Traveling with a Train Wreck

Still traveling.  Won’t be home until next Tuesday.  The big upfront deal was a grandson’s wedding.  His third.  He’s thirty.  The big behind the scenes deal was the train wreck his mother, Parker’s daughter, is headed toward.

She is frantic if she doesn’t have a significant other in her life.  She has twice been married to controlling men and has both times been the unfaithful one. At the end of both of those relationships she was depressed and physically ill.  And stayed that way until she met her new Prince on a white horse.

Two months ago she moved in with a man she’d known for a week and then moved with him to the middle of nowhere Wyoming, thousands of miles away from any family.

Deja vue.  At the beginning of her previous relationship, she’d told us he made her the happiest she’d ever been.  All of her headaches, her severe reactions to odors (she had to wear what looked like a gas mask) and her inability to eat most foods, went away.  He was a runner and so was she.  He was being trained in NLP and so was she.  She was the thinnest and healthiest she’d ever been.  Then it all went south, the marriage ended in unfaithfulness (her part) and anger, only words not violence, on his.

After that ended, she moved back with her mom, Parker’s ex, where she sank into depression and dealt with constant headaches and food issues.  The week her ex remarried, she told us she was getting married again to a man she’d never met in person.  He was wonderful.  She was flying to his place one day and getting married the next.  We advised caution.  Take a little time to get to know him, we said.  If it’s right, it will still be right six months from now, and if not you won’t be dealing with a break- up and divorce.  She called after meeting him and said he was too controlling – didn’t want her to wear her glasses because she was prettier without them, etc.  So she told him forget it.  Whew, we thought. That bullet was avoided.

Let me point out here that she’s a 56 year old who suffered sex abuse as a pre-teen. She spoke up and he was removed from her life but never charged.  I’m not going to call her a survivor because the effects are still obvious.

Ok.  So she’s back from the bullet she just avoided.  We pleaded with her. Take some time to just be alone, deal with your issues, learn how to be happy as a single, confront your past.  That was her plan, she said.  Of course she said that. She figured that was what we wanted to hear.

A short time later she called to give us her new address. She was living with a man she’d known a week. They weren’t married, just living together.  She was the happiest and healthiest she’d ever been.  He was a vegetarian and so was she. He loved country living and so did she.  Then they moved to wyoming, his home town, and she loved it.

She knew we couldn’t care less about her but Parker’s reaction to her happy news (he told her what he thought) had stressed her out so much, she’d cried for three days.

Why couldn’t he just be happy for her. And be nice to her fiancee at the wedding.  Everyone loves him. He’s so good to her.

Actually the one brother who met him, doesn’t love him.  He thinks he displays all the attributes of an abuser and told her so.  She got mad and stopped speaking to him.

So we smiled at the wedding, which isn’t the time or place for in depth talks, and watched the daughter we love, dance in her skin tight, revealing dress pasted to a body that looked anorexic, with that frantic “I’m so happy” look she has when she’s covering up her depression.

We were appropriately welcoming to her new potential controller.

We could, after all, be wrong, right?