sourpuss ex, sugar daddy

Calypso is 38 and still smarting from a divorce that had a most unfortunate consequence - estrangement from her daughter.

Her ex became a sugar daddy towards her daughter, but a sourpuss towards her.

"I doted on my daughter and it really pleased me to give her every opportunity to shine," says Calypso. "I wanted her to be able to support herself and make it on her own without needing to live her life through a man who could possibly end up abusing her - like her father did to me."

"My daughter, unfortunately, was more influenced by her father than by me," says Calypso. "She fell for the myth of having it all - an independent career as well as love, kids and marriage - but, more than anything, it seems, she wanted the best that money could buy. And, of course, her father could afford to indulge her every whim."

"After her father and I divorced he became a sourpuss ex towards me and a sugar daddy towards her," says Calypso. "He laid the dollars on thick and fast, bought her a car, paid for her overseas trips, threw her lavish parties, made her a wealthy director of one of his businesses and ultimately set her up with a house when she married."

"I didn't begrudge her any of this - even though I was struggling to support myself on a pittance - because it was better that he spent the money that was rolling in on her rather than on call girls," says Calypso, "but I did take umbrage at the price she was willing to pay for the things her father bought her - and that price was perpetual denigration and abuse of me."

"It's bad enough when a man behaves abusively towards a woman," says Calypso  "but when an adult daughter joins forces with her father to abuse her mother the situation becomes surreal - what mother wants to see her adult daughter turn into an abusive monster?"

"She became a willing and enthusiastic helper in my ex-husband's vendetta against me for daring to divorce him," explains Calypso. "Children don't 'own' parents any more than parents 'own' children or husbands 'own' wives, and when my daughter started behaving abusively towards me - as if she had every right to do so - I couldn't believe that she was capable of such abusive behavior."

"Effectively, my daughter quite happily sold her soul - and a mutually enhancing relationship with me - for the good life."

"That good life came about largely through his previous marriage to me," explains Calypso. "He was a failed, penniless student fully supported by his family when I married him. It was my savings that paid the deposit on our house, it was my wage that paid off the mortgage, and it was with my help with the written work that finally got him through college. By the time he'd graduated, set up his own businesses and was on the verge of making big money - our marriage was on the rocks."

"And our marriage hit the rocks because the man got too big for his boots," explains Calypso. "He thought he was the cleverest person on earth and owed nothing to me or anyone else. He ignored everything I had done to help him and actually called me 'stupid'. He had achieved his ambitions and was finally the king of the castle and wanted to relegate me to an inferior slave position rather than the equal partners we'd always been."

"It was as if he had wiped out all of those years we had struggled together," sighs Calypso. "He wanted me to walk behind him, to be a little wife, to worship him as some sort of god, and this was too much for me to handle."

"In the divorce, we split everything equally, but there wasn't much at that stage," says Calypso. "I didn't care that he was on his way to make big money. I didn't marry him for money and I wasn't divorcing him for money, either. Whatever he made after we split, he was welcome to it. Sure, he kicked up a terrible fuss. It was like: How dare I divorce him! "

"After the divorce, there was no way I could compete with him - nor did I wish to - buying my daughter the things she wanted," says Calypso. "My friendship wasn't good enough for her - she wanted a doormat mother like her father wanted a doormat wife - and when her efforts to belittle me and force me to reconcile with her father failed and he married a woman not much older than her she subsequently dealt me the cruelest of blows. She shunned me as her mother and demanded that her father's new wife take the traditional seat of the bride's mother at her church wedding."

"I was very hurt but I didn't hate her for what she did to me," adds Calypso. "She was old enough to make her own decisions in life and as such she must live with their consequences."

"I appreciate that my frugal way of living - in comparison to her sugar daddy's lavish lifestyle - was not something she aspired to emulate," says Calypso. "In gaining freedom from her father I necessarily had to give up the good life. In wanting a slice of the good life with her father, she, apparently, had to give up a relationship with me. It was the price he made her pay."

"The price I paid for my freedom was poverty," says Calypso, "but poverty is always relative. Compared to a millions of people in third world countries, I am rich. And, amazingly, the more things I give up the freer I become. Things can enslave as much as people can."

"It's occurred to me, too, that my daughter may end up paying far more than a good relationship with me," sighs Calypso. "If her father's new wife divorces him and takes him to the cleaners - as she is likely to do - he won't be a sugar daddy any more and may start making further demands on my daughter."

"The world is full of bitter and twisted elderly people who curse their children for failing to take care of them in their old age," says Calypso. "It's common to hear the lament 'after all I did for them'. When you do things for people expecting a 'price' to be paid - as my sourpuss ex did for our daughter - then you are putting yourself and them in an unhealthy relationship. I believe that if you can afford to give, give freely, otherwise don't give at all - but her father, like a typical businessman - wants more than a pound of flesh."

"Their relationship is unhealthy and I wouldn't be surprised if deep down my daughter feels uncomfortable about what she has done - and may be required to do in the future," says Calypso, "but right now she is doing very well financially and socially from the dastardly deal she made with her sugar daddy."

"It's ironic that the poor parent who makes no demands on children is the one who ends up being reviled, and the rich one who makes incredible demands ends up being honored," muses Calypso. "That estrangement from my daughter was a most unfortunate and unexpected consequence of the decision I made, is something I have to live with, too, I guess."

"No, I'm not interested in getting married again - freedom is precious," says Calypso, "and I avoid like the plague dating any man with a daughter."

the inheritance

Hilda, a 70-year-old widow, has had several confrontations in the past with her daughter and son-in-law over money - specifically the remains of her husband's modest estate - and with failing health she's pained that these confrontations resolve nothing, leaving the road ahead increasingly uncertain for her.

"Our second last confrontation over her inheritance was very bitter, and I was hospitalized shortly after," explains Hilda. "After that, I didn't expect to hear from her for a long, long time - if ever. And that was okay with me because my daughter knows she has my blessing to cut loose, be free, live her own life, mind her own business and take full, adult responsibility for every decision she makes. At 35, you'd think she would have done that long ago, wouldn't you?"

"I didn't want her calling me out of 'duty' with an eye on her inheritance - that would be abhorrent," says Hilda. "It's not a requirement in my will that she must perform any duties in order to inherit and she knows that."

"If she's caught between pretending to care - which I'll see through - and accepting that she doesn't care," explains Hilda, "then she should be smart enough to let go and give me the right to live my last days in peace - and for eighteen months that seemed to be the case. I never heard from her and I was happy."

"I believe that when a mutually happy relationship can't exist between two people then freedom is truly the greatest gift each can give the other," says Hilda. "That may not be everyone's idea of the perfect gift - indeed, in today's crassly materialistic world, I'm sure it isn't - but without freedom what do you have?"

"Shackles and abusive relationships, that's what," sighs Hilda, "full of abuse, pleas for forgiveness and then more abuse and pleas of forgiveness until you're dead inside and the only person you need to forgive is yourself for putting up with it. And that would have been the most pessimistic outcome of the mess I found myself in with my daughter and son-in-law."

"At the time, I rationalized that if she disregards everything I told her and hassles me again then it will mean she has deliberately and willfully decided to abuse me," says Hilda. "Whether or not her husband encourages her in this vile act, the fact remains that the responsibility will be hers alone. It will be a decision she has made, coldly, cruelly and deliberately knowing full well how it will affect me. In wanting to destroy me - wanting to stress me to death - she will provoke me to protect myself."

"It will mean that she wants me to formally end the relationship - to tell her to get out of my life completely," sighs Hilda. "She will want to be able to blame me."

"In wanting me to end the relationship - cowardly bleating that I 'deserted' them by refusing to give them financial control over my life - she can feel self-righteous about her innate goodness and blame me for things for which she refuses to take responsibility - there has to be a payoff," sighs Hilda. "That payoff is 'lack of guilt' for what they intend to do to me next."

"Well, after eighteen months of peace - believing that my daughter had seen the light and was content to leave me alone," explains Hilda, "she turned up and put the bite on me again!"

"Apparently, she's pregnant again and wanted to put a proposition to me. I begged her not to continue but she disregarded my wishes and raved on about wanting to move to a bigger house and in order to finance this move she needed me to sell up, give the money to her and in return she would pay my rent somewhere else."

"I sat there speechless," says Hilda. "I didn't recognize the woman speaking to me from across the kitchen table who was arranging my life for her benefit - dancing on my grave, expecting to reap the full rewards of her inheritance, before I was even dead!"

"In the past she had put various financial propositions to me - using me or my house as guarantor or collateral for a variety of their financial enterprises," explains Hilda, "but I always said no, believing that she and her husband had all they needed to make it on their own. And the last time she had put the bite on me - eighteen months ago - I had made it pretty clear that if she hassled me again I would be forced, by health concerns, to end my relationship with her."

"I was deeply offended by her behavior this time around, and my heart was throbbing so fast that if I had to bear her presence for a minute longer I would surely have dropped dead," explains Hilda. "I had no alternative but to tell her to leave and never contact me again."

"She left defiantly and without any concern for my health."

"My first thought was regret that I didn't tell her this years ago and so spared myself this final humiliation," sighs Hilda. "But despite my insight into her total selfishness, I always held out hope that she would gain compassion in her maturity."

"Unfortunately, my hope was baseless and now that I have formally ended our relationship I am well aware that such ends do not necessarily stop the hassling - it just makes it anonymous and vicious," says Hilda. "If my daughter's intention is to stress me to death in order to gain her inheritance sooner than she is entitled to it - God help me - then the road ahead is truly bleak."

"In a David and Goliath type of struggle - such as that which I might be up against - a vulnerable old woman doesn't stand a chance," says Hilda. "but I do have a David-like sling-shot of some sorts. It won't save me from being hassled to death, but it will stop my daughter profiting from it."

"Her inheritance is nothing except my old house, falling apart at the seams, but it is nevertheless on land worth a bit of money," says Hilda. "If she blatantly continues to hassle me - or if strange things start happening, indicating subversive hassling - then I will immediately change my will, leaving everything to a charity with a proven record of being able to beat the relatives of the deceased in a court challenge."

"And, as my health fails, I will also run up ridiculous debts using the house as collateral."

"In effect, I will ensure that she gains nothing but hassles and debts from my untimely death," says Hilda. "And, having sorted out my plan of action for the worst possible scenario, I now don't feel as much as a loser as I first did when I thought of it."

"When my back is against the wall and death is imminent, and those who wish me dead appear to be winning," says Hilda, "I will continue to refuse my daughter the satisfaction of a win-lose victory. If she does not want a win-win relationship with me, then she will have a lose-lose one."

"And, in the event of my dying a violent death." says Hilda, "I will make sure that my doctor, lawyer, minister and friends know what is happening. Even if she were innocent - and my violent death was a random event, performed by a stranger with no knowledge of her - she would have a hard job convincing the police of her innocence."

"No matter what she has done, or will do, I will never hate my daughter," adds Hilda. "In my heart I forgive her, but in my head I am steadfast in doing whatever I need to do in order to live out my days in peace."