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#1 Should I go to Grandma's
funeral? / Should I keep rewarding/empowering abusive family? |
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Dear Annie: My grandmother is in poor health and is not expected to live much longer. Grandma never liked my mother, and consequently, is not close to me. When my parents married, Grandma selected the photographs for the wedding album, and not one picture included my mother. Can you image the effort involved to do such a thing? I always feel like a stranger when I see her side of the family. When I married three years ago, I was hurt that two of my paternal
aunts not only didn’t attend the wedding, but did not even send a card to
wish me well. When I told them how I felt, they repeated it to my
grandmother, who in turn said some rather nasty things to me. I have not
seen or talked to her side of the family since.
When Grandma passes away must I go to her funeral? I love my father
very much and realize I should have been there for him, but I have
tremendous resentment towards his family. Tell me what to do. Dear Ohio: Go to the funeral, not only because it is the classy thing to do, but because it would mean a lot to your father. You don’t have to speak to the relatives you dislike. Pay your respects, and then leave. You won’t regret it. —ANNIE Gabby's Reply [ top ]
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Gabby's Reply:
Dear Fractured: Whenever there is a conflict between two there is always a third party who is fomenting it, quite often silently; most always they are unaware that they are doing so, covertly, through their highly developed, extremely powerful, non verbal leadership communication skills. This person most always pretends to be an ally. That is to say, the friction couldn’t take place if, say, your father had said to his mother a long time ago, "Either you treat my wife and child lovingly or I won’t be in communication with you till you do." Most always the seemingly "innocent" third party (in this case your dad) unconsciously sides with one of the adversaries (your grandmother) and is supporting her in treating you abusively rather than put himself on the line by saying, "Clean it up Mom or I’ll shun you to till you do—for life if that’s what it takes." You actually have more than one third party. Your "paternal aunts" are also addicted to gossiping abuse. Notice the result they produced by telling your grandmother what you said, knowing full well she doesn't like you. Communicating so as to get another in trouble is both unethical and abusive, it's called sabotage. You have inherited a problem that your father refused to solve with finality. It appears that your father went against his mother’s wishes (marrying your mom) and you are suffering for it. If he did it because his family's line, that lineage, was in fact so unethical or so damaged as to be considered incurable then you should know. On the other hand, if your grandmother knows something you don’t and he disrespected her, then he invalidated and thwarted his own mother, for which there is a lifetime of consequences. Keep in mind, in terms of leadership he is the one who turned his own mother against his daughter. The problem for you is that you don’t know if grandmother’s reasons have to do with a legal, ethical, or moral issue, or, if her reasons are based upon meanness, prejudice, or bigotry. Perhaps she’s simply a control freak that needs to be gotten out from under. Because you don’t know the source of the friction between them you have yet to make an intelligent conscious choice as to whom to play with in life. In my day bigoted, biased, or prejudiced parents would often try to thwart their child's mixed marriage (social, religious or racial) and so familial disobedience was a courageous act of integrity; it's based upon the fact that interacting with (rewarding/empowering) bigots or criminals begets a lifetime of messy problems.You say, ". . .nasty things. . ." but not whether they were true. I'm concerned that you can't see that your husband has allowed/supported his mother in treating you with such contempt and disrespect? This is not love. You ask for advice. This is your opportunity to estrange yourself from your entire family, all of whom are clearly addicted to abuse, and start a new lineage. That, or continue to teach your children to relate as only you know how. Even in this letter you have unconsciously taken sides with one of the adversaries (your father), whereas they all need an equal amount of therapy. There is a way for you to give all concerned an ultimatum to fulfill whatever requirements you desire for them to be able to continue to be in communication with you. For example: To each you would say,
So far, with your present support* skills, it looks like they are heading towards their graves as blaming adversaries. Goodness knows to what extent a part of your grandmother’s illness has to do with her integrity, and in fact the collective integrity of the family. Her abuse towards you has undesirable consequences.** The sad part is you also have become infected and you will continue to damage your children. Your task is to model for them how to extract oneself from an abusive relationship, else, eventually, they too will be writing to an advice columnist. —Gabby* Each of us have the exact same amount of support skills. Some use their leadership-support skills to thwart and to ensure mediocrity, others use theirs to uplift and forward others. ** When a person of integrity is rude to another it bothers them and so they then clean up the incident through to mutual satisfaction. When a person refuses to clean up an abusive communication they go unconscious so as to not have to accept responsibility for having caused the friction. They keep communicating abusively unconsciously hoping some will be sharp enough to support them in cleaning it up. Eventually they have so many incompletes (out-integrities) that it begins to cost them their aliveness (no joy and happiness) —eventually it begins to effect their health; it could be that your grandmother's "poor" health began with abuse number one which she has yet to acknowledge or clean up. Show these communications to everyone. [ top ]
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