Dear MonaD:

Most of the time it takes two individuals to bring about a failed marriage, it is not that one party is all good and the other is all bad, so to speak. So I was aware that your father is not the “good guy” while your mother was the “bad guy”. But the fact that she blamed you for your father leaving the home for years, and still does (or did recently)- that’s a strong indication of her being a .. bad guy with no connection to who your father was.

You wrote: “when I was born, my father did not even show up  on the day.. “- this is not a first person testimony, as a newborn you can’t possibly remember that. “When my father visited the day after, the nurse was shocked at him being a different man from the one who first saw me.. and turned around to march straight back to the ward”- as a  one day old baby, you weren’t able to observe that, and yet you tell it as if you were there to watch and record what happened into your memory. It is amazing how we take what we are told later in life as the retroactive truth of what really did happen.

This story may have happened, maybe your mother told it to you, maybe your uncle did, maybe both. But these kinds of stories are not always true, and often they are distorted in one way or another. Clearly, your mother was invested in presenting your father in the most negative light, so distortions in stories are  likely to be aimed at presenting him in the most negative light.

Good to read that your sister and you are doing well. Seems like your mother is quite fortunate to have the support of her two daughters, financially and emotionally. I hope the situation is good enough for her to motivate her to.. no longer harm  her own financial and emotional support. That would be most unwise, on her part.

anita