It's Independence Day

I guess I tend to take things too far. I never wanted to be successful because I never wanted to have to feel guilty for my success. That was something that I got from religion, and took too far... I felt like being successful was a sin. I've learned to get over that. I realized that doing good is a good thing, and that acknowledging that you've done well is okay. In fact, it will make most people happy for you.

I think I've done okay. I'm not what most people would have expected from me, but that doesn't really matter to me. I'm happier with who I am than I would have been with who people expected me to be. I think my husband has far exceeded most people's expectations. He has a good job that he actually enjoys, we had a beautiful wedding (even if we were the only two people there), and we're working on our first year of a happy marriage. There are snags here and there, but I would not hesitate in saying that he's successful.

I am really tired of feeling like I should feel guilty for his success. In most situations I don't. In fact, my Mom often tells me how proud she is of my husband. She loves him and she feels good about his success. I don't think that I have once had either of his parents tell me that they are proud of him. I have had some of them say that they think I've been good for him. That's nice to hear, but I didn't do this. Not by myself. I'm not responsible for the things he does. I may have given him the support he needed in order to be successful, but I don't do it for him.

I do love and care about his family, but it really hurts me the way he often gets treated in his parent's home. I've never felt that he's an equal to his siblings. I don't feel like it's okay for him to be successful there. I feel like the desire in that household is for him to be their 'bad apple'. I can almost hear them saying "We don't really know what went wrong, we tried our hardest, but we just never could get him to turn out right. I guess you never know how it's going to work out when you adopt." I wouldn't be surprised if there were many conversations that went something like that.

I just wish that what I heard instead would be something more like this... "He's such a good man. We may not have expected it, but he's been so successful. I can't imagine the things he could be doing if only we'd done the things for him that we did for his sisters."

And yes, you do hear jealousy in my voice. It upsets me to know about the things they wouldn't do for him. I hate the fact that if I go shopping with one of his sisters, I know they're paying for what they buy with their parent's credit card. I hate it that they bought each of his three sisters almost new cars. (For their credit, they did buy Ethan a 10 year old van that eventually died because its engine blew up.) I hate it that he has an adult sister who lives at home while going to college. She's never held a job for more than two weeks, and she was married for almost a year. And no, she never moved out of their house while she was "married". To make that story a little more interesting, she's not actually related to them at all, nor was she ever adopted. She just had abusive parents, so she decided to move in with Ethan's family. She now sees her parents on a regular basis and usually goes to visit them on holidays. She's never claimed Ethan's family as her own, except when using their credit cards.

I try not to let those things bother me, because I know that our independence makes us stronger. We will be less likely to fall because we hold each other up, rather than leaning on a borrowed post. But I don't beleive it makes anyone stronger to have parents that wish for their children's failures.

God, I love that man. I think he's wonderful. I think that he is so much more successful than so many people who have had everything handed to them. I don't think I should have to feel guilty for his ability to provide for us.

If it weren't 3:00 am I would call my own Mom, just to hear her say, "I'm so proud of you both."