Fallen From Grace

I SAVED his LIFE

I've detached from my Mom a lot, I feel better for it. I sometimes have angry thoughts when I dive deeper into narcissistic things off you tube relating fully to the behaviours and issues I have with my family but on the whole I feel better and I just keep my distance. My feelings can't get hurt on a regular basis if I don't hang around the Middleton household so much. As sitting around tables where unsolicited feedback always comes around to me where it starts as my Mom being "brutally honest."
And then by saying unnecessary cruel, unfiltered mean things over the years and the unkindness in her delivery has ruined a part of our relationship.

What generally has wound both myself and Andy up is how Annie and Ricky are very good at blowing clouds of smoke up Mom and Dad's ass. Andy often complains to me at home after reading another watsap post from the family chat...

"It's fake. They're fake."

As he paces through the kitchen.

"I don't want to go over and play happy families with them this weekend. It's the way they talk to each other..."

I get it. It's a bit like polite strangers at a dinner party.

"Oh Carol that was lovely thank you."

"No, thank you. I have to thank Ricky for bringing the pudding we wouldn't have thought of these to out on the table. Mm, these are nice."

Then there's a pause.

"Thank you so much for helping to fix Annie's car yesterday," my Dad will start. "I couldn't get there in time..."

"I've only..." Ricky will explain what he's done to patch things up and then adds. "But Annie will need it properly looked at."

"I know. I know. That is who they are," I immediately reminded Andy.

There is a lot of brown nosing with my family, with everyone behaving like martyers. If Annie is helping out at meal times Ricky would be saying you sit down I'll help with Thomas. Annie, unselfishly will say...

"No you sit down, I'll do this, this and this."

Half the time Andy and I agree if someone is willing to do everything we'll let them. By no means are we lazy, we do stuff but if we are having things done for us we don't put ourselves out there if we feel we don't have to but we have decided we don't need validation to do something generous. It is almost feeding into their game of who does the most, or how much they do in a day. Because of their busy schedules and because they push themselves like machines we know Andy and I that they think we don't do enough. I'll hear from Annie..

"I picked the kids up, I vacuumed the house from top to bottom, then I did a three to four back to back Zoom meetings and then I mopped up Thomas's sick..."

All the whole being pregnant with another child. I remember hearing about this on Mom's couch and thought of how their plan was to unfreeze an egg and try later in the year. I remember looking at Ricky and said...

"How did this happen?"

There was a lot of judgement behind it but because I worded it like that my reply was...

"Generally Kim, when two people have sex," Annie began. "That's how you make a baby."

I rolled my eyes. What I meant was how could Ricky be so irresponsible and had sex with her too soon after the first child and put a raincoat on it. I knew she was stressed out already and I actually was thinking of my sister in terms of how she was going to cope. Mom called me after and said that she said to Annie she didn't agree with this second child being born this soon after the first.

But back to my original point was that Annie did all this housework and running over to chemists in her car and little shops to pick up like a prepacked salads as well as being pregnant and looking after an ill Thomas. My Mom on the other hand will answer back with all the things she's done after Annie's told her that.