M
mandajane
Guest
Hey all.
As most of you know, my family isn’t Catholic. My biological father ran off with my babysitter (i wish i was joking) when I was 4, and I’ve only received a few phone calls since. My mother remarried when I was 7, to a man that I didn’t like, and have never liked. He was an alcoholic, and physically abusive, and for the most part I avoided him growing up. Once I moved out, I simply stopped interacting with him, only dealing with my mother, and the only reason I didn’t call DFS to the house was that he had started receiving psychiatric care. While I still don’t like him, I avoid picking fights with him, and allowing him to engage me in verbal arguments, out of respect for my mother. I’ve told her to leave him. Repeatedly. The physical and emotional abuse he heaps on her is unacceptable. But she refuses to, because he’s ‘a good man underneath’ and ‘a great guy so long as you don’t upset him’. She’s taken enabling his behavior to an art form.
Anyway, For the most part, things have been fine for years. She deals with him, I deal with her, he and I never speak. I hold her while she cries about how the fact that he hit her is ‘her’ fault, because she told him to get a job, or didn’t have dinner ready by the time he woke up (he sleeps all day, up all night), or couldn’t make ends meet that month (usually because of his constant unemployment). Normally, I’d blame said unemployment on the economy, but he’s been perpetually unemployed since I graduated from high school.
I’m getting off track here. The point is that he has recently taken to sending me derogatory, inflammatory, or insulting emails, instant messages, facebook messages, texts, and voicemails. I’m going to ask my mother to deal with it, but I know she wont. I want to respond. I try as hard as I can to forgive him for what he puts her through, but I find myself constantly filled with vitriol in his regard. I haven’t responded yet, but have taken the time to block him from everything except my telephone, as blocking the home phone would block my mother, and blocking his cell phone would just lead him to using hers. I know that blocking his email and facebook is only a stopgap measure, as he will just make a new account and continue to harass me. He’s done it before.
How would you respond to this? I have a hard time resisting the urge to just unleash my anger and tell him exactly what I think of him, but I know that that would be counterproductive. I pray about it daily, including offering it up while I’m praying my daily rosary, but I still feel this anger and a desire for some type of vengeance, or as my mind tries to justify it to me ‘justice’.
Please, if you have any advice from dealing with someone like this in your own lives, I’d love to hear it. I’m at my wits end.
As most of you know, my family isn’t Catholic. My biological father ran off with my babysitter (i wish i was joking) when I was 4, and I’ve only received a few phone calls since. My mother remarried when I was 7, to a man that I didn’t like, and have never liked. He was an alcoholic, and physically abusive, and for the most part I avoided him growing up. Once I moved out, I simply stopped interacting with him, only dealing with my mother, and the only reason I didn’t call DFS to the house was that he had started receiving psychiatric care. While I still don’t like him, I avoid picking fights with him, and allowing him to engage me in verbal arguments, out of respect for my mother. I’ve told her to leave him. Repeatedly. The physical and emotional abuse he heaps on her is unacceptable. But she refuses to, because he’s ‘a good man underneath’ and ‘a great guy so long as you don’t upset him’. She’s taken enabling his behavior to an art form.
Anyway, For the most part, things have been fine for years. She deals with him, I deal with her, he and I never speak. I hold her while she cries about how the fact that he hit her is ‘her’ fault, because she told him to get a job, or didn’t have dinner ready by the time he woke up (he sleeps all day, up all night), or couldn’t make ends meet that month (usually because of his constant unemployment). Normally, I’d blame said unemployment on the economy, but he’s been perpetually unemployed since I graduated from high school.
I’m getting off track here. The point is that he has recently taken to sending me derogatory, inflammatory, or insulting emails, instant messages, facebook messages, texts, and voicemails. I’m going to ask my mother to deal with it, but I know she wont. I want to respond. I try as hard as I can to forgive him for what he puts her through, but I find myself constantly filled with vitriol in his regard. I haven’t responded yet, but have taken the time to block him from everything except my telephone, as blocking the home phone would block my mother, and blocking his cell phone would just lead him to using hers. I know that blocking his email and facebook is only a stopgap measure, as he will just make a new account and continue to harass me. He’s done it before.
How would you respond to this? I have a hard time resisting the urge to just unleash my anger and tell him exactly what I think of him, but I know that that would be counterproductive. I pray about it daily, including offering it up while I’m praying my daily rosary, but I still feel this anger and a desire for some type of vengeance, or as my mind tries to justify it to me ‘justice’.
Please, if you have any advice from dealing with someone like this in your own lives, I’d love to hear it. I’m at my wits end.