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Love and Marriage and Anything But
Bells were not ringing my parents into marital bliss. Bells were not ringing at all. My parents married in a courthouse with their ceremony being presumed over by a judge and two witnesses. My dad was not one for formal gatherings or anything that held up pretenses, and I assume my mother was okay with that because she did marry him. Yet, this arrangement was anything but marital bliss, and from my understanding of all that occurred to bring my parents to this place, I wondered why they even married at all.
The first year of marriage for my parents was a time of adjustment as it is for any married couple, but neither of them seemed to fare too well. From the outside looking in, no one could tell that their home was a creation of a perfect blend of tasteless toxicity and rigid rules served on a silver platter for fine dining. Within my parents’ first year as a married couple, my father had become an infidel. During my gestational period nestled within the tumultuous cocoon of my mother’s womb, my father was somewhere else nestling and burying his head into the arms of another woman.
Although I was inherently there, I was not there to recall nor witness my dad’s escapades. After my birth, however, it is my understanding that his infidelity came to an end. He was embarking on the new journey of fatherhood. As a first-time father, he wanted his family even though that included having to put up with things he clearly did not like when it came to his marriage to my mother. Their marriage was no cake-walk. Their marriage was actually a disaster, and it would affect everyone involved for years to come.
A Battle For Control
Ultimately, the marriage between my parents was a battle for control. My father wanted to be acknowledged as the man of the household while his mother-in-law (my grandmother) had other ideas. For the first year of my parents’ marriage, my mother remained attached to her mother’s hips. Theirs was a symbiotic relationship of narcissistic codependency. Because my grandmother lacked boundaries with my mother, she did not respect the boundaries of my parents’ marital relationship. There were indeed two voices within my parents’ marriage, but my mother’s voice was silent. When she did speak, my father always complained that her words were the words of her mother and not her own.
So, my family home was a battleground where a continuous struggle for control took place. I could not imagine how miserable a life that could make until I was old enough to actually ‘feel’ what was going on at the time. Until then, I just observed without understanding, but even then I wondered … I wondered what in the world was going on with these adults. Why did they behave so? Why did they do the things that they did? Why did they create misery for others? Why was there a need to control the way others thought, believed, and behaved from day to day? What was the reason? In my very young mind, I never received any answers to those questions. The answers still remain to be seen.
Banned But Not Really
For as long as I can remember, my grandmother was always a part of the household until one day she was not. My father and grandmother battled so often that his disagreements with her looked completely disrespectful. Here is this mid-sized man in height ‘politely’ standing his ground against this tiny woman no more than 5 feet tall. She was obviously accustomed to having her way and getting what she wanted with no retaliation until she met my father. She soon echoed loud regrets about my parents’ matrimonial togetherness. She felt that my father did not like to listen, and my father felt that he should not have to listen to her when it came to his household. Eventually, he banned her from coming to the house.
These bans were a joke, and unfortunately, the joke was on my father. He obviously did not understand that my mother and her mother were inseparable. Where my mother was seen, grandmother was usually always there too. The two of them could not be parted – not even by my mother’s marriage. As soon as my father established these bans against my grandmother, my grandmother would always find a way to rub her presence all over our house with my mother’s help.
After all, my mother visited with her parents often and chauffeured her mother around for errands. My mother was at her mother’s beck and call on a regular basis. So, when my mother took my grandmother anywhere and made pit stops at our house for any reason, my grandmother was sure to get out of the car and waltz right into the house as if she owned it. My mother never said a word because she never went against her mother. Her mother’s words were law. Any attempt my mother made to assert herself would lead to her mother literally using control tactics of stonewalling and the silent treatment.
Tumultuous Bond
My parents had a tumultuous bond, and it translated into how they related with each other and each of the children. If things were good enough with my father and his mother-in-law, then things were good between my parents. If it appeared as if my grandmother did not exist, then things in the house were smooth enough. Yet, there was a hidden monster within the family waiting silently with a brooding presence. This monstrous presence would wreak havoc within the household with a sinister plot to bring about the destruction even against the most necessary of bonds.
Stay tuned …
My Voice Unchained 