DVD this weekend).

Had the Internet existed when I first got married, I believe that I would have had better tools to handle the situation rather than setting bad precedents of bending over backwards. The net is such a great resource of information and support groups. Instead, I muddled through on my own for the first ten years, thinking I was alone.

I don't mean to rub it in. I look forward to each and everyone of you sisters and brothers finding "in-law relief" in whatever way you are able to get it -- agreement with hubbie/wife, of a cutoff, MIL coming around (rare, but it has happened), or whatever else it takes for each of you to get peace.

GMIL Passed Away Last Weekend

This brought up a lot of stuff.

Firstly, the mother of Evil JB's husband, Evil EJ died at the age 0f 98 last Saturday night. She was one of the few people in the family that I liked. But because of Evil JB, I lost ten years of her.

GMIL, I'll Call her AB, was a generous person with a funny sense of humor. She was a bit salty and would tell people what she thought.

I wanted several times since cutting off Evil JB to go and see her. Unfortunately, hubbie made going to see Evil EJ a condition of visiting their home town. Thinking back, I probably should have taken initiative to go by myself and visit her then drive over to my parent's house from her.

When she first died, I was still paying the price of the cut off. Hubbie at first acted like he did not want me to go with him to the funeral and visitation. Which was difficult since he had accused me of only going down there for funerals. Yes, that is what the last three visits have been, Evil EJ's funeral, then Evil JB's funeral and now Nice AB's funeral. I would not have gone to Evil EJ's funeral if I could have gotten out of it.

I had expected GMIL to pass away before evil JB and I dreaded it because I thought that I would be pushed into attending the funeral and that I would have to be around Evil JB. Instead, it happened after Evil JB's death, and I was not dreading going, but at first DH pushed me away The first day, Sunday, he said that I did not need to attend the visitation Monday night and that I could attend the funeral Tuesday if I wanted to. He mentioned me having to get someone to cover for me at work. I told him that work would not be a problem.

I did want to go. But I did not want to try to stay at anyone's house. I sort of feared that he would want to open up Evil JB's nasty house and stay there.

The other thing that I feared is my overzealous and over-protocol conscious Mom being there telling me what to do and telling me what I was doing wrong. When Evil JB was living, I had planned to not tell Mom when GMIL died. For some reason, it did not occur to me (until later) that this was still a possibility.

The way that he was acting, I was unsure whether or not to go. I wanted to go. But I wanted to do what HE wanted. And I could not tell what he was really feeling and what he was hiding behind his he-man shell. Talked to a friend and she pointed out that I could not undo NOT going and that I should go. So I decided that was what I would do.

Fast forward to Monday. Hubbie, before leaving to go to work then to home town told me that I could go that night if I wanted to and when and where it would be. (I could not actually go with him because he had rented a car for a business trip which he was leaving for directly from funeral. That was part of what complicated this.)

So that was my final decision to go although I had decided after talking to friend that I would go. I decided that I was going to stay in a hotel. I send emails to cover my usual Tuesday on-call shift. Went downstairs to talk to other friend. She thirded my decision to go to both funeral and visitation. I was thinking that I needed to leave at noon so I could buy new dresses to wear. Until my friend pointed out that I did not have to tell my Mother. So I didn't. Solved the dress problem too. Had a dress that was OK based on the redneck aspect of the family, but would not be OK based on the nose in the air of my Mother. And I could use the same dress for both.

Oh yes, I wasn't going to tell her before Evil JB died, why should have to tell uptight Mother now?

So I could leave at 2:00, pack and go. Next thing: Hotel. Found the hotel online that I wanted to stay at. Started to make reservation. But there was no cancellation allowed. There were rooms available of all types so I said, OK, they will have rooms available at walk-in.

Fast forward again, to lunch time. Hubbie is getting nicer and more relaxed. He is starting to realize that I only wanted to be supportive of him. He was getting ready to leave. I told him that I was going to leave in a couple hours. He asked if I was going to stay with him. I told him that I was getting a hotel room and I would stay with him if he stayed with me. He asked what hotel. I told him. He said what about other hotel where he has frequent traveller program. I was shocked. But said that was fine if he set it up. He said OK. There was such a weight off. When he got there he called and said he had a room and for me to call when I got to the area.

So I get there and he meets me at the hotel. So far so good.

VISITATION
For the visitation, He wants to go casual instead of dressed up for wake. It's his Grandmother, so that's fine. We went casual. There were people there dressed from one extreme to the other. Just glad my Mom wasn't there to not see me in a dress!!! Good decision to not invite my Mom.

Hubbie wanted to eat afterwards. I had already eaten but told him I could go anywhere he wanted and I could get some dessert. He was suspicious until I followed through.

His family was OK to me and I managed to not to say much about his family, but only to talk about his Grandmother who I liked.


THE SERVICE
So the funeral, it went OK too.
There were a lot of good memories of GMIL, and a lot of tears. GMIL had a cute sense of humor and some of her funny remarks were repeated, and I could hear her saying just those things. She was also very generous that was mentioned as well. This contrasts with MIL's funeral which the service was generic, with very few memories presented, and no tears.

BEING BACK IN Hubbie's HOME TOWN
I used to go to Hubbie's hometown a lot as when growing up it was near where my own Dear Maternal Grandma lived, and had previous good memories of it. But after the problems with Evil JB started, I got a feeling of dread when visiting there. This is my first trip there since Eveil JB's funeral. Her funeral was tense for me because I wasn't sure how it would be.

This trip -- the one to GMIL's funeral was the first time I have been to that town in over 20 years that I entered that city without a feeling of dread, that I was relaxed instead. This includes a trip where I was driving THROUGH her city to another city with a friend of mine. When I was close to driving by her house, that time I got butterflies in my stomach. And I KNEW that time I that wasn't going to see evil JB. No more!!! Now I can freely go back to the city without a feeling of dread.

I'M GONNA GET IT
As I said own Mom is very formal and a what you should do type person. As I said earlier, I have not told my Mom that GMIL passed. I did not need the stress of her to add to what I thought I would have (but ended up not having after Monday) The advice from friend is to just mention whenever Mom mentions GMIL again to say that she died a long time ago. My Mom will be angry that I didn't tell her so she could go to the funeral and make the proper appearance. I'll deal with that when I have to deal with it. Hubbie never mentioned my Mom through this so he probably has not thought about whether or not she was informed. I later mentioned to Hubbie that I was going to be in trouble for not telling Mom. He asked why and I told him that she would think that she should have been told, that she would have attended had she known, and that she will be angry for not having been told. He said "well, don't tell her then." I mentioned that given GMIL's age, Mom would figure it out sooner or later. But since in-laws are a forbidden topic with Mom, it could be quite a while. At which point, I can say that she passed a long time ago.

CONCLUSION
I think the whole two days did something to bring some of the lost trust back between us. Maybe even a new start for us. Once there, and he saw that I was going to just be myself, he seemed happy that I was there.

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.

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.

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.

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.....

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.

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.

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.