Parents' drama getting me down

[thisfamily]

3 hours on the phone with DM complaining about dad's behaviour and denying what she said the day before we left after a week at theirs'. She went through a long list of negative behaviour that my DC did., told me I was not a good mum. Dm told DD she can not come back. DS said he does not want to talk to them anymore.

DM tells me she does not remember exactly what she said. That's a classic, and I expected that is what she would say. She said she was far too tired because she had several lots of grandchildren one lot after the others. She was indeed tired. She was also stressed out because the children slammed doors a shouted and this would cause my dad to shout instantly at the top of his voice. I felt dragged back into the old childhood dynamics: we were all walking on eggshells all the time.
My children are not used to it and 'trigger' him all the time. I tend to nag them more and in return they become even more boisterous.
I am tired of mum's nastiness, which always comes when I least expect it. I said t DM that her behaviour and dad's might drive me away. She cried and said she knew she would end up alone. so much drama.

[thisfamily]

Ok so what should I do?

[RaspberryMousse]

Read the Stately Homes thread and prepare to withdraw. Your children do not need exposing to this toxic envrionment. For your own mental health and sanity I would seriously consider going non-contact. Your mother is using you as a whipping boy then drawing you back in with the emotional manipulation to not 'leave her all on her own'.

[iwasbornaunicorn]

Sorry your parents are so nasty.
Honestly what good does it do you to visit them? Do you get any Joy/Love from your present relationship?
I would take a step back from them and not visit or only breifly like a few hours. It is not your fault if they end up alone, they are adults and choose their behaviour.
Why should your children experience the walking on eggshells that you did?
It's hard I know I've been there but honestly it's great when you just decide to step back the relief at not having to deal with it is great

[thisfamily]

Rasperry, what do you mean by whipping boy?

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

You listened to her for 3 hours?. Where are your own boundaries here with regards to your mother, why are you her willing audience at all?. I can well imagine it is hard to have boundaries re her mainly because she has never encouraged you to have any. She may well see you simply as an extension of her rather than a person in your own right.

She has bad mouthed your own children to you and said that you were not a good mother (she is really describing her own self here and is projecting her own crap onto you). Do not further subject your children at all to this toxic environment that your mother (and your enabler dad) are a part of. These people were not good parents to you and toxic parents more often than not become toxic as grandparents. If you find them too toxic or difficult to deal with, its actually the same deal for your children as well.

Her tears and comments are all designed to manipulate you and bring you back into line. She would never be "alone" anyway because your enabler of a dad would never leave her; weak bystanders of men like this need someone like your mother to also idolise.

[thisfamily]

Attila, I listened to her because I know that it is stressful to live with a man like dad that explodes at the smallest opportunity. I always thought she should have divorced and I told her so. She said she chose to stay. I felt all I could do is support her.

[Isetan]

Take a leaf out of your DS's playbook and detach from your mother. This is who she is and she's unlikely to change, so you can either continue for let her brand of crazy to get you down or, detach from it.

[iwasbornaunicorn]

I expect that like Attila has said you weren't taught boundaries so it's difficult to enforce them with your mum.
Start looking into toxic families and keep talking about it all.
It's taken me years to realise how mucked up my mum made me, even though she was the victim of my bullying drunk Dad, she just didn't enforce boundaries.

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

"Attila, I listened to her because I know that it is stressful to live with a man like dad that explodes at the smallest opportunity. I always thought she should have divorced and I told her so. She said she chose to stay. I felt all I could do is support her"

You lived with a man like that as a child, your mother failed here to protect you from him. She has stated that she chose to stay; well leave her to her own choice then.

You need to detach from her, she is using you as her willing and only audience. She does not care about you, only her own self and she gets what she wants out of this relationship with her DH. You are way underqualified to support her, not that she wants your support anyway. Her brand of crazy will simply continue to wear you down.

[Offred]

Are you me?

This is exactly like my parents.

The only way is to not get drawn into it, accept that is how they are. If you ever get drawn into the futile discussions where they are not responsible for things they've done (grandchildren visits too close together, your dad's behaviour causing tension etc) make sure you get something out of it such as being able to recognise how wrong they are.

I had a recent discussion with my mum like this about an incident of my dad's volatile and angry behaviour and her reaction to it that happened two years ago (and is why my DS has never been back to their house and doesn't like them).

In the past I would have found it desperately upsetting but i found it useful this time because I have moved on. She said she had to defend my dad because she was 'put between (implying I had put her there by comforting child who was crying) with a resentful child (me) and my husband' and that my dad didn't need to change his unreasonable anger because 'children won't be able to deal with unreasonable people when they grow up if they aren't exposed to it when they are children'.

I thought 'well that worked out well for me didn't it?!' But pointed out that what I was expecting was not that he is never unreasonable but that they help support me in modelling healthy ways to deal with feeling angry by; apologising when you've done something wrong and making sure there is affection in the relationship and it is not just entirely about the adult being angry all the time and everyone else tiptoeing round them (as my childhood was).

[Offred]

You lived with a man like that as a child, your mother failed here to protect you from him. She has stated that she chose to stay; well leave her to her own choice then.

And I totally agree with this.

This was very hard for me and I got drawn in and enmeshed again a few years ago because my mum was really unwell with cardiac sarcoidosis and we all thought she might die. My dad becomes even worse when she is unwell and they were alone as we had all grown up. I was the only one who lived nearby and the whole thing really upset me to the point I felt I needed to go round everyday with my twin babies while the others were at school in order to get between my dad and her because if she became unconscious he would go into attack mode about her not being able to do things for him. I got drawn into cooking and cleaning for him.

[Offred]

There's phases in a relationship like this. What you want to do is get to a place where it is healthy for you and your dc.

There is no point trying to fix yourself (so they like you better) or fix them (so they don't do this anymore). Trying to get between them and disrupt the dynamic will just make you the target for both of them etc

You just need to detach and relate to them on your own terms whether that is LC or NC (but never regular contact or you will be drawn in).

[thisfamily]

Offred, it's great to hear my experience is not unique and I recognise the coming and going pattern, together with trying to be a better parent and modelling healthy ways to deal with anger for the DCs. I can see that in the dynamic your dad has to always come first, even when your poor mum was so unwell. I call mine the king of the castle.
Many people don't understand why my parents gets me down. I did take some distance following their blaming me for my divorce, and got sucked backed in after apologies and promises that it was not meant like that...

There is no point trying to fix yourself (so they like you better)
Yep, just that feeling like a bad mum, not able to 'control' my children, because if I did, my dad would not explode (of course)
appalling table manners (not the case) which is not well perceived in the family, 'no wonder your dad gets wound up'.
or fix them (so they don't do this anymore). telling dad to go in the office or out when he is tired. Telling mum that she should not put up with him shouting at us and her (when she takes the wrong turn).

Trying to get between them and disrupt the dynamic will just make you the target for both of them etc. Yes I am a fool for divorcing a man than was very similar to my dad. I have no Christian morals...

Dad keeps inviting us. They have loads of space, but it is his house so if anything gets broken he explodes. He is awful when we are here, and when we are gone he keeps reminiscing about the good times. The children absolutely love the location, so it has been hard for me to limit contact as they would always pester me to go. I think the DCs are sadly beginning to see the light.

[Offred]

I've been honest with my DCs; Granny and Grandy stress me out/they didn't treat me well when I was a child and I don't think they treat me well now/I don't agree with them about x thing/I don't feel it is acceptable for x person to do y thing/you can see granny if you would like but I have to do x thing.

I also banned my dad from involvement after incident 2 years ago.

[Offred]

I only say yes to my mum taking them out on trips/doing school pick up on a Thursday and not to them being at her house when he is there, they have a holiday flat in wales and I let them take two kids at a time together because I know my dad will manage that.

[Offred]

My mum is liable to say directly to the children things like 'I will take you all on holiday to the flat' which would be 7 of us in a 2 bedroom flat (double room and bunkbeds) so I have often had to be extremely firm with the children and her about exactly why that would not work because if we went she would then be angry about how difficult it was for her, how stressed my dad was, how 'resentful' I was and everyone would be upset.

[Offred]

I also do a thing where unless she asks me directly a reasonable amount of time in advance I behave as though the asking hasn't happened and the expectation of hers doesn't exist and if the children say 'oh granny says' I just say she hasn't asked me yet. I also only ever say yes to things that it is ok if she just doesn't do right at the last minute.

I went through a phase where I felt very sorry for her dealing with my dad until I realised that actually she gets a lot out of this dynamic too (she likes the feeling of superiority of him being helpless and ineffective without her and the smug points about having a 'successful' marriage). It's me/my siblings and the grandchildren who are damaged by it.

[AuntyElle]

Christ, I have lots of parallels with the family situations described here too. What a headfuck! I have looked in at Stately Homes a few times but found it a bit overwhelming.
But the alcoholic father plus controlling mum who refuses to leave him is very familiar. My mum is lovely a lot of the time, but then can be so nasty. I belatedly realised that she is dumping her own negative feelings on me as the nearest easy target. But as she is also truly lovely, and elderly and I don't have much other support, I don't want to go LC. I don't know how to start sorting my own boundaries and life out though.

[Offred]

My mum is not lovely at all. She is neurotic, overbearing, undermining, flakey, superior and too frequently completely hysterical.

I thought she was lovely for a while too in one of my phases. That was really just because I had internalised all the stuff and was living in what she would like reality to be - it's really important to her that everyone thinks she is respectable (if eccentric), that she has a happy marriage and highly academically achieving children.

I never fit into that. My DD has recently been diagnosed with ASD, I think I am too as a lot of the stuff with her makes sense for my experiences too. Rather than try to find out what was wrong when I was a teen they physically and emotionally abused me, kicked me out at 16, badmouthed me round the town, and generally to this day maintain that I am 'bad' and everything I do should be assumed to be a bad decision.

[Offred]

They still try to use behavioural psychology to reform me or protect me from myself. They are millionaires but when abusive XP raped me, got me PG with DD then ran off to be with the latest OW leaving me with his debt, they met him in the pub on the sly to talk about how bad I was and encourage him to take me to court over the kids.

Because of his debt I didn't have a cot for DD or money to buy one so they agreed that I could clean their house for £20 a week until I had paid off the £180 cot.

They are both horrible.

[Offred]

I went to clean heavily PG and with a 13/14 month old in tow.

[Offred]

And I know everyone says forgiveness sets you free but for me, in relation to them, it is so important that I remember to never ever forgive them. Especially because they aren't sorry and they still don't think they are doing anything wrong.

I'm sure I will be very mixed up when they die but it will at least result in one helpful thing for me - inheritance money to give me a safety net I never had when they were beating me and dragging me round by my hair as a child, when I was surviving on 8p noodles with butter and pepper because I only got £11 per week income support as a homeless teen, when I ended up in abusive relationship after abusive relationship because I learned abuse was a part of love and when I learned I had MS a couple of days after graduating and the career I retrained for may never happen.

[AuntyElle]

Offred that all sounds utterly appalling. But do you really then let your parents take your kids on holiday? (Two at a time.) Or did I get the wrong end of the stick?

[Offred]

No, that's right. My two DDs are away with them now. My eldest went last week.

For two nights. I'm not worried about it TBH, the problems only arise when it is all of us in a place together or the children in their house when my dad is there. My dad will be in a holiday mood and will likely text me to tell me they were very well behaved when they get back tomorrow.

My other son chose not to go because he doesn't like them, he was the one that was involved in the incident a couple of years ago.

They're 12, 10 and 7 (twins) and my mum's craziness can result in quite a lot of fun if it is managed carefully.

[Offred]

DTD said she didn't want to go without DS or DD but because DD wanted to go she wanted to go too.

They'll all have had a great time TBH, they will have been spoiled because for my parents it will be a chance to show off. DD would give them what for if they started.

I've been getting text updates about crabbing, train rides, swimming at the beach and a BBQ with rock and roll music. As long as it's planned carefully by me the times they have with my mum can be nice for them.