When you are trying to do one right thing at a time, it is important to stitch together things grounded in truth and not just emotion. Here are the facts as I understand them:
Match’s Ex is traveling for work the first week of September overseas to France to a conference.
H would have traveled with her except her passport is expired.
This grates on me because this trip she wanted H to have would interrupt return to school which was a crux in H being unable to take vacation with us, a few weeks later in the school year, to Florida last year. Rules made for H aren’t applicable to both households.
We will have H for the time her mother is away.
Overlapping this week, is a shift in our house where we have Match ending one career and beginning another. Which eases the geography of being in proximity of H’s school, but not the logistical scheduling challenges of his work day being different hours than her school day.
Saturday morning, H tells me, “Mom wants to know if you’ll watch our dog while she’s away?” This dog is a service dog for military vets who need help with PTSD, MST, and TBI as a result of their service. It was free to them, but thousands of dollars in donations to train it through the non-profit who pairs military veterans to service dogs.
This dog is also a black lab. The breed of dog Match has wanted forever. Also, the breed H’s mother told us H was allergic to. So, when we got a dog, we did not get a lab puppy, but another dog from a rescue instead. This makes me ache for Match because he went the way of less resistance.
To take her dog with her is a process overseas in the EU. A process there might not be time for.
Match had a whole conversation about this big ask with H and her mother. He said (1) they would need to ask me and (2) he wasn’t sure how our dog would be with their dog. My inkling of having more yes than no came out as a maybe. Instead of talking to me about it as the two adults in our home, he let H ask me the next morning. Which was some shitty fuckery there.
Based on past experiences– ones I carry with me in heavy, but careful ways– I am wary (and, sometimes initially adorably neurotic) of the inconsistent, pointed, and sometimes aggressive ways she interacts with Match and myself.
For days, I have been stuck processing two things:
I’m stuck on this mental loop of worry: Match not talking to me himself, but choosing instead to have H ask me– has me feeling like I am a few steps down a road I don’t want to walk down. It feels like a ghost of Ex where the goal is an outcome and he’s stacking the deck to achieve it. He knows, I tend to bend to “yes” everywhere but with him. There is a blinking dot of worry pulsing: Is this is a pattern? Is this a road I’m traveling on again? Giving it time and thought and depth to find wisdom in this allegory, but also acknowledging this doesn’t feel good nor like a partnership. Days of mulling over this stone fruit of a worry I have not landed anywhere definitive on if this is rooted in wisdom or just in fear.
Combined with feeling the weight of being torn by two guiding principals: That H’s Mom is not allowed in the golden circle of my family because she does not treat it as sacred. Five seconds after being asked, I had already made a mental list of the ways those things could fuck up my shit, all the ways it was awful to be asked, and all the ways it knocked down these boundaries I struggle to keep. I struggle because boundaries are against my nature to keep. I calculated all the ways we were at risk. Yet, saying no to helping, was in contradiction to my guiding tenant in life, “do all the good you can.” My mouth said, “Maybe,” but my whole being was whisper yelling “Fuck that, no.” I can’t tell which of my gut reactions is the best right, next thing. Every choice, sends a message and I take the responsibility of messaging so heavily, I am trying to untangle all the things either choice would say to H and her siblings.
Because in the parts of life that are challenging, doing one right thing one by one usually is how I make it through. I have been struggling to figure out what that is. What would be fair or dutiful or kind… and, most pressing, what would be safe?
I knew this wasn’t a thing I wanted. Yet, I also knew Match didn’t feel the same and that H probably would like to have their dog with her. I was feeling terrible about not wanting the same. About feeling so resentful of being asked to take on what felt like an Olympic feat. I felt terrible about not being a bigger person that was selfless enough to push past. I felt like maybe I didn’t measure up to being a good adult for H if I didn’t let their dog stay here with my dog. Every time I felt the agreement start to sneak past my mouth, I felt very much unsafe. Like I was bringing danger and heartache and stress right though the front door. It felt very much unfair to even have to take on this decision given all the stories that fill our history. And yet… that little nugget of doubt of my feelings was loud: What if we had finally rounded a corner and I was holding up us all finally having peace? What if I’m the one feeding this life of never ending miserable conflicts?
I was in the throws of indecision. There was no solution that felt like a compromise. Compromise and third options are my bread and butter in life.
The universe gave me clarity.
Match saw H and her mother last night when he picked and dropped off for weekly dinner. H’s mother finally, after much waiting and years without, has a car. She’d like to use it to travel to NY and see her brother this weekend. However, H and the rest of the women in our household are hosting a Bridal Shower Sunday for my sister. It has been on the calendar and agreed upon for a long time. Match was asked: Can H skip it? Can we lie and say she’s too sick to go? H is a junior bridesmaid in the wedding. This is a milestone family event. So when Match said, “No.” She said something akin to, “Then I’m not doing shit for this wedding. You can bring her to and from.”
No one asked her to do shit. I can’t depend on her. She is not a person I want to have any power to fuck this event up.
Here she is: dangling heartbreak, reminded with steady pressure that she can leave us in a mess, flicking pebbles because somehow these things stir up pain or grief or some sort of weight she has to sort through. Gosh, it all cuts so deep. This life we border with each other.
Because here in our home, just like in her home there– H is a member of a family. Regardless of the fact this one daughter is a ghost here most days… just here in spirit and not in body… she is a part of something. While we understand she has roots growing on both sides that are of equal importance. The issue is that is not reciprocated. Not in truthful, meaningful way.
So, after days of hemming and hawing, here is the thing I’ve come to remind myself of: I do not have to help this person, nor welcome them, nor try to give grace to them, for H or myself. Not when this is where she places the other half of her daughter’s life. Where half her roots, her life, are just a thing to skip when something better comes along. Not if our inconvenient things are treated as affronts to her instead of things that make H more whole.
The right thing is to make and keep boundaries. To remember and acknowledge and grieve that we don’t have a safe relationship with H’s mother. I wish very much I could but my hope there… but that place holds nothing but heartache.
The universe let me know that I am not leading us somewhere hurtful by simply telling Match, “No, we won’t watch the dog.” It is not time yet. It’s still not safe.
Thank you for the patience to wait for wisdom.
Love, Mom 