Topic : Black Sheep of the Family?

I am now 40 yrs old and the youngest of 4. When I was 13 my parents let me date. My mother never discussed birth control or sex with me. At 15 I became pregnant and they insisted I marry. At 17 I divorced and my parents disowned me for 8 weeks. I moved in with another man because I had no family support and no where to go. After 2 yrs I remarried and had another child. I was with this man a total of 17 yrs. and it was hell. He was abusive, he cheated several times, he would disapear for 3-5 days at a time and then while I went to nursing school, he got into drugs. My parents would always turn on me when I would try to leave saying I needed to stay because of the children. Finally my parents agreed to let me leave him after they learned about his drug addiction and they let me stay with them. I finished school and got my own place and my 2nd son lived with me and my oldest son lived on his own by this time. I met a new man finally and he was very good to me. He began right away asking to move in with me. After discussing it with my son I let him move in. At the time I was having all kinds of complications with birth control and my doctor suggested I stop taking birth control and use other methods. This new man in my life being 44 and had been married twice before also, told me he was sterile and could not have kids. So I went off birth control. 2 months later, I was pregnant again and at 37yrs of age so he either lied or was mistaken about being sterile. My parents, again, insisted I marry and so I did. I knew I was not "in love" with this man but I did care for him and thought I could grow in love with him and make it work. After 2 yrs I just could not pretend any longer. Knowing my family would once again turn against me if I left him, I began looking for a "way out". I began talking to a man online. The more time we spent talking the more I realised I had to meet him. So, we met and I have been madly in love with him every since. We made arrangements for us to be together. Of course this meant  leaving my husband which I only married in the first place to keep my family happy. I have lived my entire life doing what my parents thought was best for my situations. They were wrong. Had I had their support when I needed them I would have been more able to make better decisions. But now because I divorced against their will, my entire family except for my children, want nothing to do with me and havent had for 8 months. However they invite my x husband for dinners and family reunions and I am not invited or welcome. I live 6 miles from them. My father has been very ill and in and out of the hospital. He is 73 and I fear he is dieing. My family will not allow me to see him. They say if I show up at the hospital I will be thrown out. My 2 oldest children did not like or get along with my x husband and that was a big problem for me. They would not come around and I would not hear from them because of this. And my x husband did not like them either. My boyfriend that I have now, loves them and they love him. They are glad that I left my x and do not want me to go back to him. My youngest child who is almost 5, has also adapted very well. I have more quality time with him now then ever before. I am very happy with my boyfriend, happier then ever before. He and I have so much fun together and I am truely in love with him and that is something I have never been able to say before about another. He is the love of my life. My family has made it clear, they want me to go back to my x or they will have nothing to do with me. I may be a total waste of space, and I am far from perfect, but I am happy, my children are happy, and I dont want to go back to my x. My parents say they cannot accept what I have done to "THEM" by getting this divorce. They tell me they will not go through another man with me and that they will never except anyone I am with. I have called my mother several times trying to fix this and she will not have it unless I go back to my x. My own children have been into heated arguments with my parents saying they are wrong. My parents are the type that if they are mad at you, everyone better be or you will be disowned as well. My parents now have shunned my 2 oldest sons because they will not turn against me and disown me as the others have done. I am so very close to my children and now finally I can spend more time with them and this makes them happy. But I feel my parents are going to go to their graves disowning me. My brother has already been told by my mother that I am not allowed to come to her funeral unless I am alone. I just dont understand that. Why dont my parents want me to be happy? What can I or should I do? I feel my only options are go back to my x where I will be miserable and it will make my children unhappy, yet I will get my parents and siblings back, or stay where I and my children are happy and lose my parents and siblings. I have family that have interacial relationships, they are accpeted, family that is homosexual, they are accepted, family that has been imprisoned for attempted murder, they are all accepted and supported, but me, I get a divorce, and I am disowned. I do not understand. I have never been on drugs or alcohol, or been in trouble with the law. I am the only one of my family to graduate college or even attend a college for that matter. I want my family back without the conditional love.

My parents are stable (conservative) members of society (being married for years, attending the same church, working steady jobs) and my two younger brothers are both self-sufficient and married.  I'm the oldest, and left behind.  I had a severe eating disorder in high school and then one semester into college after pulling perfect grades I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. That was over ten years ago. I've since then worked and been relatively independent, only to suffer increasing job loss in recent years. 

I live with my parents and I am pregnant with my first child. I've been abused in relationships, the latest one leaving me with loads of debt, corrupting my credit. I've been on and off medications and in and out of the state mental hospital. Last year I attempted my life.  I am very depressed usually. I don't see how anything is ever going to change. My parents insist that christianity is going to solve everything. My brothers talk down to me like I'm a child. One (a millitary sargent) doesn't express any interest in speaking to me beyond "hello, how are you". I'm supposedly the only one in my family with "problems". They talk about me to eachother, but they don't express genuine interest in trying to get to know me. Likewise my extended family acts the same way.  I don't want to even see the therapists anymore even if I am depressed because I'm tired of being labeled and categorized and stigmatized by my family and the rest of society. 

As a child, and my mom enabled my dad by making excuses for his angry outbursts/constant threat of violence/fear. The irony was only compounded by an insistence upon strict adherence to religious beliefs. Nobody talks about it. I have an absent relationship with my dad and my mom nitpicks me daily. My parents' codependent needs have reinforced my self-belief of failure. I no longer believe I have what it takes to succeed in life.  I don't believe I can hold a job without getting fired for some reason. I am going to be dependent upon my boyfriend's income to support me and my child. I feel helpless and lost. I am often depressed, sad and angry.  I want life to change, but am bewildered and overwhelmed.

I did not grow up in a vacuum and despite my mistakes it is unfair to single me out as the family scapegoat.

Unfair or not, life is cruel and people believe lies. People who try to be authentic in spite of established norms usually suffer some kind of loss.  In the end I guess, those losses are worth it.

I have a rather strange story but I'll try to make it short. I was adopted at the age of 11 mths. My birth mother and father did not stay together and my father married the woman he is still married to only 2 weeks after I was born. I am 47 yrs. old this year.

At the age of 30, after being married and having two beautiful sons of my own, my curiosity got to me. I signed up to do a search for my birth mother. Low and behold, I found her. I went to meet her and things seem to go alright. She told me who my Father was so I looked him up. He and his family were ecstatic! They were Jehovah Witnesses and had always been open about talking to their children etc. about me. They came to meet me and my family and everything was great. We spent the next 5 years getting to know each other's families. We had some really good times.

Then it happened! I filed for divorce from my husband due to marital breakdown. Now you can tell the difference as to "who I called DAD". When I called my adoptive Dad and told him, he was genuine, supportive, and listened to everything I had to say. He was awesome and definitely the wonderful man who raised me (God rest his soul as he passed at the age of 80). My birth father on the other hand, I called him and his first words were, "What did you do to him?" Then I was told to apologize and grow up! At that point I'm thinking, gee what part of I don't love him do you not understand? Apparently that doesn't matter as you will see down below.

I shrugged it off and went about my life. My birth father's family and my ex-husband chose to try and rub it in my face by having my ex-husband and our sons visit them on a regular basis... I had been disowned and was not spoken to. Thank goodness for confidence and independance cause I figured they were just nuts and it was their loss. Anyway, 12 years later, I live across the bridge from my birth father and have no contact with him or my half brother and sister.

Here is the best part! I have another blood brother who is just 14 mths younger than me... My birth father had a fight with his pregnant wife (7 mths), went out and met up with my birth mother one night, she got pregnant again! My brother was given up for adoption too at the same time I was. She left me in a foster home for over a year. Anyway, I'm the black sheep because I got divorced and that's just not acceptable but my father can have 3 kids in 14 months by two different women and cheat on his wife and that's ok... Hmmm, gotta wonder what the world is coming to.

Another little tidbit.... My blood brother grew up 3 blocks from his birth father, played in his house with his half sister and brother, and none of them knew it until I introduced them all... Life is funny isn't it?

Sometimes I think about you, Wonder if you're out there somewhere thinking bout me
And would you even recognize The woman that your little girl has grown up to be!
Cause I look in the mirror and all I see Are your brown eyes lookin back at me They're the only thing you ever gave to me at all
I think about how it aint fair You weren't around to cheer me on

Did you think I didn't need you here To hold my hand, To dry my tears, Did you even miss me through the years at all?

I think about how it aint fair That you weren't there to see me off on my first day of school Like fathers do, or there when I woke up from surgery like fathers are supposed to do. You weren’t there when I turned 16 or when I was learning to drive. You never had to come to the school to pick me up when I was in trouble and got kicked out. You’ve never meet one of my dates at the front door when I was getting ready and tried to scare him off or make him scared. You never got to see me off to my prom. You weren’t there the night I tried to run away from my problems. You weren’t there When I was sad and needed someone to talk to, No I had to pick up the phone to talk to you because you were to far away. And how come you rarely visited me, after I joined ffa you could have come and watched me show like fathers do. But I guess you were to busy. I guess I… understand how its easer to go spend may a week in south Dakota but its harder to come watch your daughter win many ribbons and trophies at the fair. You weren’t around when I won state camp in round robin. I was the best in the state of Washington! And you weren’t there once again!

Dad I don’t mean to bring up the past but ever scents that one summer and even the summers before that I have felt that you don’t even know me for me! I also feel that I have put more into this relationship then you have. Im sorry but its way past time. You don’t know your daughter and I don’t know my father.

Its also not fair how you baby my sister but beat me up with either words or even…. Face it you and your family love my sister more then me! You may think that’s harsh but Its has been this was for 20 years! 20 years too long. If you go to Dixie’s try to find a picture of me! Here’s a clue you wont find one. Do you know what I like to do in my spar time? No you don’t! its funny I don’t know who, im more mad at you, for treating me like this or at my self for putting up with it for all these years!

I wish I had the guts to write this a long time ago but its never too later to tell you how I feel.

Did you even know I learned to love construction because its what you did. I took up trap shooting to make you happy! I have tried so hard to get you to like me or even love me I so badly wanted to have what you and my sister have. but as the years went on I learned that no mater how hard I tried you would always have my sister as your favorite. Now its time you know I feel. I am not mad just more disappointed. I only have one father on this earth and most days it feels like I don’t have one.

Im sorry this must come as a suprize. Because you don’t know the real me But you need to know how I feel. You didn’t know this but after that summer I sat up many night wandering if I should let you back into my life or not. I want you in my life but it feels like your not in my life. Forgiveness is such a simple word But it's so hard to do when you've been hurt And I hate to say this but I feel that its not going to get better the damage has already been done. Im not sure how much help or problem this letter is going to cause but its past due. Please know I will always love you as my father.

But how can I love some one who lies to me, you cant have a good relationship when the base of it is lies. You have told me many long ended tails before and they have gotten old, why did you think that telling me stories and down our right lies wouldn’t hurt me? Face it We lead two different life’s I’m not your littler girl any more and never was I have grown up with out you and I’m moving on. And I know how much you want me to move to Wyoming so I will get way from my mother, right? Of Corse I am right that the only reason you would take me in the summers and every other holiday, to make my mother mad! All you care about is your self! but I’m happy here and I may of said that I’ve wanted to move there but I only said that you keep you happy. But the truth is I’ve seen the world and I love living here in my home town. With people who love me a friends I can count on.

So sorry to disappoint you again! but now you know who I am and how I feel.

Sorry it took 20 years to tell you. But I have wondered what the next 20 years have in store for us, I hope it’s a better 20 years! But like the past 20 years I have learned to know count on much for you.

I am 16 and my family is all involved somehow in the Fire Dept. or the First Aid Squad. This includes my 18 year old sister, who actually is secretary of the First Aid, my grandmother is the ring leader of it all, and my grandpa (who is no deceased), built the building and it is now dedicated to him. Now this is all on my mother's side of the family.

They continue to harass me about joining the squad, and find me the dd ball out because I share no interest in doing this. When my family is together, all they talk about is what call they got that day, how crazy some guy was, how they had to do CPR on another. Its frankly, all they know. They are not capable of communicating any other way. Its hard to even speak to my family, because I don't know what they are talking about, and I have nothing to add. I have a bad relationship with my grandmother, in my opinion. I don't feel close to her at all because its impossible to talk to her and I don't see her because she spends all of her time riding and out on the ambulance. I am extremley distant from most of my cousin. He is from New York and is staying for college here, but he too is involved and I never see him either. My family is locked up in that building. But the worst part to me is that my mother and I don't get along and I can not talk to her at all, because my father and I agree, its all she knows.

Now, on my father's side of the family, they are obsessed with weight. Let me just say, more then half of them are overweight. My Aunt and my cousin both got the Lap Band and lost weight. So have I and the majority of my family. I haven't lost the wieght and it seems almost impossible even with it. My grandparents want me to be thin and pretty and your magazine cover girl. My family never leaves me alone about these things, and they wont stop until I am perfect. My Aunt has lost a lot of weight and looks fantastic. My family now expects this of me, but they give me now support. Instead they knock me down with insults and anything they can think of. "You'll never get a boyfriend. You have horrible clothes, because your fat. You wont be happy with yourself. You need to drop it." Yet I recieve no support.

I will always be different from my family, but since when is that a bad thing?

But for me it is.

Yes, I am indeed the black sheep of my family. 3 years ago I fell in love with another woman. Everyone asumed it was just a fase. I married her a year ago after having lived with her secretly for the bigger part of our relationship. Now my family wants nothing to do with me, saying they "did not raise a Lesbian".

I'm still not sure whether I will burn in Hell or not for my sins, all I know is that I have been blessed finding my true love. Just sucks she's a woman, really. But what can I do? I love her.