Raw reality

Just a warning that this is not going to be a nice post. I can talk about most things seemingly without feelings (portrayal, not reality) so sometimes my tone is misinterpreted and i am going to talk about some really raw feelings & things that have happened. This is going to be a long post but if you have time i suggest you read it all.

Anyone who has followed for a while knows my style. I am always honest but go back and forth between the happy and the not so happy. I am pretty happy in my everyday life but just like everything we tend to harp on the negative and pass on the positive which goes for blogging too. There are some bloggers who have a puppies and rainbows approach because they believe that is what people want (i assure you, it's not, or they think that everything should be private (why blog then??)), there are some like me who go back and forth which to me is pretty normal in life, then there are ones who are just negative because that is the time they feel like writing, and that is ok. When i have a negative post i try to post a positive one shortly after to balance the two out,but sometimes i can't.

I have stated time & time again it is ok if you do not agree with me, it is ok to call me out, i fully expect that and i am happy to go into debates that are respectful. I am happy to clear up information when i have been a tad vague. What burns my ass is when someone wants to call you out but doesn't have the balls to actually post who they are and so then do it anonymously. I think that is extremely cowardly. I have never nor will i ever call out a blogger without posting my real first name and letting them email me. I mean seriously, if you have the guts to call someone out and use misinformation then at least post your name and do it under your account so they can contact you!!! I thought maybe you were this person from my life before but after seeing where you are from that is impossible, you also seem to be misinformed.

Anyone who has actually followed me for a while knows that i have been put through the wringer by my family and believe me, i didn't choose that path, they did.

I am going to address this post and explain it here in case anyone else is wondering but doesn't want to actually ask me about it. I mentioned in that post that i told my son i didn't want a relationship at the time of posting with him (he has since realised why & how come i was so hurt).

At this point in my life i finally have to put myself first. I have lived the last 14 years trying to please a woman that could never be pleased. I am a mom yes, but i am me first. Sometimes you have to be selfish and do what you need to do. Mentally and emotionally  i am spent with this family.

The posts that explain a lot of the last year are taken down and due to certain people that i didn't want to access this blog  i wrote when it was private so most of you may not have seen that explain a lot more than i ever could but i will say a little bit.

First of all, not sure where i ever said i was away for my birthday. I mentioned our anniversary trip but if you knew anything you would know that was back in June. I was home for my birthday, and my husband was at work. it fell during my appointed time with my son, but more on that later.

Second, i have a court order that i got to make sure i got time with my son, as this woman is very vindictive. It is not something they can change unless she takes me back to court, which she never will, she knows that i am in a better position than her now. With the court order she has primary care & control but i have care & control on my time and i am the only one who can decide to do anything different. She can not tell me what to do during that time (but did for years because i did not want to make waves, i then went to the courthouse and found out the truth when she told me she decided what i did with him on my time). She also can not make plans for him during my time unless i choose to give that time up, it also states that other visitation if both parties agree. Last time i mentioned that she said ya, as long as both parties agree, and i don't. The whole point in the first place was to push and help me have the relationship with my son and i don't care what anyone says she has done opposite that for many years now. You know very little, only what someone else has told you, not the truth.

Over the years she has continually told me what to do, made vacation plans on my time yet made me write her a written letter requesting her permission when we took him to Florida, she was very specific in that it had to be in writing. She never once has asked me if it was ok for her to take him on vacation (which by the way, she legally can't do without my permission) but makes me jump through hoops. Over and over again. She is not allowed to take him anywhere over the weekends without my permission but sometimes  i only find out a few weeks before the trip that she booked one. She is supposed to ask me first and give me the same courtesy she expects out of me but she refuses too but legally she has to. She doesn't think she has to (i got clarification on this, she legally can not take him without asking me as well) and she knows i would never call the police on her so she knows she can get away with it without repercussion.

I was sexually assaulted by my aunt's husband for years when i was younger. He was sober but a recovering alcoholic. I remember everything, the words he said, the furniture, every little thing. 20 years later and it still feels like yesterday. When i was 20 and just had my son my grandma told me to get over it (by the way, get over it and grow up are the 2 most stupid "phrases" i have ever heard and i find people say them when they have nothing else to say). Nobody has the right to tell another person how to feel and a person can't be perfect all the time. We all make mistakes.

She told me if i wanted to pursue more charges (he was charged but not by me so i could charge him) than i would lose my entire family and it would destroy relationships. So i let it go, i called him and told him how i felt and he said "Bonnie, i can't change what i did in the past, i can only make up for it in the future", those words stuck with me for years, and i felt a tad more comfortable with him and could hug him without feeling weird a few years later.

Fast forward to last year when planning my wedding, my dad wanted to throw a party for the family that was going to be in town seeing as it was a holiday weekend. So instead of a party that night after the wedding like normal he planned one for the next day with another live band. Seeing as he planned it with only a month or 2 till the wedding there were not many options left for venues. He wanted it outside, and the wedding was out of town in my husband's hometown so he wanted it closer, where we all live. This particular aunt & "uncle" have an acreage just outside of town with a beautiful lawn, so my dad decided to plan it there.

My mom was very upset because she couldn't go, she would never step foot on their property, she didn't even want that "uncle" at the wedding. She hates him, justifiably so, but i love my aunt and i think it is rude not to invite spouses, and everyone else's spouses were invited, i just couldn't single him out. My mom was not happy and we had many a tearful conversations and while she was not happy with my decision i put it to her like this..... She lives out of town and never has to see these people again, but i live here and the backlash would have been too great. I was trying to please everyone. I have not lived with my mom since i was a teenager and sometimes only see her every couple years. I did not want to offend a ton of people. If i would have known what would happen just a couple weeks later everything would have been different.

We self catered,and at the end of the night that particular aunt & uncle packed all the food (and took all my cake too) and took it for the party at their house the next day. It was the first time we had a Canada day party and it was fun. I arrived late so i could spend more time with my mom and her best friend who i hadn't seen since i was 18. I spent the afternoon with them. My mom was pretty upset before she came and felt excluded but in the end realized it was not my party and i had no say. They had the only yard available and my dad never even thought about her or her feelings, not on purpose by any means, that is just where all the parties happened and he got caught up in the excitement.

3 weeks later about a month before our honeymoon i got a phone call from my mom. She was hysterical. Her sister, my aunt on the other side phoned her and told her this "uncle" got drunk and molested his tenants daughters, they are twins and only about 4 i think. She was completely freaking out because he was at my wedding when she did not want him there (we paid for almost all of it ourselves) and was all i told you, i told you! I freaked out too, i called up my grandma and got on her for not telling me, she felt it wasn't her place, which i think is crap, then i phoned his daughter to get the story, the one who acts like he did no wrong. In fact, not one person cared enough to see how i felt. It was all about his wife & kids, his wife was no victim, she made the choice to stay with him. I was a victim, his daughters were too in their way.

Turns out he had been drinking for the last 2 years. One daughter disowned him, the other one pretends nothing ever happened and acts like he is so great. His wife does the same, she will not leave him, brings him to family gatherings still. No one tells her not to so in the end i am the one cast aside. When it happened to me not one of them came to me then either, my aunt has never ever talked to me about it. I recently heard from a cousin that another aunt asked her if i said anything then told her to never bring it up. I know it is hard for her but still.......... she has to face reality.

I am appalled. I do not understand how she can lay down beside this man and act like he is not a pedophile, they blame it on alcohol, or mental health issues which he has never had. He was sober with me so that is not excuse. He has also cheated on her many times over the years, she knows about it. He slept with one of her best friends. He cheated on her the night their baby died, with a young girl who worked in his store. my mom was the one who found the baby (crib death) when she got there to babysit and she said instead of getting up that morning they were in bed arguing. I don't believe crib death is preventable but my mom will forever be traumatized by that and believes it is his fault. No one will ever know but she thinks if they were not arguing over his cheating that they would have checked on the baby and maybe he wouldn't have died.

My brother even had the nerve to text me to bring my son to their house instead of taking him home about a week later. I got austin to call as i wanted to see if that man was home and my brother wasn't responding to my texts (which was a tip off). Sure enough, they are having a party and i hear him singing in the background. I kind of lost it then, i couldn't believe they wanted me to go to his house, and bring my son there. My grandma told me i was making a mountain out of a molehill, as he would not molest my son. That did my head in, it doesn't matter if he would molest him. The fact is he has molested at least 3 children, that should be enough for anyone to not want their kids around him. ALL of my family goes around him. If it was a stranger they would condemn him for sure. 3 of them have little girls, i do not understand how they are ok with it. One told me that they helped her when she had nowhere else to turn so she can't turn her back on him.

HE IS A PEDOPHILE, HE TOUCHES LITTLE GIRLS FOR PLEASURE. I don't care who you are, that is disgusting and wrong. I have been trying to understand how they do not see him this way but a year later i still can't wrap my head around it. I don't care if it was not your daughter, fact of the matter is that it was somebody's daughter and it very well could have been yours!!!

I still feel guilty for choosing the family's needs over my mothers but at the time i felt i had no choice.

Now onto the rest of the story, my son throws things about that man in my face, telling me i need to get over it etc. etc.

All summer long he has been blowing me off because my grandma wants to do things that are fun for him which for some reason can not be done at other times (she only works part time so has lots of free time). Somehow he had it in his head that they got to make the choice whether or not he came here. You throw a dog a bone, he will take it. I told him over and over again that i did not get it, i did not understand that way of thinking, especially since i could not in any way tell her what i was doing "with her time" for lack of better terms.

Holidays are always important to me, especially now, i refuse to go around that man and the people who support him. He is in jail now for a little while but when he is out she will still take him places. My husband was working on my birthday, i grew up with alcoholic parents and the only time we ever got anything was birthdays or Christmas. I never ever had school supplies, just the very basics, so crappy as it sounds they are a big deal to me. I don't need expensive things, but it is the one day i want to feel important.

I made a comment after the last time he blew me off that he would probably blow me off for my birthday too. He promised me he would not do that. My son never buys me gifts, and i don't expect them, but i do expect him to be around. Whenever his grandmas birthday falls on my time i ALWAYS take him home early so he can have supper with her. I consistently put others before myself, that is just how i am. That is also part of the reason i get hurt so easily.

He sends me a message 2 days before my birthday telling me that he was not coming that weekend because the daughter who pretends her dad did nothing wrong wanted him to babysit and he promised he would, and on Sunday gram told him he would take him to her sons football game if he went shopping with her in the city. I was extremely upset, it didn't matter that it was my birthday, nor the fact he promised me he wouldn't blow me off, i have been cast aside time and time again. Never has there been an offer of hey, gram wants me to do this but i can come this time. It has always been take, take, take with me getting shafted every single time. The whole time he was growing up i never had a say and he never got to decide what he wanted to do, she would never allow it so i just can't do that now. I have had to fight for anything & everything but i can't keep getting blown off and disappointed and make it out the other end unscathed. It is becoming too much. Sometimes we have to step back.

My mom talked to him, my brother who lives with them talked to him. I guess on my actual birthday he realized how i felt but.......He also knew my husband was working all weekend so i was going to spend the day alone and he still did not call me even, when he should have been with me. Luckily at the last minute stuff came up and i did not have to spend my birthday completely alone. For some people birthdays are just another day, but for me they are not. It is ok for you to feel that way, but it is also ok for me to feel they are important. Just because you may not do it the way i do does not make the way i do it wrong.

Yes, i did tell him i did not want a relationship at this time (though he is back here) but i have been hurt time & time again. No one caring about me, and at some point a person has to protect themselves and decide they matter. Just because someone is a parent doesn't mean that at no time are they important and their needs can't come first. Yes you put your children first, most of the time, but you can't completely lose yourself in the process. When they are older and on their own you will be left, sad, lonely and not know what to do without them. That is also why they say your marriage should come before your kids (within reason of course) and that date nights are important too.

Obviously there is more to it than what i have laid out here, it may not seem like i have been through hell this year, but when you sit at home on Christmas day and every other holiday celebrated by being with family by yourself (sometimes with the husband if he not working) and the only person who phones you is your mother and you have done nothing wrong but take a stand against an abuser than you may feel what i feel. I know people have it worse than i do, i know there are lots of people who suffer more than i do. This blog is not about those people though, it is about me.