The last time I was down in LA, the sister in law cornered me. Her mom used to do this with people. Get them alone and then blast them with venom and hate. Both mother in law and sister in law did this with Blue Eyes regularly. He was an easy target and he never fought back. Remember, for 50 years he had his addiction to smooth the edges.

I did not want to talk to this woman and I tried to avoid her. I failed. Apparently, this time, she wanted to apologize for any “bad blood” between us that might have been caused by her or anything she said to her mother about me and Blue Eyes. I don’t trust her one single little bit. She’s floundering and trying to figure out how to insert herself into the healthy relationships Blue Eyes and my boys are trying to nurture with Grandpa. I don’t want to have anything to do with her. She knows her father doesn’t care for her or her husband and she’s beside herself trying to get in the middle. She no longer has her mother to manipulate and lie to about us. She’s broken and doesn’t want to do any of the work to be a better person. I have zero interest in helping her.

While we were sitting at her parents breakfast table, she was complaining about her grumpy old father. I said that I was sorry that she got such a difficult dad (and honestly, her mother was THE WORST). I have an absolutely amazing step dad who has been a rock in my life for 54 years, and she knows this. My father wasn’t exactly Ward Cleaver (ooh, that TV show is old, even for me), but he treated me well, respected me, and he loved me. I miss him terribly. Well, my bitchy sister in law says to me… “I wish you wouldn’t compare me and my dad with you and your step dad. He’s not my step dad! He adopted me! He didn’t want me to have to go back and forth, or come from a broken home, so he insisted on adopting me.” Delusional much??? Also I didn’t say anything about my fathers, but why not just use one of her mother’s favorite jabs… how I came from a “broken home.” I just looked at her and said, “it’s not just you, Blue Eyes has the same shitty dad. This isn’t about me and you.” She then looked at me and said, “maybe my mom lied to me about all that.” Which was a weird and sudden about face? These people are so tiring.

She knows her mom lied to her. The truth is (from multiple sources) my mother in law got pregnant at 16. The families forced their children to get married. The baby was born 2 1/2 months premature at 2 lbs. 11 oz. and barely survived. The marriage didn’t work out. Mother in law’s parents “bought off” the teenage father with a new car and $5000 and that was a lot of money in 1957. He signed his name on documents that said he would NEVER contact them again. And he didn’t. The baby was raised by her grandparents for the first 4+ years of her life, then ripped away from her grandparents and taken to another state to live with her narcissistic mother and her new adoptive father, who according to him, didn’t even like her as a child. He says she was a bad seed. 😳 Adopting her child was a prerequisite to marriage for mother in law.

All this got me thinking about this concept of a broken home and how different me and my sister in law are. Apparently she came from a “not broken home,” and she wants to somehow use this against me. The fact is, I have an amazing step dad. He was with me every day that I wasn’t with my dad, since I was 6 years old. He’s still with me, 23 years into his battle with prostate cancer. I wouldn’t trade him for anyone and I believe he knows this. I remind him as often as I can, and I’ll remind him again next week when we’re together in Hawaii. During some of the most difficult times with Blue Eyes’ parents, especially his father, my step dad took Blue Eyes under his wing. He cried for the pain that a father could inflict on a son. He told Blue Eyes that he was his father now, that his own father didn’t deserve him. Even after discovery, my mom and step dad embraced Blue Eyes and told him they believed in him.

This is what made me who I am. Parents who treated me with respect and love and modeled honesty and integrity. This is what made me.

Sister in law has been texting Blue Eyes all day asking him why her father is being mean to her. She has also subtlety tried to throw Blue Eyes under the bus in an email to her father. Old habits die hard and all that, but Grandpa is on to her and apparently always has been. Blue Eyes is starting to build up a wall to protect himself. I’m hoping he tells her not to contact him during our trip to Hawaii. I’m so over this shit!