Use By This Date: (Expired)

Family: it's not all it's cracked up to be. I hate to be Debbie Downer, but this family issue has been bothering me for weeks, if not years. I'm talking about my adult siblings. Mainly Mary, the eldest sibling in the family, and the self-appointed matriarch.

In my family, my father passed away 14 years ago and I still miss him. My mother passed away in the fall of 2007 and the wound is still fresh with sadness and emptiness.

Briefly, the aftermath of my mother's passing is still pretty horrific to me about what both of my sisters did with my mother's belongings. They divided up all her valuables between themselves, and sent the trash, in black plastic bags, to my house. The trash included old food from my mother's cupboards, with some food being expired by several years.

I think that my sisters did this to me because I had recently been through a heinous divorce that legally started with a criminal no-contact and legal separation in 2004 and became a legal dissolution of marriage in 2006. But, in reality, it is the divorce that never ends. Amongst my brothers and sisters, I have never been allowed to even mention my divorce, let alone receive any comfort or support from my siblings. Out of the 6 children of my parent's kids, I am the only one that has gone through a divorce. My parents were married nearly 55+ years before my Dad passed away.

But the hurt of not being included in the distribution of Mom's antiques, quilts and furniture has definitely lingered for me. Not to mention that my other sister, Pat, was the sister that helped my ex-husband beat me up on Christmas, 2003, in front of my children and my mother. Lots of hurt- big, major hurt. And nary an apology from either Brad-ex or Pat. Yet they broke bones in my face, and bruised ribs.

So fast forward to today. Although Brad-ex was court-ordered to pay the house payment and utility bills in the Divorce Decree, he managed to get out of it by not paying the house payment while on probation for trying to run over two of his own children. He was supposed to buy the boys' school supplies in August of 2008, when he went to jail for trying to run over them instead. Then Brad-ex claimed he "lost his job" where he had worked for over 10 years, and it was proved in court that he asked to quit.... So naturally, the Judge decided to let him off without paying back child support, current child support or the house payment and bills.

This May, 2010, the house payment has not been paid for a year by Brad-ex. My children and I am facing foreclosure; the papers were filed in February. I do not want to live in the car with the cats pooping in the trunk. Period. 17 years of marriage to the serial abuser Brad-ex has left me disabled and broke. My children and I need help. And Now.

My sister, Mary, takes it upon herself (as usual) to speak to Pat about my family's dire situation. Pat could care less about my family. She would rather cause pain to my family than eat to live. Nothing good has ever come from a suggestion from Pat regarding me or my children. Pat's insight goes to the end of her own nose. So Mary constantly informs me what to do based on what Pat tells her to do regarding the housing situation that my family faces now. Nobody asks me what I think would be best for my family- or what help I need. I have tried to talk to Mary about not carrying stories from Pat to me, but to no avail. Mary can only take advice from Pat regarding my housing situation, because... I don't know why Mary won't listen to me. But she won't.

In the Divorce Decree, this house was deeded to me. It was the only monetary asset awarded to me in the entire divorce. Brad-ex kept his 401k, stocks, bonds - you name it- if it was money, he kept it in the divorce. And he didn't have a lawyer and I did. Basically, the house is a shitty money pit. But it is a roof over our heads. In the past 15 years since this house was purchased, I have put in more than my fair share of sweat equity. I painted inside and out; put in new floors, refinished doors and windows and woodwork. I completely redecorated the whole house out of the money I earned at the phone company. This hard construction work that I alone performed on my maternity leaves is the best reasons for me being disabled now, not withstanding the physical abuse of 17 years.

Now the mortgage company that I have been paying for 15 years is telling me that my house isn't worth squat shit.

Mary is on their side!! She is trying to convince me to let the bank steal my house for $0 AND BEG THEM FOR $1000 TO MOVE!! Goose eggs!!! Nada. Zilch.

To add insult to injury, she and Pat have concocted a scheme so that I will never be a home owner again. She will only 'help me' if I agree to rent an apartment to live in with my three growing boys.

Can you imagine 3 teens in a 2 bedroom apartment? That is the 'solution' that Pat and Mary have come up with for my family. Four adults living in a 2 bedroom apaprtment.

It is inappropriate to even suggest apartment life for my family. It would be a living nightmare for Riley to live in an apartment. He is non-verbal and autistic. He loves to go in strangers homes at Halloween, for chrissakes! I would never know where he was. He could wander out in the halls night or day, going in and out of other apartments. And the apartment buildings Mary showed me had swimming pools- can you imagine??!! Riley loves swimming pools....but can't swim. I could go on and on. Apartments won't work in any sense of the word for my family.

So after at least 6 months of ramming apartments down my throat and wasting valuable time that I should have been looking for a suitable house before the house went into foreclosure, I finally told Mary to stop. She blew up- in public! She attacked me so ferociously that the manager of the restaurant came over a couple of times to make sure everything was okay. It wasn't. Mary made a big scene - even her husband was embarrassed.

I have mentioned before my struggle with depression. Mary's constant harping about 'get an apartment and all will be well in the world' sent me into a spiral like no other. I did not fall off the turnip truck yesterday. I have lived in apartments and rented houses most of my early adult life. I am not stupid; the landlords don't fix everything that breaks on a whim- they fix only what they legally have to fix. And then only after months and months of nagging. Mary tried to make it sound like renting is an untapped utopia here on Earth. I know better. My own mother went 3 years in the hot Iowa summers without a working air conditioner before her landlord finally purchased a new unit- and by then Mom was going to the nursing home.

Mom's apartment was another nightmare cooked up by Pat and Mary. Mom became a virtual prisoner in her 'apartment'. She couldn't go up and down the stairs- and she lived on the first floor. Something was always breaking in her apartment and it was always months before anything got rigged- er, I mean fixed.

I was shocked to see Mary's reaction to my plight with her anger and attacks on me. Here I was, pouring my heart out to her and she screamed at me that she was going to throw up! Wow - so much for support and compassion from those closest to you- your family. I did not back down- after all that my family has been through, I will not succumb to be stuck in an apartment with 3 teenage boys and have to go upstairs with my knees, carrying groceries, laundry, etc. Naturally, Mary swore that she would not help me.

Her husband disagreed with her under his breath, being a more compassionate soul for all the hardships my family has already been through and still willing to help my family. Now I know why I didn't confide in Mary for the past 50 years of my life. She seemed to enjoy cutting out my still-beating heart and stomping on it as long as she got the last word in. Didn't matter to her in the least that the other people in the restaurant weren't too happy with her behavior and demeanor. Let alone how I felt. Apparently my feelings don't matter- another lesson I should have learned at my mother's funeral.

I cannot express my feelings of betrayal and mockery when Mary announced last week that she was 'house hunting' after a few financial setbacks in their newest home of 2 years. What a hypocrite!! She is 16 years older than me and her children are all grown with children of their own. If anybody is ripe for apartment living- anyone in the world- it is Mary and her husband!

OMG! After she has been relentless trying to stuff my family in inappropriate digs for almost an entire year now, she wants to buy another house?? Why doesn't she practice what she is preaching? A little taste of her own medicine?

Let me give you a little history of Mary and her houses. Just since my youngest son was born 12 years ago, she has had 5 homes built from scratch for her. They have moved 6 times in the last 12 years- including out of state 3 times. They are retired and have spent most of the past 2 years traveling.

Oh, and Mary routinely helps Pat out financially- buying her cars and paying her rent and miscellaneous. Mary has the means and Pat does not have the need like my family does now.

Since I told Mary to stop suggesting inappropriate housing for my family, since that isn't really helping me, she has stopped talking to me! I really can't bring myself to speak to her just yet without breaking into an angry screed over her hypocrysy.

I cannot get over her hardened response to my family in our time of need, especially since I have 2 special needs children. I thought family was supposed to help each other in dire circumstances. To me, Mary is simply being selfish. She already got her lion's share of my mother's valuable belongings- now she wants me to 'give up' my home for free?

BTW- My children and I have never been invited to any of Mary's new homes since my youngest' birth in 1998. Not even invited!~!

Last year, when we went on our first family vacation to Lake Okoboji -ever in 15 years since Ryan was born- Mary bitched about us spending money- some of my disability money to vacation as a family on the hotel bill. We spent 4 nights at the lake. The unmitigated gall of that women, my sister, to suggest that my family never deserves a break!

To try to placate her by not spending so much money at a hotel in Okoboji, I suggested that perhaps we could spend part of a weekend at her home in Omaha. Her response? "Oh my God, no!" She didn't want us to even drive through Omaha. No visiting. No stopping. Go figure. Do you suppose it has anything to do with perhaps she doesn't want me to see how much she pilfered from my mother's valuables- including furniture?

I haven't begun to scratch the surface of how much this has bothered me, except to say that I suffered greatly for a little more than a week from severe depression after her attack and feigned outrage at me for suggesting that I get money for my house and my family can't live in an apartment.

It bothers me that neither one of my sisters cares about my children's welfare or where they live. It bothers me- no, it hurts me that Mary can't ask me what I need for help, let alone accept what I need to help my family get out of this horrible and constant abuse from Brad-ex.A little understanding would go a long way.I don't need more shit from my sisters. As for Pat- she may be my sister, but she is not my friend. I wouldn't ask her for the time of day.

I guess I should have taken my cues from their behavior when my mother died. My siblings think I only deserve trash. I used to semi-joke about it. I said that when it came to throwing out the trash from my mother's place, Mary and Pat would say "Should we throw this junk out? No! Let's give it to Sheila!"

Now it's not quite so funny.

Sheila

Divided Loyalties

Recently, I've had the opportunity to experience sitting on the 50 yard line, or mid field as it is called on the soccer field, to see my son play soccer against the soccer team from the high school where I graduated. The east side of the field was my Alma mater high school, and the west side was where my oldest son was currently going to high school, buy also where most of my high school friends went from grade school, and I attended this same high school for freshman year.

It was a bit tricky going past all the Roosevelt parents to go sit in the Dowling section, but I managed. As it turned out, I was in for a special treat, having to sit through two games before my son's team played. I had time to wax nostalgic about the good old days when not only wasn't soccer a recognised sport in high school (33 years ago), but Roosevelt had a soccer club, that only played other high schools that also were elite enough to have soccer clubs. Roosevelt was the best of the clubs in the city at that time, and I was a soccer groupy.

Since the first game with freshman ended in a tie, and I had to wait till the third game for my son's sophomore team to play, I decided that I would secretly and silently cheer on the Roosevelt varsity team to win, thereby not totally dissing loyalty to my son, and I could still keep some loyalty to myself.

It was a tight game and both teams were well matched, but Roosevelt's players were more diverse and experienced- probably due to the foreign exchange students that played for Roosevelt. Dowling was lacking in both experience and foreign exchange students on the soccer team. Tension mounted on the field, and the play got rougher, which made the crowd more mouthy from both schools. Dowling's whole motto is about school pride, and they weren't about to let Roosevelt get the better of them. Parents began shouting out calls that the ref 'missed' on both sides of the field. There were more than a couple of tackles, lots of trips and fists nearly flew as the game progressed. The ref didn't call any unnecessary roughness for either team until the last 10 minutes of play in a hour and a half long soccer match. By the time the ref yellow-carded one player from each team for 'roughness', it was already too late. There had been a lot of shoving, pushing and hitting going on the entire game to start carding players in the last 10 minutes.

The score reflected how closely matched both teams were as the end neared with Roosevelt in the lead by one point. As the clock ticked down to seconds, Dowling made several long shots that seemed a bit desperate, but missed their mark. Roosevelt won a hard fought battle, much to the Dowling parents' chagrin, and the clock ran out. Both teams players looked played out, marked with grass stains, dirt and bruises from a physical and challenging game.

During this entire game, I heard people yell out what they thought they saw, and many times it was revealed to me that what they saw was riddled with bias toward their own team. This is not a new discovery to me, but at that time I was trying to ride the 50 yard line with my loyalties divided as well, it brought extreme clarity to the situation. I began to see how the Dowling parents might think there should have been a hand ball called and at the same time I noticed that the Roosevelt players had some definite gripes against Dowling players. It was amazing to me to be able to be neutral and still have loyalties to both teams. It was like 20/20 reality time!

Occasionally, I would cheer on my Alma mater when the Dowling parents were cheering "Get the ball!"- after all, they didn't know who's team I was secretly cheering for! It was adventurous and fun to be appearing to cheer for one team when actually I was cheering for the other team! Yet I felt fickle for doing it in public.

I couldn't help myself by comparing this extraordinary viewpoint to real life and the clarity of seeing both sides of every situation could provide. Imagine how fair life could be?

Then the thought occurred to me that what if people would exercise this rare gift in politics, religion and maybe even sports?!? What if people were required to look at both sides of everyday life and interactions? Would there be less misunderstandings and less fights?

Ryan won his game against Roosevelt, and it was a spirited and well matched game as well. But the sophomore team was much less physical and more strategies from both Dowling and Roosevelt players. This game went the entire game matched point for point until the very end, when Dowling came out ahead with a header for the winning point in the last seconds. It was exciting and exhilarating, and the parents stayed engaged as they had for the previous game.
Ryan got to play nearly an entire half of the game which made him happy.

So the soccer match ended with a tie for frosh, a win for Dowling sophs, and a win for Roosevelt varsity- how much more fair could life be?

20/20