Aside

From thebraveatheist Center for Reason and Logic

Personal anecdotes…..

Subject: Dave, 67yo Male

Occupation: Retired carpenter

Current Situation:  Resides with adult daughter and son-in-law due to recent loss of carpentry business and forced to take early Social Security. 

Dave grew up with a mother that had limited finances and relied on marriage and divorce to several different men to become the wealthy woman that she is today. She is very intelligent but favored using a dishonest approach to financial freedom instead of steady marriage and education to achieve her goals. Dave was taught by this woman that men were terrible creatures and only fit to be used for financial gain. As he grew to adulthood, Dave became hostile and opinionated to a fault, using a large stature to intimidate and physically humiliate others to bandage his abysmally low self-esteem. He does not interact well with others because he cannot allow them to possess their own opinions or political values and has been fired from jobs due to terrifying flares of temper. Dave is very rigid and short-sighted in his beliefs and never takes advice from others because as they are advising, he is formulating a mental response as to why their suggestion will fail. Personally, he dislikes me and will refute ANYTHING that I have to say even if I possess a degree in the subject matter that is being discussed. This is due to his jealousy of my current position that I have created by hard work and shrewd decision-making. I basically came from gut-wrenching poverty and homelessness to educated self-actualized success and have a family that I put ahead of everything. Dave left his family because of alcoholism and spent his entire life working on his own issues, but his family suffered because once he got sober he continued working to satisfy his own means and never thought of providing for his children in the future. Speaking with him is literally like a foray into the world of ‘I Can’t.’ 

Dave was advised in 2009 to move into renovations by his daughter who saw the construction industry fall flat in response to the recession, but he did not listen as per his usual assumption that he knew better. The resulting fallout was that he had to move in with us. Now imagine having to co-exist with a person who is anti-social and refuses to listen to most advice AND is used to judging others and running his own household. Between these two mindsets, you have a person who resents life in general and is depressed with immature coping mechanisms. He lashes out verbally, disparages opinions that he disagrees with and constantly has to remind others that he is a viable entity dependent on no other person except self. This is mostly true in that Social Security takes care of his contribution and that he helps with the cleaning and around-the-property chores. While doing this he constantly complains because people don’t do things the way he does them and criticizes opinions and beliefs that don’t align with his own. Worse yet, he has converted from knee-jerk bigoted conservatism to knee-jerk liberalism because their beliefs make him feel as though all of his bad decisions weren’t to blame for his position, just the actions of greedy Republicans, ( I am middle of the road politically and favor common sense to knee-jerk anything ). I don’t blame one side because I know that ALL of our Outlawmakers are responsible for the recession, but how do you explain that to someone who went from idolizing Bill O’Rielly to hanging on every word of Rachel Maddow? Bread-line convert, I know! Ya got Jesus only because YOU were effected by tragedy! 

thebraveatheist meanwhile, cools his heels in a situation between a worthless mother-in-law and an extremely irritating father-in-law who are in the same house( mine ), after 30 years of separation! They hate each other and THAT friction is palpable as well. The FIL contributes in chores and money but is used to being head of household in his OWN house, the MIL stiffs on the money and sits on her ass eating food that she doesn’t pay for AND recently took my car without asking and wrecked it while drunk! 

The entire house dynamic is set to change in 4 mos. but my wife can’t see the damage that 20 years of co-dependency has done to our family unit. She has bailed her mother out of tedious self-inflicted situations since our marriage and then three years ago added her dad into the mix. Between the two I have never known a marriage built on honesty and trust. My wife has told so many lies to cover up her mother’s screw-ups that they can no longer be counted. Things are supposedly changing with the mother moving out soon, but what do you do with the father who constantly challenges for head-of-household? 

Thank Godless for therapy! As a person who is well grounded, I still need advice on how to deal with these crazy people! I have since turned to my ‘higher power’ Mithra, to guide me thru this time with some human sacrifice and idolatry, and can only advise those going thru similar trials to ‘Let go and Let Gods, Goddesses and Fairies of the Underworld!’ 

On a footnote-My wife had a terrible childhood at the hands of these adult children but can’t seem to break the guilt that makes her take care of them. They were never there as parents OR providers and she has always played the mother in her and her mom’s relationship. A severe co-dependency issue to say the least. 

Well, this post was more personal, but gives some insight on why, or why not that people do what they do! It is loosely based in my atheism but not directly related to the issue. I feel that personal posts are very relevant from time to time and try not to flood my blog with them. Till the next post-Keep your feet on the ground and your thoughts based in reality! PEACE TO YOU MY BROTHAS AN’ SISTAS!! OUT………