Date: May. 01, 2002 Time: 9:39 PM My current mood is: One of Donna's emails This is an email my dad's girlfriend (Donna) sent to him today. Some things to keep in mind A)my name has been changed to *fishnets*, also anything that has ** on either side means I changed the word, cause it was a last name or my street name, etc. B)incase you're wondering, Jen is my sister, C)my father spent over $100 for her on her birthday(for when you get to the b-day part) She starts off with some self rightious martyr-esque quotes, I'm thinking she just made them up. It's a bit lengthly. Sit back and enjoy the bitchiness: �Stepmothers labor under expectations that even a saint couldn�t live up to.� �To the outsiders looking in, sympathy goes to the nice guy�beleaguered�and the the stepmother is seen as the �wicked stepmother.� It is an impossible role.� �father needs to establish clear boundaries around the marriage and make the wife feel safe and respected.� �stepmother enters the home and daughter loses special role as his caretaker.� �teenage daughter is her mother�s loyal torchbearer� �stepmother is a natural target for her anger� �when men lay low and refuse to step into the ring, women often end up slugging it out� There was a program on the tv in CA about mothers of teenage daughters. It was saying that it is natural for the daughter to take out all her anger at the inequities and disappointments of being female on her mother. So, I think it would follow that the stepmother might even be a greater target for the daughter�s anger and trouble. In closing, there are a few things I need to express about our relationship and my insistence on family therapy. Although you are essentially �newly single� I think we have discussed that I am ready to be married. I spent a total of five years of the seven of my single years (the first year I did not date because I was not divorced immediately, and although separated and a lot of people start dating when they are going through a divorce, I thought it was improper to date being still married) with Norbert and the relationship ended essentially because there were so many promises of Norbert getting his act together financially and he didn�t. He was wonderful to me, but he was a very good talker. If you think Jane is persuasive, Norbert convinced a very lucrative and astute computer business owner that he had the ability to make his company millions by merging, and the owner took over Norbert�s debts of $40,000 and merged the companies. Not only did he merge the debt, but he had written in the contract that if the deal didn�t work, he got six months severance pay at the rate of $125,000 per year! Norbert owed the IRS $50,000 from past debts from his failed restaurant business, but convinced Savings Bank Life Insurance that he had the potential to make millions in his software business (he sold a business with two other men in 1986 and made 1.5 million and then lost all of it in the restaurant business) so that SBLI allowed him to have a million dollars of life insurance which is their max. Because he had taken a policy for his son in the amount of $100,000 they only allowed him a $900,000 policy for me. Even though we were not married, I insisted that if he was going to have marital privileges and live in my home, he had to take out an insurance policy for my benefit. Anyhow, I am tired and I don�t remember where I was going with this or how this insurance thing came up. Oh, I think what I am saying is that I wasted five years of my life with Norbert making a lot of promises and had good intentions, but they did not pan out. So, I am saying to you that I do not intend to wait around why you or Jen drag your heels re: counseling. I feel you have hesitated or hedged and not insisted that she go and we have lost a good three months in the process and have had to delay the wedding. I am not at all happy about this! I am hoping that reading the books about step parenting have enlightened you to the pitfalls and the necessity of family counseling. Jen will not be available for counseling without tremendous scheduling difficulty (Bristol vs. Weymouth!) after the end of August. Let me say that I will not marry you without family counseling! I only wish I had been more insistent right from the start before we ended up having to cancel. I am ready to move on with my life and I am not going to sit around living by myself for two years, Michael! Especially since you are not available during the week and only on a limited basis on the weekend, and expect to come to my house as the *Donna* No Tell Motel! I couldn�t help feeling on the way home how much I needed to have you in bed with me tonight holding and hugging me and reassuring that you are there for me and that you feel the pain that I am going through at losing my dear career at age 51 after many years of devotion to the toughest kids in the school. It was nice to hear your empathy in the car, but I needed to be in bed with you tonight and not just the �no tell motel get your clothes on and run� situation. Maybe it is enough to keep you satisfied, but it is not enough for me! Also, you expect to have sex at your whim. For instance, on our way home from the Cape I told you that I was really pressed for time, especially since I had to work on the letter from Doherty to the school, and wasn�t packed or straightened out yet. I told you that I needed to time that evening to get ready for the trip, and you insisted on taking my clothes off and making love. I didn�t refuse you. I never have. I even accommodate you on the most extremely intimate act that I have never done with another man, including my husband of twenty three years! I doubt that most women will allow ejaculating into their mouth, nor especially swallowing! You are pretty spoiled in that regard, Michael! Another thing that I need to say is that when I met you I was thinking about taking in a boarder to help with the finances. Norbert made quite a contribution to keeping this house going. Even when he was living in an apartment he did the yard work for me to save me the money, and then we he decided he would rather go places with me, he paid to get the work done. He also bought all my groceries and took responsibility for the maintenance around my house. For Christmas, he gave me a gift certificate to get my house cleaned so that I could spend time with him on the weekends. If I take in a boarder, it will probably be an older woman and I certainly would not feel comfortable entertaining you in my bedroom. I know from past experience that leopards don�t change their spots unless highly motivated. I am going to put a deadline on your getting your girls to accept the fact that you are entitled to a life. And, I am also going to put a deadline on you figuring out how we can afford to have a different living arrangement together outside of *street name*. I absolutely cannot spend another two years living alone. Also, if I don�t win the lawsuit, I doubt that I can make $57,000 at an entry level job so it is going to be essential that I live with someone else. I am sure that you realize that no matter who you happened to marry, you are going to have a situation with your girls� adjustment to work out. The fact that I do not have kids to consider makes it a lot easier for you in the long run than if I was dealing with the same stuff on this end and we had to figure out a way to combine two households. You are definitely the luckier one when it comes to being a helpmate to my children. My mother use to tell my brothers, �remember, the girl you marry will be the mother of your children.� The woman you marry will be the grandmother of your children. You will not have to be a grandfather to my grandchildren unless Bruce passes on. I happen to think that I will be a highly nurturing grandmother with a lot to offer. Because of my work situation at the present, I am going to have to ask you to pay my car repair bill. I have not asked you to help with any household maintenance in spite of using my home for the �no tell motel.� I figured that we would be getting married soon and I would be selling the house so I have spoiled you by not asking, and also know that you are busy with the girls. And, we do use my car sometimes for trips like to Newburyport and to the Cape. Another thing that I want to mention is my disappointment with my birthday. I purposely did not mention what I would like to have and waited for you to ask. Instead, you made a rather �taking me for granted, rather arrogant comment: � I don�t want to set any big expectations or precedent.� Please keep in mind that I was tremendously hurt by my former husband for birthdays and Christmas with his obsessive cheapness and thoughtlessness. Even though I remembered everyone else�s birthdays, including my in-laws, I never had a cake, but had one for everyone else, and a gift was out of the question. I have a feeling that your behavior stemmed from all the talk from your in-laws and the girls about what you were buying for me and going out to eat. If you thought that you needed to play down the situation you could have done things for me without everyone knowing. Marital privacy, boundaries??? I have known you for six months and you have only bought flowers for me once. I absolutely love flowers and expect to get them on my birthday. Kristen said that all the men that she has dated gave her flowers for her birthday. Didn�t Raffa send Jen roses? And he is only 18 or 19 in college! I also love quality dark chocolate and don�t buy it for myself. On top of that, I was having a lot of stress about what I was going to do with all of my clothes when I moved into your house. I have things that are perfectly fine in larger sizes that I am hesitant to give up because I am gaining weight but would not know what to do with them. Among these things is an excessive amount of bathrobes because my mother likes to give me bathrobes and nightgowns. My grandmother used to give me bathrobes and pajammas as a kid,and somehow my mother thinks of it as a weird tradition, I think. I have given up on telling her that I have too many. They are bulky and take up a lot of space in my closet. The very last thing that I needed on this planet is another bathrobe. I threw out a hint that I would like to have more CD�s before you left. That is the only thing that I remotely asked for my birthday. Yesterday, Kristen said that she asked you if I had asked for a bathrobe. She proceeded to hammer away at how all her boyfriends and husband gave her flowers, took her to her most special restaurant, and they went away for the weekend. She was so taken back that you didn�t give me flowers that she called Brian, I am quite certain. I think that is why Brian sent me a belated basket of flowers. One thing I could really use is a new watch. I am wearing one from an F and M Pharmacy that was on a clearance table when the store went out of business. I cannot read this watch unless I have my glasses on. I was really hoping that you would ask me or that you would remember that I struggle to figure out the time. It was very nice of you to take my radio and tires to be serviced while I was gone. However, regardless of whether it happened to be my birthday week, maintenance on a car or anything else around the house, does not count as a birthday present. Also, anything that we would enjoy as a couple, like for the house when we are living together,, for example, does not count either, unless I specifically requested it, and didn�t mind. I can�t help but say that given the sacrifices that you were expecting me to make for you and your family for the sake of our marriage, I really felt like you were taking me for granted,especially since I don�t ask you to help me with the maintenance of my home. Combining this and then the in-law stress really made me think that I have been much too easy about giving you marital privileges, and making significant sacrifices to move to *town*, without setting any expectations. It was for this reason that I put the brakes on the relationship and am insisting on family counseling. I would be very foolish to put myself in such a vulnerable position without knowing what is going on in the girls� heads. It is for everyone�s benefit that I am putting my foot down and giving an ultimatum about it! And even more especially now that it is so apparent that the *inlaws* are having a terrible impact on the girls! Regarding � in-law letter/divorce,� I am going to ask Dr. Doherty if he feels that I should be sending a letter to the *inlaws* given the awful things that they are saying about me. The more I think about how they are impacting my welfare and holding up my life, the more angry and disillusioned I become and that is not helping my stress! I don�t recall that you mentioned anything about the girls� emotional development being negatively impacted by their behavior. It seems like the focus is always on money issues which is the crap that I had to take from the *ex-husband's family*. It was also the cause of my divorce. The thing that bothered me the most was the jewelry issue. As if I would want to have your deceased wife�s jewelry. It is so sad that the *inlaws* only met me once for less than a half hour and have formed all of these horrible opinions about me. And that you had to hurry up and get it out of the house as if I would get into it and take something! I know that you are very good friends with the *family friends* and hope that you can talk to them privately and ask that they be very discreet about discussing our situation when Laura cannot hear them. I would like you to emphasize the concept of the girls thinking that they can sabotage our wedding plans and that if Jen goes to college and is sort of iffy about it as kids can be in their freshmen year, she may decide to quit to spite us if she thinks we are planning to get married. I can only see more sabotage on the horizon if the girls think that they can control you by their negative behavior and emotional freaking out. They need to hear that the marriage is going to happen and that they need to get help with the adjustment to the family. To tell them that it won�t happen for two years was a serious mistake, not unless you are thinking that we won�t be getting married. If that is the case, please, please, please, tell me now and don�t string me along! I know that you dislike ultimatums, but if you think that I am going to give you the next two years to get yourselves into therapy, you are terribly mistaken! I simply am not going to provide marital privileges on a hit and run basis without some expectations !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don�t think I have asked for much given what I was willing to give. I think I could have managed to live in your house if it were going to be temporary, if the girls were better adjusted and Moe and Linda weren�t sabotaging. I know that this is distressing to you and me both. But I am also hopeful that things can work out, but only with the help of a professional. I think I have been patient long enough. I think that you can manage to find a way to get Jen into counseling. I would also want for *fishnets* to go at some point, too, and ultimately for all four of us to be together. However, both counselors have said that some things should be discussed as a family meeting where I am present. Another thing that you said about *fishnets* not liking things to be changed: I don�t think that it represents a well-adjusted person. I think that you are playing into their maladjustment by not improving the home. I also think that you and I need to explore this issue with the therapist, too. Remember my words, � how well a person adjusts to loss and change largely determines how successful they will be in life.� A few positive changes around an outdated house (aren�t you the one that likes modern things?) and getting used to them would be healthy.. *Therapist* was not in favor of trying to maintain the �status quo.� I seriously think that you and I need to explore with a counselor our attitudes and beliefs about change. I am wondering what maladjusted beliefs you might be trying to hold onto, if any. Are you trying to hold onto certain memories rather than move on? I think I have told you that Dr. Doherty thought I should not get married to you given the situation, and it wasn�t because of my PTSD or school situation. That will abate, I am certain, by not being in the school. I need to know where your head is at too, without further delay. Last of all, since you have the counseling insurance, I think that we should try to schedule a series of appointments with *therapist*. Besides the Jen stuff, you and I need to be in therapy. To add to my expense, if I don�t have a job right away, I will have to get on Cobra insurance which is probably about $300 a month. Encouraging thought! Have to end this. Sorry there is so much to digest, but I am feeling better about getting it out. Oh, if I don�t go through with the dress, I lose the deposit which was over a hundred dollars. I truly love you and want things to work out. But I do think I have been too easy about not setting limits or boundaries. Love, Donna Leave a message Last Entry ~ Next Entry Enter email to occasionally get special or pointless updates: