death of mil

[helpmeplease]

I have just found out about the death of  my ex partner's mother.  If this had happened years ago I won't lie, I would have been cheering. Now though ,I don't know how I feel. I was with him for twenty five years. We split up 8 years ago. She was horrible to me. She caused me a lot of heartache and unhappiness with her nastiness, manipulations drama and chaos. She caused me to have a nervous breakdown, literally double my weight due to comfort eating, I thought I deserved it, I couldn't understand it. I developed severe anxiety, lost my confidence, lost my looks became agoraphobic. I thought I was a horrible person. I developed an auto immune disease, rheumatoid arthritis which led to kidney disease and now means I am on dialysis three times per week. She ruined my young life. When I found out I felt sad and shed a few tears. Today I feel angry. She got away with her treatment of me. I never got to confront her. I now know she was mentally unwell, unhappy and her treatment of me was wrong and unjustified but she spoiled my relationship with her control over her adult son who was blind to her behaviour. I wish I could go back in time and stand up for the poor frightened girl I was back then and protect her. I think I would probably have tried to get her away from the situation. I found out after we split up that my ex's sister, her husband children and grandchildren were all drug dealers and have been found guilty in court. That was shocking in itself. I have wasted my life on that family and here I am eight years later still obsessing.

[Poison Ivy]

I had mixed feelings when my former parents-in-law died a few years ago. A major cause of the breakup of my marriage was my husband's decision to become his parents' caregiver and his father's negative behavior toward me and our children. (His mom had Alzheimer's disease by this time and was beyond the point of showing me any intentional behavior whatsoever; before she became ill, she was kind enough.) I felt both a bit of sadness (for my ex-husband) and some anger (toward my ex-husband and his dad) when his parents died. (The deaths occurred about seven weeks apart, separate causes, but now they almost seem like the same occurrence to me.)

[Hilltop]

I'm sorry helpmeplease, I'm sorry you had to go through that.  Hugs.

[D.]

I am sorry that you were treated so badly.  No one should have to go through these experiences.  For the pain it caused you now and then.  And it's never too later to hug and comfort that younger version of you - she didn't know.  And this stronger, aware, version of you deserves support too. 

[Rose1]

I felt relief and a weight off. One of my abusers had left the building. By that time I was 0ut of the fog by a number of years but she made my younger life miserable and contributed to the breakdown of my marriage

[Pepin]

This is so hard and I am struggling to get my thoughts out in a coherent manner.  Like you, if my PDmil died today, I would be smiling ear to ear on the inside -- but faking remorse on the outside for DH's sake.  On the other hand, even though she is still alive, I am sad about who she is and why someone like her stoops to doing the things that she does.  I thank my lucky stars that I am not her!  But, I am also still very angry on the inside about the damage she causes.  If DH and I were on the same page with regards to her behavior, I would likely be in a better situation.  Like you, my health has deteriorated and I bet everything that I have that when she dies, my health will improve significantly - that is if the damage doesn't get worse between now and then.  The body keeps score for sure.

Looking back over the years, as I am sure you have done too, how could you not feel sadness or rage for your former self who didn't deserve to go through any of what you did.  Those are years that can never be claimed -- and your exMIL obviously skipped out of this earth without having to pay any sort of penance.  She got away with so much. 

I don't know about you but recently I have been redirecting my attention toward my husband since it is he that I must start setting boundaries with.  I cannot set boundaries easily with his mother anymore because I don't see her as much.  She does her work through DH -- who in turn dumps it on me, so therefore I have to be firm with him.  Yeah, he gets ruffled sometimes and that is because he needs to have those boundaries set with him.  I am not playing nice for him; I am playing nice for me.

My advice, go forward and live the best life that you can.  You deserve all the best.

[Hopeful Spine]

Looking back over the years, as I am sure you have done too, how could you not feel sadness or rage for your former self who didn't deserve to go through any of what you did.  Those are years that can never be claimed -- and your exMIL obviously skipped out of this earth without having to pay any sort of penance.  She got away with so much.

I don't really have any advice but my heart hurts for you and I think Pepin stated it so well, she got away with so much.  It's so unfair.  Maybe with her death you can soon feel relief that this saga is over.  She is dead and can no longer hurt you.  Is it possible to reverse any of the damage she's done?  Maybe you can feel safe to rebuild now that you KNOW she can't interfere.  Improve your diet to feel stronger in your health, get a make over to improve your self esteem, or most importantly see someone who can help you rise above the way she made you feel.  She ruined a period of your life and it carried over to now.  But there is a lot that is left behind that you can work with. 

[Leonor]

Hi Helpme,

I'm so sorry for the grief and anger that your mil's passing is bringing up for you.

I wanted to share that grief is a messy thing. It's not about missing someone or remembering happy times, not all the time. It's always a sloppy bag of sad, mad, rage, confusion, disorientation, resentment ... towards people who our socialized brains think "didn't deserve it" or "had it coming" or whatever, you know? Even for the people we really did enjoy or line or love.

There is so much grieving to do when an abuser passes. So much anger and pain and sad to be honored and healed. Doesn't matter when it happened or how it happened or what's gone on since. Grief is an opportunity to honor our feelings.

And honor means no judgement. It means not saying stuff to yourself like, "What's the matter with you, you're all grown up, what do you need a mother for?" Or, "Why are you mad, it doesn't matter anymore anyway." Or "Geez you're still holding onto this stuff?" Or "'Bout time you forgave that, isn't it?" Or "What's there to be sad about, wasn't she awful to you?"

All that thinking stuff, trying to think away the feeling, is just judgement. It's understandable, because who wants to feel really, truly and honestly crappy? But being mean to yourself isn't going to make you feel any better.

So I encourage you to honor every feeling as it comes up. If you have faith, pray. If you are sad, cry. If you are angry, yell. If there are things you want to say, say them. Don't be mean to you because someone was mean to you. Someone was mean to you, do be kind and gentle to you.