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thanks in advance.
I grew up under the roof of a woman I thought, at the time, was the strongest, wisest woman in the world. She divorced my alcoholic father and was (mildly) successful in a man's profession, raising 5 kids, nearly single-handedly. I knew it was hard for her. I knew about all the sacrifices she made for us. I knew she put off her personal happiness in delaying remarriage until the youngest of us (me) was grown.
Sure, I had certain resentments, as a child of divorce (daddy's girl) but I had to keep them to myself, because to express them would send her off to the bathroom, crying. And how could you make the strongest, wisest woman in the world run off and cry? And I had the ability to upset this woman. Like the day, about a month after moving out of the house, I asked her why after 20 years of never touching me unless I was sick, she now wanted a big hug everytime I crossed her threshold?
I have the ability to upset this woman. There's a lot more I started to go into in this post, but it just got too fucking long.
The upshot: this sainted woman was overwhelmed by her own weariness and emotional hang-ups and as a result, was completely unable to cope with the messed up situation that was going on in her own household. That's understandable. She was unable to nurture her children. That, too is at least semi-understandable. She was unable to bring herself to ask my father for help: not entirely understandable. Well, no. Understandable (very messy divorce), but not yet forgivable. She was unable to cope with anyone else's emotions, probably barely able to cope with her own.
Due to a chain of events in the last year, all of the resentment I kept buried for 20-30 years is right up at the surface.
I had a brother who was abusive for 10 years when we were kids (verbal & physical violence). She couldn't cope with that and refused to see the truth of what was going on, no matter how many times it was brought to her attention, until I finally snapped at the age of 16 and just fucking wailed on him. By today's standards, one or both of us would have been removed by DCS.
Last fall, I finally found the balls to confront him and asked wtf was his problem that drove him to that shit. To his credit, he took full responsibility for his actions and made no excuses for his behavior whatsoever. It was well known in the family for the last 15 years that there were serious issues between him and me but no one ever had any idea what to do about it, they'd just say, "look, he's trying to be nice, now, you should try to be."
Anyway, the next morning after this confrontation, I told my mom about it. First thing she said: "good." Second thing: "do you blame me?" I told her no, that my brother was responsible for his own actions, but I did tell her I resented like hell her inability to cope with the situation.
Two days later, I had lunch with my other brother, and he told me that he'd had a conversation about it with our sister and she expressed concern that I would blame our mother.
That was when I got pissed. I put up with 10 years of soul-destroying shit from this guy, *finally* found the gonads to call him to the carpet and try to get something resolved, and instead of showing any concern of what I might have been going through, my mom & oldest sister were more worried about protecting the emotions of the woman who never lifted a fucking finger to put a stop to the situation until my actions forced her to.
So. Back to Mom. I can't do this anymore. I can't walk into her house (I live 1k miles away) and keep a lid on this anger to protect her emotions anymore. 10 years ago I had a Xanax winter largely because of things left unexpressed and I'm not ever going through that shit again.
Only problem: she's freaking 75 years old! And she's slowing down considerably.
So, DU - how the fuck do I do this? How do I tell this woman I think she's got a lot to answer for (a lot more than what's mentioned in this post) without worrying I'm going to give her a freaking heart attack?
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