My DH's aunt (age 56, single, no kids) has been through a huge amount in the past 10 years or so and my DH and I have always supported her. She would have loved to have children but was unable to. When I first had DS and she first met him, I sensed a sort of 'possessiveness' over him - nothing alarming, but definitely tangible. Since then she has seen him fairly regularly, taking him out for the day from time-to-time - she always says she's doing it 'to help us out' but it's clear that she desires contact with him for herself and we're happy for her to do so. I say this to her every time, in fact.
However. A few weeks ago she tried to dump a load of heavy stuff on me, accusing me of treating her badly. It was a complete bolt out of the blue, and personality-wise I tend to be very tuned in to my and others' feelings/ behaviour so I wasn't convinced that what she was saying was true. However I gave it a great deal of time and consideration and consulted close friends on whether I fit the description she had painted (they all agreed it was utter bollocks). It's clear that she is masking her frustrations with her own life by trying to push her issues onto me - there's lots in her life that she is deeply frustrated about, and it's highly probable that she sees that those areas of my life are 'sorted' (oh, but appearances are always different from reality, aren't they?) and feels inadequate, hence making me the focus of her problems. She is doing the classic 'comparing her insides with my outsides' and finding herself wanting, but unable to make herself vulnerable to herself so that she can start to work through her problems. By the way, DH, who's been close to her all his life, agrees with my interpretation of the situation.
I have refused to take responsibility for her life problems, however I feel incredibly hurt by this episode and now find it very hard to see her - her behaviour towards me and others has shown that she's capable of misinterpreting people's behaviour and words in utterly bizarre and unreasonable ways, and so I now feel paranoid about everything I say and do around her.
She still wants to see my DS regularly (by the way, two other friends separately noted the 'possessiveness' thing in her when DS was 18mos old - so clearly my instinct when he was born was not misguided). On the one hand I am still happy for her to continue her relationship with DS, but on the other hand I feel a huge amount of hurt, as well as annoyance that she is refusing (yes, refusing - I've challenged her) to look at the real causes of her 'issues', and so this just complicates the way I feel about her relationship with my DS.
DH and I have been incredibly supportive to his aunt for many years, and on many occasions I have told her how wonderful she is and that she devalues herself - in complete contrast with the things she accused me of. It's as though she's completely ignored the years of kindness and support I've given her. I refuse to feel guilty about being able to have children, and I refuse to allow any kind of 'tug of war' situation to develop between us over my children, to whatever degree. Though I haven't yet raised the fact that I feel her childlessness is part of the problem she imagined between her and me, I feel that if I don't mention that at some point - sensitively, of course - that she will continue to see me as a focus for her inadequacies.
I just wanted to moan, actually, but would welcome your thoughts.
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Relationships
Do you have close female relatives with no prospect of having children? Does this cause problems in your relationship? (sorry, long)
MrsMerryHenry · 24/08/2009 21:42
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