Holidays, why they suck.

The holidays are always tough for me. It means I have to see my mother. It means I have to interact with her and now it means I have to see how old she is getting. Her mind is starting to go and all I see is the burden of what is to come.

I know it sounds horrible. She's my mother, how can you feel this way? It's almost mean how I feel so disconnected from her. I just feel afte everything I have been through I just don't know if I have it in myself to do the right thing.
I just don't want to. I feel like a little kid who has to go to a dr. appt or do something they don't want to do and exclaim they don't want to!!! I am being selfish and immature and maybe this is when I should not be but I an so angry I am in this situation.

My mother never gave me the love to me or my children that was needed. Everything was always about her and now I get stuck with taking care of her. She never took care of my dad. She had me.

She never saved a dime and expected others to help her with out guilt. She had no money because she spent it on strangers and fancy dinners and gifts because of how it made her look to others but to her family she only expected things and gave very little.

How selfish, take money and don't show your appreciate or be grateful. A simple tank you would do, but instead she wants and now NEEDS more from me.

What will I get out of it? Will there be an closer or satisfaction? I don't even feel love. I feel so much anger and hurt from what she did to me. She screwed me up and now I am in a fucked up relationship/marriage. Partially due to how screwed up I am about myself. I have such low self esteem that I  don't have the strength to walk away and I think my husband knows this.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME??  Can I change? Will I ever get the strength to take care of myself and do what makes ME happy?

I think i am depressed again. I am open about my depression only because I know I am not alone however I do think it's a sign of weakness in the publics eye. I look at my life and the only thing that make me proud and good is that I have amazing kids. I think they were born amazing. They have it in them and I take no credit. The only credit I would take is to be open with their feelings and be good people to others. Anything they are not good at I will take full responsibility for. I believe kids are born good and anything negative is learned. I have not been the best mother and I wish I could have been different but you can't turn back the clock, but you can be cognizant of it and hope to be better moving forward.
What makes me sad is that I don't have anything to look forward to. I know I am one of the lucky ones, but I can't help wanting to look forward to something.

I feel like I have so much to avoid.

Narcissism and infidelity what did I do to deserve this?

It's been quite a few years since I posted anything. I think my intentions were there but maybe it's my lack of know how or what I want to articulate on paper. I have so many thoughts and feelings and no way to organize them and put them to paper.

I write in my diary but often it's an impulsive thought or feeling and it may not be relavent to anyone but me. I feel like blogs are for the world to read, even though some one has to be able to find you. I live with the assumption that some one will and maybe share in my experience and not feel so alone. I live with the hope that some one has more wisdom and a solution.

In 2006 on the even of turning 40 I discovered my husband was having an affair. That was the beginning of my life spiraling out of control. Everything that I believe and counted on disappeared.

I didn't know where or who I was with or where I was anymore. It was so intense and almost as if I was going insane, however I was still in control. Or I thought I was. 

I have a bit of a controlling personality. Not in an obsessive way but more about having control of my life and the choices I make. I am knowingly not a perfect person and I have a lot of shortcomings, like anxiety and being incredibly insecure.

The anxiety probably comes from the fact that my father had a severe heart condition my entire childhood. Although I had a mother, she was incapable of taking care of him due to fear and it was left to me to be the one my father could rely on. I know it wasn't by any choice of his own, but rather I am nurturing by nature and I saw my father needed some one, and he saw I could handle it. I think if he knew the out come of how it would affect me as an adult he would have never relied on me as much as he did. The insecurity came from the fact that I have a narcissistic mother. I was not aware of who or what that was as a child, but now I know and understand. She was never proud of me unless it served her herself in some way. The love felt like it had conditions and I was aware of what they were. I think that is why I never felt beautiful. My father always made me feel like I was the most adored and loved person and he saw my beauty and my sadness and often apologized for my mothers behavior towards me. He used the fact that she was Japanese and it was a cultural thing and not to take it personally. I appreciate the fact the he acknowledge how wrong she made me feel but a child needs their mothers unconditional love. It's innate.  No matter how much you can intellectualize where the lack of it comes from, it doesn't change the feeling you have in your heart of not being good enough.

Then to later in life choose a spouse who hurts me in a way that triggers all those insecurities is so crushing.

In a couples therapy session most recently I described the feeling as being a a village in a Japan and being crushed by a tsunami. I was broken into a million pieces. Now I am like a china vase that someone has put together with scotch tape and at any minute I could break into those millions of pieces all over again.

I am such a strong person, I always have been and to feel so weak and vulnerable and not have anything to fall back on or to save me scares me daily. I have a concrete wall that I hide behind and it's all I have to protect me from the pain I feel every day.

So I have included a lot of information but left out some of the details. I started the post by saying my life changed in 2006. Well after he was caught Axel decides to live in his office loft that had 2 suites. They had build 2 bedrooms for company employee's who came from Germany to stay in while they were in NY. How convenient. This woman Phoebe was some one who worked for his company but who lived in LA. They were on a company sales trip they have every year and apparently Aexel had a near death scuba scare and when it happened he decided he no longer loved me. This decide that this new girl Phoebe was thi person he wanted to connect to. 

I didn't learn about the affair till a moth later when I caught him in a huge lie. The months before the scuba/sales trip things were not great however we were married already for 13 years and we had 2 boys who were in their 9 & 11 years old. I felt alone and cranky and maybe I wasn’t the best wife but I did try therapy and quite honestly Axel never called me on anything. If I was wrong he didn’t fight me. That was frustrating because he just kept drifting away and disconnecting which would bring up feeling I had with my mom.  Axel was also very good looking. I never had a traditionally good looking boyfriend, and when I met my husband he was dating a gorgeous girl who was HOT. I never could understand why he picked me. We did know each other from HS even though he was 2 years younger then me but he apparently knew of me all those years and said he was always attracted to me. I did date a good friend of his and there were times we double dated but quite honestly I never noticed him.

It wasn’t until we were out of college and I was having issues with my current boyfriend ( his friend ) and it came out that Axel liked me. Long story short I was always a sucker for a compliment and fell into it. We began dating but it was love right away. It was very intense and I just knew. I always questioned it and didn’t believe a guy like him who was so cool and handsome would want to be with me, but he made me feel so special and put me on a pedestal

, one that I was never on and I liked it. It made me feel good, he made me feel good for the first time in my life. He made me feel and loved me the way I felt my father did. He saw all the good that I could not see or believe was there.

So you can imagine how devastated I was to learn he did this to me and with some one who was 24 while I was about to turn 40.

But I stuck it out and let him go through what I believe was his own mid life crisis. That year he had bought himself a motorcycle, he hated his job, he was not feeling good about himself. He gained weight ect.. Not an excuse but I could see where or why it happened. Once I figured out everything and what I felt was the truth then I was able to be strong and try and take control back.

He eventually came home and things seemed ok and better.

Till it happened again. That time was 3 ½  years ago and he was fired from his job of 16years. That day was a very bad day. He was so upset and I comforted him and told him this is all good. He needed to get out of there. Later I looked at his phone not to snoop but he got a text and I happen to just see it. It was from a woman who he clearly was having a relationship with and said how sorry she was but she loved him and missed him.

Once again I was in this place of being there for him and trusting him and then to learn nothing has changed. He was a basket case and  I confronted him and became physically ill when he realized I couldn’t stay any more. But because I am sadistic and think so badly of myself worth I let him stay.

Those few months were the best. We had sex all the time and it was amazing. We were so together and intense. It was like rediscovering our relationship.

Well that all changed once he got a new job. About a year later when I myself got  new full time job I received a call from a man saying that his wife was having affair with my husband. I was in utter shock. #1 the fact that this guys found me at work, but then what he was telling me I could not believe this was happening to me ALL OVER AGAIN. I told him I need proof which he had and sent me. I left work right away. The blessing at the time was that Axel was in HKat the time and I texted him that I knew everything and I didn’t answer any calls till I was able to look through his stuff and that is when I found pandoras box and BOY did it have a lot of secrets.

Some how I was able to hack into all of his emails and found not only was he having an affair with this woman ( again 24) but with many other women.

Strangers, HS ex’s the list goes on. From what I could see most were emotional online affairs but there was at least one where I know he fucked. It was years before but the idiot didn’t delete the emails.

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME? I kept asking myself. What did I do in my life to deserve so much pain. I was a good daughter, I cared for my father, I endured my mother and her lack of acceptance. I lost my father the only person who loved me unconditionally when I was 22.  My adult life was supposed to be better and happier. I had amazing boys, but even with my kids, my youngest had so many health issues when he was a baby. He had RSV @ 10 days then later he had Epilepsy and then in school a learning disability, and I was always the one to stay over night in the hospital, to figure out what Kenzo needed and still take care of everyone else. I would not have it any other way, but it was a burden and I had no one who took care of me. I was scared, but I could not show my fear. I just needed a time a place to be vulnerable and safe.

After all that now my mother is getting older and suffering signs of age. She is 90 years old and in good health more or less, but she isn’t caring for herself well, here clothes are dirty and she a bit out of it.

When will life get easier? Will life get better?