Have you ever felt in your life that three different people are tugging on you, and you beginning to get stretched so thin that you are just going to break.

Today we were supposed to spend a nice day at the Missouri Botanical Gardens. It was anything but nice, and generally when my husband and my mother get together I am the one who ends up the most unhappy at the end of the day.  I don’t let my husband get angry with my mother, and likewise for my mom. However that doesn’t mean they don’t find ways around this. The first bicker comes from my mother the evening before because she wants to go early, and he doesn’t want to go until 4pm. He wins this round and we are scheduled to leave at four.

Mom follows us with my niece in tow and the four of us are off. We stop at a gas station and my mother gets out of the car just to come over to me, and tell me that my husband is going the long way, and why is he going this way, and if she had just said something before we left, we would have gone the faster way.  I am in the car stunned and irritated that she felt that was even important enough to come over, but mumbling yes mom, I don’t know mom, it’s okay mom.

We arrive and it’s going to be a long walk because the place is packed of course, and so the parking lot is full. We park, wait for my mother to park and walk to us, and then we get out and start walking. The next problem comes from my husband ( I love you baby,) who’s hip is bothering him, but for some reason my mother is walking like her ass is on fire and shes searching for some water to put out the flames. She walks this way through out the whole place. My husband gets pissed of course and even though I already asked if he was okay and if this was alright to go ahead of him, he decides or he never really meant what he said, and hes now angry with me because I left him behind. At this point I realize my husband just had a total girl moment, aren’t we the ones who are supposed to say things that have a double meaning. How did he expect me to see behind his wonderful yes honey this is alright. You can’t use my tricks on me Duncan lol that’s just dirty.
So he’s not fine, and my mother is still walking, and I’m trying to keep peace between them both. Shes going a head and then stopping and giving us this god it’s taking you forever look. Hes huffing and puffing (not cuz hes out of breath,) all pissy. Eventually he says “I am sitting down and you take the camera and you go ahead,”  I like triple ask if this is really okay. He isn’t happy, but yes go a head. We go and feed the fish which was nice and fun, and somewhere between leaving hubby and getting to the fish I decide I am not walking at my mothers pace, but at my own. Which of course she has to stop and wait for me, but I couldn’t understand why she was walking like that. Part of the experience of the Botanical Gardens is taking your time and enjoying the flowers and the trees and all that nature shit. So I am taking my time and showing Jr the names of the trees and flowers, just enjoying it.

Feeding the fish has been my favorite thing to do since I was a kid, it’s a beautiful lake stocked full of Giant Koi, and they suck down the food you throw in for them. The kids had a blast doing it. Afterwards we decide we better find hubby, so we circle back and guess what hubby is not there. I take the kids through the hedge maze, and no sign of hubby. So we spend the next hour or so walking (speed walking,) around the park looking for hubby. All the while my mom keeps saying I knew this would happen, and I can’t believe you don’t have a cell phone, and my son is upset because he needs water, and he wants to be held. I am holding the camera, and the camera bag, with our wallets, the car keys and everything else in it. So I pick him up when I can because I knew he was tired from freaking speed walking, and what not. However I can’t hold him long anymore he isn’t a baby he is almost four.

We go back to the beginning and finally find hubby who blasts me for leaving and tells me he felt basically abandoned (kill me with drama,) and so I do my best to let him know that we were trying to find him, and I was sorry, and then I took a walk with him and the kids through the garden while my mother sat down and took a rest. I tried to make up for the lack of my presence in this walk, stopping and talking about the flowers, but you could tell just by the look on his face that he wasn’t ready to let it go, and he was tired, hurting, and irritated.

I love both my mother and my husband, but my mother can be hard to handle, I don’t know if she realizes this or if she doesn’t, but there it is. My husband he can be a bit of a pill as well. The two of them together is like my stomach in knots. I really should just step aside and let them go at each other and see what happens when the dust clears, but for some reason I just can’t do this.

My mother does outrageous things you just can’t understand, like at the end of the night she got upset with my niece because she was wet, and my mother had bought her a fan, and she had put the fan to her shirt, and some of the ink smudged from the fan to the shirt. The fan still looked okay in my opinion, and I could see her bickering affecting my niece so I said it’s not a big deal mom, and I think the fan looks great, and that little print on your shirt is cool sweetie. Then because she still looks sad, I pick her up and put her own my shoulders, which just about killed me, but made her smile.

Thats what I do I make peace, for most people it’s hard to understand. They feel like I don’t stand up for myself, my husband feels like I don’t stand up for him. I don’t know what my mother feels, but I do know that I feel pissed that I get put in the middle.  Most of the time my I feel sick when I know I will have to deal with them two being together. I don’t want to upset anyone with this post, but you know what I have found out in life? You can’t please everyone, so you should just worry about yourself. You don’t know how easy that is to say, but it really isn’t all that easy to do. At least not for me.

I want everyone to be happy and get along, and most of the time I will bend over backwards to make sure that does happen. So my day which I was so looking forward to ended up being awful, and I ended up in tears because I was so tired and hurt from being pulled in so many directions, with no one person worrying about what I needed, or what I wanted, did anyone care how I was feeling? Sometimes I don’t like being the way I am, but I don’t like conflict, I do my best to resolve without aggression and if that doesn’t work I walk away.

I love them both, and I so want them to get along, I understand the problems, I just wish I could fix them. Where is my magic wand lol.

Filed under: Rants & Raves, children, family, life