When Relationships Go Wrong……..

It’s amazing how the most incredible relationships in life can go horribly wrong…….. Whether it be the end of a partnership where kids are involved, or the death of a loved one….. with or without kids involved. Those who you once adored and spent many hours with, can slowly fade out of your life as though they were never in it to begin with. You’d never believe it was going to happen….. but like an intense friendship that you’d bet would last your entire lifetime……. sadly it does. And from what I’ve seen over the last couple of years, it happens more often than not. Relationships…… with your kids, your partner, your folks, your in Laws, the neighbours…… it doesn’t seem to matter, because if you don’t see eye to eye…… you just don’t see eye to eye. There are some with whom it doesn’t seem to matter too much, and you can survive this mismatched understanding without too much care…… but if you don’t see things the same way as someone you love, that you see all the time…… damn it can make for a difficult time. I know now, and particularly after nearly two years of counselling with my girls, that Rubes and I don’t. We don’t fight well either….. and for two fighters (yes, she inherited that from her Mum….) that is not a good mix. Finally we have started to piece together why we don’t gel so well…. and it’s terrifying because how do you change the unchangeable? I can change…. to a certain degree….. (no one ever wants to, lets be honest…) and I’ve had to over the years. I pick my battles with that kid, and I have allowed so much to pass that I’d never have let pass in my life “BC” (before children.) But with a stubborn unchangeable Aspie, a dead hubby and two years of hell…. well….. I’m kind of open to other peoples suggestions right now. She has this incredible way of manipulating every situation to the point where I can’t even remember out of utter exhaustion what the argument started over and then she senses my weakness and runs with it! My memory is shit at the best of times, but throw in a little post traumatic stress, short term memory loss…. Arghhhhh…. that kids runs rings around me!!!!! Then there’s my sweet little Pops. The one I used to say to Trent “Thank God for her, hey????” And we’d breathe a sigh of relief. Not because she was better than Rubes by any means….. but because even she would come up and tap us on the back at the age of five and say “It’ll be alright…..” after one of our many failings with trying to get Rubes to see the error of her decision that day, or for hurting our feelings with her words. And now, two years into this new world of ours minus the big guy, she is the one that needs consoling. 24 hours a day. Her new anxieties of the world – that I will die horrifically….. and it’ll be because she has bad thoughts….. a lot. Every hour it seems she is a little teary…. and when I finally drag it out of her if she doesn’t give it up immediately, it’s because she’s has inappropriate thoughts…… or that she is thinking of horrible things that would hurt my feelings…. and she is positive if she doesn’t tell me what she has just thought about, I’ll die… yet she’s also sure if she does tell me, she’ll hurt my feelings. So she is in turmoil. She also, since December last year, doesn’t want to go back to Pop nights, which is one night a week when her adored Pop comes to stay so I can go out without the kids. She loves time with him, but hates me being anywhere other than at home, safe with her. Children don’t forget that you once promised them nightly to always be there for them. They NEVER forget this once someone has gone and died, even if they understand that that person did not want to go. So I cannot console her this way anymore either. The in Laws…… I do love mine….. I’m lucky. But even if you had a decent relationship with them all to start with when your partner was around, everything changes once that main common denominator is gone. It places the most pressure on a relationship that I can even explain…. to go on and love these non blood relatives that you accepted whole heartedly before, but try and behave as though the pink elephant in the room is not there, WOW that is one incredibly hard thing to do. How much did we overlook and tolerate because they were the parents of our loved one? Or the siblings/Uncles/Aunties/Cousins of our loved one……. We put up with the challenging parts in our own family, because we have spent a lifetime with them….. But I wonder how these in laws view us now too, after their main reason for seeing us is gone. The cracks start to show, your walls start crumbling, and things that shat them about you before, will now eat away at them daily as they weep for their child/brother/sister etc probably wondering why it was them and not you that had to go. I am by no means saying that this is the situation with me and mine, but I assure you that none of our relationships will ever be the same again. Of that I am 100% sure. I have learned a lot from this recent support group that I joined in Box Hill. Someone threw it out there one night that their relationship with the parent in laws had totally turned to shit. And it opened the flood gates…… the amount of estranged families that had been newly created from the death of their partner astounded me. There were stories of entire families that had removed themselves from the remaining husband or wife (whether they had kids together or not) and I couldn’t believe how common it was. How could you turn on someone in their greatest time of need? And surely you can put your bullshit aside for the sake of the kids? A lovely man who’s wife had lost her battle with cancer only a year after they’d lost their young son was telling an horrific story of how the in laws had tried to take him to the cleaners after he “only offered” them her investment property and not half of the very home they had all once lived in….. What the actual fuck???? How deep in the grief can you be that you have lost sight of what your child that has just passed away would have wanted. If they chose this person to have children with and spend their life with…. surely you can swallow your pride and honour their memory by loving that remaining person long after your loved one has gone? I know it’s not easy….. I have been left with my own issues with my husbands family….. but nothing I hope that can’t be worked on and worked out. I would hate to screw up the very link that I have left to my gorgeous husbands loved ones. It would upset me very much. What I have learned however, through this tragedy…. is that NOTHING is forever. I am trying to live by the rule that you should never assume what will happen next, you should never give up trying to repair relationships that are worthy of fixing, and you should always remember what your partner would have wanted you to do….. knowing that sometimes all of the above is not always possible and some things are just plain out of our hands. (Like my mate from the support group who has tried and failed to please his late wife’s family.) I think this is all you can do to be honest. xxx