And The Walls Came Crashing Down (Part 2)

So where was I?

Right...B and I had gone down to our house to talk, leaving his mother upset and alone at the casino. I had also had a firm discussion with her where I kept insisting that she was not to blame, none of us had gone through anything like this before so we all had to find a balance of how to deal with things. She didn't take to that too well and basically shit down. Yes, we are model children.

B and I discussed everything. I revealed how I have always been uncomfortable around his mother, how her words and actions towards me make me feel like I am never good enough or that I don't know anything. This uncomfortable feeling made living with her before almost impossible, something she picked up on. She actually stated how us living with them before did not work because I was miserable. Well, I have to hand it to her about that one, I was. But I had high hopes it would be different this time due to the circumstances and perhaps I had grown more as a person and would be able to handle more.

I was wrong. Which is how all this has been building to this moment.

Any way, back to the present now. B and I talked and talked. A few times I had broached the idea of us separating, wondering out loud if this would be easier on us all if we were not together. B freaked and immediately jumped to the conclusion that I was leaving him. I told him I was doing no such thing, that I was just thinking out loud. And that being apart did not mean that we would be leaving each other. Just what I had said before about me staying at our house while B stayed with his mom. But since we had already moved in with her it would be ridiculous for me to move back out and probably do more damage since she would take the blame for keeping us apart and driving me out of her house too. We talked for a long time. A lot of shit was said. some in anger, some in tears, some in reflection. Eventually we worked some things out and I had convinced him to rally his brothers together to help him shoulder the burden of everything we were dealing with regarding his mother. I had a feeling his brothers did not comprehend the daily shit we were wading in. And I was correct. He got a hold of his younger brother M first. We told him what happened at the casino, his mother's reaction. We laid out her gambling issues, he talking about not wanting to be here and that things would be easier on us if she were dead. We told it all. I broke down in the middle and started pleading with M to help us because if he didn't I could see B and I having problems that may end up with me leaving him or him leaving me.

We expressed our concern about B's mother's dependency on B and how she is replacing his father with him. Also, the constant references to not wanting to be there, wanting to be dead. We rationalized that all the guilt she carries is protecting her from having to deal with the grief. She believes she killed their father by not making him go to the doctor sooner. Add on the guilt she has for uprooting our lives, for causing a riff between B and I ecetera, ecetera and she is wrapping herself up in this safe cocoon of guilt. She will never be able to move on until she lets go of the guilt. We also told M about the gambling problems and how she is constantly going to work with B (which he is going to stop enabling) and when she runs out of money she just goes to the ATM to get more. B checked her accounts and one night she lost $500!

M agreed with everything we said and even clued us in to one time his mother told him that she thought about just not taking her diabetes medicine to see what would happen to her. He also pointed out how she always tells him to go and take care of his family and not worry about her. B piped up yeah, but A and I are a family too and she doesn't seem to understand we need to take care of ourselves too. M asked how he could help. Other than being an earpiece for B we needed him to help us convince their mother she really needs to talk to someone. Because all of her issues were too much for us to handle on our won. M agreed and said he would try but didn't think their mother would agree. I was hoping all of them banning together to convince her would work. M agreed to call his mother later that night.

We finally left our house after almost two and a half hours of talking. We hadn't heard from B's mother, didn't know if she was still at the casino or at home, so he called her. He put it on speaker so I could hear, but I don't think she knew I was listening in. She sounded okay on the phone with B, not happy but not all out miserable either. She answered his questions about how she did at the casino and how her ride back in the truck was. They talked about what we would do for dinner and he hung up. We were both hopeful things were not as bad as we had feared we had made them.

Boy were we wrong.

Walking in that house was like walking into a ticking time bomb. As soon as she realized I was with B she all but ignored us. No, scratch that. She ignored ME, she gave B one word answers. The tension was horrible. She never looked at me, never even looked in my general direction and if I said anything she left the room for a while. Sitting there while B tired to make dinner with his mother hovering and then eating it was excruciating. I know was certain that she hated me for what I had said to her, for causing this whole ordeal and popping her little bubble of security she has been floating around in for the last month and a half. When she was done eating she got up and left the table without a word (not a word was said from any of us while we ate) and sat in her chair in the living room. I had such a headache that I sat at the kitchen table holding my head so I didn't notice when B left. My MIL's phone rang and I knew it was M. She answered and immediately said "No, I can't talk about that now. I won't talk." I knew because I was in the kitchen she wasn't going to talk so I got up without a word and went upstairs.

In my in-law's house the acoustics in the upstairs loft are perfect for hearing just about anything going on downstairs. So we could hear snippets of the conversation, although only her side of it. She started yelling/crying that no one understood her feelings, no one could say they know how she felt about everything. She claimed she never said she wanted to kill herself and then said she just wouldn't say things like that any more. He must have broached the subject of therapy because she flatly refused to go talk to someone because "talking is not going to help anything. It won't change things. It won't bring him back." She then claimed she was just going to live her life and not do anything with us because we wanted to be separate from her. So she would go grocery shopping herself, go to her hair appointments, doctors appointments etc. all by herself and not bother us. (I forgot to mention she had told me during our casino chat, when I explained my difficulty living with parents, that we could move out tomorrow, she didn't care.) We didn't need to help her do anything ever again. But then in the same breath she tells him she won't go to PA alone if we don't go. It's all or nothing with her. Black and white. There is no compromise.

We were quickly going to be in the middle of a hailstorm because now she knew we had talked to M. She mentioned to him about us all ganging up on her. I think he was trying to tell her we were worried about her and she stated she didn't need anyone to worry about her we could all just leave her alone.

Yeah, she was thinking rationally.

We figured it would be a good time to exit so we headed over to B's cousin's house (When B went to tell her where we were going she just waved her hand like she was dismissing him and saying "whatever" She didn't respond to his "love bye" like they always do. I think B was more hurt by that any any thing.) Now here is where I get stupid.

When we first arrived B's cousin was upstairs. She smokes pot, a lot, and was smoking it when we got there. I went up to talk to her and as soon as I saw her started bawling. Big heaving sobs, the one where you breath really heavy. I didn't notice all the smoke in the room at first but remember it was hard to breath. Eventually we went downstairs and we filled her and her boyfriend in on everything. As we talked I worked my way through a bottle of wine and champagne. In about two and a half hours. Also, before we had left the house I had taken 3 Advil because my head hurt so bad. I had stopped taking Advil since I was trying to get pregnant so I hadn't had that in a very long time. B's older brother E called and as B filled him in on the situation I kept drinking. B's cousin had a few drinks but I mostly polished off both bottles myself. I started to feel more and more guilty and worried about B's brothers hating me for causing this whole mess in the first place. My big mouth getting us in trouble again. B assured me his brothers didn't hate me. I then said I was sure his mother does and said that was fine. She could hate me as long as she got better and B felt better she could hate me all she wanted. That was around the time B decided we should probably go. I was feeling really good right then. I don't drink hardly at all anymore, not like I used to in college and I haven't been drunk in probably about seven or eight years.

I don't remember getting home. I do remember walking in the house and going right to the fridge to extract the wine I had in there that I drink every now and then. B said I started to drink it out of the bottle and then fell on the floor as he was getting out of his coat. He got me upstairs and into bed and here is where it gets fuzzy. I remember him telling me he was going to pee. And then I started feeling weird. Really weird. Not just drunk weird. And I started to panic because B hadn't come back yet. I began to believe B had left me and I had a full-fledged panic attack. Meanwhile B was downstairs talking to his mother who was still up. When he got upstairs I was hyperventilating. He got me my inhaler and I calmed down a bit but the panic attack lasted about 2 and a half hours. I haven't had one since his car got towed three years ago and this one was ten times worse. I kept telling him I felt weird. He said he asked me if I did anything other than drink at his cousin's house and I said no. I told him about a smoky room and not being able to breath and he concluded I must have breathed in a good amount of pot smoke and combined with my asthma and all the alcohol and the Advil and the fact I hardly ate anything all day I was having a bad reaction. I don't remember falling asleep.

When I woke up the next morning I was in such pain. I haven't had a hangover since God knows when. B took care of me but had no sympathy since he said my condition was my fault and I had scared him so bad the night before. He told me his mother had apologized the night before and that she had decided to go to Houston and PA at the end of February. She also wanted to apologize to me, which she did as I lay moaning on the couch later. But her apology to me was odd. She said she was sorry for what she said and sorry I didn't feel well since it was probably her fault I wanted to get drunk in the first place. I was too messed up to think much of it then but now I realize she was just adding to the guilt. Because she mentioned it a few times later too. Then she went to the store herself, not liking it but doing it, trying to prove she could do it. B was a bit panicked but let her go. This prompted B and I to discuss how she always used to go shopping alone when they were younger and how she was always the one to make the phone calls, even when his dad was around. She was independent before, she does know how to do things, she just doesn't want to now because she knows B would take care of everything for her if she wanted him to. B explained she may tell him to spend time with me or go somewhere without her but it is the tone and attitude she gives him that makes him feel guilty because he can tell she doesn't mean the words. But he managed to not call her the whole time she was gone and she survived her first trip alone to the grocery store.

Yesterday was okay enough that B thought things would be fine. But I knew better. She got to spend the whole day with B and they went to play poker which I did not approve. She is still not talking to me and all out ignored me again today. B didn't notice it until I pointed it out. She is very clever and only ignores me fully when B is not around. I tried talking to her when I got up and she never answered me. So she definitely has more issues with me and is pretending for B. Today she was more morose because she knew we were going to work and she was going to be alone again. But she went out gambling with her brother without telling us before hand, which I would see as progress if I didn't object to the activity she was indulging in.

She's not the same with me, she's worse. I think I may have done irreparable damage.

More to come about the trips she has planned and my feelings about such.