First, please know that it isn't that I'm not forgiving you. In the past, I think this was often the biggest delay in our reconciliation. For instance, when I found out about Rodney (again) after Shemya, I didn't want to consider a future with you at all for nearly a year, and as much as that was mostly a matter of not trusting you (though also my heart being elsewhere; I am sorry for that), there was also an element of unforgiveness there. (Trust and forgiveness are two separate issues that a lot of people lump together.) There was an important benefit that came from this, though: you finally understood that your infidelity had consequences, and had hurt me deeply. You've been faithful ever since; although you did once come close to entering into a non-adulterous deception with him again, you understood that being honest with me was more important.
In other situations in which we've been mildly estranged, there has also been an element of my needing to get over my hurt (forgiveness). In some of these cases, there was also a part not related to forgiveness, of needing you to acknowledge wrongdoing so that I could be confident it wouldn't happen again and could trust you again. Other times, there was just a matter of determining that I could live with the ongoing situation, such as your television addiction. Of course, the shoe has been on the other foot, too; you have had things that you needed me to address before restoring our relationship.
This situation is different for a number of reasons, and similar in others; I'm going to address some of these in no particular order. First of all, throughout this situation, you've had Hannah's best interests at heart, insofar as you've (mis)understood them. That counts for something in your favor, at least, and is the only reason we're currently on at all affectionate terms. Secondly, you weren't unfaithful, although you were dishonest with me in a very sneaky way, even though you may not have technically lied to me. Please don't deny this again: I've seen several messages in which you indicated that my presence meant that you couldn't communicate at the time or that I couldn't know about what you were doing. You knew that this would not be okay with me, and conspired with Brad to keep it from me. (I can clearly infer that you also conspired with Hannah; though I don't have conclusive evidence of that, I don't see how it could be otherwise.)
But the biggest difference is this: I'm not the main person you've hurt, and that makes it all the more important that I not fully reengage in our relationship as long as you think it's okay to a) keep on this course, and b) not begin to deal with the harm that you've caused. Suppose, when I'd hurt Christina, I'd been unrepentant or aloof. You wouldn't have been able to live with that; it would have put her, our other girls, and you at risk of further harm. If the current matter were instead something just between us, in which you did what you deemed best but hurt me in the process, I could be a lot more flexible about reconciling. But this was a boundary violation of the worst sort, a gross intrusion into Cassie's life, and deeply hurt her. This happened despite all the counseling work we've done regarding boundaries. Perhaps you've been too focused on making sure that everyone else's actions not cross your boundaries rather than on your own actions. You should never have meddled in this very difficult situation, and it is the height of arrogance for you to approach it as if it was okay for you to decide what's best, yet you've stubbornly done that from the outset. Perhaps my own arrogance has rubbed off on you, but it's important that you understand that you cannot unilaterally decide what is best for our grandchildren and then act on that. That isn't your place or mine. And I will not reconcile our relationship until you understand that and agree with it.
Here are some ramifications of your actions over the past year which you may not have considered.
You have directly taught Hannah that it is at least sometimes okay to disobey her mother. In this case, you did so despite knowing there was much more involved here than she was aware of, at least at the beginning. In the process, you have undermined her relationship with her mom, and we don't know what effect that will have on her as she enters adolescence. Never mind the extreme trickiness of this specific situation: that's almost always a bad idea, unless the parent is teaching the child to do something harmful. You've also taught her that deceiving people who love her is a means to pursue what she wants. This is emotionally dangerous even for an adult - as evidenced by this whole situation.
While you weren't involved in the specific phone call in which Brad told Hannah about her paternity, you did nurture an environment in which she thought it was okay to have contact with him against her mother's wishes. Who can blame her for thinking, "Well, Grandma has said it's okay to disregard mom and talk to Coach Brad, so I'm going to go ahead and call him even though G-ma now won't let me, either." All she knew was that he was a trusted authority figure who took interest in her and her siblings; she didn't know he had any specific emotional stake in her as her father, but you did. By encouraging their communication, you directly contributed to her traumatic experience. You didn't understand why Cassie was restricting contact with Brad, so you concluded that she was just being capricious, and that it was okay to encourage both Hannah and Brad to disrespect and disregard her mom's wishes. So while you aren't responsible for his decision, you cultivated the environment that made it possible. And to the degree that Hannah now resents her mother, first for keeping this secret from her and now for keeping her from her paternal biofamily, that is partly the result of your actions. (And even after he did such a selfish, harmful thing - yes, it was selfish and harmful for him to tell her this, no matter how much he may have been hurting and frustrated over it - you still encouraged him?? Did you ever even mention to him what a thoughtless thing he'd done and how much it has hurt Hannah's relationship with her mom?)
Cassie now doesn't trust you about anything. If she misunderstands anything that you say, or if circumstances ever change, she will be convinced that you have lied to her. If you say anything inaccurate - let's face it, we all have trouble being clear sometimes - she will be certain that it was intentional. She thinks you're playing with her mind and manipulating her life, and she thinks that because you have manipulated her life. I don't know that you'll ever be able to restore her trust, but certainly not unless you begin by acknowledging that you were completely out of bounds. Please do not protest that you don't trust her, either. Yes, she has lied to you and taken advantage of you. That is not a valid reason for you to take actions like this. And you have also undermined your relationship with James, in the negative things that you have said about him. You will need to start to address this with a sincere apology to the both of them, and explain that you don't expect them to trust you just because you've apologized.And that's just from the FB messages I have seen. Only you, Hannah, Brad, and God know what else you said in what is clearly a significant number of phone calls and text messages among the three of you, the latter of which I'm pretty sure you deleted one recent day in the car - that is what you were doing when you complained that the mass delete didn't work the first time, right? - so that no one would ever know and you could have deniability. (If so: do you see how bad this whole situation is? If not: do you understand why I would think this?)
Meanwhile, it's very important for you to know this: I'm sure all of this long communication sounds harsh, but I have gone to this effort because I still love you and remain committed to you. But I will not enable you to hurt our family by acting as judge and jury over what is best for our grandchildren, so it is essential that we address the boundary issues that made this possible. That includes leaving it up to Cassie and Brad to work out their issues, and supporting our grandchildren only in ways that don't cross the boundaries. And we also have to work on our resulting trust and honesty issues. I keep trying to give you the chance to admit that, yes, you kept this from me, on purpose. I have seen at least three messages that make it clear: "I can't have her call you but she can text you . . . (Tom's in the car with us);" "Tom is hm so I gotta go now;" "Maybe we could meet at Stebbins. But in order for Tom not to know it would have to be like 8:30 a.m." You were intentionally keeping this from me. I was hoping that you'd admit to this without being confronted about it, because after all it was understandable in light of your actions that you would keep them from me; admitting this would have made it easier to for me to trust in your honesty in addition to pointing out why it's so important. Once I publish this or otherwise present it to you, the first part of that opportunity will be gone, and the process that's left will take longer.
Finally, though I am still working through the process of forgiving you, I have entered it in earnest. I don't require anything from you to forgive you. But for us to be fully reconciled, I will need a couple things, in addition to what I've mentioned above. I need to know that you are finished meddling in this situation. The best way to be sure of that would be for you to have no further contact at all with Brad, and our daughter may very well insist on that before she is willing to restore to you any measure of trust. That way you won't be further bad-mouthing Cassie and James - and me, by implication, as I'm obviously among the "bad guys" keeping him from his daughter - to him, nor feeding him advice and gossip. Finally, I will need a sincere, heartfelt apology from you that acknowledges your dishonesty to me and addresses how you plan to keep it from happening again. Dishonesty by omission/deception is no less dishonest. I am not an obstacle for you to get around, and I don't appreciate being treated as such. Part of our role in each other's life is to help each other not make such dreadful mistakes, and we can't do that if either of us is being so deceptive.
Those things will suffice, from my perspective, to get you and I back on track. At some point, you will have to apologize to Hannah and explain that you were wrong in this, both in general about it being okay to disobey her mother and specifically about interfering in this relationship. She probably isn't going to believe you; she's more likely to think that you did what was right before and that now everyone is just ganging up to prevent what she wants. I hope that by dealing with things the right way, finally, we can create a healthy situation in which she can gradually enter into a relationship with her paternal biofamily, so that will no longer be an issue. That will be hard, since Brad has also undermined her mom's authority and will need to demonstrate that he can respect it even when he disagrees with her before Cassie can trust him to be a truly healthy father figure for their daughter. But maybe then we will have a chance of helping this dear child pilot through the entirely too complicated waters of her young life, surrounded by people who love her and act together in her truly best interest.
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