Although BM is and always has been the driver behind the skids' god-awful behavior, the skids are well into adulthood, so I haven't given BM much thought over the past several years. In fact, when I learned a few years ago that she had been doing well financially, I thought, good--she should be ok in retirement. I noted her attempts at "buying" more "love" and devotion (kind of sealing the deal)  from the now-grown skids, but, well, it didn't surprise me, so it was just another thing.

But let me back up: BM had an affair with a married man, threw DH out, and without DH's ok, moved the skids to another state with the married man. DH then moved to another state where he had family. BM and married lover split up, so BM moves back home. DH has left, so she tells the skids he abandoned all of them. She drilled that into their heads and they were all repeating the lie publicly as recently as 4 years ago. It is the biggest accusation DH has had to defend himself against. Ridiculous.

Meanwhile, BM decides she wants control over DH and actively intrudes into his relationships with two other women. She doesn't date. She hasn't dated in about 20 years. Yes, she did speak with DH about reconciling. She also acted to the skids as if she gave up dating for them; she was sacrificing for them. They owed her. 

I enter the picture and our marriage sent her spiraling. I cannot begin to describe the horrible behavior we dealt with. Our marriage, which she was set on destroying, only survived because I backed her up at the two year mark and we went to marriage counseling. It was around that time that BM began demanding pure total devotion and public displays of worship from the skids. Pure enmeshment. Skids became her peers and confidantes. After SS would visit us, he'd run home and immediately change his FB profile picture to him and mommy cheek-to-cheek. Skids have acknowledged perhaps twice on social media that they have a father. Me? Ha! SS and I were ok for a while, but that came to a screeching halt. I figured Mommy had a talk with him. "Don't blow our public cover that you all were abandoned and your sm is a demon."

BM and skids especially liked to use holidays to send jabs to punish us, and there were some very hurtful Christmases and Fathers Days where DH heard nothing. Skids didn't even acknowledge DH's 2023 life threatening health crisis publicly (that's when I cut off from them on social media). BUT every Mothers Day has been over-the-top Mommy Worship Day to an extreme like nothing I've seen. Paragraphs about Wonder Mommy. Mommy and Me pics galore. I told DH no wonder SS, in his 30s, has yet to have a lasting relationship with any woman. 

So, it's interesting that I heard from DH that SS told him that BM has no friends and basically works, comes home, and doesn't associate with anyone. Skids are her life. She is them and they are her. But SS is traveling and SD and her family moved to the planned Walton Family Compoundland, where BM was to join them last month, but she has had no luck selling her house. No one is traveling for Mothers Day.

While I'm sure there will be the Mommy Worship social media posts tomorrow, which I will not see, this will be the first Mother's Day in over 30 years that BM is not with her kids. There will be no pictures of the worship activities to prove to the world how happy "the fam," as they refer their unit, is. She will be alone. That has got to hit hard. I honestly don't wish bad things on her (I admit I used to). It's just strange that for this one day that has been more important to her than Christmas, New Year's, and her birthday combined, she will experience what she always wanted so much for us.