We hardly saw SD15 this holiday, only for 2.5 hours on Christmas Day. While I found it a relief to not have her physically around, her cold dismissal of BF and MIL/FIL left its mark in her place.

BF is a teacher and so has the same break as SD. He had asked if she wanted to go to a movie sometime during the break. SD said ok. When BF pressed about which day, she said she would call or email him later about which day. BF tried for several days to set up a time for a movie to no avail. SD wouldn’t even return his calls or emails. BF was very moody about the whole thing and when I casually inquired as to whether he had heard from her about a date and time, he about took my head off. In my opinion, she had collected her gifts and doesn’t need to see him till her birthday.

MIL/FIL were equally miffed when SD blew off MIL annual white elephant exchange this weekend. BF and MIL made several attempts to contact SD, but she didn’t return any messages. My guess is that because the white elephant gifts would be cheap and tacky, there was no real value in this event for SD. SD is the ONLY grandchild and will in all likelihood always be the ONLY grandchild so MIL has much riding on her hopes and dreams for SD. When we arrived for the party sans SD, you could tell she was let down. She said she had tried calling and we confirmed we had tried as well. Poor woman.

I wish I had the ability to capture the disappointment and hurt SD causes so that someday when she is an adult and has warped ideas about BF, MIL and FIL due to PAS she’ll maybe understand how much they tried to reach out and how hurt they were by her rejection and greed. It is one thing to deal with the pain and annoying things SD does to me personally, quite another when you deal with the ripple effect of how she treats others. It leaves me even more frustrated and aggravated, but equally as powerless.