Trying to make nice

Ugh. It’s been a while since my last post and I’m not really sure what all has happened since then. Everything has been one big blur of a week. Between writing papers, freelance writing, reading for school, raising two children, and planning a move and a wedding, I’m not sure how I manage to get anything done. Sometimes, I’m not even sure what I did—I just know that I did it and I don’t have to do it again.

Veronica recovered nicely from her surgery and I was able to calm down and let go of the guilt. Robby came up with a pretty good punishment for her ear drop fiasco—once she started feeling better, she had to sit down and write a letter to everyone who would have been affected by her botched surgery. She wrote about 9 letters and realized in the end that her actions would have affected about 100 people. I would like to say she learned her lesson, but she’s just a child—learning to think about other people’s feelings is a lesson we will have to repeatedly teach her for a very long time.

After the events of this week, I hope Veronica eventually learns this lesson and I also hope that Jude learns it as well. Ignoring the feelings of other people is obviously a lesson that some people never learn.

I was reminded of that this weekend. Robby has had issues with his mother for quite a while now. It’s really sad and I hate it for him, but I don’t think it is something rare. I tend to have issues with my folks and I won’t even begin to describe the nightmare that was my former in-laws.

I love Robby’s family and I was very happy to think that I would finally have family living nearby and that the children would have a grandmother who could come to their school events and birthday parties. The children love Robby’s family as well. I just thought we would be this big happy family, but I could see that things were not perfect from the beginning.

Our happy family just days before things went horribly wrong.

So, needless to say, I wasn’t too surprised to read a letter from her on Saturday in which she stated that she would not attend our wedding because we had not invited her boyfriend. The background is too complicated for me to get into and it’s not really that important. We have issues with her boyfriend—end of story.

What’s funny is we actually were talking about inviting him so she could bring him as her date and enjoy herself. But since no one was speaking to each other…

It’s pretty typical family drama. The problem is I have little to no patience for this type of behavior. My former in-laws taught me a very important lesson—don’t do permanent damage to a temporary situation. It seemed like every time I went to visit my ex-husband’s family, someone wasn’t speaking to someone and no one really remembered why. Sure it was usually something pretty bad, but the point is, it just got out of hand and it affected everyone who had to be around them.

If my former life has taught me anything, it’s that you have to at least try to communicate and fix the problem. If in the end, if the other person still refuses to speak to you or change, then at least you know you tried your best.

Robby is a great man—the word “man” in that phrase is key. He acts like a man and therefore he should be treated like a man. That is the root of this problem. Can we fix this? Who knows, but we have to try. And luckily he is man enough to put his pride aside and try to mend this relationship—even if it means making peace with a person who is disrespectful and rude. After all, the boyfriend treats his mama like a queen and Robby likes seeing his mama happy.

I was so angry when I read that letter on Saturday. I felt like I did when I was with my former-family. I did nothing wrong, but yet I was being punished; my children were being punished. The thought of seeing Robby sad on our wedding day, every time he is reminded that his mother is absent, made my blood boil. I would like to think that his mother had no idea how many people were going to be affected by her choice. And why for God’s sake was no one speaking to each other—why were we just sending these little letters back and forth?

I woke up Sunday morning just as angry as I was when I went to bed. After Robby left to go to his house, I called his mother. I haven’t spoken to her since the day after Christmas since she and Robby haven’t been speaking. I didn’t plan to pick a fight—I planned to be honest and tell her the truth.

I wanted her to know that the children and I miss her and love her. I wanted her to know that we needed her at the wedding. I told her that all of this drama had gotten out of hand and we needed to fix it. “I know, sugar. You’re right, it has gotten out of hand,” she told me. “I want to be at your wedding. I just want things to be good again.”

Robby and I plan to sit down with his mom and her boyfriend and try to come to an understanding of sorts—even if it is just for our wedding day. I know how important this is because my former-mother-in-law was not invited to my first wedding and later when we reconciled it was always a sore spot in our relationship.

I don’t want to do that again. I want to know that we tried. Because in the end, there are so many people who will be affected by our selfish choices and inability to just talk and work things out. Perhaps we have been writing letters to the wrong people.