Can't look forward to holidays

[isilme]

I just need the holidays over.  I used to look forward to them, but my own emotional state is not very resilient and I am just tired, and the obligated travel and all it entails is making H on edge, and guess who gets the brunt of that?  I seem to be getting small, mini-breaks, but they only feel like they last a few days, and then it's all back downhill.  H's family has been kind to me as someone who is NC with my BPD family of origin.  I am an orphan with living parents.  

But it's getting more and more obvious just where H got his BPD tendencies.  His mom is a huge source of stubborn strife.  His dad alternately fights with her and enables her - if we cause her stress moving things, he gets mad at us for ruining the "peace".  She won't eat on time or keep up with her many medications but is an insulin dependent diabetic.  She won't move around, and honestly, wears adult diapers now instead of worrying about trying to get to the restroom.  She literally lives on a couch in the front room.  Literally.  She barely moves from it.  She sleeps on it, dozing off and on all day.  She does not go to a bed.  She does not sit anywhere else.  She semi reclines all day every day in front of the front door so she can shout, "Come in" not knowing who's there.  She has a part-time "maid" who comes and does the few things allowed, and who goes to the grocery store and pharmacy for them.

 Everything is in arm's reach of her chosen sitting spot, it embarrasses H, it scares H, and it also in a sick way, gives him some idea this is his manifest destiny, to be just like her, so he alternates between fighting it, and giving in to being just like her.  H is convinced once his dad passes in the next few months/years, he will ahve t move in with her, give up his job, and try to "take care of her".  I'm like, "She won't listen to you now, that won't change.  Any time we've tried to mention that it's bad for the maid to have her ATM card, that she needs to maybe walk a few steps a day, she gets balky, sullen, and won't listen"  

This weekend started okay-ish.  I felt terrible upon waking each day, but given enough time got functional.  My head has been in a lingering migraine - not a huh amount of pain, just random stabs, aches and tingles.  Can't do much for that, it seems partly wether-based.  Had "lady-issues" as well, so I did not expect to feel well.  H had invited a new friend over.  I thought the house was decent, but he wanted the deep cleaning like his judgemental sister was visiting, so I got to stand on a stepladder in the bathroom to clean mildew off our ceiling for an hour, (it's an old house, not good ventilation in there), then clean everything else, and run to store for refreshments.  He vacuumed the couch - guess that's help?  Visit went okay, new friend met other friends, they seemed to get along.  Other friends had also given us a Christmas gift early, an awesome leather sewing machine the husband had refurbished for us.  He got it much cheaper than what I'd been shopping for, and fixed it up for us.  

Called Sunday to find out the "plan" for Thursday - no one calls us to tell us.  We always travel 1.5 hours south to where the parents live in one town, and then travel about 30 miles farther to eat at an older bachelor cousin's house because he has the most space.  

Cousin wants H to drive down early Thursday morning to help him cook the turkey in an outside fryer.  H hates doing this - cousin has large dogs that jump all over him, and H does not feel good moving around, he is in a lot of neuropathic pain that his family seems to disregard.  They can't fathom someone 41 having so much pain or trouble moving around.
 He likes the cousin okay, but hates driving, driving alone, and has a bad sense of direction, and the cousin is about 20-20 miles away in a larger city than he is used to driving in.  This leaves me to rally the parents into the car:  load oxygen devices, walkers, and lead them both out, load the food I got up early to cook, and then drive the 20-30 miles to the cousin's house.  And I am expected to get them there "on time".  H's mom is so bad about time management, years back when they would drive up to our town (6-8 (once kids were born) of us live here, 3 of them lived down south, it made more sense for fewer ppl on the road back then) we had Christmas "lunch" at 6PM once because she was so late leaving her house, and passive-aggressively controls things by being late.  We can never take her to movies for this reason.

Having things at the parents' house is not an option.  They are essentially hoarders who resent any alteration in their environment.  I move pillows off a couch so I can sit down, I need to put them back exactly how they were when I stand up.  I spend a good part of my time doing sneaky cleaning, so I can be comfortable and H won't freak out quite as much.  There is no space for anyone to sit, let alone cook a large family meal.  The few times we try, I spend a lot of time negotiating how much I can move witout causing sore feelings.

H freaked when I told him the request to again help with the turkey.  Yelled, not quite at me, for a few hours about how this is stupid, went down the list of what's wrong with every person in his family, everything this that is wrong, made pronouncements of what I (not he) is supposed to tell everyone.  Blah blah blah.  Calmed down, I went to the store, picked up a few things for US to actually have some Thanksgiving food (H's mom has no room in hoarding fridge.  We have nowhere to store food from lunch to bring up for us, so I have been trying to cook a few things at home when we get back so I can have turkey later.).  Get back, he seems a tiny bit better, sit down, then he yells at me about how a badly a movie was made as if it's my fault the screenwriters left out explaining things from a book I'd read.  He likes to yell at me about the Harry Potter movies, for whatever reason.  My liking the books seems to be an invalidation of his dissatisfaction with the movies HE chose to put on to watch.  

Yesterday was bad at work, H stayed home himself, and when I got home and told him my day was bad, I got yelled at for not yelling at my coworkers to "fix" things.  Basically, "I don't want to hear you had a bad day, Isilme, because I feel guilty for not going to work myself, for you having to work, whatever.  But I am not going to help you around the house, planning for travel, and will prevent you from getting rest."  

Yesterday was bad at work, H stayed home himself, and when I got home and told him my day was bad, I got yelled at for not yelling at my coworkers to "fix" things.  Basically, "I don't want to hear you had a bad day, Isilme, because I feel guilty for not going to work myself, for you having to work, whatever.  But I am not going to help you around the house, planning for travel, and will prevent you from getting rest."  

I wanted to stay home this morning to get some rest, I feel horrible, my head has been hurting in earnest since Friday, but his reaction when I said how I felt was just enough to make it not feel worth the effort to stay in.  Staying in was more effort than going to work.  How stupid is that?  I know that if I can make it to work, in about an hour I will be partially functional.  But I am so tired.  And while H has been given a half day Wednesday, my office has not told us yet is we get one.  And I really don't want to burn vacation, but he is saying if we can't leave earlier in the day he plans to just (have me) drive down Thursday morning.  Anyway, going to work and being awake seemed preferable to feeling like an ass for staying home.  I would have been feeling too distressed to get any sleep.

I fear I will not get a day to rest until maybe Friday, maybe Saturday.  It all depends on when we can drive back home, how much of a guilt trip the parents put on us, how fed up he gets while there.

And since the sister and brother don't go visit for Thanksgiving, we feel extra FOG.  And H's dad is not doing well at all, don't know if this is his last Thanksgiving, so that is our primary motive for going - we don't want to be guilty of missing the last holiday(s) with him.  

I'm sorry.  As usual, I find comfort in writing.  I could not stop crying last night, quietly, so H would not see, simply because he can't handle me having my own emotions at this time.  And I can't handle his reaction at this time.  

I wish I had my own family to use as an excuse for us to not go down.  I wish the younger brother would go so we could have one calm quiet Thanksgiving just us.  We have friends driving 10 hours to visit our town, we won't be able to see them because we will be 2 hours farther away.  We have another set of friends so far away from family they want desperately to do "Friends-giving" but if we and another couple are dealing with obligation-visits, they are left to their own devices.  

I want to be at home.  Sleep in my bed.  Use my clean kitchen, my clean shower.  Not be so far from the useable bathroom I need to run from the above-the-garage-room H and I share while visiting, down some stairs, through the kitchen, only to find it occupied for who knows how long, doing a dance while I wait desperately for it to open.  There's another bathroom, but H's mom hoards cats and a mostly feral cat is in the bedroom on the other side of the house, making access to that bathroom difficult, and it often has no paper because the cat shreds it.  

But I don't want to feel responsible for making the parents sad-er.  I don't want them alone on a holiday - I don't want them alone period, but they refuse to consider moving up here, are stubbornly tied to that property in a neighborhood growing more and more dangerous, there are no jobs farther south, and I don't want H and I to have to give up our home to go "take care" of them   .  It's minor things.  But they all add up.  And I feel selfish for wanting to stay home.

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[flourdust]

Hi, isilme. Family can be a royal pain, and for some of us, the holidays are more of an obligation than a pleasure.

Your narrative was very detailed, but can I also point out some FOG in it that you could address?

As you mentioned, you could choose just to not go to H's family for Thanksgiving. I can understand that it might be a fight not worth having, and perhaps not for this year... .but plenty of married couples alternate where they go for Thanksgiving or even go to different places. Perhaps you can lay the groundwork for this for next year? (I would recommend doing that after the holiday weekend, not right now, as it's just asking for a fight.)

A lot of your stress and discomfort seems to be around staying with H's parents, who have an extremely unwelcoming home. Why not get a hotel room instead ... .for both you and H, or just for yourself? You can still spend the day at their home, help with the cooking, etc., but you'll have the relief of having a clean, private place to sleep and bathe.

My third suggestion is more of a mental adjustment and may be the most difficult to master -- participating in the holiday without owning the Obligation and Guilt of the FOG. You can help cook and help get the parents over to the cousin's place ... .but you don't have to feel obligated to get them there "on time" or make sure everything turns out right. What I'm saying is ... .let go of the feelings that you have to manage the outcome, not just your participation in it. Make sense?

[Harri]

Hi Isilme.  I don't have much to offer here.  I do want you to know I read your post and it does sound like a lot of hassle and bother and I am sorry you are so tired and not feeling well.  It is a lot to deal with for sure.

I like what flourdust suggested as alternatives.  I know that putting yourself first is hard for you but maybe tiny steps will help you get more comfortable with change?  I really like the idea of a hotel if possible.  Heck, even renting a camper to travel and sleep in (though I imagine that is expensive). 

[isilme]

As you mentioned, you could choose just to not go to H's family for Thanksgiving. I can understand that it might be a fight not worth having, and perhaps not for this year... .but plenty of married couples alternate where they go for Thanksgiving or even go to different places. Perhaps you can lay the groundwork for this for next year? (I would recommend doing that after the holiday weekend, not right now, as it's just asking for a fight.)

They are dying.  I have no family to alternate to going to see.  I can't see any way out of going.  If the other siblings were going, we'd have an out maybe every few years, but they don't.  So I can't very well tell a dying couple that none of the kids feel like seeing them on a holiday.  The repercussions from this choice seem worse than dealing with the exhaustion emotionally and physically of going.

I can deal with a mess as a physical issue.  I have trouble with H's frustration and hurt by it, because he knows it's a subtle emotional attack from his mom - she feels she should not have to alter one thing about her home for others, we should just want to come no matter what.  This is an attitude from the last time we tried to have the family meet and eat at her house, and I was making room for them all to sit and to deploy the folding table and make room on counters for food and plates.  She decided that was it, and H is not comfortable calling her bluff and not going.  It's his family, they are all we have, so it's not easy to say, "we're not coming because of X."  We tried it a few Easters ago, and the mom started a huge text pity party, yes, we all caved.

One year for Christmas, 2003, H's sister and her husband took Christmas break to go to Disney.  The brother-in-law's father had passed, and that's what they wanted to do.  It was like a freakin' funeral.  It even snowed down here, the first Christmas snow in over 30 years.  We made it.  H's brother made it (he was not married, yet).    Just the sister and BIL, no kids yet, were missing.  And the parents were mad, angry, and it was clear that it was unforgivable to miss a holiday.

They excuse the sister now, because after she had kids and the parents got too old to drive up to her house, she decided her H's family was the one to see on Thanksgiving, and she'd pencil them in for Christmas.  The fact she has In Laws to go see excuses it, even if they are sad and mad about it.

A lot of your stress and discomfort seems to be around staying with H's parents, who have an extremely unwelcoming home. Why not get a hotel room instead ... .for both you and H, or just for yourself? You can still spend the day at their home, help with the cooking, etc., but you'll have the relief of having a clean, private place to sleep and bathe.

It's a tiny town.  Yes, there is one hotel, but I don't have the extra money to spend, and that would hurt the parents' feelings for us to not stay.  They want us there, in the room watching them watch TV, as many hours as possible.  When H steps out for a few hours to visit a wheelchair-bound high school friend down the street, they get hurt, mopey, and when we need/choose to leave and head home, they get morose and mopey.  They want us there, in the room with them - staying in a hotel will make the time with them even less and they simply will not understand, and the whole point of going is to try to spend time with them, as uncomfortable as it may be.

Yes, they are being children.  Yes, we need to just do what we need to do.  But it's very hard with a husband with BPD and me being codependent for us to do more than enforce the few boundaries we've managed to enforce, such as we will only spend about 2 nights, we will arrange things in the house as we need within reason, the sick dad will not attempt to drive himself 30 miles and almost pass out when he hyperventilates on the highway by himself, we will take as few cars as possible to the cousin's house, etc.

I've asked about a hotel - H will not have it for those reasons.  His cousin has offered for us to stay with him (he does not understand I am allergic to his dogs, gat a full-blown migraine if I sit on the wrong furniture or touch my face at all).  Also, it's 30 miles away, in another town, and so we'd not spend the time with the parents which is the main point of the whole visit.  The cousin is in his 50s, mobile, and gets about, has friends.  The parents don't leave their house except for doctor's appointments. 

My third suggestion is more of a mental adjustment and may be the most difficult to master -- participating in the holiday without owning the Obligation and Guilt of the FOG. You can help cook and help get the parents over to the cousin's place ... .but you don't have to feel obligated to get them there "on time" or make sure everything turns out right. What I'm saying is ... .let go of the feelings that you have to manage the outcome, not just your participation in it. Make sense?

I already do this.  We get there when I can.  It does not make it any less stressful on me.  I don't worry about the food being perfect.  It is what it is.  My expectations for life are kinda low-balled as it is. 

I still have to travel, get there safe - make sure car is in good order (no service stations in the "Wild Horse Desert" we drive through - it's not the safest journey).  I still have to make sure my own house is cat-proofed, burglar-proofed, I'm packed, all that stuff.  I have a neurotic BPD husband to listen to on a 1.5 hour (or 2 if we decide to skip sleeping at the parents' on Wednesday and go straight to the cousins Thursday morning and let the parents make their own way - H's idea this year) drive through Texas ranchland. If I am lucky, he will play with the radio and find something I don't hate, that doesn't rile him up.  Either way, if H is to help with the turkey, he wants me to come with him and make his parents drive themselves.  He gets upset at my being so tired corraling them, like herding large cats.  Last year he skipped helping with the turkey, and was there to see his dad fall going to the car.   

Our choices: 
1.  openly disappoint a dying, unhappy, old-before-their-time couple, and feel selfish, tainting the holiday and small amount of time off

2.  be physically and emotionally exhausted and just get it over with, to repeat it in a month but at least when we get home we've got a little more time before heading abck to work. 

Either way, H is going to be a mess.  Either way, it's a suck holiday.  Going, for now, still looks like the path of least resistance. 

[flourdust]

I was going to pull some quotes from your post to highlight the extreme examples of Obligation and Guilt that are driving your behavior... .but I can see that this is something you are very defensive about.

You can make different choices. You don't need to ask permission to take care of your own needs. First you have to give yourself permission to make choices.

[isilme]

flourdust - not meaning to be defensive... .I just don't know how to tell my H we should just stay home.  I listed above HIS arguments. 

Yeah - I am a mess of FOG.  I get it. 

But this is not MY FOG that is making us go - if BPDH wanted to stay, I'd stay, and support him through his guilt.  But they are HIS parents.  It has to be HIS call.  I make the case for him to choose between seeing them and not, that I support him either way as it is HIS family, and tell him I will break the news if we stay. 

But I am not going to refuse to go, if that is what he feels he needs to do on the holidays.  Frankly, the dad will be gone in about 12 months if he loses more heart or lung function.  He's had pneumonia for several months, now, and is not really improving.  The mom may linger, in a growing pile of junk, and self-medicate with QVC, or she may give up on living even more, and go soon after.  I honestly don't see too many more years of this, which is a big reason it's hard to disappoint them.  It doesn't make going easier this trip, but staying would be far worse on H, I think.  So, we pony up to the FOG and go, and it's tiring, and H is depressed. 

I'm NC with my own remaining living relatives, my parents and a few cousins/aunts, to ESCAPE FOG from them and protect myself in as many ways as possible.  I grew up in a very toxic environment and feel I do well to hang on as much as I manage.

See, I was pretty much ignored by my own extended family,  and neglected and emotionally and physically abused by my own BPD parents.  It's easy to for me to say, "they are bad for me, I am okay dealing with the fallout from never talking to them again."  I have reconciled with being a BPD orphan, no siblings, no aunts, uncles, cousins - nothing.  I have friends, those who've stuck around or keep in contact have put more effort into me than pretty much my entire extended family ever has, combined.  If I was single, or alone, I'd probably go work a food bank on the holidays.  Or just play a lot of video games and read. 

H's parents - they are a bag of issues, but if you look at my parents and put them side by side, they are well adjusted and caring.  And since they are not my parents, the decision to stay of go has to be his - it's HIS guilt making us go, stay, and try to visit when we can.

I intend to support him, and not make it worse for him - as someone who's gone NC, I know it's hard, and I had plenty of clear-cut cues making it easier... .my dad kicks me out at 19 and disowns me in writing, I no longer have to feel bad about whether I should seek him out and try to have a relationship - he disowned me - free and clear, there, even if it hurt.  A man who'd beat a toddler with a belt until her back and legs were blue is no loss.

Mom - mom ended up losing jobs, losing housing, and in jail multiple times the last few years we were in LC, Limited Contact.  She'd OD to get attention, and I believe she was a cutter and was really working on warping my brain and tried to get me addicted to her prescription meds because I was supposed to be a mini-her.  The only time she refrained from trying to steal my identity was when I was NC with her, so I stay NC. 

H's parents are not that cut and dry bad to him - no beatings, he had food, clothes, they sacrificed for all three kids, the worst was the more common neglect in the 80s of the TV as the babysitter so the parents could work extra hours.  They care... .as much as they are able - much like he cares for me, as much as his BPD makes him able.  I believe they both are too stuck in their own heads to even see how much pain they cause their kids by refusing to even try to be healthy. 

I know I am codependent.  I know I am a mess, tired, and lacking resiliency this year.  Like badly.  My reserves of any strength I would try to use to balk at going and insist on staying home are drained.

[isilme]

And at lunch, H stated this may be the last time we/he feels obligated to go since we go for Christmas in a month anyway.  So, there's that.

[isilme]

Made it.  It was rough at times, and H had a meltdown right before I got home to pack to leave, but we got there through an extra hour of traffic, he fell down the stairs at his moms  but the parents decided to not come to the cousin's, so we went.  We cooked for them the next day, and tried to visit as we could.  Otherwise, I kinda stayed upstairs and attempted to catch up on sleep. 

Can't say the FOG is going to be better in a month, or next year, but we got there and home and H even was up to going to a friend's house the same night we got back for a birthday - I am glad we went to the friend's.  It was a simple night, sitting around their fire pit.  H is a bit dicey now back at work, he's super cranky, but just taking it a day at a time.