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.