Time to Let Go

As I’ve blogged about recently, the holidays have never been very pleasant for me. I was REALLY hoping that would change when I got married and I looked forward to big family parties and new traditions. But that never happened. The Christmases I’ve endured since marrying Adam have been some of the worst, and I decided it was up to me this year to keep history from repeating itself.

So I sent out an email to Adam’s family, hoping that maybe, JUST MAYBE, we could let go of the past and come together as a family, so that my daughter could experience how Christmas is SUPPOSED to feel (happy). 

Here is that Email

My inner masochist was thrilled, as I was sure to get nothing but grief from this naïve mission, however noble my intentions. Nonetheless, I tucked that pessimistic voice away, I prayed my letter would work, and began preparing for a holiday together. I bought lots of really fun presents, I made ornaments, I baked desserts (yummy red velvet cakepops, freezer safe, of course).  I even set up a secret photoshoot for Nixon and her cousin Jaxson, to surprise my mother in law with, framed, on Christmas.

But, sure enough, Adam’s hateful, self-righteous sisters declined my request to put the past behind us, proving once and for all that his family is a lost cause, and any attempts at “winning them over” are foolhardy at best.

How stupid am I? How many times am I going to delude myself into thinking I can “fix” things with this intolerable gaggle of bitter women? After all, I didn’t do anything to deserve their hatred, so how idiotic am I to think that anything I do will ever make things better?

The only time his younger sister has been nice to me was after Nixon came home from the hospital and she needed help editing her final paper for college. After reading what she had written, I quickly realized why it had taken her over 7 years to graduate, and I spent hours completely rewriting it. I even did additional research to fill in where her arguments lacked. No sooner than I finished it, she was back to being a hateful bitch.

His older sister is just as bad, if not worse; she pretended to be my friend for two years before Adam and I got married. It was only when we got pregnant with Nixon did it become clear that she was never my friend at all. She was jealous and bitter that we got pregnant before she did (I’d probably be jealous too if my marriage was as frigid and loveless as her's is). She wrote me a five page email ranting about how her whole family hates me, and that none of them thought we were capable of raising a child. After sending me that email, she continued to harass me nonstop for over a week causing me stress, headaches, high blood pressure, and the eventual onset of the preeclampsia that nearly killed both my daughter and myself.

The obvious question is: why do I care about reconciling with these sanctimonious bitches? Tonight I think I finally found the answer: I don’t, and I'm done.