waitingforenough-blog

[waitingforenough-blog]

I have a lot of things to talk about. Right now my family and I are dependent on the finances of my mother and mother-in-law. I have a government assisted loan for school years, but nothing on the off time. We are going to apply for social assistance while my husband looks for more suitable work. He has been looking for two years now and it has not been easy. I have disability status due to my anxiety, panic, and agoraphobia. I’m learning to control the body dismorphic disorder better, and my agoraphobia will diminish when we move within my “safe zones”.

I want independence and so does my husband. At least his mother is very kind about it and generous when she is able to be, despite her being on a pension. We are so very grateful. My mother is generous as well... but... it all comes with a price. It’s not so much that she simply wants help around the house, but she wants it exactly at the time she wants it. We are willing to do the chores around the house, but not immediately because our daughter takes precedence in care. She is just a toddler. She asks for things and sometimes demands it. She makes suggestions like: “You should toilet train her.” I would express my desire to do so. Then she will say, “Just keep her confined to the washroom so she doesn’t pee on the floors. It will depreciate the value of the home.” or she says that all my husband does is play video games. Which is not true. Yes he spends a lot of his free time playing video games, but he is also being a stay at home husband while he sends out resumes, answers job ads, etc... He is the one who cares for our daughter during the day, cooks and cleans, then at night so I can get sleep, he tends to her bed wetting, and anything else she needs because school is hard on me, especially since the distance to my school takes a physical toll on me to get to. Whenever my mother sees him playing video games, it is when she gets home at the same time as I do, I take over our daughter’s care so that my husband can have a break to do something leisurely. After all, he has been spending all his day reading to her, teaching her about colours, alphabets, manners, etc... I am working hard on my education so that I can help provide my part in the future. My mother sees that, but she accuses him of not contributing. I’ve been defending him and she makes comments that he is “slow” or “not smart” or “rude”. He actually is none of those things, it is just she has a different cultural standard of manners. In her culture the potential male who woos a family’s daughter is required to provide services, money, and gifts to the daughter's family during the courting period and afterwards. It is the duty of his parents as well to pay for those things too. I don’t think that is a very fair way to live.

Our families have never met. I am afraid of it happening. I know that his mother will be charming, his siblings not so much, but it is more my mother who will make racial slurs behind their back, classist, and other prejudice comments. I love my mother-in-law, she isn’t perfect, she smokes, drinks, and swears a bit, but she is a sweet woman that doesn’t deserve unkind words like that behind her back.

My mother hides this side of her from many people. She even hides some other parts from my brother which is disturbing. It is like all her rage, comments, and disdain is saved for myself.

I wish I didn’t need her help. I am hoping more distance will help and therapy will help me gain some stability in the future. I don’t want our daughter to grow up hearing all the hateful things she says towards people. How she speaks to my daughter dropping hints like “Maybe you should tell your mommy/daddy to do ___whatever__.” She says it in a cute voice to her too. She will talk down to my husband constantly like he is an idiot. It takes a toll on his self esteem.

We finally had a big blow out and throughout the whole thing she constantly yells at him saying he should be nice to her. He couldn’t take it anymore, he especially told her to stop treating me terribly too. This whole final straw was the result of my mother saying that it was important for a door to stay open as not to collect mold, even though we explained that it was too dangerous because my daughter’s fingers would get caught when she plays around near the door, as much as we chase after her things can happen in a split second with toddlers. Also that the door couldn’t stay open otherwise the basement door, where we are staying, wouldn’t be able to be opened. I argued mostly for my daughter’s safety, she argued for the depreciation value and inconvenience of regularly cleaning out whatever may collect mold.

Whenever I asked her for help by going to therapy with me, or even just reading material on how to understand what I am going through. Things like brochures about mental health, she always says “I don’t need that.” or says “Just try not to be like that.” or “I hope you are not going to turn out like __insert person from my dad’s side of the family here__.”

My husband is experiencing health issues that we have been trying to get diagnosed for years. Through all the years of tests, she blames him for his own health deterioration, even though he exercises, lifts weights, despite the excruciating pain he feels constantly. She always makes comments about our eating habits. If we eat healthy she even picks on how much my husband eats. He is nearly 6 feet tall and muscular. She complains he eats too much, despite how lean he is and that he should eat only what he needs to stay alive and healthy, not for the sake of exercising and strength. She says the same for me. I’ve been gaining weight on and off for several years. Many of it is because of medications. It never helps my self esteem. She tries to control what we eat through groceries too. Then, when we buy groceries ourselves to get the things we NEED for our diets, we get accused of spending unnecessarily. She believes we should only eat meat twice a week because HER stomach can’t handle it. (I know it doesn’t make much sense.)

To everyone else she is this wonderful person. I even talk to people about her like that, except a few friends who are experiencing similar parental issues in their adult years. My mother doesn’t change her way of thinking or acceptance of issues unless it comes from one of my cousins or her siblings, sometimes my brother. If I make a comment, it doesn’t count. I found out recently that all the things my husband accused her of (which is true) she complained that her coworkers and her bosses have pulled her aside for her attitude and lack of tact as well. She mentioned that people needed to learn to “live with it” because it’s just “how I talk.”

For years I have been gentle about it, but it goes in one ear and out the other. She goes on about saying things she hates about Trump and what he says, but in a few days she will state her opinion on something, which is exactly one of the things Trump has expressed. It’s like she is siding away from him for the sake of being part of the crowd.

I’m not sure how much I can take. After years of being left for my grandparents to raise, being forced to spend weekends with an alcoholic father (because of divorce), being locked in a closet for discipline as a child, being locked in a room for a full day until my handwriting improved because I got a “B” in handwriting when I was 10, being hit in the face when no one (even my little brother) and having to cover it up with makeup, being pulled by the hair and dragged for disobedience, belittled for unreasonable grades (despite passing), asking why my _insert body part here_ looks a certain way, not being allowed to shave/wax/pluck during puberty, not being taught how to self groom as a child to teen but automatically be expected to know how, having a religion that is “wrong”, being told how “miscarriage can be a blessing” when talking about other people WHILE I am pregnant, shrugging off an accomplishment of getting into the best school in our country, accusing my daughter of being slow, etc...

I’m not sure how much else I can handle. I’ve tried even to kill myself during pre-teen and teen years because of the despair I felt. Especially when I made comments to friends about how I was treated at home which I assumed was normal for all kids, but found out it wasn’t. I always felt so depressed after puberty and I tried to express my problems to people and my mother, all I got was “Don’t be like that.” When I had other friends who were going through their own mental health issues, I felt like I was “unworthy” of saying anything else about my problems, because they were having it worse.

I had friends that turned against me when I had enough of them making fun of me for being one of the first in our group to have a boyfriend. I snapped back at someone to stop it. They all began to excommunicate me for defending myself. It turned into cyber-bullying all the way into my 30s. I’m hoping it has stopped now. 

I know the answer is to cut myself off. My psychiatrist has made that a possibility to me that may have to happen if boundaries are not working with my mother. I’ve been through a lot.

My husband and I haven’t had a perfect marriage. He has had his affairs because of sexual addictions. He has been a year sober from it. With much difficulty, but he is keeping himself in check and reminding himself of everything he will lose if he continues. He actually seems happier. Remorseful, but happier for it. He actually seems proud of himself.

I have had my own affair once, but he was approving of me having experiences in order to know if I really did want to be with him, he just didn’t approve of the person.

We’ve been through homelessness, deaths, job losses, educational problems, mental issues, financial problems, etc... Even some things that don’t even make any sense. We have conquered so much and I feel like my mother is trying to divide us. I hate how she thinks that anyone who doesn’t have a desk or management job is worthless. She still believes a man should be the only one providing for a family. She accuses Chinese people of being a large problem in society, which hurts since her children were fathered by a part Chinese man. Also because her most recent former long term relationship had an affair with someone Chinese, which broke up the relationship. I feel it is unreasonable to blame an ethnicity over the demise of her relationship (which for various reasons was not healthy to begin with) and for economic and social problems in the world.

I can’t keep having my two year old around such hate, language, prejudice, and double faced actions.

I am feeling so much guilt planning on separating ourselves, or even writing a plan on how to distance ourselves from her. It was easier to break free from an abusive father, but this is more difficult, when I have spent so many years wanting her approval, realizing I will never have it unless it is on her terms. From career, to education, to spouse choice, even to specific cleaning habits (like having a correct way of arranging a kitchen counter top).

I just want to have a happy life with my husband and daughter, I don’t want to constantly fear my mother. I don’t want to live with the pain of everything that comes with her wrath, opinions, and accusations. I especially can’t come out openly and feel the frustration of no one believing me, because of the front she puts towards all other relatives and friends. I want to concentrate on the problems and issues in my own family without her “i told you so”s and her pressures.

I love my family. We don’t deserve her treatment. I thought I did at one point, but my daughter doesn’t deserve to be manipulated. My husband hasn’t done anything to her other than that one final argument. I don’t know what I truly deserve, but I just feel so drained.

I want to concentrate on coping skills, getting well, school, my family, and things that make us happy.