The older I get, the smarter my parents are

Isn't it funny that you realize more and more how smart your parents are as you age? When you're Liv's age,
which is 13 TODAY!!!!!!, you think you know it all and your parents are so clueless. Then in your 20's, you really think you have it figured out. You hit your thirties and you realize you didn't know diddly squat back then and then in your 40's, you realize you still had a lot to learn in your thirties. There are SO many sayings and cliches I love. "Too late smart," is just one of them. So many times I wish I knew back then what I know now. The different choices I would have made. The things I would have coped with better. If you've been reading this blog, you know that we've had some issues with a certain sister-in-law. Well after years of witnessing her behavior, it just dawned on me yesterday that she has spent the last 30 years trying to make everyone in Tim's family hate each other but like her. Of course, I saw part of this all along, but the whole picture just became crystal clear to me this past weekend. She has tried to pit everyone against each other so she could be everyone's one and only "friend". She has indeed succeeded in causing hard feelings between a lot of us. What a shame and SO childish.
This is exactly the kind of thing that is going on with girls in the seventh grade where Liv goes to school.
It's all about insecurity and attention seeking. A girl like that wants everyone to be her friend but not have any other friends though. So she does whatever she can to torpedo their other relationships so she has her friends all to herself. Despite telling the  ex s-i-l to stop contacting us before Christmas, she
called Tim's cell phone the other day to ask him to reconsider and go to Jim's b-day. Not even a possibility now as we planned Olivia's party with her friends for that night and needed both of us to drive them all to the theater and back. L-A left a message and STILL refused to apologize to him trying to blame me for her actions and claim that Tim is just backing me. She just doesn't get it. Tim is not backing me. Tim rarely listens to me, as you all know.  HE DOESN'T WANT HER IN HIS LIFE. She has backstabbed everyone in his family, us included, and he's had it with her. I was all ready to respond to her again to set her straight when something my father told me a long time ago popped into my head. He said, "Denise, don't bother arguing with someone who is dead wrong. It's a waste of your time." So Dad, who is cruising with Mom to Bermuda right now, you're right again. There is no way to talk sense into this woman. She NEEDS to believe things no matter how far from the truth they are. That old cliche could not be truer, "people believe what they want to believe." That is so spot on with what is going on with this whole issue in Tim's family. Tim is concerned that his family thinks that I am calling the shots here. That is SO not how our marriage works. It's always been how his brother's marriage works with this woman, but not ours. To heck with it. Let them conjur up whatever myths they want. I don't have the energy to try to set them straight and realize, thanks to Dad, that it would be futile.They don't want to believe that Tim has seen things for himself, his priorities have changed since his diagnosis, and he decided that he's not interested in being involved in this mess. Someday, they may figure out the truth. Then again, maybe not. Some people just plain "can't handle the truth."    Moving on.