My husband and I have been together for fifteen years now.  Yesterday was our anniversary.  He and I are perfectly suited to one another.  He's hard-working, I'm a pretty okay homemaker.  He's got great time-management skills, I'm working on mine, but I do remember everything else (like birthdays, appointments, etc.).  We compliment each other like yin and yang.  We've had some rough patches, but never as bad as my worst relationships, so even though the things we've been through were HUGE, they weren't horrible.  We listen to each other, support each other, support our children (he adopted my kids back in 2013), and we have a shit ton of fun together (all four of us).  Unlike my past relationships where I let men abuse me (though not so much my ex-husband, because I basically didn't live with him, though he he was abusive).  When I was fifteen, I was in a relationship with a boy for two years that used to beat me (and abuse me in other ways).  The sick part was that I though it was true love.  Why?  Because my mother and father started dating when they were fifteen and seventeen (like my parents) and to me that meant me and my guy were destined to be together forever.  My parents fucked me up in that department.  Growing up with a father who beat your mother and a mother who controlled your father (and you) makes for some pretty horrible relationship skills.  So I thought that this cycle was going to last forever.  While I fiercely protected my kids from their dad (and would from anyone), I still stayed with him for six years because I didn't know what to do when I left.  But I eventually did (something I'm wrote about in my memoir, which will be for sale later in the year).  

I met my husband in 2007 online (in a YahooGroup of all places) after leaving my ex-husband (though we weren't divorced yet).  He is six years younger than me and we both had the same sense of humor and would spend hours laughing together online until we met a month later.  We dated for about four months before he met my children (though he knew about them the entire time).  I wasn't taking any chances on getting some asshole who was going to flip his personality the moment he met my kids.  I assumed four months was enough to make sure by.  But when he met my kids, they became best friends immediately.  My boys were 3 (almost four) and 7 and since their own father had ignored them for their entire lives,  it was like a breath of fresh air for them to have a man pay attention to them and act like he honestly cared about him.  

But it wasn't an act.  Even though we've been through some hellish times with our kids (they both have ASD) with some behavioral issues (that they've grown out of now that they're adults), he's still proved to them that no matter how bad things get, he's still going to be there, still going to love them and always going to say he's sorry and accept their apologies when they give them (unlike my ex who always made them believe his love was conditional--and it was).  

He makes things easier with my mother (we live with her and takes her shopping so I don't have to, thank god), with my mental health (I have severe anxiety disorders), and splits everything around the house 50/50 with me without much complaint (which should be the norm, but alas, most men are whiny little boys about that part LOL).  He's my other half, in the truest sense of the phrase.  And he's always down for all the whacky crazy ideas I have (and he has his own, too LOL).  

He's not perfect.  But neither am I (I was raised by my mother, so how could I be? LOL).  But we both are understanding with one another, supportive, and forgiving.  We also both have imposter syndrome, so we spend a lot of time helping each other see the flaws in that way of thinking.  

I am one lucky woman (and I mean that, sincerely).  

And my mother reminds of me of this quite regularly.  In fact, everyone reminds me of it.  To the point that nobody ever tells him that he's lucky.  Especially not my mother.  His parents hate me, because he's their "little boy", and nobody is good enough for them (in actuality, they think if I wasn't in the picture, they could control his life, which is so very untrue).  My mother hates me because I'm (insert whatever crappy bullshit idea she has about me on any given day).  She LOOOOOVES my husband, to the point that when he used to send me flowers when we were dating, she'd actually get angry she didn't get any.  She loves to tell people how wonderful he is, and how accomplished he is.  She never says anything about me.  Just her golden child, my husband.  She will even tell me and the kids what to do with him, as though she's in control of what he's allowed to do and not do.  He jokes with me all the time "She does realize I'm not married to her, right?"  My therapist says she jealous.  I do agree with that.  She's always been jealous of us, as my dad wasn't very nice to her.  Except in the beginning, when she hated my husband (then boyfriend).  But something flipped like a light switch in her head.  That hate turned into some kind of obsessive golden child syndrome and that turned me back into the scapegoat (though, did I ever stop being the scapegoat?--impossible! LOL).  

So back to our anniversary.  Yesterday we spent the day buying used furniture for our new house, heading over to Menards to get paint and other crap we needed, and then coming home and painting the furniture and hanging out in the garage with our kids, while my husband studied for school (my hubby is going to college online, something my mother LOVES to brag about to people, "Oh my, he works, he goes to school, he writes books and movies, what can't he do??  Oh em gee!"  Though right now he's laid off due to this pandemic, but he still is her hero).  My oldest son helped me paint my dresser with chalk paint, while I distressed it and covered the drawers in cool paper and put new drawer pulls on it.  Our youngest was using our new drawing tablet we just got and he's sooooo stoked about it (not an affiliate link, it's just cheap and AWESOME: XP-Pen StarG640 6x4 Inch OSU! Ultrathin Tablet Drawing Tablet).  We had music on and the neighbor stopped by with his dog.  It was a pleasant day and we had lots of fun and even though it wasn't an anniversary party, it was pretty perfect.  

Except with one fell swoop, my mother had to try to ruin it all. 

Though, it was me who ruined it in my brain.  I let her words make me angry and sad.  Those triggers, man, they are so hard to either get rid of or ignore.  But in the the evening after she went to bed, it felt good for my hubby and I to just let loose bitching about her together.  We both sat there and complained about all the stuff she's been doing lately that's been on our minds.  Normally we are super careful about what we say because we do not want her to hear and to have it complicate things.  But last night, after what she said, we just didn't care.  For the first time in awhile, we just just say whatever was on our minds.  Because I was sooooo angry with her, I didn't even care if she heard.  

Now granted, she's half deaf.   She can't hear when you walk up behind her, which makes so many things dangerous for her (she's a fall risk) which I try to explain to her, but she think it's funny to put herself in these situations to make everyone around her dote on her.  And she was sleeping.  And her door was shut.  And we were in the garage, with the door shut, at the other end of the  house.  So there was really no risk in her hearing us.  But normally, we don't dare say much, because life is complicated enough with her. 

We not only complained about her, but reminded ourselves that our future plans are still there, waiting for us to act on them.  After my mother passes away or is put into a home (I do NOT deal with diapers, sorry, I am not that person, esp, because she has chronic diarrhea like her mother did), we are going to take our RVs (that we're going to buy soon) and travel and find somewhere to settle down (or find out we love the RV life better!).  Then after we find a place to live, we're going to buy some land or a house on some big land and live life the way we want to.  It helps to remember these things, that our situation right now is not going to be forever.  One day, we'll be living our dreams (though we're taking steps right now for that future) and all of this won't matter anymore.  

So back to yesterday: 

She has been on this kick baking all sorts of sweets, because she'd diabetic and for some reason thinks its perfectly okay to eat loads of crap whenever she likes (which she didn't start doing openly until she found out she was diabetic--again, like I said, she likes when people make a fuss over her bad choices).  The kids and I and my husband are all counting our calories.  Our youngest (now 18) has lost almost 70 or more pounds in the past year doing this, so we all saw his progress and decided to follow suit.  And she knows this.  And she also knows we all have a penchant for sweets and have issues with self-control.  In the past, she would got to the grocery store and buy tons of oreos and give them to the kids, knowing damn well they were trying to lose weight.  She really, really loves sabotaging people.  

So lately she's been baking every single day, even though I say "Our family doesn't do dessert every day, ma, so maybe cut down on the sweets?" but that causes her to just double down with more and more and more.  So she made some cake yesterday and showed me and said "Oohhh what should I write on the cake  Happy Birthday?  Or something else?"  I honestly thought she was doing what she always did and was making a joke because she knew what day it was, which surprised me because she has never cared before.  So I said "How about Happy Anniversary, because today is our fifteen year anniversary."  She wrinkled her nose and glared at me.  "No it's not.  You were married in October."  I sighed.  Here we go again.  "Yes, but today we've been together for fifteen years."  

She then rolled her fucking eyes at me.  

"Oh god.  You were married in October.  That's your anniversary.  Your father and I were together for four years before our wedding, and you don't see me counting all that time.  God."  

Okay.  So if someone wants to make your wedding anniversary the only one that matters, fine.  But to my husband and I, while our wedding was, well, interesting, it wasn't the point in our relationship where we decided "This is it.  This is where we actually commit to one another".  In all actuality, our wedding kind of sucked.  It was stressful.  Many people wanted to make the day be about them, rather than us (even though we had a very low-key, alternative style wedding).  It was my husband and I jumping through the hoops of making everyone else happy.  We didn't have our wedding for us, it was for all of them, so they would take our relationship seriously.  So our actual anniversary was the day we started dating.  Everything we've been through (some of which you can read on this blog), every step we've taken, every storm we've weathered, everything, was due to our choice to be together, not our choice to get legally bound to one another (and some of that shit happened before we even got married, esp. stuff with her).  Our wedding was about everyone else, but our choice to be together was about us (and our kids).  So that's the one that matters.  Yesterday was a very important day for us.  And she laughed at it. 

You know why?  Because I am the one who said it.  Had it been my husband, her favorite, she would have been nice about it, even if she thought it was stupid.  

She didn't even say "That's really cool."  Or "Congrats!"  Nothing.  Just a sneer, an eye roll, and some stupid comments.  Which is what really hurt my feelings and triggered me.  She could care less about what's important to others, only what matters in her narcissistic little head.  

So when she served up her cake, I just left the room.  She kept yelling for me to come eat it (which is what she does when we eat, she SCREAMS for people to come to the table, even if there are already some of us at the table, it's freaking irritating).  Every time she makes this stuff, I refuse to it (I don't crave sweets like I used to, which really bugs her, because as a kid I LOOOVED sugar, which she knew, and she would make huge amounts just so she could shame me for eating it--she did the same to my dad).  So now when she offers me any, I just take a jab right back at her and say "I would eat that stuff, but I don't want to get diabetes" with a smirk and I walk away.  

Childish?  Perhaps.  True?  Very much so.  Deserving?  Absolutely.  If she wants to make others feel bad, she can get it right back.  No that I would talk to anyone else that way, or even want to.  But I will make an exception for her.  I'm not being mean.  I'm literally stating the truth.  I'm losing weight, but I am still fat, and eating that crap on a daily basis will give me diabetes.  And it will stall my weight loss, which is what she wants (she doesn't fat shame me, but she does fat shame strangers to me, which is pretty much the same--which I'm also going to put an end to the next time she does it).  And yes, I'm taking a jab that the fact that she has diabetes and is only eating that shit because she knows she's not supposed to.  And it probably shames her that she's eating it and I'm not.  And that makes me feel bad.  But I have to do what's right for me and not do something I don't want to do just because it hurts her feelings when I don't eat her 500-calorie-a-piece cakes and breads and pies.  I'm in my 40's.  It's not easy to lose weight at this age range.  And I'm not letting some crazy old woman sabotage my life just to make her happier about herself.

And I won't let her ruin our anniversary, because it truly was a great day, even with her little "unapproval" of our choices.  She doesn't need to approve.  We'll be just fine without it.  Yes, it hurt my feelings, but then I have to remember who we're dealing with: a shriveled up old woman who hates herself so much that she'd rather make everyone around her miserable than try to be nice.  I have pity for her.  But I also don't concentrate on it.  I'd rather concentrate on my awesome hubby, our two awesome kids (who actually like us...which is a feat in itself), and our billions of furry babies.  

Oh, and because of all this, I decorated our living room last night.  Because I was so angry with her, I decided to stop feeling bad about putting our stuff on the walls (we've lived here for four months with not one thing on our walls) and just went and decorated the whole room while she's sleeping.  And now it looks like we actually live here and I couldn't be more happy.  So, maybe it was a good thing she was pissy to me?  I didn't eat her calorie-dense cake AND we got our living room all situated!  So yay us!  

There's a silver lining in every narcissistic storm cloud, isn't there?  Sometimes you have let your anger fuel you for doing something constructive and good for yourself and your family.  And that's what I did yesterday.  

Happy 15th Anniversary to my hubby 💋💗  15 years and still going strong!  Here's to at least 40 more!!  (or maybe 100 if scientists work on some bionic shit for humans in the meantime LOL!)