Hate

I know hate is a strong word. That's often the cold, hard truth that's in my heart each and every time I deal with 90% of my family.

My little brother and his family are the only exceptions.

It's hard not to have hatred toward them. Don't get me wrong, I've forgiven and I pray for them. Forgiveness doesn't irradicate feelings.

On my dads side of the family, I only have contact with one aunt. That aunt is a resource for family deaths and sends a Christmas card. Our contact is limited to Facebook only. Even that, I have to limit. She has the opinion that parents make mistakes and the issues between my parents and I are my problem. She believes my dad is a good guy and hates hearing that she's wrong. As you can imagine, this doesn't fly with me. She has dangerous ignorance and blind trust.

My grandma, my dads mom, is really good about asking about me but not contacting me. These grandparents were never a part of our lives even though we lived less than a mile apart. I have a theory. I believe she knows the evil that resides in her son and can't bare to hear it.

Both are very frustrating. I get angry when I think about either of them.

Contact with my moms family is limited, again mostly to Facebook.

I have some cousins who have contacted me. They've grilled me out of curiosity and tried to shame me for disowning my family. I have very little tolerance for that. I also gave them no information. These are the siblings and cousins of the cousin who molested me. They aren't healthy enough to get wrapped up in that tangled web.

But in the 1-2 times a year I get contacted by them, anger rages through me.

My other brother and several of my cousins are liars and users. I'm a sucker. A bad combination that makes me angry every time. When they say they have a dire need, I do my best to help out.

There's so many examples over the years. The most recent was with my cousin who has five boys under 10. His wife fed me a story of how she didn't have the money for school supplies and how my cousin had left her.

We didn't have a lot of extra cash. We had to scrape to do it, but we sent 4 backpacks full of supplies and a toy for the baby. Thanks to Facebook and complete ignorance, I found out that she'd done this with several other people. She picked what she wanted and sold the rest. Using the money for a new tattoo and first months rent for a new trailer. She just tried the same thing with Christmas gifts and I declined.

I could give more examples and the long list of why this infuriates me.

Never once has anyone in my family helped me with anything. I've had physical and financial needs throughout my adult life and none of them have so much as said they'd like to help but can't.

My parents are the worst and specifically my mom. Before walking away from them, I'm not sure how much we lost.

Early in our marriage, my mom was super jealous. I was her spoiled city girl daughter who didn't care about anyone. Not true. I changed, but not in that way. I was happy to just be away from them and that's what changed me.

One time I asked my mom what it would take for her to be happy. She said $1000. So, I gave her that. It didn't make her happy. In fact, she wasn't even thankful. In turn, she created credit card accounts in my name and charged a good portion of our $150,000 debt. Thankfully that is gone and behind us, but not forgotten.

It's hard to not have hatred toward these people. Even if you strip away the abuse and neglect, they are well deserving of the anger I have toward them.

Despite forgiveness, I still have to guard my heart. Keep distance between us. And pray like crazy that my heart can be softened and that their hearts would also be changed.