23-07-2014, 06:23 PM
Sammie, I feel for you so much.
Perhaps you should have been less concerned about boring anyone, and more concerned at the risk of setting me going, although you could not have known that my own brother has been much on my mind and was discharged from hospital this morning after triple bypass surgery. Looking back, it seems to me now that I have never had that close a relationship to him, and what we have had has been rocky at times. At least with your brother you had a very strong relationship and that relationship is clearly still alive in your heart and an important part of you.
It hurts me and makes me feel disloyal that I believe now that my mother had a lot to do with this failure to relate to my brother (although things have been quite a bit better since her death), and indeed her possessiveness was a factor additional to my gender problems contributing to the very limited number of strong relationships I achieved during most of my life. Having failed to arrive as the daughter she wanted (but I am sure she would be horrified to learn how Annabel is about to arrive, belatedly but alive and kicking), I became after my father's death the favored son, and when my brother escaped by emigrating first to Australia and then the United States (where he achieved far more successful careers (plural intended) than I ever did) she regarded him as a bad influence to be kept apart in case he gave me similar ideas (which he did). Just for example, when I married J, whom she regarded as another very bad influence, she even contrived to prevent my brother's family from attending our wedding, and wherever possible intervened directly or by innuendo to avoid me getting together with my brother or anyone else perceived as likely to weaken her grip on me.
Even though we have never met face to face, I particularly value your friendship as being completely apart from this sad history which profited no one. I hope I'm not straining it by venting like this.
Hugs, as real as I can make them,
Perhaps you should have been less concerned about boring anyone, and more concerned at the risk of setting me going, although you could not have known that my own brother has been much on my mind and was discharged from hospital this morning after triple bypass surgery. Looking back, it seems to me now that I have never had that close a relationship to him, and what we have had has been rocky at times. At least with your brother you had a very strong relationship and that relationship is clearly still alive in your heart and an important part of you.
It hurts me and makes me feel disloyal that I believe now that my mother had a lot to do with this failure to relate to my brother (although things have been quite a bit better since her death), and indeed her possessiveness was a factor additional to my gender problems contributing to the very limited number of strong relationships I achieved during most of my life. Having failed to arrive as the daughter she wanted (but I am sure she would be horrified to learn how Annabel is about to arrive, belatedly but alive and kicking), I became after my father's death the favored son, and when my brother escaped by emigrating first to Australia and then the United States (where he achieved far more successful careers (plural intended) than I ever did) she regarded him as a bad influence to be kept apart in case he gave me similar ideas (which he did). Just for example, when I married J, whom she regarded as another very bad influence, she even contrived to prevent my brother's family from attending our wedding, and wherever possible intervened directly or by innuendo to avoid me getting together with my brother or anyone else perceived as likely to weaken her grip on me.
Even though we have never met face to face, I particularly value your friendship as being completely apart from this sad history which profited no one. I hope I'm not straining it by venting like this.
Hugs, as real as I can make them,