Pieces of Me

Things with my parents had been rough for the last couple years.  My parent’s sold their house of 45 years and moved into a duplex home a mile and a half away from my grandma. This was to give them no maintenance, single floor living but also to live closer to my grandma for my dad to take care of her.  As I had mentioned earlier, my mom didn’t like my grandma. Well she really hated the fact my grandma had all of my dads attention. And boy, did she take it out on my dad.  She was vile and mean to him. Calling my grandma a manipulator, user, told my dad she didn’t care about anyone just using people. She said multiple times “I’ve never seen someone so pussy whipped by their mother as your father”. It was awful, vile. My mom shifted mentally during that period and has never gotten back to normal.  My dad blames her illness and medications, but I told him this mentally started with her before she got sick.  I have never seen my mom so mean and ugly and treat someone so horribly as she was my dad, all over the jealousy of my grandma.  My mom was even isolating us kids from talking to dad.  She was jealous of us having a relationship with him.  I told him several times to come spend a couple weeks with me, get away from it. He would just reply “who will take care of your mom. I have to take care of her”.  Dad and I now have to email each other, if she knows we talk on the phone he pays hell for it. I’ll never forget the email he sent me that said she has ruined his life and his retirement years should be the best and she has made them a living hell.  I was broken, my poor sweet daddy didn’t deserve any of this.  He’s no saint (close but he’s not) but he deserves so much better than this.  He worked hard and gave us a good life. He worked to support her adulterous and disgusting life.  One night she claimed to have taken 5 Ambien to kill herself because she was so upset with my dad spending so much time with his mother. Clint and I later agreed she didn’t take the medication; that it was all about attention for her.  I mean my dad takes morphine, oxycontin, and has fentanyl patches… if she wanted to kill herself she had an easy way to do it and that wasn’t Ambien.   What kind of person is jealous of their husband loving his 96 year old homebound mother and taking care of her in her final years? A shitty one!

In June of 2025 all three of my kids were here at the same time. Andy and I decided it was time to tell the kids. We wanted to tell them all in person and all together. It wasn’t fair to tell one and ask them not to talk about it to the others and just as unfair to tell the girls over facetime. I was so scared. Not because I thought they’d be mad but I knew how upset they would be, hurt. I hate seeing my kids cry and I knew they would.  I kept it short with a little reminder of my DNA testing and then told them the findings. I also told them that as shitty as this whole thing is, she has done this to me; not to them. I reminded them that she has been a good grandma and they had to base how they move forward off of their own experiences with her; not mine. David is loyal to a fault. I knew he would want to go no contact out of loyalty to me, so I felt it important they understand they can’t do that. Alison audibly gasped and covered her mouth, then began to cry. Becky was in shock for a few seconds and then began to cry. David was angry and he cried. I hate that she put me in this situation to have to do this to my kids. How selfish of her to only care about protecting herself.  The kids were here for several days, I gave them time to digest and ask questions. I didn’t mention it again for a few days. I wanted to give them time to process it all. One afternoon the girls and I were in the pool. I asked them if them how they were doing and if they had questions. Alison made it very clear that she didn’t really want to know or meet anyone out of respect to my dad. Becky, in typical Becky fashion said “not me! I am nosey. I want all the tea!” Sadly I didn’t have any tea to spill and still do not. I was very open with the kids in that I have reached out to Dennis and apparently he wasn’t super interested in anything at that time. Telling the kids was a huge weight off my shoulders. I was glad that was done and it felt freeing. Now to tell my mom. For the weeks to follow, Becky would ask periodically if I had confronted my mom. Periodically I would casually mention the Weber family to the kids. Ali and David were dismissive and obviously uncomfortable. I guess I needed to remember this was so very new to them although I had known and coped for several months.