Y'all may remember about five years ago my mom's brother sexually harassed me and outed me in front of 20 or so family members and family friends. I chronicled it here. After a week of family members ignoring the problem, I took matters into my own hands and wrote the above mentioned post, which is anonymous to my family, but then I took it a step further. I posted the same piece on MySpace. That was the end of my relationship with that side of the family and the beginning of a fragile relationship with my own mother. On my side because I could not forgive her for making excuses for Gerard and not sticking up for me and on her side because she believes the blog post to be "so damaging that if it was one of my cousins, I wouldn't talk to them either" and in the same breath, "Family is the most important thing."
This past weekend, I spent a few days with my parents and my sisters. The beginning of the weekend got off to a rough start, but it got better. The highlight was my mom telling that she set a boundary with her family regarding me. They are not to talk about me or ask after me or my kids to her or my dad. It was as close to an apology as I will ever get from her, but I felt so light. On the flip side, I am not allowed to say bad things about her pervy brother to her, which is what I had done the night before.
I love that my mother was able to draw this boundary with both sides, because, ultimately, she was the one who was getting hurt. I admit, I never thought about this before two days ago. She told me there is no hope of repairing my relationships with Mary Pat or Gerard. That was such a relief to me. I have been dreading making amends to them because I didn't feel like I did anything wrong, besides hurt my mother, which I made amends for after she said her peace.
The parts about this talk that didn't sit well is all the stuff they make up to blame me for and the things they said about my boys. My next step is to talk to my sponsor about writing an amends letter to my mom's other sister who seems to get it. I am feeling so much relief and a bit of excitement knowing that I won't ever have to be part of that mess again. I also have a bit of fear about writing the letter because if she blabs about it to the others, they will assume that I just want to stir up more trouble for them. I guess that assumption will be inevitable no matter if I write a letter or will a Nobel Peace Prize. It will always be about them. I know I still have days more processing to do, but this is a nice start.
**I want you to know that I googled searched my mother's brother to link his profile to this page, but I thought that would be immature and spiteful and I am trying to be big about this.
