More conforntation and boundaries

At first I was just going to make a scathing reply to this comment, but I have decided instead to give this a full treatment and the attention I think it deserves.

Anonymous said...

If you even suspect anything will happen with your son, he should never be alone with her.

No guilt over her feelings will ever outweigh your guilt over him being abused and suffering from it.

Better he live with limited exposure to her than a lifetime of the memory of what someone who was supposed to love him did. And that his mom 'let it happen'.

...This comment has annoyed me for the better part of a week. In the first place, I dislike anonymous comments like this on principle. It seems cowardly and/or paranoid that you can't even leave a screen name by which to identify yourself.

Besides that, thank you, whomever you are, for the additional load of guilt and shame. I really needed another reminder that no matter what I do, someone is going to get hurt. I had almost forgotten that.

In the black-and-white world we envision when we first get into therapy/discover or face our abuse/join Incest Survivors Anonymous or SNAP, it is very easy to say what you said. In fact, I said it, frequently and repeatedly, about my own mother. I screamed and cried and raged: How could she let me be abused? It is so easy to paint every abuser as a horned demon. We imagine our parents as omnipotent and able, if not willing, to protect us completely. We believe that insulating a child is the same thing as good parenting. And we lose perspective, imagining that every inappropriate gesture or look is the same as a violent rape.

Now I find myself in the position of a parent AND of a daughter. And nothing is clear like that anymore. In the first place, I do not believe my mother is actually doing anything to my son, in the way you imagine she is. What she is doing is subtle manipulation which is undermining me as a parent. She is putting him in a position where he has to divide his loyalties, and making me out to be the asshole.

Now it would be so nice if I could just sit her down and say, "Look, Mom, the things you are saying to my son are inappropriate. They are messing with him and as a side effect, are making my life hell." Her actions are childish and self-serving, but I really believe she can no more control them than she can control her own breathing. She is aware of very little, either internally or in world around her, and would probably not even know what I was talking about. My worst fear is that, telling her what effect her manipulative ways are having would simply confirm to her that she is doing it right. I am not really sure what her game is, except that it is about controlling me, and using my son to do it.

So it seems like it would be a no-brainer to simply cut all contact. No so. In the first place, my son loves his grandma. He does not seem at all uncomfortable in her presence, even with issues like bathing. He also has quite a few friends through her, grown-up friends who I think are good for him. I hesitate to disrupt relationships that are so important to him. And I certainly do not want to over-react, as my own mother did, and cut him off from so many good things in life, simply because of my own fears.

My mother, for all her faults, is not a demon. She is a sad and pathetic old woman, who has had more than her share of sorrow and misery in life, and is dealing with it the best she knows how. She could no more have protected me from my abusers (including her own father) than she could have protected me from a pride of hungry lions. I no longer have a need to punish her for what happened to me. I am not afraid of her and do not need to hide myself or my son from her.

What I am attempting to do is to exercise strength through kindness. I am seeking to help my son grow into a kind, loving, tolerant, and understanding person. It's not like he will never meet another demanding, manipulative person; I wish him to learn by example how to set boundaries with love. I believe it is the right thing to do, to honor and care for a woman who honestly did her best for me, even though her best was not all that great.

I am trying to figure out the best way to both protect my son and encourage both of them to form the best relationship they can manage.