You knowk, Bob, it took me a couple of days to conclude that I was not going to let what happened get the best of me. I found it empowering to let my sister know that I knew that her husband got what I thought would have been my inheritance. I didn't blame her (or him). I simply asked if my aunt had given them a reason for giving it to him, over me, since they were the ones with power of attorney over her and since her husband did have an axe to grind in regards to his relationship to me. My sister said that she didn't influence my aunt to do that, although I could tell that she was clearly uncomfortable. If what my sister said is true, then it would have to have been my decision to forsake my first wife and kids to join the Family and my mother's reaction to that. My mother had a hard time with that one (my joining the Fam) and it still comes up 29 years later. Yakety yak yak yak!

As I've said, my mother can be critically divisive. She can also be superbly sweet, kind, jovial and giving, etc..., but as I've also said, she craves the top job and places of leadership, the things she can't have because she is, well, critically divisive. I grew up hearing her rant continually about her church 'enemies.' "Miss Culpus this, Ms. Turner that, Cathy this, Mrs. Vaughn that........"

My dad? He danced around in circles trying to keep the peace, sometimes falling, himself, occasionally into that spirit - not too often though. He should have confronted her, imo, but he seemed content to let things slide and let her have her way. You can be sure that he, too, was a dirty one in her eyes (in part because he cared little about her church and the politicing therin.) My mom, in my opinion (I believe in her insecurity), worked hard to 'stay on top' of the relationship and incest us with her emotional dirty work in regards to him. There was rarely a day where she didn't criticize him to me and in front of me. It was like he just didn't have the 'spirituality' and the leadership capability that she craved he should have. And had he had it, she would have probably resisted it. Figure that one out! Even had she resisted, it is a battle he should have won, imo. No, she seemed to think that she had to be the boss -- at all costs! And for some reason he just let her be the boss and, 'do it to him', and he took it, even though I can remember seeing him sometimes boiling inside.

Believe me, some of that anger came out one day on Molly the cow. You would not have wanted to see him beat that cow. It was NOT a pretty site! Of course, back then as a young boy, I did not see that some of it was displaced anger. Sure, the cow didn't walk into 'her stall' for milking. She tried to sneak a bite or two of grain from a neighboring stall before being driven to her stall where she'd still have her own grain. I could see what she was doing, but dad, at that time in his life (mid 40's)was trying to build a new home (at her insistance for the good of us kids), trying to hold down a farm while holding down a job, trying to raise 5 kids with his wife criticizing and nagging him and bossing him around, and probably extremely frustrated and tired after work that day -- poor cow.

It IS toxic to vist my mother. Visits can be sweet and cordial and she always praises the Lord for how He helps her to get through her struggles and I commend her for that. That's the good part. It usually takes about 1/2 an hour for her to start critizing the Home she's in and why she's in it, who's fault it is and how it should be run, blah, blah, blah. She knows, at the same time, that that is her station in life (the Home) and tries to accept it. When the critisizing starts, that's usually about the time my coffee is just finished and I can be on my merry way. It's sad! I feel sad, but like you've said, I don't think I'll ever get what I thought could have been restitution. And, as hard as it can be, I've had to accept that! There is no justice in unjust suffering and the time has come, for me in this situation, for some of these things to be responsibly dropped. She is she and I am me!

I offered, before she went into the Home, to build an addition for her, build her a flower bed and a garden - something she could scratch in as gardens, to her, were a source of great joy, as well as pride (although they often enabled her to toot her own horn.) She'd have been close to the friends she had, she'da been just a block form her church, been able to stay in the neighborhood and I would have cared for her, etc.... She chose to stay on the farm thinking that the nephew that she gave the inheritance to would move in with her and take care of her. Ha! He had relationship problems with the town he was working for, left his job in a huff and took off for parts unknown in search of another job, abandoning her to herself as she turned 90. He's still long gone - it's partly the job and partly a girlfriend. Dad's death, the stress of willing everything to the nephew and the ostrisization she created for herself in doing so, brought her to her senses two years later wherein she did ask for forgiveness. But, like I said, she won't change the Will. She went on to have two attacks of congestive heart failure where entry into a home was not an, 'if,' or a, 'maybe,' anymore. It became a must.

All this to say that, yes, my family of origin was dysfunctional. I can see, in myself, that while in the Fam seeking recovery, and while out of the Fam seeking revocery, I didn't fall all that far from the tree. I, too, was a mess! Funny, isn't it, how I forsook one dysfunctional family only to join a more dysfunctional Family as part of my recovery from the original dysfunctional family?

Thankyou for your insights, Bob. They have been very helpful. I do take them to heart and I will do something to overcome by doing well.