My Mom is wierd. There is no way around it. We didn't notice it so much as kids but we always accepted that Mom was no PTA mom. My Dad catered to her every whim it seemed and we were in awe of how much he loved her. But she was still a strange duck.

Now that we kids are older and Mom is actively trying to destroy her life, us girls have gotten together to discuss Mom and her troubles. We have discovered that Moms problems probably go way way back to her family and their ancestry. It turns out to be a guy thing.

My Mom and her sister were the only children of their parents. Their father was a violent alcoholic and the home life must have been horrific. We have discovered a pattern in Moms life that goes back to this, whereas she sets up situations for someone to get really mad at someone else and then she sits back to enjoy the show. It's a real sick thing. I think she did this with her sister and dad. Their violence got so bad that he would throw things at her across the dinner table and even chase her around the living room with a hatchet. (the hatchet thing led to the parents getting divorced.) My Mom was the darling of her dads eye and apparently never did anything wrong. But what she did wrong was to get her sister in trouble constantly and never letting her have any sort of good relationship with their father. Mom needed and wanted all of the attention and love, all of the time.

As a kid growing up I didn't notice how Mom would sabatage (sp?) our relationships with each other, with our Aunt and with our Dad. Through our conversations as adults my sisters and I have been able to pin point the times that Mom was doing things to 'put us in our place'. Especially when it came to our father. I loved my Dad and he loved me. I think when he was alive Mom didn't dare do anything but after my Dad died, my Mom stole one of my boyfriends. Yep, she did. I came home from college one weekend and they sprung the news on me that they were dating. To this day she keeps bringing it up and glorifying what a wonderful guy he was.

Anyway, back to my Moms family... after the divorce my grandfather disappeared from their lives for many many years. My grandmother had to raise the girls alone which wasn't an easy thing back in the 1940's. My aunt eventually was able to put herself through college and was going to USC, working and paying for it herself. Then their Mom died of a massive stroke. My mother was only 17 years old and in her final year of high school.

My grandmother was the only sister of a family of 6 brothers. Their father had deserted their family after he had a stroke and couldn't remember any of them. So Nana raised her 7 children all alone. The boys pretty much ruled the roost and my grandmother was very downtrodden. So when they were all grown ups and married, my grandmother up and dies. The wives of the brothers invaded the house and stole everything. I'm not kidding. A neighbor came over and took some of the furniture to save it for my Mom and Aunt. But the wives took every last everything else. My moms father and grandfather had been master pattern makers and made some unique fabulous furniture, marquestry style tables which are now antiques and valuable.

I always wondered why we never had anything to do with that part of the family. They all lived just miles away from us but we never ever saw them. There must have been dozens of cousins. Well if must have been the whole guilt thing about they had done. When I asked why the aunts and uncles had been allowed to get away with being so shitty to the two girls who were now orphans, the answer was..."well they were the boys in the family. They could do what they wanted." And that pretty much sums up my Moms actions today. She will always bend to the will of a powerful man. He might be a total asshole and robbing her blind, but if he shows force and power, then my Mom will immediately assert that he is in the right. Since I am a girl I of course must be and definitely am wrong about everything. It is the wierdest thing I have ever encountered.

I don't understand this bending to the total will of a man. I didn't learn this sort of thing from my father and we don't practise this in my home now. Joes and my relationship is based on respect for each other and being partners. We both play our roles and support the other. However my marriage in the Family was very much a kowtowing to the man sort of thing. I used to play a passive resistive sort of game in that marriage. I would say yes sir, yes sir and then just quietly do what I wanted, and damn the consequences. I didn't fare very well in the Family.

It is so wierd now to have to take care of my Mom and know that she will try to do anything to cause me hurt. My sisters and I have a pact that we will always talk if we find ourselves getting mad at each other. We have discovered that Mom is always behind it. We have to love and take care of her even though we all agree that she is sick. And you know what...I blame her family. Her horrible uncles and her sick alcoholic father.

Being a grown up is really hard to do.