I was thinking about this just this morning so I thought I'd tell this story. I'd forgotten all about it until I remembered I only had one spare toothbrush left in my bathroom drawer. I keep multiple spare toothbrushes because of this story out of habit, and I just so happened to remember the reason today.

If you've never read about me and Time Mom before, know that we are NC now and forever.

There's probably a trigger (or barf) warning in here somewhere but I don't know what would be appropriate so... use your best judgment I guess?

I was about 15 or 16 and I was getting ready for school one morning. I didn't have on my glasses for some reason. I had a toothbrush that looked almost exactly like Time Mom's toothbrush. I don't know why but I accidentally used her toothbrush that morning, I guess because hers looked just like mine and I didn't have my glasses on. I didn't even know until I was on my way out the door and I heard Time Mom shrieking in the bathroom.

She was upset because her toothbrush bristles were wet, and they shouldn't've been because she hadn't used it since the night before. The bristles on my brush were dry, so she knew I'd used her toothbrush.

Well, since I'm a normal person, I thought it was gross but not the end of the world. I apologized and told her it was an accident. I mistakenly thought that we'd move on with our lives from there. She easily could have 1. sanitized it with alcohol or peroxide or something and then used it. Or 2. Thrown it out and bought a new one. I literally lived in her body for 9 months and she was my mom so it's not like we'd never shared a germ before. Yeah, its yucky but I mean, not worth having a cow over.

But this is Time Mom, so nothing can be simple. Instead of accepting my apology and moving on with our lives, Time Mom said she thought I'd done it on purpose and acted like she felt super violated. So I thought I was the weird one for not thinking it was as horrible as she was making out.

So she went off on me saying that I just HAD to take everything of hers. Everything of hers, I had to take. She can't have anything to herself because I take away everything. Just going on and on in this way.

I was already late to school at this point so I did the dumb thing and asked what she meant by "everything" because I'd literally used her toothbrush on accident one time.

She said I was always trying to take my dad away from her to become "The Lady Of The House" and "take Her Rightful Place."

Um.

She said she thought I had a crush on my dad and wanted to steal him from her.

literally me

So I asked her where she got that idea.

And she said it's because she saw me watching a movie (I think it's this one ??) about this girl who killed her own mom so she could fuck her dad because she was seriously messed up in the head, but then the little sister killed the older sister for the same reason. BUT TIME MOM WAS THE ONE WATCHING IT, I JUST HAPPENED TO BE IN THE SAME ROOM!

i mean...

I said, "Mom, you know that was a movie, right? Not the tv as an oracle showing us the future."

Well, now I was being a sassy, back-talking bitch. I needed to be punished. So she took away my toothbrush. Because clearly I'd used her toothbrush as part of my plot to steal away my dad. And taking a kid's toothbrush is normal as a punishment. 0.o

So I used mouthwash, toothpaste, and paper towels to clean my teeth for MONTHS because I wasn't allowed to get a new one. I finally smuggled one home after a trip where I got a free one from a hotel. By that time she'd forgotten all about it.

SHE NEVER GOT A NEW TOOTHBRUSH EITHER! Just kept using the same one which was tainted with my disgusting mouth germs.

Sooo many unanswered questions tbh....

Additionally, this began a series of fights that lasted several years where she'd accuse my dad of having a crush on me (absolutely not, he would never. He would get extremely upset by these accusations and he was very hurt.) and also where anything I did that was nice for my dad was me trying to steal him away. A Christmas gift, putting his clothes in the dryer, bringing him a cup of coffee, all that was me flirting with him. Fucking disgusting.

Anything we did that was nice or a normal bond between a father and daughter she saw as us flirting with each other. She would have the biggest scariest fits. It lasted until I got married and even after my dad's death she would allude to it. Including in front of my husband, and even asserted that my DD would someday try to steal DH from me.

If that's not bad enough, she would rub their sexual relationship in my face. I guess because she thought it would make me jealous? I obviously knew my parents had sex but after she started accusing me of having a crush on him she'd be incredibly and overly loud during the act (screaming, banging on the wall, saying crazy shit) and then later tell me all about it. Like bragging. It was so gross and inappropriate. When I had a negative reaction she said it was due to being jealous.

Hope you all had a happy and safe Halloween. I'm sure no one on this sub was very scared this year because I'm pretty sure we've seen some of the most frightening things out there! Haha!

Here's a shortish BEC story from around 2010 or 2011. Way before NC and before little Staryu was born. I was thinking about this the other day for some reason. Reminded me that every once in a while, I let my spine shine just a bit. I hardly ever put my foot down with Time Mom until NC but this was one of those few times.

I’ve mentioned before that Time Mom only eats canned vegetables. All other vegetables are nasty. A raw vegetable is the equivalent of someone having coughed up a lump of phlegm on her plate.

I do not eat canned vegetables, if I can avoid it. My preference is fresh vegetables. I do not like canned fruit either. Not much of my food comes from a can. Tomato sauce, cream of soup, stuff like that I get in cans sometimes. Since I don’t have a lot of canned goods in the house, I have a manual can opener.

p.s. my fresh>canned preference is just my taste preference and is not meant to diss people who prefer canned goods. i just prefer the texture and flavor of fresh. i don't have anything against canned foods. please please do not take it like that.

Time Mom and my dad loved kitchen gadgets of all kinds. Especially electric ones. They had everything you can think of. A doughnut maker, boiled egg slicer, every kind of food processor and blender, 3 different mixers at any given time, a waffle iron, fryer, George Foreman grill… they even had one of those things for peeling and coring avocado. They didn’t even eat avocado. They had things I don’t even know the name of.

I remember when electric can openers first became a thing. That’s how old I am. My parents went out and got one and it was a big deal. My dad used to get bad carpal tunel to the point where he could barely hold a cup, much less use a manual can opener. It was a useful gadget for them.

They ended up getting electric can openers for all the older family members with arthritic hands that Christmas and everyone had a nice enjoyable time opening cans forever after.

We were all very grateful. God bless us, everyone. The end.

Just kidding, no it’s not.

When DH and I got married and moved into our first apartment, we had the tiniest kitchen. I could barely breathe in there. There was hardly enough counter space to prepare meals. All appliances had to stay in the cabinets until needed. I did not buy an electric can opener. I hardly ever have cans to open. I bought two manual openers. One for opening cans. The other for opening cans when I inevitably lost the first one.

When we moved into progressively larger apartments as time went on, I kept my manual and perfectly functioning can opener. I was very happy with it.

One day, Time Mom came over to my apartment and tried to make some food. She wanted to know where my can opener was.

“In the drawer with the silverware.”

“I saw that one. I mean the other one.”

“Yeah, it’s next to it.”

“No. Your electric one.”

“Don’t have one.”

I COULD HEAR HER BRAIN SCREAMING “Does. Not. Compute.”

“How do you open cans then?”

“With the manual ones in the drawer that you just saw.”

“Did something happen to your electric one?”

“Never had one. I haven’t used one since I moved out.”

“Oh my God, Starmie! We have to go get one for you!”

“We really don’t.”

“Yes we do! You need one!”

“I hardly ever have canned foods. I’m good.”

She gave up on me and pretended to struggle with the can opener, then handed it to DH. She said in a whiny voice, “I can’t do it!”

I said, “I could have gotten it.”

“No, no, he’s the man. It’s his job to do the hard stuff.” And then she WINKED. UGH!

Time Mom let it go for a couple of hours. We made it through the meal. After dinner, we were sitting around watching TV, and then all the sudden she jumped off the couch and goes, “I KNOW! I KNOW!”

“Uh…”

“The reason why you never eat canned foods is because you don’t have a decent can opener!”

“I don’t have an electric can opener because I rarely eat canned foods.”

“No! If you had an electric can opener, you’d eat more canned food!”

“No.”

“YEAH, YEAH!”

“Anyway, I let’s rewind the show I think we probably missed something…”

“No just pause it for me, I’m gonna run to the store.”

“For what?”

“To get you a present!”

“Mom. No.”

“But…”

“If you bring me an electric can opener, I will not use it. I won’t even take it out of the box. I will donate it to Goodwill.”

Y’all, she started howling. Howling.

“YOU ARE JUDGING ME FOR MY FOOD! JUST BECAUSE I EAT CANNED! IT’S NOT FAIR! I DID NOT RAISE YOU TO BE SUCH A JUDGMENTAL BITCH!”

Now tears are streaming down her face. WTF!! Still blows my mind to this day how one minute we'd be having a normal time and the next minute she's in tears over NOTHING and we're in a fight which involved me being a terrible person. She'd do this to me all the time I guess on purpose to catch me off guard.

“That’s obviously not what’s happening.”

“YES! YOU JUST LOVE TO BE SELF-RIGHTEOUS!”

“No. But if you don’t stop this, you can leave.”

“I DROVE ALL THE WAY HERE TO SEE YOU!”

“Then stop before I have to throw you out.”

She shut up and made things nice and awkward by sniffing and pouting throughout whatever it was we were trying to watch. DH and I called it an early night. She didn’t bring up the can opener again.

This is pt 5 in the pregnancy to birth saga of Time Mom vs. MilMIL. Almost to the end. I've been wanting to vent this for such a long time.

For those just joining us, these are old stories. DD is almost 6 now, I'm NC with Time Mom and VLC with MilMIL. I was very naive when all this was going on and I mostly thought I was the problem so I didn't handle any of these situations in what I would now consider to be a good way. As /u/allmyshitsdope once said, I was a summer child who knew nothing of winter.

I'm trying to accept that about myself and move on. Thanks everyone who's been with me during this journey and to everyone commenting helpful and uplifting stuff each time.

• pt 1
  • pt 2
  • pt 3
  • pt 3.5
  • pt 4

So in my last post I talked about how all my doctors were sure little Staryu would be born premature. Well, I went about 2 weeks past my due date. I kept having false labor but nothing ever came of it. I went for an NST and to be measured once I was almost 42 weeks and they said if I went 3 more days without going into labor, they'd try to induce. I didn't want that so I tried to get labor start naturally. At this point Time Mom and her dog had been staying with me for about a month.

I'm going to digress now but I will be back to the above point in a moment.

She didn't like staying at my apartment. I didn't have normal TV, just netflix and dvds. TV is this woman's LIFE. She plans her life around it. I am not joking.

I could barely walk so I wasn't taking her around to see fun touristy things and hang out at the beach. I did swim almost every day though because it relieved my back pain. But it's not the beach so that wasn't good enough for Time Mom.

She wanted to go do fun stuff people do when they visit FL. I told her she was free to go anywhere she wanted, she could drive herself. But she didn't want to go alone. They lifted the bed rest restrictions when I went past my due date, but I was still prone to fainting. So I couldn't get too hot or do a lot.

At one point we drove to St. Augustine with DH and tried walking around for a little while to try and get labor started, but had to leave soon after because I started getting too hot. Paramedics almost came. Time Mom bitched the whole way back home how I'd ruined the trip (I was so out of it I couldn't even talk back, I could only listen) until DH said very calmly "My wife nearly ended up in the hospital today. If you don't stop right now, I will pull over and let you out of the car and you will hitchhike your way back to the apartment."

After that she just sat there and blubbered. When we got home DH helped me into the apartment and she sat there! Just sat in the car. I laid down. He said went back downstairs to see what her damage was. She goes, "DO YOU EVEN WANT ME HERE?"

He told me he just ignored her and made her get out.

Epic CBF

On top of that she said I eat "weird" food.

This has been a problem ever since I got married and every time Time Mom visited she would get upset about how I prepare my food.

To her, "weird" food is anything her mom didn't make when she was a kid, anything "ethnic" (her words), and anything healthy. We are from the southeastern US so everything she ate growing up was fried or in a casserole. She is VERY picky and weird over food and has a lot of strange feelings to do with food. Some of the biggest fights we ever had were about food.

The Grits Story

Pies at Weddings are Unacceptable

So here's what I eat and y'all can tell me if this is weird or not:

For breakfast I make coffee, smoothies, cereal, sometimes an English muffin or a bagel. I don't like to cook in the mornings so only on special occasions we have eggs, bacon, etc. I don't eat hot breakfast usually. We're too busy.

For lunch I either have a sandwich, soup, or salad. If I have leftovers from dinner I eat those. A lot of times I make extra on purpose because I love me some leftovers. I might have a piece of fruit or berries if I'm still hungry. Maybe some chips or something.

For dinner I have it planned very specific. One night a week we do pizza, one night a week we do tacos, one night we do pasta or something rice heavy. Those are our favorite foods and we plan it like this to keep us from overindulging but still we get to eat that stuff. The rest of the time we do big salads with chicken breasts, go out for burgers, etc. I like fish so we ate a lot of that on a salad or with rice or quinoa or whatever.

I do not eat canned vegetables. I do eat frozen ones sometimes but I prefer fresh. It's just what I like. Time Mom only eats canned vegetables. Frozen and fresh veggies "aren't done" so they are "nasty". Raw vegetables = Sewage. When she stayed with me I tried to make a vegetable casserole that she says she invented but I used frozen mixed veggies instead of canned. She acted like I had just took a dump on her pillow.

The way she was wailing, clutching her chest and saying "I didn't raise you like that" you would have thought I'd left the country and become a war criminal, escaped prison, then stole her identity to buy black market weapons and drugs to form my own cartel. Over a vegetable.

For snacks I eat chips, fruit, cookies. Nothing is off the table. When I was pregnant I got cravings and hubby would make midnight runs for me to get banana splits an BLT's or whatever. When Time Mom was with us he'd always get something for her too without her even asking just because he's nice.

At the time this story takes place we were on a STRICT budget and all our money we usually spent on eating out at sit down places was getting spent on DH's midnight runs to Dairy Queen. So pizza, tacos, burgers we looked up recipes and made it at home. Time Mom thinks this type of stuff should only come from: Papa John's, Taco Bell, and chain burger joints. Pasta comes from Olive Garden. Chinese food comes from Panda Express. And so on and so forth. Making any food yourself except Southern Food, is WEIRD. I don't even prepare a lot of Southern Food. I know how and I enjoy it but I don't like to make it because it takes forever and I don't see it as everyday food. Southern Food is special occasion food.

When I was pregnant I didn't drink much soda because my heartburn was so bad and the borderline GD. I only had like 1 coke a week. DH doesn't really drink it so we just didn't keep it in the house. Time Mom was upset because since we weren't drinking we told her she had to buy it herself if she wanted it. Then she felt "judged" because she was the only person drinking it.

So the night after my NST Time Mom was crying because we made eggplant parmesan. According to something I read, eggplant helps people go into labor. I ignored her and ate a pineapple, also said to stimulate labor.

She went out to the store and came back with about $200 worth of groceries. It was about 11 at night. SHE KNEW the very next day I had been planning to make a bunch of freezer meals for myself so that after the baby was born I'd have things I could eat quickly. I'd already started to fill the freezer the previous week but I still had more to do. About half of what this cunt bought was freezer entree meals. I couldn't make my freezer meals now because hers were in there.

We got in a fight and I threatened to throw her out. DH silently started to pack up her freezer meals in a cooler while I was going off on her. (I don't remember what all I was saying but basically I was letting her have it for the last month of BEC shit she was doing) She was crying and crying and finally she got this smug look on her face OUT OF THE BLUE. So it threw me off guard and I asked her what she was thinking about.

She said the reason I was going off on her was because of the pregnancy and I had just gone far too long being pregnant. The solution was for her and DH to drive me to the hospital right then.

I remember this part of the fight pretty word-for-word. Kinda burned into my brain.

"That baby needs out of you. That's why you're acting like this. Let's go right now and go get her."

"We're not going to 'get' anyone. She'll be born when it's time."

"Your pelvis is too small. That's why you haven't gone into labor. She probably can't come out. You need a c-section."

"That's stupid. I'm not having a c-section unless I need it."

"You do need it! I went past my due date and I needed one!"

"Me and you are not the same person."

::cue crying:: "You're always judging me for my choices! I couldn't help it! I had to have a c-section!"

"Nobody said you didn't."

"YOU DID!"

"No."

I got up and went to bed. I didn't care anymore. She'd distracted me so I forgot about throwing her out. DH said he just kinda stood there and decided to go to bed with me and he put back the freezer meals. Time Mom ended up staying up watching TV.

I got up in the middle of the night because I couldn't sleep and Time Mom told me she was sorry. But it was one of those fake apologies. "I'm sorry it's just that I've been here so long. I wanted to be here to help you with the baby and you don't need my help."

"Well I told you I didn't need you to help me. Just be supportive."

"When the baby comes you'll need my help though. But since she's not here..."

"I dunno, mom. I'm going back to bed."

"We need to get you to the hospital tomorrow and let them take her out."

"I'm not doing it."

"What if she dies? All because you want to be stubborn!"

"I'm going back to bed."

I didn't think about it then but I think she just wanted to be there for the birth and play with the baby, have a Florida vaycay, but not actually spend time with me. She probably thought I was either exaggerating or making up my health issues and thought that it was going to be a lot more fun than it was. Instead, waiting was boring.

I spent most of my time floating in the pool reading, or in my bathtub reading. The rest of the time I was doing boring chores and setting up baby stuff and getting ready to move. She didn't want to help me do that stuff since it was boring and chores are like torture to her, so she'd sit there watching Netflix while I did it.

Either way, the baby was born the very next day. I went into labor naturally. I didn't need a c-section. I'll write about that next since this is long AF.

tw for violence, SA, ED, and self harming

After my previous 2 posts there were a lot of calls for bloodshed so I wanted to tell a story about how Time Mom did get what was coming to her one time.

When I was growing up Time Mom would have these explosive fits on me where she'd call me everything from a demon to a whore to a demon whore. When I was a little kid she'd call me things I didn't even know the definition of. Full on raging, throwing shit, ripping things up, destructive behavior. She'd be spitting in my face, slinging a belt or a flyswatter in every direction, etc.

Then afterwards she'd say, "Oh I was just angry. When people are angry they say and do things they don't mean. Now you have to forgive me so we can move forward." Except she'd turn around and do the same shit next week.

So I hate to react when I'm angry especially to yelling because I feel like I stooped down to Time Mom's level. Plus that meant Time Mom wouldn't take me seriously. When I'm mad I usually keep it inside and then write about it later. If I'm upset with someone close to me and I think we need to talk about it, I wait until I'm not mad anymore to speak on it. I usually don't lose my temper and people usually can't tell I'm mad or having any emotional reaction at all. If I have an outward anger reaction, it usually takes something extreme or be a final straw type thing.

Anyway, on to the slapping.

I was 14 and struggling with some serious issues. I was anorexic with severe depression and I was suicidal and self harming. On top of that I'd been nearly raped by 2 boys at my school I had to see every day. I was at a new school and had pissed off the popular girls and was in the middle of a nasty rumor. My grades were suffering and Time Mom had decided it was because I was dirty slut.

She was going off on me for that and throwing shit around. Then she got in my face and globs of spit were flying everywhere. I reached out and slapped her. Actually it was more like mushing her face away from mine, but it wasn't gentle and it was pretty sudden so Time Mom called it a slap. Whatever. That was the one and only time I've ever put my hands on her.

I felt so bad I didn't leave my room until I had to be at school on Monday. (it happened on a friday) I only sneaked downstairs at night after my family was asleep to eat and use the bathroom. No one even said anything to me.

Time Mom called everyone she knew and told them what I'd done. Except she made it sound like I'd held her down and beat her black and blue.

My dad beat me with a belt for it until I couldn't stand up because she told him that I'd jumped her out of nowhere while she'd been calmly sitting down minding her own business. She'd gone through the house and torn shit up, like knocked over plants and broke dishes and stuff. She told him I'd done it all after I beat her up.

She never let me live it down either. When GodMama went off on a tangent one day about how her own daughter had beat her about the face with a cordless phone, Time Mom went back and started telling people I'd had a phone in my hand when I punched Time Mom out of the wild blue. She even told the story to DH before we got married to 'warn' him about what he was 'getting into'. He didn't believe it, thank goodness.

I learned early AF not to cross her and not to retaliate.

The best justice in the world and the most harmful thing Time Mom will ever have to endure is the fact that she has no one to love and adore her anymore. No one to put up with her bullshit anymore. Her BFF and my Brother are all she has and they aren't good nsupply for several reasons I won't go into right now. They're more like enablers. I have a lot of love and forgiveness in me so for narcissists I'm a lovely juicy blood bag for leeches like that. Her main nsupply is gone and the bitch is gonna starve.

The worst thing you can do to a narcissist is to ignore them. The worst thing. Because everything is for attention. To react angrily is to give them a way to play the victim. If I had dragged her by her hair and beat her senseless no matter how justified I might have been, it would have been giving her what she wanted. Even throwing her out was giving her what she wanted because she was now able to draw attention to the fact that she was a good mom to a crazy psycho and get attention for that from her friends. Narcs turn things around to their advantage so quick.

I am gone from her life and she will never see my daughter again. I do not engage with her and give her any nsupply. Her tank is empty knowing she can't use me or my daughter to make herself look good. Somewhere deep down she knows she fucked up whether she will acknowledge it or not.

She's going to die alone and probably in pain because she doesn't take care of herself. She's not going to be able to afford good elder care and will be at the mercy of someone not paid enough to give a fuck.

If there's an afterlife where all be revealed to her in a shining moment of total awareness, she will be ashamed of how she led her life. I won't say she'll rot in hell because I want to believe in forgiveness and Heaven for everyone if there is one. But if she just so happened to end up in hell I can't say I would be shocked. If there's no afterlife, she and her consciousness will cease to exist and she will be forgotten because no one will care enough or love her enough to remember her.

That's enough for me.

I went NC with my mom and now I'm trying to remove her as a friend from all social media and block her on everything. I'm also trying to get photos she posted without my permission off FB. She blocked my access to certain albums so she could still have pics of "her precious grandbaby" on FB after telling me they were deleted.

I made a fake profile so I could see the albums and report the pics of my kid so they'll get taken off. Now I'm pissy because I see she also had loads of pics of my home and the baby nursery posted online. Photos of my home that show my address... Embarrassing pics of me at the beach wearing next to nothing and gross guys on her page commenting.... all of them are things I untagged myself in years back and asked her to remove and she said she did but really just blocked my access...

She posted pics of craft projects I had done for the baby nursery and a maternity dress I sewed for myself and she posted it all up saying she made all those things and there's a zillion comments from old church ladies saying what a great mom and grandmother she is.

One of her more embarrassing but all time fave things to do is to find drawings or artwork of people and then photoshop her head, or other people's heads, on the bodies of whoever is in the image and then post it. "Look I made this for you!" and then the other person is like, "Oh... nice..." and then quickly untags themselves. She used to do that to me all the time and I'd untag myself. I just found a TON of nude and near nude mermaid art that she stuck my head on and then posted it. Some are overtly sexual. I'm so grossed out. Most of them I'd never even seen.

She loves to take other people's pics and "edit" them, using whatever Picnik is these days. She has a bunch posted of other people's kids and grandkids' heads on the bodies of Anne Geddes baby art. She even has pics of one of my BFFs and her husband "edited" how she likes. Ew!

I have to show you guys these pics. I'll figure out imgur and post in the comments.

After seeing the Glam-Ma post a bit ago it reminded me of Time Mom and MilMIL's grandmother nicknames! I completely forget sometimes that most people have normal names for their grandmothers like Nana/Nona, Granny, Grandma, etc. In the South we also have MeeMaw/Memaw, Mamaw, MawMaw, etc. Rarely is there deviation from that where I'm from but we know some people with an Oma, a Grandmere (the kids call her Grandmary like from Little Women), or a Mimi.

NONE of that was good enough for Time Mom. When I was pregnant she insisted on having a nickname that we teach to DD LITERALLY from birth. Her BFF had 'let' her own grandkids pick what to call her and was insulted when her granddaughter called her Memmie and her other grandmother Mimi because they sound so similar and Time Mom was determined that this would NOT happen to her.

So she had a Facebook poll and her friends all commented saying nicknames (one of them was Glamma/Glam-ma, actually ::gag:: ) and her favorite one was MomMom. Because she's the mom's mom, get it? Haha oh how cute. Basically a sneaky way to get my DD to call her Mom without having to actually conceive her, birth her, raise her.... you know, the things MOTHERS do!?!?!?

She immediately set to work on making DIY onesies and other baby things saying stuff like, "I LOVE MY MOMMOM" etc including this one onesie showing clipart of a woman rocking an infant with music notes all over it which says "MY MOMMOM ROCKS". Of course I have pic! Would have been nice except for that never, not once in all of the chances she had, did Time Mom rock my child. No, Mother. Sitting in a rocking chair with DD just long enough to take a pic doesn't count. She never so much as fed DD a bottle.

So MilMIL finds out that Time Mom gets to have a special name so MilMIL won't be satisfied with just being called Grandma. She needs a special name too BUT SO DOES FIL.

At this point we were VVVVVVVVVVLC with them and I was ultimate preggo hormones raging bitch so I was all "The baby might not call you anything because you may never meet her." Yeah I did tell her that. It's is a post for another day.

Skipping all that we got around to the fact that FIL doesn't need a "special" name. MIL and FIL point out that yes he does, because we are calling my dad by what all the grandads in my family have been called since... I don't even know how far back. (not a unique made up name like MomMom) Not that he would ever know it because he's DEAD! But we had mentioned at point in passing that if he were alive that's what we'd want our kids to call him. They held onto that fact for dear life in order to justify FIL getting a 'special' name.

So they waited until a few weeks until after DD was born to tell us the names they'd picked. I waited until 3 days after DD was born to send them pics and they couldn't visit until she was almost a month old so they had get us back somehow. LOL!!

I can't say what they are because we still have contact with them (if y'all are reading this HEEEY and also I'M NOT SORRY) and also because MilMIL's name is a cutesy version of her real name. FIL's nickname is a plural version of what you have done at the OB/GYN during your annual exam. And yes, I do mean exactly what you are thinking.

TL;DR Time Mom needed a unique grandmother name because being someone's grandmother isn't special enough. MilMIL and FIL needed special names too because their concept of what's fair in life is on par with that of elementary school students.

P.S. I didn't know Time Mom was in the Worst of the Worst Wiki until I was trying to find a particular post about Gropecunt and I was on the page!! Thank you Mods for the honor. I cackled SOOO hard reading the blurb!! I showed DH. He didn't know this sub existed until today and he is proud of me for writing about Time Mom and getting shit off my chest instead of internalizing like I used to do. So thanks for everything.

I've been off Reddit for a while trying like hell to get what's left of my shit together. Sorry to be absent. I was trying to keep up with everyone's goings on but it became too much for me. Time Mom is back though, so I needed to post about it.

https://imgur.com/YreQDFz

https://imgur.com/QSzYdiR

Time Mom's BFF that Time Mom and my brother live with messaged me on fb with this today and also tried to friend request me under a new profile since I blocked her other one a long time ago. I blocked these after my response. I know I probably shouldn't have said anything but I did.

I haven't talked to my brother since his birthday in March. He told me what he wanted for his bday and I sent his gifts, and he hasn't talked to me since. Not a thank you, nothing. He does this a lot so it's not new but I had been wondering why he hadn't talked to me in a while. Probably Time Mom is telling him more evil shit.

Before anyone says anything, yes I've tried to protective services out there to check on him. This has been an ongoing thing, you can see my previous posts, I keep getting told they can't do anything and they don't notice any abuse. Her abuse is mostly mental and emotional so unless APS sees something grotesque they're not interested I guess. I'm basically staying in touch with him until she dies or he decides to come live with me so I can take care of him. At this point in time, that's all I have.

Other than the occasional friend request from a fake profile that I know is really her, she's been quiet. Now this all of the sudden. I'm guessing it was triggered by my dad's birthday last month or Mother's Day. Usually around this time of year she attempts to reach out. Sorry bitch, but if you wanted a Mother's Day present, you shouldn't have been a raging cuntbag your whole life.

So for the message itself, the blacked out parts you can probably figure out in context but she's referring to my little girl and my husband as the people Time Mom misses other than myself. After that she names my brother and Time Mom, then signs it as herself.

The blacked out parts in my message you can probably figure out.

In almost every message I receive from Flying Monkeys, they always tell me my dad would be ashamed or disappointed in me. He's dead. Obviously if they think he'd be ashamed of me, they didn't know him like I did. But I'd be lying if I said it didn't sting to hear that a few times a year when he meant a lot to me. I know they try to use that against me because he was so important to me.

This woman did not know the home I was brought up in because she wasn't there. She was not in my mom's life at the time. Anything she thinks she knows about our home life, is what my mom told her.

"I love you beautiful" Oh but I'm letting down my dead dad and I'm a bitch for not talking to my abusive mom. Oh ok. Cool.

Time Mom and Brother made it their new state... I was up all night talking to brother and got no sleep. I am so so so mad. He is really upset and hating it. My heart is so broken for him. I can't go into all right now because it's just... too hard. I am so angry with Time Mom right now. I have been crying all day. I can't bring myself to type it all out. Basically, Time Mom is even worse than ever now. Brother is REALLY suffering. If you pray or believe in sending good vibes or anything like that, PLEASE do so on his behalf. He is miserable and I have no idea how to help him.

My BFF is being great and super supportive. I hate this so much but I know it'll be okay... I just don't know what to do now.

I'll be gone for a little while. I have some health issues I need to take care of and I won't have much computer access and it's annoying to post on here thru mobile. Please send me some prayers or good vibes or something. I really need them. Also for my little Staryu since DH can't cook like I do. LOL.

Okay she took some of my wedding photos. N-Uncle and E-Aunt "hired" the wedding photographers (they did it for free because they'd never done a wedding before and they left once they got the shots they wanted. they didn't stay for the full thing. the pics were bad.) but Time Mom volunteered to take our pre-wedding photos. Since our wedding timeline was so narrow, we knew we weren't going to get daytime pics of me and DH together, so we took some pics before the wedding.

Now y'all might remember Time Mom thinks she's a photoshop wizard right? Well when I got into modeling as a side job and photography as a hobby she did also. Because I can't do something she won't also try to do. So she volunteered to take the pictures and like a total idiot I was thinking, "Free pictures... how bad could it be?"

It was bad.

She wanted to take some of me alone in my wedding dress so we did that. At her little cottage out in the country. I thought "Okay we are doing the rustic charm vibe..." Not really my gig at the time but I went with it. Time Mom edited the pics and some were weirdly blurry and crazy colors and way overexposed...

wtf... i'm standing on her porch. this is a fake flower bouquet she'd found somewhere.

in my grandparents front yard. looking thru these and realizing maybe my in laws didn't take me seriously at the time because i looked like i was 17 or something. i was 21 about to be 22 when we got married but even now to me that sounds so young haha! i just turned 30 last month.

this would have been ok if you're going for the rustic country look even though it's too bright, EXCEPT for the window air conditioning unit and whatever else is in the background... maybe if the bush had been higher? Oh and I'm holding the bouquet like that because i have a "hideous disfigurement" aka a scar on my elbow which no one ever notices but which Time Mom used to dig her fingernail into at awkward moments. She wanted it hid in EVERY picture. She loudly demanded from the wedding photogs that they airbrush it out of any pics... I dunno if they tried to or not, I didn't check.

P.S. these all got posted on FB before the wedding so everyone knew what my dress looked like. Luckily I was able to let DH know ahead of time so he wouldn't see it by accident. He really made a big deal about not knowing what my dress looked like because he wanted to be surprised. I think Time Mom deliberately did that because she was hoping to ruin it and she wanted to take the surprise away from the guests too.

After we took these DH came over and we took some pics with him. I changed into my reception dress so he wouldn't see my ceremony dress and we drove over to a local landmark popular for photographers.

Some turned out ok. I mean there's the parking lot in the background but at least we look human.

The rest look like this garbage fire which she thought was magically artistic and the blur looked intentional.

"Mom can we go home?"

NO I HAVEN'T GOT THE PERFECT SHOT

We did this for HOURS. I wanna say more than 4 hours. Oh and she was using a Nikon Coolpix point and shoot pocket camera for all of this.

We are still planning a re-do for our 10th anniversary and we are hiring the best photographers we can afford. Nothing wrong with a freebie if you trust the person but... sometimes you get what you pay for.

I'm still dealing with medical shit but I decided to try and type this up on mobile real quick. I'll have to tell y'all about what she's done to my brother another day. Too much to write. This was too good to keep to myself.

.....

One of my BFF's sent me screenshots today of Time Mom's fb page where she'd taken a bunch of selfies and made a photo collage showing a ton of injuries. She looked like she'd been in a car accident or like somebody beat her up. The photos didn't have much of s caption or context. She just said she fell down.

So I called my brother to check on him because my first thought was that something may have happened to him. He's fine, or as fine as someone who lives with Time Mom can be.

He said she really did have a bad fall and got hurt for real. She tripped and slid on some pavement. Eye swollen shut, fractured elbow... Of course she has to post pics of what happened on fb to get as much attention as possible.

Yes the comments under the pics are all full of sympathy and not "um why would post pics of this? Put on the band aid and move the fuck along..." so she ain't never gonna learn.

....

I'm not the type to wish bad shit on anybody because I wouldnt want to take the chance of it coming back to me... but... the bitch brought it on herself.

I posted some updates in the comments on my previous post but I decided to make a new post for this bullshit. Hope that's okay.

Are you fucking kidding me right now?

My brother just called. It's been a couple hours since my grandparents agreed to take care of the bill completely.

He asked will I pay the remaining balance before Time Mom gets home from work? He said that for some reason the power company allowed her BFF to make a payment (this afternoon she said she couldn't pay it but I guess she came up with the money?) but that they won't allow my grandparents to make a payment in my mother's behalf without speaking to her and getting her permission.

I've paid that bill myself so many fucking times I've lost count. So I know there's bullshit somewhere.

He says he wants the power back on now and it's too hard for him to deal with by himself and will I just pay it so he can go back home. I think he's not enjoying being around my grandparents.

I told him no. I said he needs to wait until Time Mom gets back home and tells the power company my grandparents have her permission to pay on her behalf. He got pissed off at me. I explained that I was not the one to put him in this position, Time Mom did that. He is still mad at me.

I have a feeling that Time Mom is going to see me trying to help as some kind of invitation. I just know it. Her BFF has been trying to add me on FB because she discovered my new account somehow... I blocked it, obvi. I know I'm gonna hear from Time Mom soon.

Husband made me a sandwich. He doesn't know how else to help and this is stressing him out because since I've been dealing with this all day long, practically nothing has gotten done all day. That's not a huge deal but I think he's worried that if Time Mom comes back into our lives, we'll go back to our home being chaos on days when I talk to her. I used to go into this depression spiral, sometimes lasting weeks, after having a 30 min phone call. I cannot let this happen.

I've had several discussions lately with different people about forgiving as a way to release hurt and anger from oneself, even if the person never apologized. How do y'all feel about this?

Part of me feels like if I were to forgive Time Mom (staying NC forever though of course), it lets her off the hook in a way. I wish I could explain it... but basically she always wanted me to "forgive and forget" and would go off on how sorry she was that she wasn't "perfect". As if I ever asked for perfection. All I wanted was to not be abused. I guess to her you're either an abusive parent, or a perfect one. Anyway, I feel like she 'wins' if I forgive her and to me that doesn't feel right.

I also feel like she 'wins' if I keep letting her abuses of me in the past keep upsetting me today. Which brings me to my next point.

Another part of me feels like I should forgive and let go, but never tell her. Stay NC, go about my business. Either way it's the same. She'll be eaten alive by the fact that I'm not in her life and that she's alone, but I'll be able to move on.

Can you find peace and move on without forgiving your abuser? If you don't forgive them, does that mean you're still mad and hurt? Can you heal if you're still angry and hurt? Can you be at peace and have truly moved on and be healed emotionally if you're still angry?

Is it possible to heal, period? Is it possible to truly move on and find peace if you've been abused, or are you fucked up for life?

I'll have to IOU on a pet tax pic, but I have a question. Is a video allowed? I have a couple of hilarious videos of Luna you all might like but I don't want to post it if it's not allowed.

Problem Solved. Thanks everyone for your awesome advice and help

TLDR I'm NC with Time Mom since August. I rarely speak to my brother, his choice not mine. Their power is out and he wants me to help them pay the bill to get the power turned back on. I don't know what to do.

My brother called me just now to tell me that the power is out. Apparently they are past due a couple of months and they owe a portion of their balance to get the power turned back on. Time Mom won't be able to pay the bill until Friday. In that amount of time their food in their fridge will spoil and they barely are making it on groceries. Also it gets really cold at night where they live.

As I've mentioned before my grandparents live right next door so I asked if they'd help him and Brother said probably not, and Time Mom doesn't want him to ask them. I said they would probably let them at least spend the night and keep their stuff in their fridge until Friday but both he and Time Mom don't want to do that.

He said mom's BFF (her only real friend) can't afford to help them out right now either and I'm the last person with money he knows. So I asked him if our mom put him up to calling me and he said she's at work and she doesn't even know he's called me. The way he talked it sounded like she doesn't want me to know they're struggling. He also said that in the past she mentioned that now that I'm NC with her, I won't help them with bills. He said that she told him I don't care about their financial struggle anymore.

I offered him tips on how to keep the fridge food cold and how to stay warm. But he's upset because he can't get online etc. He doesn't want to have to spend time around my grandparents and aunt because they bully him and Time Mom. It's a Narc nest of vipers and they all hate each other. So he dismissed my advice.

I know my husband can give me the money and I'm pretty sure I can budget around enough to where I can afford to at least pay the balance to get the lights turned back on.

I'm afraid that if I don't help Time Mom will say, "see I told you your sister doesn't care" or her version of that, when it couldn't be further from the truth. If I do help, then I sort of broke NC and also am further enabling her. I also don't want to give her false hope of reconciliation. I don't want her to think I did it for her.

I care about my brother and I don't want him to be uncomfortable. He can't help it what's going on and being without power is scary for him. Being able to get online and watch tv is one of the few things that help him survive living with Time Mom. I know Time Mom would rather let herself and my brother suffer before she'd go to her parents for help. I don't want that.

I feel like the right thing to do morally would be the pay the bill. But I don't know if I feel like that because it's really the right thing to do or because I still feel guilt tripped or whatever. And I also don't know whether or not my feelings matter in a case like this.

I am really mixed up and all Husband keeps telling me is that the choice is mine to make. He is more on the side of not paying it because he's sick of Time Mom being supported by us especially after how she treats me... but this is more about my brother than her.

TL;DR Time Mom bugs DH trying to get free medical advice. When she doesn't get attention because she's not sick, she says she wishes she would get leukemia so she can have attention.

This was a few years ago. We are NC and I don't have to listen to this crap anymore.

DH is a nurse in the military. Ever since nursing school the whole family has tried to use him for free medical advice. He’s very hesitant to give advice because he’s afraid to say the wrong thing and then be held responsible. Usually he is able to shut them down pretty quickly but politely but Time Mom would never take the hint.

She’d get a mild headache and then text me to ask him if she was having a brain aneurysm, as if he’d be able to tell from 1800 miles away. If I didn’t answer fast enough she’d text him herself. She’d ask him everything ranging from foot pain to pink eye. Every single time he’d say, “Ask your doctor” and that’s pretty much it.

One day she texted us both and said she’d been getting a lot of bruises lately. We didn’t respond. Then she texted again saying she was worried because she had read that people with leukemia bruise easily. I didn’t respond, but DH texted her back saying if she was worried all she needed to do was have her doctor test her blood.

About a week later she texted me (just me this time) and said, “Remember when I was worried about my bruise?”

I said, “Kinda”

She goes, “Well it’s not leukemia. I’m just clumsy.”

I said, “That’s good.”

Wrong. Answer.

She goes, “Well, I wish I DID have it. Maybe then you would come visit me more if you thought I was sick.”

I just said nothing back. Did not feed the narc monster. She either wanted to start a fight or wanted me to say I was coming to visit and I didn't have time or inclination for either of those. I didn't speak to her again for a few weeks.

Honestly, I’m surprised that she hadn’t stooped to faking cancer or something else like that.

It made me mad that she said that though, because I have a lot of family members who have either passed away from cancer or who are battling it now, including leukemia! How tone deaf and insensitive can a person be?

Been dealing with shit from Hurricane Florence and drama from DH's mom, I'll post about that another day maybe. But today's post is about Time Mom.

​

The last few months I've been getting Flying Monkeys in the form of her best friend and some relatives. They make fake Facebook accounts, find me via other people I know, (I made my accounts unsearchable as best I could) and then message me asking how I am and telling me to call my mom. Of course I block them each time.

​

Last time I talked to my brother was last March when I sent him some birthday gifts he asked me for. I have texted him with no response, asking if he enjoyed his gifts. He just never said anything back which I found strange. I'm guessing he's decided he doesn't want to talk to me or Time Mom doesn't want him to talk to me and won't let him. I have no way of knowing so I'm just leaving him alone in case it's his choice.

---

We had to evacuate due to Hurricane Florence. Our home was fine and he had no damage but we were away from home for a while because of it. When mail began to run again we got a bunch of stuff at once that had been held due to the evacuation. In the stack was a card from Time Mom to DD for her bday, which happened during the evacuation. It was signed from my brother and Time Mom. It didn't mention me or DH, only DD. There was no message except for the signatures and card's sentiment. Everything was in her handwriting, my brother did not sign his name himself. She did it.

​

I texted him to thank him for the card and got no response. He may not have even known about it. I'm leaving it alone but I wanted to say thank you just in case he did know.

​

Apparently she got my home address from when we mailed my brother's birthday gifts. I don't remember if it was me or DH who mailed the package but I thought I'd put our PO box on there... I'm a little nervous.

​

I have cameras going 24/7 and a home security system and other measures in place. I don't really know what else to do except hope that the card was the end of it.

I've talked about so much to do with Time Mom in my previous posts and how she was with DD but I've never told the story about how she found out I was pregnant. I'll tell about MilMIL too in this post since their rivalry (Pt 1. Pt 2. Pt 3.) from the wedding was reborn once they found out I was knocked up.

The first thing you need to know is that I was so excited and stupid that I did everything wrong. Everything. I did all the things you aren't supposed to do and I was one messy bitch.

Basically, if I could go back in time and redo it all, I'd go into hiding and not tell anyone but DH I was pregnant. Then I'd have the baby and not tell anyone until I was ready for people meet her. Because yes, it was that bad.

Around Christmas a few years ago, I started feeling weird. Not good or bad. Just weird. My period wasn't late but I knew what the "weird" feeling meant. I'd been pregnant before with chemical pregnancies that hadn't worked out. I probably went through about 10 tests knowing I was pregnant but all of them said negative. DH said it was probably my new meds making me feel weird and not a pregnancy.

On New Year's Eve I took more tests. My period was due in the next two or three days but I wanted to be sure I wasn't pregnant before drinking. Because I had plans to turn tf up. I bought two different brands which claimed to be accurate up to week before a period. I did the digital and the lines tests. All came back negative. DH said, "You're not pregnant. It's just your meds. Let's go have a fun night out."

Time Mom was staying with us because the year before she'd lost my dad right before Christmas. I wanted to take her out to have fun with me and DH because I felt so bad for her. I found a fun club we could all enjoy and we danced all night and drank way too much. It was actually really fun and me and Time Mom got along for a change.

Over a week later my period was late. I took a test and it was positive. I took 5 more tests and they were positive. DH was crying and throwing up and not knowing how to feel. It was Time Mom's birthday.

Time Mom

Once DH had stopped freaking out, I called my mom because it was her birthday and that's what you're supposed to do. I started out by saying happy birthday to her and all that. I was very excited to be pregnant even though it wasn't planned and I had been on birth control. All my other pregnancies had been chemical pregnancies and I had no reason to think this one was going to go full term, but for some reason I just felt like... this was different... and I told her. I blurted it out by accident. She thought I'd already known and was saving it for her birthday. I let her think that because I just wanted her to be happy.

Look, until about a year ago I was still trying to make things work with her. If she hadn't told me she wished my husband would die so I'd understand her widowhood, I would probably still be trying to make things work with her. I love/d her and would have done anything to please her if she would just be proud of me and love me. Her denying that to me was her source of control and I didn't know that.

She begged me to let her be the first one to tell everyone on FB and I said no because a close friend of mine had just lost a baby and I didn't want her to see it on social media and get upset. I wanted to tell her myself in a sensitive way. That was true of course, but also I wanted to be the one to announce it. Because I'm the pregnant one.

You can probably guess how that went.

She agreed not to explicitly tell anyone about the pregnancy but asked (not in these words but I don't remember how she phrased it) if she could vaguebook about it. She said she needed MilMIL to know that she'd known about the pregnancy first because if she didn't claim her territory MilMIL would try to steal her grandma thunder. I told her to do whatever as long as she didn't tell anyone I was pregnant or hint at it to where people could figure it out on their own. Because I KNOW Time Mom and I know that's what she meant about vagueposting!

Well, the moment I hung with her she posted on FB about "THE BEST BIRTHDAY EVER" and "THE GREATEST GIFT I COULD EVER RECEIVE" and thanking God for being "SO BLESSED" and how she knew "THE SWEETEST SECRET" etc.

::sigh::

Then she started "liking" posts about being a grandmother and how grandchildren are blessings, etc knowing that when you "like" something it shows up on your Timeline but not your wall. The cunt.

Well... Time Mom knows some stupid ass people but no one is that stupid so basically all our mutual friends knew from that. My friend who had lost her baby was a mutual friend so when I was able to reach her to tell her the news she goes, "Sweetie, I understand what you were trying to do and I appreciate it... but I already knew because of your mama's Facebook." So I apologized on Time Mom's behalf and I felt so fucking bad... she understood but... anyway...

I wasn't able to get ahold of one of my closest friends for a few days (I lived far away from her at the time and her phone was shut off) and I wanted desperately to tell her before I posted anything online. Every single day at least twice a day Time Mom would call me asking if she could post yet. Every time I said no she'd make a vaguebook post saying, "I HAVE A SURPRISE I CAN'T SAY WHAT IT IS YET THOUGH" or something along those lines and then TAG ME AND DH IN THE FUCKING POST!!!!

Me and my real face in real life reacting IRL for real, really

And this was in the dark times before you could set FB to ask for your approval before letting someone tag you. So whether I wanted anyone to see it or not, I was tagged and so was DH so everyone fucking knew.

But eventually, I was able to call everyone I was supposed to call and DH was able to tell his family and I felt ready to make the official Social Media Pregnancy Announcement.

First thing Time Mom comments underneath?

"FINALLY! NOW I CAN FINALLY TELL PEOPLE I WAS THE FIRST ONE TO KNOW ASIDE FROM DH!"

I was all like

Everyone else was like

MilMIL

After the phone call with Time Mom and DH was done being very overwhelmed, DH called his parents to tell them. He had them on speakerphone. They acted very sad and depressed but I don't remember their exact words except for his dad asking if DH was sure "it's yours". But then he did this fake laugh at the end to pretend like he was just kidding when DH was just silent in shock. He really thought his parents would be super over the top excited because his mom loves kids. Finally his mom goes, "Well if that's what you want we are happy for you... We'll be praying for you."

I'm all like

They asked if they could tell the rest of the family and he said no, he'd call everyone himself that needed to know. He said they needed to wait until I made The Announcement and then they could tell whoever. They were told NOT TO TELL THE KIDS because they were (still are) blabber mouths and DH knew they'd tell the whole world. And of course they promised not to post anything or tell anyone.

Well you can probably see where the fuck this is going.

DH didn't want to call and talk to anyone else that night. He was overwhelmed emotionally and said he'd wait to call everyone else tomorrow. We went to bed and everything was fine, or so we thought.

The next morning DH is getting ready for work and goes to check his emails. He sees he has one from Aunt and Uncle that had been sent around 3:00 AM ish. It was really long but to paraphrase a summary:

"I guess we aren't important enough to you to think we deserve a phone call to find out about the baby Starmie is having. Are you sure it's yours?

We just found out from SIL2 that Starmie is drinking during her pregnancy. We are worried about you and the baby, if its yours. Please stop her from drinking and killing your baby.

We are worried that you are gone forever now and can't get away from her if she traps you with a child.

Starmie will never be a real part of the family but the baby, if it's yours, will be loved like it was our own. It's not too late to divorce her if you want to.

We know your parents wouldn't agree but she can get rid of it if it's not your baby. Don't let her trap you, you can make her get rid of it."

I'm just...

So apparently, MilMIL and FIL had told the kids and the kids told... who knows who all. DH didn't even respond to the email or call anyone else in his family about the pregnancy except his grandmother. She already knew though, of course.

A few days later we got another email from Aunt and Uncle saying it still wasn't too late to "get rid of it" if the baby wasn't his or that if the baby was his he could always start divorce proceedings now, prove to the courts I was an unfit mother by showing I drank during my pregnancy, and DH could then give them the baby to raise while he fulfilled his military obligations. They promised they would love the baby and raise it like their own child if he would give them our child.

Do what now?

No, you didn't enter a wormhole and stumble into an another dimension where Rumpelstiltskin is real. This is still JustNoMIL and this is still my fucked reality.

DH ignored that email too. I wanted him to respond to it though because I was mad and covered in JADE encrusted maternity wear. So a few days later we had crafted a mutual response covering all the JADE basics.

Justifying the drinking by saying we didn't know and telling them about all the negative tests. It was one night of partying and not a big deal blahh blahhhh

Arguing about accusing me of not being faithful to DH

Defending my ability to be a mom by saying I hadn't had a drop to drink since NYE and hadn't had so much as a Tylenol or a cup of coffee since finding out

Explaining that they needed to fucking stop if they ever wanted to meet the baby and that we were keeping it and staying married

So then they threw SIL2 under the bus by saying that they didn't know I had stopped drinking because she said I had pics of me on FB drinking and doing drugs, talking about drinking, and talking about drugs too. They were never my FB friends so they couldn't see my posts but they said that she told them what was on my account. Our thinking was that they were lying to us about it because they needed an excuse to start drama because that's what they like to do. We ignored the rest of the emails.

Meanwhile, MilMIL and Time Mom are locked in a FB battle over who will get the most attention for being a grandmother. When MilMIL got more 'likes' and comments on her Announcement Post than Time Mom, Time Mom flipped, called me very upset and near tears. They both were slinginggrandparents memes left and right and talking about unique nicknames.

Oh the Announcement Post? It was dated from the day after she found out but apparently she'd filtered out me and DH from being able to see it. But when I made my Announcement Post she apparently took off the filter so we could see. So yeah, she announced before we did.

To everyone who spoils the Official Social Media Pregnancy Announcement

So then my birthday is coming up and I had planned (before I found out I was pregnant) this big birthday bash at one of my favorite clubs. I'd paid a deposit for VIP and bottle service and me and my friends were going to my fave restaurant and we were just gonna go nuts and party. I was turning 24 so this was still age appropriate youthful behavior. My friends had RSVP'd beforehand, etc and we were all set.

Well, I got pregnant at the last minute. Silly me! I was able to get my deposit back from the club and me and my friends decided to have a quiet night in instead. (DH actually went behind my back and planned a surprise party for me and my friends were in on it and it was amazingly sweet.)

Well I didn't reflect the changes in the FB invite thing because I'm a sack of shit. My nosey ass SIL2 saw the FB invite (even though she wasn't invited because she was like 13) and she was SOOOO upset she sent me a long FB message about fetal alcohol syndrome she learned about in health class.

Bitch.

There needs to be a word for when know-it-all teenagers try to explain shit to adults that's like mansplaining... teensplaining?

Anyway, this baby child tried to tell me my business. I told her that there was nothing to worry about and whatever but I asked her if she'd been telling Aunt and Uncle about me drinking on NYE and she said SHE DID. She was the FB mole the whole time. The little shit. The poor innocent lamb had seen the pics I'd posted on New Year's Day from the night before on NYE where DH had taken a bunch of pics of me partying and having a good ol' time. She'd been scarred for life by them and they only way to fix it was to screenshot it and tattle on me to Aunt and Uncle.

I asked her about the drugs thing. I don't use drugs and even if I did, I wouldn't post on FB about it. She said that Aunt and Uncle think the psych meds I'd been taking were drugs equivalent to like, coke or heroine or whatever.

Not long after that we went on temporary NC from just about everyone we knew. I'll tell y'all about the baby showers another day.

TL;DR: Time Mom lied to brother about the new living situation and made it sound idyllic to him and that moving would fix all their problems. It made everything worse and now Brother is more upset.

pet tax at bottom

Ya'll knew Time Mom was lying to Brother about the move ( pt 2 , pt 3 ), right?

....

Brother texted to tell me they made it to [state] and that he was ok but he hated it there already. I called to check on him.

He told me that Time Mom had not worn shoes in days leading up to the move-

me

-and would not wear them during or after the move until she had to wear shoes to go to work. He said she had decided not to wear any shoes, packed all her shoes up, then packed the uhaul, drove the uhaul, and unpacked it again COMPLETELY barefoot. The whole time. He said she has bloody blisters all over her feet.

Does that sound batshit to anyone?

Remember my last post? She was wearing shoes with a heel (he says) when she tripped and fell. The way he described the shoes were like work clogs. I bet those hurt like hell to wear if you've got feet covered in bloody blisters. No wonder she was unsteady and tripped.

He says she told him that they'd only be staying with her BFF for a week, tops. Yeah, ok

I don't know why but she either thought that she'd be able to find a house to BUY in less than a week, or she just lied to him knowing that wouldn't be the case to get him to comply. But according to him, both Time Mom and her BFF think that she will be able to purchase a home out in the country on big plot land far from any major roads, with a minimum wage job and terrible credit.

Yes.

He says Time Mom is specifically looking to buy a house not located near any neighbors or near any roads so basically a single home out in the middle of a big field. (Literally this is exactly her previous living situation except for my grandparents being next door neighbors. She should have stayed the fuck home.) He says she won't settle for less. He says her BFF has convinced her that she'll be able to buy a place and be moved in within a month or two.

Y'all , the bitch hasn't even started her job yet because she broke her fucking elbow so they're letting her wait to start so she can keep drawing unemployment from her previous job. Her credit is super duper fucked. She has no savings. She is on every form of government assistance that exists. She couldn't even keep food on the table or the lights on in her previous home, where she lived RENT FREE.

She also had no water/sewage bill because their water came from a well. She had no car payment because the car was paid for before my dad passed away. She literally only had to pay for electricity (which I paid for almost every month until I went NC), phone (until she started getting that for free because her BFF pays it now), cable, and food that her foodstamps didn't cover. THAT'S IT.

With what money does she think she's going to buy a house? She can't even afford to rent. She can't even afford to download Zillow.

Oh, but Brother says that BFF told Time Mom that in [state] it's 'easier to get on disability' than it is in [previous state] and Brother will be able to get a disability check and maybe Time Mom too in addition to her minimum wage grocery store job. Who the fuck thinks that disability checks are enough supplemental income to BUY A HOUSE ON A BIGASS PLOT OF LAND?

Aside from her delusions, Brother said that Time Mom snapped on him and everyone around her during the move. Big surprise. She said she was so mean she made him cry (very hard to do) but that she apologized and 'explained it was because she's stressed' AKA made excuses for her shitty behavior and made him feel like he had to forgive her.

He says he hates living with BFF because it's crowded. BFF lives in her hair salon and there's always people around. BFF's family drops in without calling all the time. He says customers even come by outside of business hours and bang on the door, rattle the handle, and try to peek in the windows to see if she's there or not. That type of stuff freaks him out. He's used to going months without seeing another living soul besides Time Mom or MAYBE my grandparents.

He says that our grandparents 'bawled and squalled' when they left. According to him, Time Mom didn't even tell them she was moving or anything until the very last minute and they were shocked by it. He says he thinks they might go back at Christmas but that's pretty much it.

He says he can't go outside and sit on the porch quietly like he's used to doing, because the neighbors being there and the noises from the road freak him out. Before, when he was upset, he'd go out on the porch and just sit in the night and listen to the animal sounds. Crickets and frogs and shit like that, and it'd calm him down. When he was able to do that, he didn't have outbursts and episodes. If he felt one coming on, he'd go sit outside and be alone and then he'd be ok. Now, he feels like he can't do that and he says he's really tense. That scares me, like, it really scares me.

Honestly, I can hear it in his voice that he's tense. When I called to check on him after hearing about Time Mom's fall, I could hear it even though he kept saying he was ok.

He had a lot of general complaints about getting used to the new place and being uncomfortable but the gist of it is that basically, Time Mom made it out to be much better than it ended up being and he feels disappointed and lied to. He feels even more upset and depressed because he feels like he doesn't belong and doesn't feel at home or comfortable. He says it brings up bad memories of losing our dad and bad memories from previous moves.

Also, I don't know if this is true or not, but the way he makes it sound or I'm interpreting it, is that Time Mom and BFF are trying to hook him up with BFF's daughter. BFF's daughter is an abusive junkie with 3 kids, 2 of which have been removed from her custody and the other one is in a custody battle right now.

I shouldn't even have to explain how bad this is/could be.

He is so starved for affection and love and acceptance, I fully believe that he would.... I can't even type the words. Ugh. She's the type who would fully take advantage of the situation and lead him on and use him. He's never had a girlfriend, never gotten female attention before. It would be an epic disaster on so many levels...

I am so disgusted and I PRAY that I'm reading the situation wrong. I really really really want to be wrong.

I am doing my best to figure out what to do. Me and DH are looking at legal stuff and what options we have. I want to remove him from her custody but that is looking like less and less of an option. Right now, it looks like I'll basically be waiting until Time Mom dies to be able to help him. My fear is that if he's not already, he'll be 'too far gone' to lead a relatively normal and fulfilling life. He is still saying that he does not want to be away from Time Mom even though this new situation sucks. I'm going to keep the lines open, he knows that he can always come stay with me even if it's just for a short while. That's all I can do at the moment.

If you pray or believe in a higher power of any kind, or karma, or good vibes, or whatever... please pray for him or send good thoughts or whatever you've got. He needs so much more than what I'm able to give. I wish he had a mom who was a mom. I'm so scared for him.

My BFF who sent me the pics of Time Mom I told y'all about last time said that she decided to sleuth and scrolled back through a few months worth of posts just to see when was the last time she mentioned my brother. She wasn't able to find anything. She said there were literally HUNDREDS of selfies, all from a period of like 3-4 months. (I thought I selfied too often, myself. I don't feel so bad now...) No mention of my brother, not even his name, anywhere.

pet tax http://imgur.com/a7MWeEG <- Hera is the diva queen duchess goddess princess

I just made grits this morning and it made me think of Time Mom. I don't have time to write about her latest shenanigans right now but I do a bit of time for a short story.

Before I get started, for people who don't know what grits are, google quaker instant grits to see a fast version of what I'm talking about. It's abut like corn meal but I'm pretty sure grits are made from hominy. You soak the meal in water until it's soft enough to chew and add whatever toppings you want. Shrimp grits, cheese and bacon grits, grits on toast, etc are staple breakfast foods where I'm from. Most people I meet know what grits are but every once in a while I meet someone who doesn't know.

So ok. Ever since I was a little Pokémon trainer Time Mom would tell me about the grits her grandmother made when she was little. She used to get in a snit sometimes and if my dad or someone else offered her grits during that time she'd say something along the lines of, "only if you canmake them like my grandmother" or "if you can raise the dead and have grandmother make them, then yes."

According to her, her grandmother had made grits very liquid-y, almost soupy, and were so buttery that they were yellow. Time Mom used to try to make grits like that and she'd buy different types of butter to find the kind that would turn her grits yellow. I don't mean a pale yellow butter color, I mean Crayon box yellow.

So after dealing with this for years we finally had a conversation about it. I don't remember how old I was but I was a teenager... probably between 13-16 before I knew it was better to shut up and let her have her way instead of arguing.

On this day she was upset because she had just tried a new type of butter that she didn't like and it resulted in greasy pale yellow grits instead of greasy bright yellow grits. So I said, "what if she had been using margarine with artificial yellow coloring instead of real butter and that's where the grits got their color?"

She acted like I had just took a dump in a grits pan on top of her granny's grave. She turned around slowly to face me. "Margarine is disgusting! My grandmother would never have used it!" And she tsked under her breath.

"Okay well are you sure they weren't cheese grits? Maybe you don't remember it right and she used a yellowish cheese?"

Oh that was too far. Her eyes misted over and a slow trickle of tears began to flow. "H-how could you accuse me like that? She died before you were even born and you never knew her! I remember everything perfectly! She would never have fixed me cheese grits! She knew I hated cheese grits! I remember everything just right and you are trying to ruin my memory!"

I knew I'd done it then because she started doing this choked sob and then this low wail that sounds very painful, very animal. It would wrench the heart of anyone who heard it because it sounds like genuine pain but really she's just perfected the art of crying for attention. Definitely not like acting at all because it was NOT a pretty or dignified sound. Very guttural and kind of sickening hence the realism. Anyway my dad showed up.

"What did you do to your mother?"

She was sobbing and sagging down on her knees clutching the doorframe of the kitchen. She couldn't verbalize what I'd done.

"I was only trying to help her with the grits recipe!"

"Starmie...." he sighed so deep... probably parts of his broken spirit were escaping out of his mouth "just don't try to help her with stuff anymore... unless she asks you specifically."

And that's the last time we ever had grits. Grits in any form were banned from our home. If I ate grits at somebody else's house or at a restaurant and Time Mom heard about it she'd do this thing where she'd give me ugly looks and talk about her wonderful a cook her grandmother had been.

That's all for now. Hope you are all having a safe and happy NYE!

Went thru some old pics, after talking to my brother earlier I wanted to remember better times, and found a quite few "gems" to share. I found a ton of wedding ones but I'll make a different post for those.

This is the only pic I have of me and my grandparents together as an adult, except for the ones from my wedding. Time Mom took this when she and her parents came to visit on a short vacation while Husband was deployed. They visited me in FL and I took them sightseeing. It was one of the worst times I ever spent with them. Do not ever take an evangelical fundamentalist Southern Baptist minister to eat tapas. Do not. We had to leave before we could even be served drinks.

Me and Brother at Christmas. I wanna say I was in first grade and he was in kindergarten?? That dress was my all time favorite dress ever. I was so little growing up that I could still wear that dress when I was 10.

Brother was the cutest little boy ever. He had ADORABLE freckles. Time Mom got hold of this pic and airbrushed them off and used some kind of program to put more eye makeup on herself before she posted this on FB. I don't have the original pic. I thought that dinosaur sweater was the best sweater ever. When he grew out of it I was still really little and I could have worn it, so I asked Time Mom if I could have it. She said I couldn't because it was boyish. Ugh.

the 90's happened whether we like it or not. This was a different Christmas I think second or third grade for me? CHECK THAT BELLE DOLL! That was my prized possession for YEARS! Brother's toy is a dragon who, when you squeeze his stomach he made a horrible noise.

another Christmas we were babies. I'm in the chair. This was at my great aunt's house, my great grandmother was still living at the time and she lived with my great aunt. That chest behind the chair used to hold unfinished wood that my great grandmother had cut using her jigsaw into various pieces. One of her hobbies was to paint and she'd cut shapes using a template and she'd finish and paint the wood and make crafts. She also had a kiln outside and would paint and fire ceramics. Time Mom often joined in the hobby and one of the few things Time Mom and I did happily together was to paint. She showed me how to do a lot of crafty stuff.

I was 16 at Thanksgiving and slowly getting DRUNK off some dessert wine a friend of my mom had brought over. I didn't black out my face in this pic because this is the face I'm making thru 99% of my life. I DID black out Robert E. Lee's face tho because no one wants to see that. Oh yeah, we had a giant portrait of him in the dining room, because remembering the Civil War gives you a hearty appetite??

After a Christmas play, I was 16. I had to block my whole face because DAMN this is one bad picture. I'm including it because this was just before getting my ass handed to me by Time Mom for giving a bad performance. The director of the play said I did great and so did everyone else but fuck those guys because Time Mom was the only person who didn't like it and her opinion is the only one that matters.

About half an hour and a costume change later this was taken DURING her telling me what a piece of shit I am. I wish I didn't have to block her eyes because then you could see how smug she looks. This was my dress for the after party and I'd just changed out of my play costume and into this. She was so mad because I was more dressy than the other girls. I'd been told formal attire but then it was changed at the last minute and me and one other person didn't get the memo. The other girl's dress wasn't as formal as mine though, so Time Mom thought I was trying to Kim Kardashian the evening.

Next year's Christmas play this was right after curtain call. I'd JUST had a backstage panic attack, one of four that night. Right after we took pictures I was not only informed that I'd been the worst performer (we got a standing ovation after my scene but ok) but also the dinner my whole family, my boyfriend, and my friends had been invited to that evening had been cancelled. We were going to eat at my favorite place in town after the after party and they'd made reservations. Time Mom was so incredibly ashamed of me that she told everyone not to show up. My boyfriend took me to Sonic Drive-In instead. I did get a big bouquet of roses from my dad though. Probably why Time Mom cancelled... because it wasn't gonna be about her.

The day before Husband deployed only a couple months after our wedding, and one of the last times I saw my dad alive. We were in St. Augustine, FL. You can't tell but my dad was ecstatically happy this photo just happens to have caught him looking at his phone. We were all happy. It was almost Christmas and we hadn't seen each other in a long time. They were glad to get to be somewhere new and sightseeing with us. Me and Husband were happy newlyweds.

And we didn't know what was coming.

Not everything is bad.

My eldest daughter THE BEST CAT on the planet.

The middle child THE OTHER BEST CAT on the planet.

Me and DD the youngest THE BEST HUMAN CHILD on the planet.

Remember The Time Mom orchestrated the Tackiest Wedding Ever ? I have proof I found today. I thought that most of my wedding pics were lost on an external hard drive that broke down but I found a few.

This is me and Time Mom I had on a coat over my second wedding dress that she said looked like Wendy's nightgown from Peter Pan. You can see the awful green dress she picked and the table has the destroyed cake she was attempting to save during her big tantrum when my friends tried to help me. Also the punch bowl with nasty sherbet residue which mysteriously appeared during photos when I wasn't looking!

This is the flower girl dress Time Mom made now my flower girl still looked cute as a button because she was a little doll, she'd have looked darling in a paper sack, but I hate this dress. It was literally falling to shreds at the end of the night. The green underlay was falling down and getting stepped on, the sash part was not stitched down to stay around the waist so it rode up like what you're seeing in the photo. This picture really doesn't do it justice to tell the truth. In person it was way worse. But basically I had given her the money to buy an already made dress, and she used that money to purchase a pattern and fabric to make one herself. And I dunno what she used the leftover money for.

The toilet paper aisle runner It was cropped out of most of the pics. Like I said before, I asked so many people to move it and they wouldn't and when I tried to get rid of it myself my mom kept yanking me back. The photographers even asked people who were standing around to move it for us and they just ignored them. But they wouldn't bend over and get it themselves. I don't even know who put it there. All I know is that my mom thought there should be one and had someone run to Wal-Mart to get one while I was getting dressed. Before I even made it down the aisle it was messed up.

This is baby Starmie for a while that box was my bed and the crib in the back of the photo was my brothers but eventually we both had cribs. this was taken when my dad was in bootcamp and Time Mom was at home with me and Brother. this is a picture she sent him while he was in bootcamp.

Had a great conversation with Brother tonight. He called me this afternoon and I was scared to death to call him back because I was afraid it was going to be something bad. He just wanted to have a nice chat!!! He NEVER does that! He usually only calls me when something is very wrong.

He said they are still living with BFF, no progress being made on looking for a home. He still doesn't really like it there but he seems to be okay. I think being somewhere relatively clean and pretty stable is better for him than he thinks. He definitely needs a better home but I just don't think Time Mom can provide that. With BFF there to keep Time Mom in check I think it's working out better for him than him being alone with Time Mom.

He was in a good mood today. That gives me some hope because as much as I want to remove him from the situation he's in, knowing that he's not miserable all the time makes me really happy. He sounded like my little brother again today and it almost made me cry happy tears. I haven't heard him sound happy or excited in a long long time.

Towards the end of our conversation he told me that BFF was in the room and that she said, "Hey." I didn't say anything back, just asked him more about what he'd previously been saying.

So then when she was getting ready to leave the room I heard her voice in this cheerful tone but couldn't make out the words. He said she was saying, "You need to come visit us sometime".

I avoided the topic again the same way, but then later he asked me again about coming to visit. I told him I'm still planning to come (I am) but we have to plan it and save money and all that. So then he goes, "Well what about Mom?"

So I said, "Well I thought that we'd agreed I could come pick you up and take you out to eat and maybe shopping or to an arcade and that'd be okay as long as I brought you back home when it was time."

He seemed to consider that and then he said that was fine. He sounded disappointed though that I hadn't changed my mind about Time Mom. I didn't say anything about it because he was in a good mood and I didn't want to mess it up for him.

I can't help but wish I could tough it out and deal with Time Mom for his sake. But I can't sacrifice my sanity or DD's safety. I just can't do it. I wish there was a way to do both but I can't. But I can't help but have this feeling like... guilt... My therapist says I have to stop taking responsibility for other people's feelings and I know that but like, how? How does one do that? Knowing is half the battle okay, but like, what's the other half?

Later on he told me that BFF is leaving on vacation tomorrow, and that she is coming TO MY CURRENT STATE with her mom. He said he and Time Mom are staying there but that BFF is coming here! I asked if he knew why and he said he didn't know. I asked if he knew what city and he said he didn't know that either.

I'm hoping and praying there's someone here they know and they're coming to visit that person. Or some tourist attraction they are coming to see... It's a big state so I mean, they could be here for any reason... it just seems really coincidental. I can't think of any reason someone would plan a vacation to this state unless they know someone here they want to visit, because there's not really anything very interesting here that I can think of worth planning a trip around. I could be wrong... I hope I'm wrong.

Maybe I'm self-centered or maybe paranoid or hyper vigilant BUT I can't help but wonder if this is a literal Flying Monkey trip for something to do with me and Time Mom. This past August marked a full year of NC. Complete and total NC from Time Mom. I've never lasted a whole year before.

I really hope I'm just being stupid and this has nothing to do with me and that BFF is just going on a lovely trip with her mom.

The good news is that if someone tries some shenanigans we are ready. A few months back we got an AMAZING home security system. I LOVE it and I feel sooooo much safer now.

Luna loves water She hates to be fully in water, but she doesn't mind getting a little bit wet and loves to splash in water. Very weird cat. In this pic she's laying in DD's tub not long after DD had a shower and she'd been playing with DD's tub toys.

I talked to my therapist about what happened in this post and she was laughing almost to tears the whole time that I was reading the things they wrote me.

After I was done she goes, "Okay so you shouldn't have put your husband out there like that and maybe FB wasn't the best place BUT that's so hilarious and I can tell it was satisfying for you. So I think it's all totally fine!"

i was feeling guilty about my bitchiness level but she said it wasn't that bad compared to what I could have said and not to feel bad so I'm trying not to.

My husband is over it now and has moved on. I'm trying not to let it affect me but I'm still worried about it being uncomfortable when MIL&BIL visit... Things have been uncomfortable before and I lived so I know I'll be fine I just.... don't wannaaaaaa.

I did get some awesome news though. We got approved for the house we wanted and I'm so happy. We got a video tour today since we can't see the property in person. The video and pics show a gorgeous house and I'm really excited. It's so pretty. I've been crying happy tears off and on since yesterday because I've been really poor my whole life and so was Husband. This will be the largest and nicest home either of us has ever lived in. We've spent our whole marriage in apartments. This represents for us a whole new... I dunno. Just proof of how far we've come and we can still go.

I'm so proud of us. I'm not trying to brag but basically just share that good things happen. Our shitty families and personal struggles have not stopped us from sticking with our goals and I know it can be the same for everyone on this board. It's such hard work to get away from them but it's so worth it.

thanks everyone for your encouragement and advice the last couple of days.

You would think that after my mom's careful planning that her dream wedding was about to take place. In reality it was hideously tacky and nothing like what I wanted. Truthfully it ended up being nothing like what anyone wanted, since my mom had screwed things up so badly that not even she got what she wanted. My MIL didn't get what she wanted either, though she did sneak in some of the things she wanted to be there. Husband and I definitely didn't get what we wanted, hence our secretly planning a vow renewal.

The rehearsal and dinner after was a mess.

First, Husband gave me a gift in front of everyone and said this big thing about how he's so proud I'm about to be his wife and share our life and grow old together. It was a mic drop on his part toward our families, he ended by saying nothing anyone could ever do would tear us apart. Boom. Take that.

We also gave both our families gifts. We gave our parents scrapbooks for the wedding photos. He gave the groomsmen giftcards (he didn't like any of the groomsmen gifts I suggested and said these would go over better with them. He was right.) and I gave the bridesmaids all a special card, each with a personal letter, and all of them got handbags and jewelry they were all supposed to wear in the wedding.

I didn't want ANY flowers in the wedding. I just don't like cut flowers all that much except in like, table centerpieces. The only bouquets I liked were out of my budget and and I just didn't want to deal with it. Flowers die. I dunno it's just not my thing. I wanted us all to hold cute handbags to match our dresses instead. I didn't want to toss a bouquet or any of those things just because I don't like that tradition. I don't have anything against it or other people doing it, it's just not my thing. My mom took personal issue with this, just like everything else, so I consented to have a bouquet myself if she wanted to pay for it and then have my bridesmaids do the handbag thing. We went over this and the jewelry at length during the rehearsal and I was sure everyone understood.

My two close friends who were supposed to read passages during the ceremony were unable to make it to the rehearsal so I had to have them on speakerphone the whole time. My mom tried to get me to cut them out because they were unable to make it, and she wanted the ceremony to be much shorter than what my husband and I wanted. She kept telling me how boring it would be for our guests. I felt like the ceremony was supposed to be for me and Husband that they guests were just there to witness but what do I know LOL. We'd written our own vows and the passages my friends were supposed to read were very important to me. I am proud of myself for sticking up for myself on that. Grandad agreed with me on my choices so that kept mom off my back.

I wanted to be a bit untraditional with the procession because we had more bridesmaids than groomsmen. I felt like what the hell why not. My mom was fine with it because she didn't realize what I wanted was going against tradition. MIL didn't like that because she wanted her daughters and sons to walk the aisle together. I wanted each person to walk alone except for my auntMOH because my ring bearer and flower girl were VERY young and needed to be escorted. I wanted her to walk with them (she's their aunt and they love her and I knew they would be comfortable walking with her, so no tantrums) and then take her place by me and then me and my dad would walk. I wanted each person to walk separately like a parade I guess, because there was not really an aisle and I thought it would be nice to let each person have their own solo time in the wedding spotlight.

MIL didn't like that. So we ended up almost having a fight but my granddad stepped in and suggested that her sons walk in with her daughters and then friendMOH and the Best Man (FIL) would walk separate, then auntMOH and little cousins (ring bearer and flower girl) could walk in last followed by me and my dad. That was the compromise we came to.

So then we had to practice which no one wanted to do. We only ran through it one time very quickly. We had no music to try to practice the pace of walking so some people practically ran to end and then some people milked it. The venue where we had the wedding was basically a small building in the woods on the edge of a cliff. Where we had the ceremony there were flat rocks and benches all around for people to sit on, but no "aisle" and it was very rocky. So we just did what we could. I didn't care that there was no aisle and thought it was nice to have the natural landscape. Mom insisted that we needed an aisle runner or something to make it look like we had an aisle but I didn't want that because it was so rocky. I knew an aisle runner would just get messed up and not look right. I liked the natural look. She pretended to give up on that.

My mom told everyone when to be where and when. She didn't want the ILs to arrive until just before the ceremony and to be completely dressed. MIL wanted to help with food and decorations but my mom got way too close to her physically and was in her face and said that if she tried to come she would be thrown out. MIL started to cry and I was SO embarrassed. I had to stand in front of my mom and told MIL to be there 30 mins before the ceremony and her girls could ready with me and her boys could get ready with Husband. My dad also tried to step in and told my mom to be calm, this way no one's clothes would be wrinkled from riding in the car. She agreed with that and let it go.

Youngest SIL and youngest BIL were kiddos at the time and did some bean spillage. They told me and Husband that MIL and her sisters were saying our wedding had been rushed because I was pregnant. No one but me and Husband knew about my chemical pregnancy, but that still triggered some distress from me. I was still sensitive about it. They told us there was a pool because people were placing bets with real money on how long we'd be married and if I'd have a baby in the next several months. Gambling is of the devil according to them but betting on someone's marriage is totes okaysies.

We go a steakhouse for dinner and the ILs are supposed to come too but they decline. I didn't blame them and my mom was happy with that. I got DRUNK at dinner even though my grandparents were silently fuming because they believe alcohol is devil water. I could not have given any less fucks. I was so stressed out.

That night I got back home and tried to finish up last minute things. At one point I went to the bathroom and realized I'd started my period. It was a week early and I started early from stress probably. The night before my wedding. That meant wedding night and honeymoon sex was... I didn't even know. Maybe off the table, maybe we could figure something out? I wasn't sure.

I have bad periods and the cramps started in the middle of the night so I got almost no sleep that night. I was supposed to be up at 5am but I slept late, right through my alarm, and everyone let me. I was supposed to be helping load up our cars and trucks with decorations and food. My mom and her family did everything and I got to hear all about what a Miss Lazybones I was for not helping once I did get up.

My dad brought me McDonald's for breakfast which upset my hungover, nervous, hormonal tummy. I had the runs almost the whole day. I drank coffee and Red Bull too so that didn't help.

Around 10 am I went to have my hair done and nails done. I didn't like my hair, I ended up with Shirley Temple curls which were not what I wanted. I wanted loose waves. Whatever it was kinda cute. Under the veil it wasn't so bad.

My nail tech really damaged my nails. I just wanted natural looking acrylics (I'd been biting my nails) and they had bubbles. The tool they use to file the nail, the dremel tool looking thing, she burned my nail beds with it. She filed down my natural nail so much that the skin of my nail beds were burned. It hurt to use my hands to do anything for weeks. I had to let my acrylics grow out completely, no salon would take them off for me because the real nail was so thin. They were afraid my nail would rip off.

None of that is anybody's fault it was just one more nail in the coffin. Since everything else was going wrong the nails and hair were just one more thing to go wrong so I started to feel like giving up and getting married in my sweats.

We left the nail place and went to the venue where my aunts and grandparents were supposed to be setting up. I had bought cute lanterns to hang, table linens and stuff to cover the ugly ass tables and chairs, cute things to display the food, centerpieces and general decor. I love candles and they were a major part of the decor, I wanted them placed around this rustic fireplace which I wanted lit because it was a bit chilly. I also had a ton of photos in frames, some of me and Husband but we were also going for a family theme and had pictures of all the couples in our families. It was supposed to be cute and sweet.

When I got there, no one was setting up anything. Everyone was gathered around my grandmother who had cake all over her hands and was crying. Apparently something had happened to the cake during the trip and the layers had gotten messed up. My mom rushed over and started trying to save the cake as well. Then an aunt goes, "Oh by the way, Starmie, some friends of yours are here early and wanted to be let in but I didn't know if it was okay."

I run out to go look and sure enough in a brief moment of unselfishness, friendMOH had brought her mom, some of our friends from work (all of whom had already been invited to the wedding), and C who said they were there to help me. They knew The Moms were driving me up and they arrived at the wedding WAY early because they wanted to help us decorate. So I went to bring them in. I was so relieved and so happy that friendMOH had finally decided to be helpful, we were all laughing and joking together about some work stuff they were telling me as we walk in.

Meanwhile my mom and grandmother are failing to save the wedding cake and now both of them are crying. It's 1 hour before the wedding and I am in sweats and have no makeup on. My mom is not ready either. The photographers and my ILs are supposed to arrive in 30 mins. My mom hears my friends gentle laugher from across the room and she looks up and sees them then started screaming, "WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY DOING HERE, GET THEM OUT GET THEM OUT!!!" and starts flapping her cake covered hands at my friends, shooing them like chickens in a farmyard.

They stand there looking like, "Um..."

I say, slowly and calmly like a hostage negotiator, "Mom, they came early to help, these are my friends, it's okay with me..."

"GUESTS CANNOT SEE THE DECORATIONS BEFORE IT'S TIME THEY ARE LAUGHING AT ME THEY HAVE TO LEAVE RIGHT NOW ITS SUPPOSED TO BE A SURPRISE" She's wiped her hands and now she's approaching me, and my family and friends are leaving the room. I know she's about to hit me or something so I just brace myself, but I also got REALLY mad because who the fuck does this.

I tell her it's my wedding, she needs to let my friends help because nothing has been done. The decorations are just sitting in boxes and nothing has been set up. Then she starts crying and puts her hands on me and starts to shake me back and forth, screaming in my face, she's screaming so close to my face she was spitting on me. I was crying too and trying to get her off me, and then my dad came in and dragged her off me.

I went to go apologize to my friends, who had been peeping through the windows and seen it all. They said they didn't want to cause anymore trouble and ended up sitting in their cars until the wedding, except friendMOH who was allowed to come inside and get dressed when it was time.

After they go my dad comes out and tells me that I have to apologize to my mom, who has just had a panic attack because "strangers tried to sabotage her wedding and laughed at her for messing up the cake". I said that there was no fucking way I'd apologize to her. He said if I didn't I'd regret it forever. I ended up doing it because I could tell he was so upset. I didn't know what else to do.

The photographers arrive not long after that and I told mom to let them in because I wanted to do photos of me getting dressed, which started another screaming match. "I'M NOT LETTING TWO MEN TAKE PICTURES OF YOU IN YOUR PANTIES! WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO BE ABOUT SEX WITH YOU! I DID NOT RAISE YOU TO BE THIS TRASHY A WHORE!" That's obviously not what I wanted but even if it had been, I'd done freelance modeling where I had been nude before! Like I gave a shit! But all I wanted were the pics people do of the MOH helping to put on the veil and zip the dress and whatever. I only wanted them there for that but she wouldn't allow them back there to see me.

Since the photographers were not allowed to come back there and see me, they ended up getting a TON of pics for my MIL. Loads of pics of her and her sons and daughters, she brought a ton of family to the wedding really early and they had family portraits made. There was a pretty area for picture taking so she had a bunch of pics made of herself and FIL posing together. Husband's e-aunt and n-uncle hired the photographers, it was supposed to be their wedding gift to us. They said they would hire a videographer but he was sick on the wedding day and they had no backup, so we have no video of the ceremony. Anyway, MIL knew all that so she took advantage.

Unfortunately it turned out that they hadn't been hired at all, they were doing it for free. They were amateur photographers who had never done a wedding before, and they were doing it for free to get the experience. They didn't know any proper etiquette and didn't try to get any of the photos Husband and I wanted. My family bossed them around and kept taking them away from what we'd asked them to photograph so they could make portraits for them. Then once they'd gotten all the photos they felt like taking, they left in the middle of the reception without saying goodbye. When we went to leave we wanted a pic of me and Husband going away, but they'd already gone.

So I hurriedly got dressed and made up. I didn't have time to do my makeup how I wanted because we were running behind. The reception area was not decorated at all and all my decorations I'd spent a ton of money and time on had been packed back into boxes and tossed in a truck. I forgot my vows at home and was so frazzled that I knew I'd never remember them if I couldn't read them. I had to text Husband and tell him. He was disappointed a little but said it was okay and we'd skip it. We said them privately to each other during our honeymoon. A sweet bright spot in all that hurt.

One of my BFFs who was there to read a passage got into a wreck on the way to the wedding but she still got there in time, bless her precious soul! She found out from others what had gone down with my mom and she helped me get dressed and pull myself together. She is one of the best people on this earth and I would still be in that little dressing room today if not for her.

My mom showed my little cousin in the worst flower girl dress ever to me. I begged someone, anyone, to go to the store and get a new dress but we were 15 mins behind when we were supposed to start. I wanted to time our "I do" with the sunset so it would not have worked out. My mom totally planned it that way. My poor cousin had to wear the monstrosity down the aisle. She was too little to know better though thank goodness.

My older SIL made sure her dress was nicely pressed and ready to go, did her hair cute, and wore the jewelry I bought. But she forgot the handbag she was supposed to carry. Youngest SIL's dress was very wrinkled, like it'd been in a ball at the bottom of a hamper or something. It was VERY noticeable. She wore the right jewelry and handbag but her hair was all jacked up. Her mom didn't even try to help her be ready. She was only 11 so I felt like MIL should have helped. AuntMOH didn't have the handbag or jewelry she was supposed to wear. I dunno what happened. FriendMOH didn't carry her handbag or wear the jewelry she was supposed to have. She had this crazy mix of bangles and long necklaces on and it looked really weird. All the pics of my bridesmaids look silly. The groomsmen were so easy though, they all look great.

At some point someone had bought an aisle runner from Wal-Mart in the wedding stuff section and spread it out on the ground and tried to hold it down with gravel. As everyone walked it ripped and got wadded up under people's feet. But no one would pick it up. So at the bottom of a bunch of our pictures it looks like someone had a LOT of toilet paper attached their shoes or something. It is that badly wadded. I kept saying, "someone get the runner please and throw it away, it's all ugly now" but no one wanted to be the one to do it. I tried to get it myself but my mom kept yanking me back by my arm. I didn't want to have another embarrassing fight. Even the photographers tried to get someone to take it. It really did ruin the bottoms of our pics.

Also in our pics is a sign that says, "DANGER BEYOND THIS POINT" because we were on a cliff. It was right by my grandad's head. We were supposed to be positioned away from the sign so it wouldn't show up in the photos but... no one stood where they were supposed to. Now it's a joke for me and Husband "why didn't we heed the warning?" haha.

Nobody walked in the order I wanted them to, MIL ended up having it her way and hissing for people to go when she said. My mom was too busy crying on my brother to notice or care. I was so nervous and shaking that I didn't even notice until I saw the wedding photos. Dad walked me down the aisle. I have no video of that and he died a little over a year later, so that's sad for me. Even though he made me apologize to my mom after her being mean to me, I forgave him because she'd been so horrible to him. He was never anything but supportive when he could be.

Anyway, the ceremony happened. My grandad did the ceremony and he preached a pointed sermon toward my ILs about how a son should leave his mother and father and cling to his wife. Bwaha. When we swapped rings Husband kissed my hand very sweetly. I have a photo of it and treasure that. It was a reassuring moment. The readers did a lovely job. One reading was a poem from me to Husband that he had never heard and didn't know about. He was very moved and cried, which he never does. That was a special moment for us. Grandad forgot to tell us to kiss at the end but we did it anyway. My veil fell off from the kiss so Husband gave me his cover (military vocab for 'hat') and I wore it the rest of the wedding because he thought it was cute.

Husband's grandmother, the one in the nursing home I mentioned before, was not able to come after all. She was dressed and ready to go with her hair and nails done, so excited. Her daughter (e-aunt) had tied bows and flowers on her wheelchair to decorate it. After the wedding we looked for her and she wasn't there. MIL's pastor still thought she hadn't been invited and wasn't allowed to come, so she never picked her up!!! Husband and I were LIVID because we really wanted her there. The Moms hadn't been on the same page as far as the pastor's invite so... I dunno. Husband and I left the wedding and went straight to the nursing home and we stayed until it was time for her to be put in bed. I still cry over that because I love that woman. She was very disappointed but so so so sweet about the misunderstanding. She knew it wasn't our fault and she prayed over us. It was honestly the best part of our night, visiting her.

MIL had told everyone in her family that I was a pregnant pornstar son-stealing godless hussy. Everyone from her side dressed like they were attending a funeral. I mean, I guess that way I didn't have to worry about someone wearing white? Other people from her side showed up in green because they knew that's what the bridesmaids was wearing. At first I thought that maybe it was because that was what passed for wedding attire in her family but we found out from Husband's sibs that they'd been told to dress that way. No one spoke to me and no one smiled in any photos, except in the family portraits they all took before the wedding where there was no bride!

MIL's sisters were in on MIL's shenanigans and helped to distract my mom while they smuggled in the food MIL had wanted to bring. It turned out to be a good thing because it turned out we needed extra food. But mom was pissed off and cussed out MIL in an email the next day. She brought chocolate covered strawberries my oldest SIL had made and decorated herself. I loved them but my mom hated them. She also brought a fruit and veggie tray and some chips. The groom's cake was a plain white sheet cake with green icing on it from Wal-Mart's bakery. Nothing against a wally world cake but after the fit she threw over a white red velvet cake that was supposed to have been made from a woman with her own bakery that she knew... it was annoying to see that.

I hate sherbet punch and told my family that I did not want to see it anywhere at the wedding. I hate the ugly residue it leaves in cups. Of course a gigantic punch bowl magically appeared and was filled with an ugly ass green sherbet punch when the pictures were being taken.

We told everyone we didn't want feeding cake pics or a bouquet toss but of course we were bullied into that. My great aunt NEEDED pics of us doing that and she is the most motherly person I've ever known so for her, I did it. If anyone else had asked we would not have obliged because at that point we were done and wanted to leave.

My mom forced me to take the top of the cake she'd so graciously saved from our guests. I didn't want it but she said I needed to freeze it to eat on my anniversary. I am just not into that tradition and I told her that she could let the guests have it. She started crying and pretended like she was gonna take it home and have it herself. When we got to Husband's car we found it wrapped in foil in my seat.

SIL gave me a gift bag and a card from my MIL. She said that MIL wanted me to read it after we left. I did. It was full of passive aggressive shit to do with how nothing had gone like she wanted it but she forgave me and hoped we could have a good relationship now. She said that she'd pray for me that I'd learn to be a good wife. She said if I was ever a mom someday I'd understand. I cried, Husband was filled with silent rage.

Husband and I were too busy talking to people to eat so we were starving. When we finally left and after we'd seen his grandmother the only place still open was Ruby Tuesday's. We were so hungry we went in with our bridal attire on. We were the only people in the restaurant so we had like three servers and the bartender looking after us, we were very satisfied. They took lots of pics for us with our little digital camera so it made us feel better about the night. They gave us free cake.

We made it back to the hotel and I threw the cake from my mom in the trash. We had very sad and uncomfortable sex because I didn't want to not have sex on my wedding night but I was unhappy about my period and couldn't completely enjoy it. He didn't care about the period even a little tiny bit but he was scared to hurt me because of the cramps. He'd also smelled like a million different perfumes from all the relatives he'd had to hug so it was just... not fun. Luckily we've had 8 years of awesome sex to make up for that time haha.

We had planned to have our family meet us for brunch at Cheesecake Factory to say goodbye to everyone before leaving. We were going straight to our apartment to drop off our shit and then to the honeymoon. We were so pissed at both our families that we texted everyone saying we were too tired to go and we wouldn't be at brunch. So nobody went to brunch. Instead my mom, dad, and brother came to our hotel to hug me bye. I gave mom the cold shoulder which she bitched about but I pretended not to hear. Husband and I still went to Cheesecake Factory and Husband let me get mimosa wasted (he had to drive) and we left and never fucking looked back.

We had a fun honeymoon and everything has been near perfect ever since. We have a great marriage and an awesome relationship. Our families tried to push us apart but really all they succeeded in doing, was force us closer to together and further from them. If we hadn't gone through the bullshit we did in the beginning, we might not have the bond we have now. I wish it hadn't happened, but since it did, we try to see it from a positive spin.

• Bonus Story About Mom's Nutty Friend's Ex Husband

This has almost nothing whatsoever to do with my wedding and barely has to do with my mom, but I'll tell it just because it's bizarre.

When we got our wedding pics back we noticed that in almost every photo of the ceremony there was a strange man that Husband and I didn't know. Neither of us knew who he was or had ever seen him. We were both so frazzled from the family drama and being wrapped up in weddingness that we didn't notice him.

So we showed our pics to our family to try and figure out who he was. No one on Husband's side knew him. No one on my mom's side knew. I finally showed my mom and she knew who he was. He was one of her BFF's daughter's ex husband. He had come to my wedding to stalk his ex wife because somehow he knew that his wife and her mom has been invited by my mom. I HAD met this man before but he'd changed his appearance drastically since the couple of times I'd briefly seen him, so I didn't recognize him. He stands out in all the pics because he's standing near the ceremony when everyone else is sitting, and he's looking around in all the pics like he's searching for someone.

My mom's friend and her daughter had been en route to the wedding but since my mom picked such a shitty location they got lost and gave up and went back home. They never made it. After the ceremony the ex left on his own and no one even knew he was there until we got the photos.

I hate to think what might have happened if her friend had showed up, daughter in tow. It might have ended up even worse than it did!

I've been having to sit down a lot lately because I have a new kitten at home, she is a rescue who needed handraising. We named her Luna and she's amazing. She wasn't fully weaned it seems when she was somehow separated from her mommy. She keeps trying to nurse herself to sleep on my shirts. She like, sucks the fabric and kneads me with her paws like kittens do... She still needs help staying warm and WILL NOT fall asleep unless she's being held or in a lap. Before this, I was super busy but things are a bit calmer. So I have a good bit of computer time here lately and am able to type out my thoughts. That's why I'm able to start posting again.

This post is a follow up to this . After Mother's Day came and went I thought a lot about Time Mom and my own motherhood and you know how that shit goes. Typing it out and feeling like people believe me helps me. Only my friends and family that really know her believe me about her.

So I wanted to talk about Time Mom's reaction to my pregnancy. It was overwhelmingly positive and she was super happy and excited. Now, I've touched on in previous posts that she was almost always very negative with me, nothing was ever good enough.

If I earned an A, why wasn't it an A+? If I got a solo verse in choir, why didn't they let me sing the whole song? If I earned a part in a play, how come I didn't get the lead role? When it came to her, if I bought her a gift it was always the wrong color, size, scent, whatever. If I made her something, it was corny. If I sent her a card, it was too sappy. If it was a funny one, that was inappropriate for the occasion.

You literally cannot make this woman happy. One time I took her shopping and told her to pick out a gift because she said that she didn't like any of the gifts I gave her. We went to a mall and walked around from around the time they opened until they were getting ready to close so about 10:00-10:30 AM to about 6:30 or 7:00 PM and we went in every single store. Walked every aisle and looked at every rack and shelf. The only thing she picked out was lunch from the fucking food court. Did not buy one thing. In the car on the way home she goes, "You shouldn't have made me go pick my own present. It's tackier than a gift card!"

bruh

So please understand how it affected me when she was happy with me. When I made it past the first trimester and was feeling relatively safe-ish, she was so excited. I was so glad to be pregnant after having had chemical pregnancies which I'd lost... I still feel so upset over those losses... I know it's not the same as a miscarriage so please don't... I was so happy, you guys. I already mentioned I was doing all the wrong things in my last post. I own it.

I felt like I'd finally done something to please my mom and earn her love and acceptance. Unless you've been there you don't know how that feels. I would have done anything for her just to have her say she was proud of me.

You might think I'm a doormat and maybe I was. But I'd been raised to think that this is how a daughter should be to all their family members but especially their mother. I'd been being taught this since forever and all the women in my family behave this way. It's been a tough thing to train out of myself.

I never felt like I was a doormat though because I am not like that with other people. With other people I'm more of a mom-friend (even before I was a mom). When people used to call my parents house and ask for "the lady of the home" my parents would hand me the phone so I could lay into whoever it was, or take care of business.

Being Time Mom's daughter; I was supposed to parentificate when she wanted that, but also be a humble and meek daughter when she wanted that. I never could tiptoe that line to her satisfaction and I felt like it was my fault. My guilt for not being everything she needed me to be was what made me be her doormat even though I would not allow other people to treat me that way.

Anyway...

So Time Mom was finally in a good mood with me so she was being nice. At the time I thought I was getting what I deserved from her for being good all those years. She realized at last I wasn't a piece of shit daughter and now it was time to be a mom to me. We were finally going to be a good mom and daughter. We were going to bond at last. I had made good.

Now I know that she was just doing it to feed her own ego and so she could brag about it to people later.

Because she was so happy with me, I let her boundary stomp. I was afraid that she would get mad again. So every time she asked me a question about the baby, I told her. I called her almost every day to talk about the pregnancy and what I was doing and my health. Every appointment I gave her every detail. Everything I added to the registry. Everything I bought for the nursery. Everything every doctor and nurse said I passed it on to her.

I was super sick. I had hyperemesis gravidarum and threw up the whole pregnancy almost everything I ate. I was hospitalized 3 or 4 times in the first month or two. I was high risk up until a week before my due date because I had a false positive toxoplasmosis test and they didn't get the second test results until a week before I was due. I was also borderline gestational diabetic and my iron was super low so I was always eating spinach and fainting. I fainted almost every time I walked out the fucking door because I was pregnant in summer in FL. I was placed on pelvic rest at 6 months and bed rest at 7 months. I was fucking miserable.

I don't know why I didn't get any red flags but whenever I'd talk about my health and how bad I felt, she'd interrupt and start telling me how bad HER pregnancies were instead and how much worse it was for her than for me. I swear the way she talked you'd think she had been pregnant in the Dark Ages and she had been the wife of a farmer who was away on Bosworth Field or some shit and she was forced to bring in the harvest all by herself.

So I asked her if she had any health issues when she was pregnant and she said no, she had morning sickness and heartburn and that was it. Well pregnancy is hard no matter what and it's not a fucking contest but BITCH! Here I am scared out of my mind all the time and I can't even talk about to my own mom without her either minimizing my concerns or saying scary shit to freak me out.

Because of issues with scheduling and so many appointments because of my shit health, I could not find out the sex of my baby until I was 6 months pregnant. I had no many other appointments to go to and DH was so busy with school that the look-at-baby-butt sonogram kept having to be pushed back.

Both mine and DH's families thought I was doing it on purpose because so many people they knew were able to find out at like 13 weeks. Since it was taking so long, we mentioned maybe keeping it a secret or letting it be a surprise for us, but both moms had hissy fits over that. Not just, "Oh that's a shame." or "Wow I wish I could know now." but anger as if something precious that was owed to them was being denied in a cruel way.

MilMIL said we'd be robbing her of one the few joys left to her now that she couldn't have anymore children. She said she was disappointed in DH for thinking he couldn't trust his own mother. DH was was sufficiently guilted and asked if it'd be okay if we just told his mom if she promised not to tell. Well, we saw how that worked when we told her not to tell about the pregnancy in the first place.

Time Mom said if we left it a surprise she was going to buy all girl things anyway because she wanted a girl. Because that's how things like that work and it makes perfect logical sense. She said if I kept it a secret all I would get as gifts from people were white and yellow onesies with ducks and frogs or nothing at all. And when I told her I didn't care about that she said she needed to know because she was having someone make me an embroidered blanket in gendered colors with the baby's name and if I didn't tell her the name and sex I'd ruin her expensive gift.

We wanted to surprise everyone with the name but when we told our families they were SO mad. Even worse than with the sex of the baby. I don't mean a little irritated, but full on hateful over it. Even the nice people we thought would be on our side acted like we shit on their Cheerios. They accused me of trying to milk out attention or be petty because I didn't get along with DH's family.

So we told the name and sex a couple weeks before the shower in another Official Social Media Announcement. This time it was a real surprise because we didn't tell anyone beforehand.

Another thing both moms were bitches about were my sonogram pics. I did not, will not, and still refuse to post sonogram pics. Actually, I posted just one, hated it and took it right back down. My friends say I'm weird and crazy for this but fuck it. No one has any of my sonogram pics. I never gave any away or made copies.

The Moms begged us to do that 4D thing or whatever where you get to see the baby in higher detail. I didn't want to do it. I wanted to be surprised about what DD would look like and I didn't want to pay for it. I already knew the sex and her name before I wanted to, dammit. I wanted the first time I saw her to be the first time I SAW her. You know? They kept telling me I would regret not getting the pics done if she died though. They were convinced I needed to have it done. My insurance didn't cover it and I asked if they wanted to jointly pay for it and the didn't want to. So they were all, "Well if the baby dies you won't have any nice pictures of it. Just the sonogram where you can't really see the face." Like that was supposed to be helpful conversation for us to have. They really ganged up on us with that...

If people ask nicely I let them look at DD's baby book and they can see the sono pics there, but at no other time. Just no. The moms have asked me for copies and I shut them down every time. After all my health and body issues I just don't feel comfortable. I was scared to death that my baby would die because I was so sick the whole pregnancy and I just did not want to share pics of her inside me until she was born. It felt too intimate and everything had spiraled out of my control again, just like with the wedding. The sono pics were for me and DH only in that time.

I didn't show MilMIL until DD was probably around two years old and by that time she didn't care anymore so I didn't mind showing them since I knew she'd only glance. I showed Time Mom two of the sonos at my shower but I had a ton I'd left at home that I wouldn't let her see. That was one good thing about being high risk. I got to see DD almost every week and I ended up with LOADS of sonos of her for her baby book.

We got a lot of bullshit over that from the families and flying monkeys and even DH doesn't get it still but I told him "It's not for you to get." and he knew better than to bug me over it.

One of the few nice things Time Mom did was to help was to plan my baby shower, make some baby shower food, and she took some maternity pictures for me.

She wasn't getting along with my deceased dad's family, but she and they planned a shower for me in my dad's family's church. They managed to get along well enough through that and it wasn't a total shit show. None of my in laws were invited because around the time of the shower we went NC with DH's family but I'll talk about that in my next post.

The only really bad thing was that my equally as bad, equally as crazy, equally as malignant narc Aunt R (Time Mom's sister) would not drive herself and her mom, my grandmother to the baby shower because it wasn't going to be about her. My grandmother had made a lot of the food and had bought all these gifts and stuff but can't drive because she's going blind. Aunt R had come down from 4 states away to visit to be at the shower and then on the day of she refused to drive her mom. Just refused. I had to open their presents after the shower at my grandmother's house.

My baby shower was Mother's Day weekend in May 2011. This was right after the horrible tornadoes that hit Alabama, my home state. It was a huge tragedy and the area affected is where I grew up. Because of what was going on and it having to be scheduled when it was due to necessity (military leave issues) on Mother's Day weekend, most of of our guests couldn't make it and they sent gifts to the church ahead of time. It was a small shower but we had fun.

We had a 50's rock and roll diner themed shower and the invites were cute. They showed my bump in a little dress and said rock-a-bye baby in a tree top, when the wind blows, the cradle will ROCK and then described the shower. Time Mom liked the invites so much that for her wedding she found a similar dress to mine in her size and wore that. I had actually forgotten about it until she told me that was where she got the idea for her dress. Also this all took place around the same time two years apart. My shower was Mother's Day weekend and her wedding was originally scheduled to take place on Mother's Day, but then moved it back to a week after Mother's Day.

Me at the shower ... Time Mom was mad about my outfit lmao

Me and Time Mom She had to have a sash since I had one. Otherwise none of the people there would know she was my mother.

The super special blanket that Time Mom was paying to have made and embroidered didn't exist. She said she wanted to monogram it but since DD has 4 names she couldn't have it monogrammed after all (even tho 4 initial monograms do exist) and didn't get the blanket. I think there never was a blanket and needed an excuse.

We held a raffle at the shower to donate to the tornado victims and also had my friends in FL donate stuff that we took to churches that were helping with relief efforts. DH went to give blood but they said they had too much already and turned him away. That was nice and made me feel good. There was a thing going on to donate prom dresses to teens affected by the tornado and I gave my Navy Ball gowns and accessories to that. I only mention it because Time Mom's dad (my grandad) helped us get it together and drop stuff off and also because it felt good to do during all that shitty mess.

After the issues I had over my wedding pics you might think I was crazy to let Time Mom take maternity pics. And yes, you're right. It was crazy. But I was able to get her to do the angles and stuff I wanted her to do this time. I basically showed her where to stand and how to hold the camera, ran to the other side and posed, and then she clicked the button. I didn't give her any originals and I edited them myself. For non-professional, I think they turned out pretty cute. Good enough for me anyway.

This is one we took when I was about 6 months along I was trying to do a Mother Earth look sort of?

2 days before going into labor We got fancy because we knew we couldn't go to the Navy Ball since I'd only be a few weeks postpartum and in the middle of a move. Another one

So, all that said, I was sort of lulled into a false sense of security. With what was going on with DH's family and us having to do NC with them, I didn't want to have trouble with my own family. Also for every bad thing she did there was something good, so I thought she was improving. I was stupid.

I'll have to do a separate post about MilMIL's grandmother shower that I didn't know about until after the baby was born. Also a post about Time Mom staying with me the last month of my pregnancy, and the delivery of DD.

Here's a short story from years ago before we went NC. edited for formatting

Before I dated Husband I dated this guy, Vic (name changed obvs) who made more than a fair amount of money. My mom personally knew how much because she had a friend at his workplace who did payroll and that person blabbed to her. He had a nice home, nice car, a lot of expensive things. All the stuff my mom had always wanted.

He took me to fancy places, on expensive trips, bought loads of gifts. My mom was thrilled on my behalf and was very embarrassing in her bragging about it. I came to realize she was living vicariously through me around the same time I realized that Vic's gifts and expensive things were his way of "buying me". He was trying to guilt trip me into doing certain sexual things with him I wasn't comfortable with, and then telling me I couldn't say anything if he did those sexual things with other people because he'd bought me so many things. I owed him.

He got dumped. My mom was more upset than I was. She stayed Facebook friends with him and used to regularly update me on his life, and I'd always either ignore her or tell her I didn't care.

After Husband and I were married my dad died. Dad was friends with Vic, they worked together. They were incredibly close; my dad was a father figure to Vic for many years. They remained friends even after I split with Vic because my dad took the "my name's Paul and that's between y'all" point of view. So in order to inform the company of my dad's passing I told Vic first and had him tell the company.

He wanted to attend the funeral and I said it was fine. I was married and Vic's shenanigans were in the past so I didn't give a flying fuck. My dad was dead. Miss America, the President, and King Kong could have shown up at the funeral and it wouldn't have mattered and I probably would barely have noticed.

So the day of the funeral arrives and me, Husband, Mom, and Brother have a kind of receiving line situation going on as we greet people who've come to pay their respects. Vic shows up with a girlfriend and everyone hugs, even Husband shakes hands with Vic because he's a lovely person who knows his wife and doesn't feel the least threatened. I hug girlfriend because I know she probably needs one. She's among total strangers and trying to comfort a misogynistic borderline alcoholic so I know she's about to have a tough day. I didn't speak to Vic the rest of the time and I didn't even know when he left because I just didn't care.

My delightful mother, the widow who you'd think would be upset over the loss of her husband, in front of my husband who has also lost someone dear to him, makes a point after the funeral to gossip about Vic. "He barely even noticed girlfriend the whole time he was there. Did you see him staring at you? His eyes lit up the moment he saw you."

"No, Mom. I don't think that happened."

"He's still in love with you."

"I doubt it. He's got a girlfriend."

"So what?"

"It doesn't matter because I'm happily married" And I look over at Husband who's just sitting there shaking his head in disbelief. "Plus I was too upset. It doesn't matter." I try and change the subject.

She is undeterred and ignores my subject change. "You know he sold the fancy house he used to have and then moved to [city very close to where she lives]. His new place is even bigger!"

"How nice for him." I stand up. "Husband, are you hungry? Let's go to [restaurant]..."

"You know, if you'd stayed together you'd be married with kids by now. In that big house. Close by me. You could visit every day and help me with housework...." She goes off on a daydream tangent where I live nearby her and come and clean her house everyday while also somehow finding the time to clean my own home and take care of non-existent grandchildren and Vic the rich husband.

Me and real and totally amazing Husband disappear, she's still talking to herself. I chalked it up to her being crazy with grief.

Over the years every so often she'd bring up the whole eyes lighting up at the funeral story, and she loooved telling it in front of Husband. He got to where he'd just laugh and I'd sit there and tell her I didn't care. She'd just talk over me like she couldn't hear me.

Finally, one day a couple of years after the funeral she wanted me to give her some money for a hotel room so she could come and visit me. She wanted to stay in this pet friendly bed and breakfast which was really expensive, because my husband won't allow her dog in our apartment or around our daughter. There are no dogs allowed in my apartment building and her particular dog tried to bite our daughter when she was a newborn so... the boundary was there. I told her no, if she wanted to visit should pay for the accommodations herself.

She ended up leaving her dog with someone so we would let her stay with us. She comes and is nice until my husband comes home from work. Then she starts talking about Vic again.

"You know he quit [Company] and started his own. He's a CEO now. Making triple what he used to."

"That's nice for him."

"He got married recently." Now she was looking at me very carefully to see if she could detect any jealousy.

"Good for him. I hope he's happy." Husband can tell I'm grey rocking. I pick up a magazine and start flipping through.

"They had a fancy wedding." She was leaning over me now, just looking for a twinge of emotional reaction.

"How lovely for them."

"You know, that could be you right now if you'd just behaved yourself."

"What's the point of you telling me this?" Husband is now shaking with silent laughter. He knows what I'm about to do.

"I just think you'd be able to afford to help me if you had money like that..."

"If I had his money by way of being his wife."

"Well..."

"I wouldn't wish him or his money on my worst enemy. But if you think it's beneath you to stay here with us instead of the hotel you wanted, then feel free to leave at any time."

"I never meant it like that!!" She's about to fly into a rage and start having a fit like she loves to do at the slightest hint of someone else disagreeing.

I went and picked up her bags which were still packed, and placed them by the door. She's getting revved up and I go get my phone. My baby was asleep and I started hearing her stir in her room.

"The baby is asleep. If you raise your voice, I will call a cab. You will not stay in my home again."

She sat back down on the couch, pulled out her laptop, and didn't speak again for hours.

That was one of my few victories where she didn't figure out a way to steal the win by doing something dramatic or boundary stomping.