The BIG Fight!

I knew that we'd fight sooner or later.  It was just inevitable. It had been building for months now. I thought I could stifle the anger. I thought I could move past it.  And then it happened, I had a huge fight with my aunt.
 
I guess I should backtrack a little. You may recall that I've blogged about my aunt, who also happens to be my godmother here.  Our relationship over the years has not been easy, as she is such a difficult person to deal with. In fact, it seems that every family gathering sees her "butting heads" with someone.  In her opinion, she is the smartest, most knowledgeable, most caring, most friendly, most tolerant, blah, blah, blah.  In truth, its almost the opposite.  Her main fault is that she is incapable of empathy in any way, shape or form. She never understands where any of us are coming from in conversation.  She can't understand anyones pain, difficulty or sorrow.  In addition, the world has to revolve around her - we always have to adjust our Holidays, celebrations to her schedule. If she doesn't want to do gifts, we don't, to avoid an argument, but I digress.
 
Empathy, in the image here, is defined as: "Understanding what the other person is going through and being there".  It would be nice if she could simply understand.  "Being there", would be a nice added bonus!

So you may recall that she has never said a word about the loss of our baby.  There was no card, no phone call, no flowers.  Even after a while, when we finally met at a family function, she barely would even say "Hello" to me - but still no expression of condolences.  This really hurt me as I like to think that we are fairly close. We live in the same town!  The mother-in-law of one of my relatives managed to hug me and whisper her condolences to me, while greeting me at church.  I received more empathy from a stranger than from my aunt/godmother.

Recently, my grandmother was in the hospital.  For four days we weren't sure if she'd make it.  The entire situation was extremely stressful (and you might remember what stress is doing to me here).  My aunt kept hovering and driving me insane for 2 days while we were there together, while I bit my tongue, went for walks, and avoided arguing with her. On the fifth day of the hospital visits, yesterday, IT finally happened.

 We were talking about my grandma's after care and what might be involved.  Knowing that my aunt is grossed out by bodily functions, I made a joke (it's hard to understand how a grown woman can refuse to kiss her dying mother, or bathe her in her hospital bed, or heaven forbid change an adult diaper!  My mother does all of this readily and I am prepared to do this for my & Freddie's parents if need be.  That's the order of things, but I digress again!).

Before I tell you the joke that started it all, the night before, she started talking about IVF.  She claimed that she watched a TV show (she only watches one Catholic station from Europe) about IVF and proceeded to tell me her opinion, as well as what she claimed the Catholic Church thought.  We exchanged words, as I had done a lot of research on this topic when we were considering IVF, and I stupidly shared my info with her.  My poor mother kept trying to shut my aunt up as she  knew that sooner or later I'd be upset.  My mom later told me that she had spoken to my aunt after that, telling her to back off and leave me alone. Apparently, my mom explained to my aunt that losing our Angel was clearly extremely difficult for us, so difficult in fact that I didn't really talk too much about it with my mom.  My mom asked her to avoid these stupid "baby" subjects as they were very painful for me. 

So fast forward to yesterday, my aunt, my mom and I are standing over grandma's bed.  My aunt wasn't too happy that my grandma wanted to go home when she felt better, instead of moving in with my aunt.  So I jokingly, with a smile on my face, told her not to worry, that she'd still have a chance to change grandma's diapers (as we're at that point now).  My aunt's rebuttal was that I would have to change them as well since I'd have to help out, and I said "of course, I've already done it". Since she had no more to add, her reply was "Well, you should be changing a baby's diapers by now!"   And I LOST IT!  As we were in the hospital and trying to whisper, I hissed at her:  "Oh, you have an opinion now??  When my baby died you didn't have a word to say. You were incapable of picking up the phone to offer your condolences or to see how I was doing. If you didn't want to call, you could have sent a sympathy card.  You haven't said a word in days, but now 5 months, 3 weeks and 5 days later you have an opinion?  It's one thing to forget my birthday and say nothing, but to ignore that our child died is inexcusable.  Just stay the f**k out of my life!!!"  To be honest, I was shocked at myself as I don't swear often!  I've never even sworn around my grandma, mom or Freddie's parents, but I was so mad. My heart was pounding so hard that I heard the thumping in my ears, I was lightheaded and my legs were shaking.  My aunt started raising her voice that she can't "talk" to me, that I'm always upset, that she didn't say anything wrong, etc.  My mom kept trying to shut my aunt up, telling her that she was insensitive, that she had no empathy, no tact, that of course she can't talk to me after all the pain and stress I've been through, but this all fell on deaf ears.  Eventually my aunt left.  I fully expected my mom to give me an earful about respecting elders, swearing, etc., as my entire life I remember her telling me to be tolerant of my aunt, to respect her, to listen to her even if I knew she was wrong, to be polite to her - then as I became a teenager and knew she was full of it, to simply smile and ignore her, instead of causing a family scene.  Yet this time, my mom totally supported me and was shocked herself that my aunt would bring up this topic again, even after mom had a discussion with her recently. Naturally, my aunt feels like the injured party, but again, this is nothing new.


I'm sure we all have some difficult relatives, but this one takes the cake.  Freddie readily admits that his family has aspects of "crazy" as well, but he agrees that it's nowhere to this degree.  I think that this may have changed my relationship with my aunt forever - not in the sense that my aunt will hold a grudge, as over the years she has had scenes like this with both of her sons, my mom, grandma, etc, but more

in the way that I see her.  I almost 

feel free now, released from trying to make a dysfunctional relationship work.  I feel that I no longer need to have a relationship with her because she's my aunt. I feel like I am choosing to be polite, treat her as an acquaintance, and enjoy myself. I feel like I no longer need to prepare myself for biting my tongue or for trying to find a way to keep the peace at each family function.  I feel like I finally stood up for myself and my angel.  I feel free of the expectation to be "good", then feeling guilty if I can't meet or exceed that expectation.  I feel free of the hope that my aunt would be supportive or kind. I'm free of the dream that I'll be able to get along with her.  If I hadn't had this blow up with her, it would always be between us and I would always have an underlying anger.  I feel lighter, my anger is gone and I feel good.

The bonus is that she is not my mother and that I will not be taking care of her in her old age.  Prior to this, I felt obligated, as her god-daughter, and the only female in my family (as she has a son and a step-son with a wife) to help her out. I felt obligated as her son is totally irresponsible and won't take care of her, while her step-son and his wife are very decent, but my aunt has treated them horribly over the years claiming that they weren't "her blood".  Her stepson has a large family of his own and won't have the time or space to help her out much, I suspect their interaction will be limited.  That's why I felt that I should help her, but I no longer feel this obligation. I feel free to focus on my family and have options in place for my mom's elder care. That's it.  Perhaps this huge blow-up of an argument was good in the end.  I certainly feel better!