New trouble, old problems
This has been a problem plaguing my family for quite some time now and no resolution has come about, so I figured Id just get it all ........(ok, most) of it out here.
The subject of concern is my aunt Cathy. She had always been an important figure in my life. She took me in when my mother and I had our " I hate you" type argument. ( true one of very many, but I was older and less intimidated).
I have always know that Cathy is a two, if not more, faced person. Ive experienced it personnaly and have had family members, and friends, both hers and mine, comment on it.
Nevertheless I was close to her. My wife and I had our first child and asked Cathy and her husband if they would like to be the Godparents of Matthew.
They said yes. Cathy was so excited, this would be her first Godchild, and she desperatly wanted to be known as "Dina" wich is a shortened version of "mad,drina" (SP?) wich is Godmother in Portuguese.
Things went well for some time.
Then I got deployed to Iraq. She said that she would support me, and my wife in "any and every way".
Here are a list of some.........issues we had with that, constantly repeated promise.
1. She informed every one that she was sending me parcels and letters regularly. I never recieved a SINGLE one! ( mean while, my wife, who was sending me letters every day and so, I did recieve 99 percent of her letters and parcles)
2. She decided to "visit" my wife to "help her out, relieve her stress, and watch the boys for a bit".
Well she did come, unfortunatly she was here for 3 days, part of her circut road trip to Penn. ( she had a "friend" there, who turned out later to be her online "lover")
Her main reason for coming to Fort Campbell was NOT to help my wife, it was to see nashville, she said it herself. So off they went, sightseeing, exploring and so on. Not once did she invite my wife and kids. They went out to eat, same issue with my nucluar family.
Once they got back to my home, Cathy would immediatly go online and STAY there, ignoring my children and wife, ignoring my children!!!! one of wich was her GODSON.
My wife made a comment on that issue and Cathy got upset, and went to our neighbor's home and stayed online there.
this happend for the duration of the visit.
Basicly Cathy stayed here so she didn't have to pay for a hotel room. Boy, what support that is.
( these types of things go back but I dont have time or patience to list it all here)
3. Shortly after my return from the war, i was found to have a large tumor in my left frontal lobe. It looked, in the imigeing, to be malignant. Turns out, thank God, that it was not but it WAS atypical. It grew very fast and did a lot of damage.....of course the army will not admit it was them DIRECTLY that caused it. Although I am getting a Medical Board in a few weeks.
While in the hospital, everyone called to console me and my wife, except, of course Cathy.
That shocked and suprised me greatly. It was very depressing. here is a woman i viewed so higly and she simply ignored this very serious medical problem.
Nor did she call my wife to console her and so on.
Her excuse was that she didn't know my room number.....everyone else in my family had it, AND all she had to do was contact jen and find it out, My wife left the number on Cathy's answering machine and, as my brother put it so greatly, "so....she never heard of 411?"
That utter lack of concern on her part was devestating to me.
4. Even more devestating to me, was that she actually forgot my oldest son's, her Godchild's, birthday!!
And when we informed her of it she STILL didn't call, send a card, a gift, or even an email expressing sorrow for forgeting. Nothing.
Of course Matthew, eventually asked us why Cathy didn't tell him happy birthday and all that. We had no excuse so we tried to hold him off, in the hopes that she would finnaly send SOMETHING for him.
She did not, and the strangest thing happened. yesterday Matthew and I were looking through our pictures and he knew everyone's name.....except Cathy's!!
That stunned me, they were very, very close. He didn't even know her as "dina". I am dead serious. He knew the names of everyone else, even my step father and half brother who he only saw ONCE, and it was only for a week!.
I guess its to be expected that a child who is hurt so badly would sub-conciencely forget the one who did the damage.
It was still suprising to me.
There are many other, post-operation, issues we've had but the final thing, and question I pose is this:
I, knowing I was not at all at fault, sent a letter ( email) of forgivness and rencolliation to Cathy. I did this first even though she was at fault. She responded that things were ok and that we would work it out. Shortly after that, my wife called her and Cathy yelled at my wife that she would not deal with "you and your husbands problems, I have enough of my own!"
Now thats enough, for me anyway. There has been no further contact between us. In any way.
She was wrong from the beginning, but I tried to repair things.
She insulted us again. I am at an utter loss as to what to do.
I've basicly decided that since she CHOSE to remove herself from our lifes then I would respect that chocie and reciprocate that choice.
After all this time, I am coming to the point where i must make a final decision.
Based on all of this, should I formally dis-own my aunt, or just "discard" her and view her as still family, just forgotten family?