The Family I Never Had

Yesterday, when I was driving home from work, I called Mike to let him know I was on my way home, just like I normally do on Mondays and Tuesdays when he has off work. He greeted me, Griffin yelled "Hi Mommy!" in the background. We briefly bantered about our day. Mike said he was making dinner and it was a good surprise, which is what every pregnant wife wants to hear. The way to my heart is through my stomach and cravings these days and he knows how to make my stomach happy for sure. My phone battery was almost dead and I didn't have my charger so I told him I had to go and I'd be home shortly. I told them I loved them and got off the phone.

And then I started thinking about how different my own family is now from the family I grew up knowing. And I just started crying.

Blame it on the 35 weeks pregnant hormones and emotions maybe. Blame it on the realization setting in after a life that hasn't been what I would exactly call easy, in terms of family.

I'm damn lucky.

That's not to say we don't have our issues. Trust me, we do. Mike has his baggage and I have mine. We bring that to our marriage and relationship regularly. The thing is, we work on it. We support each other. We apologize. We both regularly admit when we're wrong. We feel bad for hurting each other or saying the wrong thing at the wrong time or letting stress about other things spill out onto each other. We always said we'd never go to bed angry...but sometimes we do because we are far from perfect. But it's all just so different...

My parents had the opposite of our relationship. My dad was abusive. No, he never drank. No, he never did drugs. From what I can piece together from random family members, it seems like his childhood was rough, but I think he has a lot of issues with mental illness that have unfortunately never been dealt with appropriately. My mom had abused woman syndrome. I remember her being pretty vibrant and having friends when I was younger. The older she got and the longer she stayed with my dad, the less vibrant she was. The meaner she got. Somehow it was easier for me to excuse her behaviour than it was for me to excuse my dad's. She put up with a lot. He said a lot of mean things to her and about her. He made her feel pretty worthless most days. He left bruises on her that she always had a weird excuse for their appearance, but it was never his fault. They would fight, about something meaningless; he'd twist her words and act like the world and everyone in it was against him. She wouldn't be able to keep straight what she said and didn't say and would end up being unable to say anything at all. My dad could never be wrong. Not even remotely. And he could always twist your words and make you question yourself. He never really came to school events, and if he did, he would talk about himself and his problems. He was never proud of anything my brother or I ever did, because whatever we did wrong mattered more. Always.

He never apologized. Not once. He would absolutely lose his shit one night, cussing, screaming, throwing things. He'd make her cry. I only ever called the cops on him once; though in retrospect there were probably several times I should have. Then the next morning, he'd take her out to breakfast and go to yard sales and spend a ridiculous amount of money that they didn't have on pointless stuff that they didn't need. That was his "apology" and she'd go along with it. I couldn't be mad any longer for what he put her through and neither could my brother. Even if we had all been up until 1 am consoling her and trying to convince her that things could get better if she just left.

No. The next day everything was fine and dandy and anger could be had no more.

My mom's piece of advice to my brother and I...keep dad happy and play the game. Yes, he could twist your words and make you feel bad, but you knew the truth. You knew you were right and that was all that should matter. Make him think that he's right. Appease him. It makes life easier for all of us.

Did it? No. It just made you feel like crap. And most of the time I didn't listen anyway. It wasn't because I needed to be right; I needed him to be wrong. I needed him to realize that he was mean and sounded insane sometimes. The problem was that he would yell at my mom for me talking to him like that. It didn't matter that I was an adult and could have my own opinions. He'd tell her to make me shut up.

And when he was "sick", which happened the year after I graduated high school, he made my mom wait on him hand and foot. Did the man have real medical ailments? Yeah, and it sucked. But the way he handled himself was weak and he drained the life out of my mom with his demanding needs and she never got to take care of herself. And he surely never took care of her. She was a type 1 diabetic and if she had trouble with her sugar going low, which she often did, he'd yell at her while it was low and yell at her for it after she would come out of it. He was never understanding of her ailment or her stress, but she ALWAYS had to be sympathetic towards him and all the unfair things that happened to him.

And when it came to money; he'd spend it all. On cheap costume jewelry from China. Random crap he'd find on Craigslist or Ebay. He'd spend and spend and spend on his disability income and then over into my mom's income. And then they'd have to scrape together to pay the mortgage or the car payment; all while the junk accumulated. Then he'd sell the things he bought; his four wheeler he never rode and his guns he never used to "help pay" for bills and blame my mom that he never got anything for himself. All part of his manipulation game.

And when it came to his kids; we were worthless. Zach wasn't into hunting and fishing; so they had no way to connect and he'd just complain about him endlessly. I didn't know when to shut my mouth and was not great with my own money sometimes so I was pretty terrible too. Definitely the worst. I can't even remember all the reasons why I was so terrible, probably because I've tried to block them out. But trust me, if you ask him, he could give you a list a mile long to this day I am sure of why I am a terrible person. We never did anything correctly. We could spend the whole day outside doing yard work and come inside and he'd look out the back window and say "You missed that spot over by the tree" and walk away. Or he'd give a thorough inspection of dishes after they were washed and if there was the slightest spot that you missed "What the hell is wrong with you? You can't even clean a fucking dish?" Everything was wrong; all the time. There was no way to appease. But if you ever said you're horribly mean and you're only ever negative; you got "Well when you were little I used to take you fishing" or "Oh yeah I'm never positive, what about the fact that I took you all out to dinner 3 weeks ago"

And the infamous, "I'm your father and that means you need to respect me"

Cool. You took me fishing when I was 4 and you took us all out to dinner 3 weeks to say sorry in your own weird twisted way for flipping out on Mom and everyone else the night before...and sorry buddy, but respect is earned, whether you're the parent or not, and if you want to treat people like shit and not ever realize it, no I'm not going to respect you. Not for being manipulative and mean and egotistical and self righteous.

I cried on my way home from work yesterday because I realize that my own family; the one I made when I married Mike. The one we grew when we had Griffin and that we'll grow more in just 5 weeks when Grayson joins us. This family is different. In such a good way. We love each other. We spend time together. We support each other. We laugh. We cry. We say the wrong things. We say mean things. We apologize. We fight. We apologize. We admit when we're wrong. Sometimes we lose our tempers and it always ends with an apology and a hug and realizing we're human. We don't manipulate. We don't abuse. We accept that we are sometimes imperfect. We realize the stress and try to recognize where emotions are coming from when we all act certain ways. We talk about things. We aren't one sided. We aren't self centered. We're giving. We're thoughtful. We are kind to others and each other.

My life is so different from what it used to be and what I'm used to. And I really wish that my mom would have gotten to experience life that way. Another day I'll tell the story of when I almost thought we had a breakthrough in that respect. I am sure she would be happy for me now. To see that my family is different and that my boys will grow up knowing how a dad is supposed to treat them and love them. To see that I know unconditional love and support from my husband. To know that I give that same love and support to my husband. Neither of us feels exhausted by the other or left out of our own marriage. In a way it makes me a little jealous that my boys get to have such a great dad; but it also makes me happy and proud and hopeful and encouraged. We're doing something right. Not all of it and not perfectly; but some parts. And it creates a kind of happiness I didn't know existed.