A Vent

I'm a bit aggravated, so I'm going to vent this here.  Okay, I am a lot aggravated.  I'm sorry if it's a bit disjointed and confusing.

My eldest son joined the Marines, was transferred to California, met a girl and the two became one.

Or should I say the two became two?

When he married his new wife, he thought he was marrying a strong woman.  What he married was a young girl tied to her mother's apron strings.  This ultimately destroyed their marriage.

My son is used to strong, independent women.  He is used to me.  I'm blunt.  I'm honest.  I really don't need anyone around to help unless a 20 foot pine tree falls on my house.  Then I may need some assistance.  Or at least a hot guy with a chainsaw...preferably shirtless.  I'd say nude, but we don't want him cutting off the wrong thing now, do we?

 To be a military wife, a woman needs to be strong, capable of figuring things out and doing them on her own.  She needs to be able to handle finances, deal with her children (because she is most likely far from family and hubby is usually gone), handle moves, etc.

What my son got was a woman who was controlled by her mother.  He frequently received "talks" about how he was failing as a husband, how he needed to be home more, how he needed to be more "Christian" (I'll get into that one in another post), etc.  He was talked at quite often about his shortcomings.  That he was in the military and really didn't have a choice about his schedule seemed to elude them.

His new mother-in-law, a self-proclaimed God-loving woman, tried to run their marriage.  They never got to become "one".  She was always there.  He tried to talk to my daughter-in-law about it, but she refused to do anything.  That is when he discovered she was completely dependent upon her mom.

If she said she was having trouble handling the kids, her mom would run over to help.  She dropped in on her mom unannounced on a daily basis, but her mom loved it and encouraged it.  Eldest son would arrive home expecting to see his family, and they weren't there.

They made him buy a condo from her parents that he didn't want.  Her parents were having financial issues and buying the condo was to help them get out of those issues.  Excuse me?  That is not the job of the children.  Parents get themselves into trouble; parents get themselves out of it.  She and her mom harangued him until he gave in.  They had a hard time getting rid of it when they moved, and her parents had to take it back.

They transferred to our state, and he hoped his wife would cut the cord.  At this point, she said she wanted to.  However, he would come home from recruiting duty - one of the most stressful military jobs - to find his mother-in-law staring at him... on the laptop...through Skype.   All he wanted was to de-stress and spend some time with his girls (by now he had two daughters) before going to bed.   Yet, this woman was in their home for hours almost every day.

I'm not kidding.  His wife would set up the laptop on a chair, and Skype with her mom all day long.   Sometimes they wouldn't even talk.  It would just be there.  There was little privacy for the couple.  I'm honestly surprised they conceived my grandson.

I was shocked to find out that she expected the same type of attitude from me that she gets from her mom.  If she had trouble, I was to drop everything and go help her.  She lived an hour north of me.  I have 3 "children" at home who needed me around to drive them to school or whatever. I also taught at a private school part-time.  To be blunt: it wasn't happening.

She expected to drop by unannounced and I would be okay with it.  I hate people dropping by unannounced.  We have things to do.  It's not like I sit around all day doing nothing.  I also homeschool and had two teens with full workloads to deal with.

If she had an emergency or was totally losing it, that wasn't a problem.  That we will help with.  But because granddaughter number one wouldn't take a nap, so she shows up at my door... excuse me?  How is that going to help?

She did learn to call and see if I was available before she came over.  If I was at the school, and knew she was in the area, I'd tell her to drop by there.  They were relaxed about it.

The sad part is that my son really cared about her.  He loved her.   He loves his kids.   He wanted it to work.

It was discovered that her parents were moving to Australia.  My son thought that would help, since they would be on opposite time zones.   She didn't seem to be handling the thought of her parents leaving the country very well.  One night they had an argument.  They only thing they both agree on is he grabbed her upper arms to stop her from leaving the room.

He says he left the apartment and went to work very early, so he could clear his head and think.  By now, he wasn't sure their marriage was going to survive.    He felt really bad about grabbing her arms even though it is just something people do.

Imagine his surprise when the police showed up at the recruiting office and arrested him for domestic violence and rape.

Yes, she called the police and accused him of these things.  She refused a medical exam.  She refused any evidence taking.  You draw your own conclusions.

My son followed bad advice and pled guilty to the domestic violence because, in his eyes, he felt grabbing her arms could be categorized as that.   He has learned the hard way that he should've fought the charges.  He was put on probation for a year and ordered to undergo mandatory counseling.

Now his trust in her was completely broken.  But, for the sake of the kids, he moved back home after he was told by the courts it was okay.   He was confronted with a list of things he had to do in order to stay with his wife.  After reading over the list, he realized it had been complied by his mother-in-law.   Basically, they were going to blackmail him into doing what they wanted.  If he didn't follow it, they could cause him to lose his military career which was already hanging by a thread.

  He wasn't going to be blackmailed, and he wasn't going to risk his job.  He talked to a lawyer about a possible divorce.  He hadn't made up his mind yet.  He was just gathering information. The lawyer sent papers to my son's home address instead of his office like the lawyer was instructed.   His wife opened them, saw he was thinking about a divorce, took the kids and moved to California (within 3 days) just in time to move to Australia with her mom and dad.

Convenient, no?

He had moved back out after she saw the papers.  No one had any idea that she was selling as much stuff as she could behind his back.  Within 3 days of opening the papers, she wasn't answering her cell phone.  He went back to the apartment and discovered she was gone.  During this time, she was talking about her and I meeting up so I could see my grandchildren.

She never cancelled it.  I never got to see them, and I most likely never will.  I can't afford to go to Australia to visit them.

I fully believe the "list" was an excuse for her to leave if she hadn't seen the papers.  She knew there was no way he could follow it, especially since it meant ignoring military orders.   Our entire family along with many friends believe she set him up, because she could not stand to be away from her mom.

Since my eldest son is on probation, he can't leave the country to see his kids.  He missed his son's birth, because she left while pregnant with him.  My son has taken out many loans to try to send them money and support.  I'm afraid he is about to bankrupt himself.

This time period, for his office, is requiring long days (12-16 hours) and he missed his second daughter's birthday.  He and I both received a Facebook message from his now ex-mother-in-law stating how damaging it is for a child to be repeatedly ignored and forgotten by a parent.

Really?!   Gee, I guess she forgot that they are on opposite time zones, he works 12+ hours a day, he had stayed up all night (and gone to work with no sleep) in order to talk to his girls, and he talked to them last night until they hung up on him.

Even now that they are divorced, her mother is still butting in to where she doesn't belong. I'm afraid if she keeps this up my son will completely shut down towards his kids.  She will have sent a self-fulfilling message.

She still blames him for everything.  She has no clue that she is the cause of most of it along with how she lets her daughter be so dependent on her.  This girl is in her 20s.  She should be way past those apron strings.