Hi Eric

I’m glad your date went well! Stand up with adult jokes sounds wonderful. I’m glad she managed to make time for it.

It doesn’t sound like you made a mistake giving the gift of letters and pictures before Valentine’s Day. It is a very sweet and thoughtful gift. Perhaps her comment could be to do with it’s not Valentine’s Day yet, so she wasn’t expecting a gift? It’s not really a bad thing.

It’s good that you remembered that she isn’t comfortable expressing her feelings around other people. Perhaps this is why her reaction was normal? Your plan to exchange gifts in a private setting sounds like a good one.

I think the bonus of getting the letters and pictures early is that it can take time to read and look through them all. It’s a nice way to set the emotional frame up for Valentine’s Day.

Hi Tee

Thank you for your explanation and for your time. I know that we haven’t communicated much but I value your opinion as you often give members excellent feedback. I appreciate that you tried to reach out when I left. I noticed your message when I returned, but I didn’t reply because I thought Anita would be bothered if the thread was active.

Your explanation makes sense. I can see now that Anita was sharing an overview of her thought process. That makes it less painful.

I find objective third party opinions very helpful, I often ask friends how they perceive situations. There is not only one way to see things, my experience is only one small part of a larger whole. My experience is subject to change as my understanding does.

Please feel free to share your thoughts about the conflict.

I know that I wish Anita had discussed her feelings outside of a time when I was feeling very hurt and defensive. It’s not really conducive for a calm and empathetic conversation. I wasn’t able to be present for that conversation in the way that I wanted to be.

Hi Csihdu

It’s good to hear that you are both in therapy. Ideally, if your partner were emotionally ready to do so, that is what would happen.

However, it sounds like he has a lot of difficulty standing up to abusive behaviour. He may be afraid of rejection himself.

The reality of such situations, is that my mother chose not to have contact with both myself and my husband purely because she refused to get past her own issues.

Ceasing contact with his family is something that emotionally he might not be ready for. This is something that people have to choose for themselves.

I know it hurts that he allows and chooses to participate in this behaviour. Who knows, in time with therapy his behaviour might change.

I’m glad that otherwise your relationship with your partner is pretty good.

It might be helpful to discuss how you plan to manage celebrations because him doing everything with his family and shutting you out completely is unfair. You might want to discuss him talking about his experiences with his family if you find it upsetting.

My sister is still in contact with our mother and I have a good relationship with my sister. We have an arrangement that she does some celebrations with us and some with our mother. To make it fair. I also asked her not to discuss time spent with our mother. This makes me feel more comfortable.

Wishing you all the best 🙏

Hi Norit

I’m deeply sorry for your father’s passing, as well as for the situation you and your brother are in with your mother. It is very tricky indeed.

Realistically, what can you both do but try and help support each other through this? Your mother will not live forever. What alternative is there? She will have no quality of life left to her own devices.

It’s going to be important for you both to schedule time for yourselves outside of any caring responsibilities.

It’s unfortunately that planning how to deal with all of these changes in responsibilities is interfering with your grieving process.

It’s understandable not to want to be thrown back into this deeply unpleasant situation but sometimes we have to do things that we don’t want to do simply because it is the right thing to do.

Hi Lori

Thank you for taking the time to handle this situation. I know you’re a busy woman, you have a family and a business to run. Your feedback and openness to feedback is much appreciated.

Wishing you all the best 🙏

I cannot even fathom a positive reason why anyone would say something like this.

In your Buddhism Journal thread, you shared: “My mother was fond of suffocation and drowning. I practiced free diving breathing techniques to survive this. I was scared of dying in this violent way“- when I read these two sentences  yesterday morning, it was news to me and I was very surprised that I failed to read it earlier. At first, when I read this, I  “heard” myself  asking you incredulously: did it REALLY happen? I was surprised that you didn’t share such a severe traumatic detail in an original post on your first or second thread.

Not that it doesn’t happen that mothers drown their children. Very recent news, 5 minutes ago, Friday Sept 16, 2022, abc 7, ny. com: “The mother accused of drowning her three children off a Coney Island beach was arraigned on murder charges Friday from her hospital bed at NYU Langone, where she is receiving psychiatric attention. Erin Merdy, 30, is charged with one count of first-degree murder and three counts each of second-degree murder, both with depraved indifference to human life and murder with victim under 11 years old, in connection with the deaths of 7-year-old Zachery Merdy, 4-year-old Liliana Stephens-Merdy, and 3-month-old Oliver Bondarev. According to the criminal complaint, Merdy was caught on surveillance camera walking toward the ocean with the children just before 1 a.m. Monday. About two hours later, police observed a ‘barefoot and wet’ Merdy on the boardwalk by the beach. At about 4:20 a.m., police found Zachary Merdy and Liliana Stephens-Merdy ‘lying on the shoreline unresponsive, wet and with sand on their bodies’”.

From the news yesterday “Merdy had at least two reports of neglect filed against her with the city Administration for Children’s Services for failing to bring the kids to school… (one of the children’s fathers) told the New York Times his son was often dirty and hungry when he showed up for mandated custody visits. He told the outlet he reported the mom to ‘child protective services’ and attempted to get full custody of their son, to no avail. It’s not clear to which agency the father reported the mother.”

And of course, there is the infamous Andrea Yates from Huston, Texas who drowned her five children in the bathtub of their home back in June 2001.