My ex’s mother, my children’s grandmother, has had a fall at home and broken various bones. She is in her 80’s and in hospital. News of this came to me via my children, my ex didn’t think to tell me. After listening to the circumstances and being filled in on how his father only let him know 5 days after it happened, after I express my sorrow at the whole thing, I reminded him that I still considered her family, as the grandmother to our children I should have heard it from him.
Today, I am being mental railroaded by thoughts of her, my mind is dominated by her and my feeling are predominately that of sadness and sorrow.
Since, I ended my relationship with her son, and I figured she probably hated me. But today I am wondering about that. Does she understand the struggles I had because she had them with her husband? She compromised, she put her husband first; before her boys, she let her husband believe he was the king in his own home. I passionately believed he gaslighted her, where else would my husband have learnt how?
Before I meet her, my boyfriend (we were not married yet), told me of her growing up on a remote area of mainly farmland, her father was a teacher, she was an only child. She was highly educated, she went to university, got a post-graduate degree. Sometime in the 1950, she went to a top American university and started a PhD. I was awed. Here was a woman, born in the 1930’s, doing thing that many women around her were not doing, going against tradition, breaking boundaries and pushing through the glass ceiling. I expected to get to know a strong, fearless, imposing and powerful woman. I was shocked to see a woman, diminished, subservient, passionless, and emotionless. She still had a strength about her though, a tenacity that had clearly saw her through her life and her struggles. As I watched her, I saw what had changed her so.
I am struggling to recall what I knew about my father-in-law back then. I knew he had been made redundant at about 50 years of age, and had not got another job after that, he focused on getting the maximum out of his investments, making them grow by dealing in stocks and share, gaining interest from the money that he ‘loaned’ his children, he brought rare stamps, he wrote articles about them for his philatelist society. I knew my boyfriend feared him and that I should be afraid of him too.
I said little when I was around them, I preferred to watch and listen, I grew to dislike my father-in-law intensely. I was nowhere near as frightened of him as I thought I would be. He is a spoilt little boy, a malignant narcissist, hated and persecuted by his mother for not being a girl and probably spoilt by his father as compensation. I had a grounding of hate toward him for mentally abusing my husband, but in recent years, I have detested him for what he did to my mother-in-law, the power he must have felt he needed was only attainable by destroying a formidable woman, and molding her into the mother he wished he had had. Yes, I saw how she nurtured and mothered him, I saw his jealously if he had to share her with anyone else (including his sons) for more than a couple of days. We had gone to stay with them a few times and after a couple of days his behavior would become demanding and impatient, tantrum could not be kept at bay for much longer. He would sit at the meal table to wind his son up and laugh at my husbands’ distress. I would watch it time and time again, tell my husband what he was doing, it changed nothing, to challenge it was not OK, it would be taken out on his mother, she had suffered enough.
I stood up to him once, told him to his face he was a cantankerous pig, the only thing it did was confirm his hatred for me and meant I spoke to him a little as possible thereafter. However, I know that I gained a considerable amount of respect from my mothers-in-law’s friends for standing up to him, something none of them would do.
When my mother-in-law had a fall a few years ago, she broke an arm, her mobility decreased, and he became more controlling. She had always called us when he was out; had gone to the big city for a day or so, gone to his stamp collecting meetings, or club. The call became less frequent after her fall. The frequency of her coming to stay with us for a few days every few months reduced and stopped. But as she got more frail, more forgetful, he became more controlling, not letting us speak to her if we called, she was always ‘busy’.
Now they have moved back to the country of her birth. I believe because she wanted to die among her own people. She once told me, “I love this county, it welcomed with open arms, and I have some wonderful friends here. But they are not my people, and this is not my country.” So it was not a surprise, shortly after one of her childhood friends passed away, we heard that they were moving back. I was glad, she would have more support there from lifelong friends and her family, her husband would have less control. But now with another fall, this time breaking a leg, I have no doubt her mobility will reduce further, I fear she will be wheelchair bound, I fear her husband will have complete control, I fear she will lose the will to survive.
I want to tell her how much I admire her, how much I understand the sacrifices she made, how I will tell my children what a strong admirable woman she is. I want to get a message to her to tell her this, but any message sent via her husband will be not get through. I spent some time trying to trace one of her relatives, but it was fruitless. I am left feeling bereft and powerless, but have a sense that there is still a door to be open that I haven’t found yet and that I know she will gain comfort from being surrounded by people who love her (I exclude her husband from that group).
Daizy Frazer 