What on earth is my mother doing??

@Hummingbird75 I get where you are coming from, and how difficult this is for you.

My mum was the narcissist, my brother the golden child, and a few years ago when I told my dad that I wasn't going to see my mum anymore, he said they come as a package so if I still want to see him I need to see them both. I looked to him so many times for some support, or even acknowledgement of her behaviour, but I never once got it.

So I carried on seeing them both, because I loved him. My dad has now passed away, but I did really love him, despite knowing that he put up with so much, and turned a blind eye to her treatment of me. Possibly because he was the only parent who was kind to me.

Like you say, you are deep in the fog, and you love your mum. I think it is going to be too difficult for you to decide to go no contact.

My advice would be to either block your mum, or change your number. No need to decide whether or not to go no contact, dont put that pressure on yourself - just give yourself some space and time to heal.

You have done an amazingly difficult thing by breaking the cycle and protecting your children - you should be so proud of yourself. Yes, your mum is a victim, but we all have difficult choices to make, and she has made hers.

Focus on yourself, say kind words to yourself when you look in the mirror, be kind to yourself. Get some more therapy if you feel you need it. Learn to know your worth. Look back and realise how far you have come.

You say your father stopped physically abusing her when he started abusing you and your mother protected your brother from some of the abuse by redirecting it onto you.

Sorry OP, but I think you’ve become the family punching bag in their eyes, physically from your father and emotionally from your brothers emotional blackmail now. Your mums just as bad as your father OP. She’s guilt tripping you with these messages to try to get you back in line. She enabled your fathers physical abuse of you and by letting you take some of the abuse instead of your brother she’s responsible for some of it as well.

I think she wants you back visiting because it is someone for your father to take it out on rather than her. And as well as that it makes her feel like she’s not a bad mother in her eyes if you have contact with her (the same as telling you she loves you everyday, it’s for her benefit so she can say she’s a good mother, she’s not).

You need to go no contact with all of them and get some therapy if you can as well, you need to see your mum for who she really is. You don’t have to put up with this just because she’s your mum, or he abused and controlled her. If she really loved you more than him she would encourage you and your children to have a life away from him.

Your mother has completely let you down, I’m so sorry.

There is a very good book I have recommended to loads of people it’s ’you are not the problem’ please read this to get some strength. You were dealt a very bad hand of parents. Get support everywhere you can and stay strong!

You're doing so well @Hummingbird75. I understand that you feel broken as I feel similarly due to my family.

Sometimes fucked up family dynamics cannot be solved in one generation. Because of your insight and bravery your children will thrive but you are a sort of 'bridging generation' and may not be able to fully recover from your parent's abuse. But you have come a hell of a long way and certainly have broken the cycle for your children.

You've recognised that the daily texts are triggering you, time after time. I'm wondering if a small but practical move might be to change the name on your mum's phone contact? Just to her first name, rather than 'mum', or even to something silly, or rude (insulting) - anything that might reduce the sting of her self-serving cut and paste message. Worth a try?

@Hummingbird75 you can mute specific numbers or groups within whatsapp.

their guides are excellent. I have mine muted during work hours so you can be very precise.

faq.whatsapp.com/694350718331007

As hard as it is you should block and walk away.

There will always be a ‘last day’ that we see our parents, if you can accept that you’ve already had this last day you will be able to move on without the guilt and pain of your mother’s messages.

Some very wise words & hard won wisdom posted as I banged out my response just now. My face is slightly leaking as I stand in awe of how much you all have come through, your resilience & kindness.

@Hummingbird75 you are not alone, you are heard & understood.

IT IS NOT YOU, it is her.

Her adult choices.

Your future is to have kind, honest, loving relationships with your own family, your children brought up with love & kindness, to be surrounded by authentic friends.

Your mother is likely of or near my generational group, who grew up into a blazing awareness of domestic abuse & women’s rights, of women’s refuges & Erin Lizzey et al, & quietly came the acknowledgment, the taboo, that not all women are always quiet victims, that they make deliberate - & seemingly warped/unfathomable - choices to stay in situations of domestic abuse…& sometimes share significant responsibilities for the impact on the family group. So yes, your mother has been the victim of your father, but has stood aside as he laid into you & thus be an equal partner in the damage inflicted on you as a child.

I cannot know your father or your mother, but I believe what you say about your family dynamics. You have come a very long way since your childhood. You acknowledge your then need for love & affirmation from your abuser father as some attention is better than none.

Now you have need to untangle the dynamics between you & your distant withholding mother. You cannot quite out your finger directly on it but you know deep down that it is more of the same. What to do?

Does she love you? Who knows?
Does she love you for you? Pass.
Does she acknowledge you as a person separate from her? No.

That she was not there for you as you faced up to serious illness, no offer of maternal comfort or practical help is a bitter hurtful blow, & deep down I sense that you were not surprised.

Whatever your mother says, whatever she feels, whatever she does - here & now, she represents threat & trauma. Whether she understands that, whether she feels regret or means you no harm is not the point.

@Hummingbird75 Have you a therapist? Someone who you have seen before? If you can find a counselling service that understands the resounding impact on adult survivors of childhood trauma as their abusers age or die, you may find a brief course of sessions to help you work out what really does suit you. I suggest you ask your GP for information or a referral as unresolved childhood traumas affect adult health & wellbeing.

Keep your children safe, happy & well, & the first & foremost step is to keep yourself safe, happy & well.

When I read your initial messages my gut feeling is your mother is a narcissist. You are such a strong person and you are not broken. Although I get at times it feels like that.

My mother is also a narcissist and it messes you up completely. My father was abusive to her and to us and I believe my mother was a victim but also enjoyed watching me suffer and upset.

I felt an awful amount of guilt as I was so confused and I wanted to help her. But she constantly used to throw things back in my face. There was a lot of emotional turmoil. It ruined me as a person and in the end I went no contact. It’s the best thing I have ever done. I feel guilty at times still but it’s still the best thing I have ever done.

Sometimes you have to accept what has happened has happened and you can’t change it. You will get no answers as to why they behave the way they do. All
you can do is change now and the future and make your life happy from now on. They are abusive and awful and they will never change. But you can change the situation. It’s been 10 years now since I went non contact and life is much better.

Sadly, your mum has never put your safety or needs ahead of hers, and she is showing that this is still the case.

I'd be tempted to start my own automatic cut-and-paste response. Every time the message landed, I'd send something back saying "Why don't you call me, then?". She needs to be brought to think about how meaningless this is.

sorry for what you have experienced and continue to experience through your Mum. Your Mum has experienced a lifetime of trauma through your Dad and as with any abusive relationship she will be incredibly fearful. If you haven't already done so I think it would be beneficial for you to have therapy for yourself but also to help you understand why your Mum has stayed and the reasons why she is acting the way she is.

To all the people calling your Mum dreadful names, have a bit of respect for a victim please. She is every bit as much a victim as the OP. It absolutely doesn't make it right that she is showing to have chosen to stand by her husband, but as above she will have experienced a life of trauma with this man.

OP, wiser MNers than me will sure as eggs is eggs be able to offer you some advice to help you. All I can do is offer some comfort that you are good person and you sound like a wonderful mother. Despite your awful upbringing, you have such love for your own children that you are instinctively protecting them from the abuse that you suffered. You may not feel strong but you are, and incredibly so. Instead of trying to fix the situation with your mum I'd recommend therapy in order to be able to make your peace with it. Actions speak louder than words and your mum's actions are not loving, whatever the shitty daily WA messages say.

I wish you all the very best for your future. Here's another internet stranger sending you good thoughts and I hope you find the peace you deserve. Your children are so lucky to have you as their mum. 💐

You cannot change or influence her, as you know. All you can take ownership and control over is how you react and move forward. I can only offer my own perspective which is to cut her off completely. Block on all channels and don't look back. Allow yourself to grieve and mourn for the loss of the childhood and parents that you should have had but were denied (absolutely not your fault). But cut it out of your life for good and enjoy the peace and lack of constant drama and attempts to deny/"justify" your past treatment and hoover you back in for further rounds of torment.

Have you found the Stately Homes threads on here? - they are a safe, wise and kind place for people with abusive families. Much support and solidarity is there. Here's the latest one, but there are many previous ones on here for helpful reading: March 2024 - But we took you to stately homes | Mumsnet

Please look after yourself. You are a worthwhile, decent person who has not done anything to deserve this. You can break free. Cut this cancer of abuse out of the lives of you and your children and begin the healing process. It will get better in time, even though it doesn't seem like it now, but until you cut out the root, the pain will take hold again, again, again and again, cutting you and your children ever more deeply with each encounter. It will not end and it will not get better - but you CAN stop it from your end. You can stop it, and take strength and pride in your courage to say "no more".

Every good wish to you for happier times ahead. x

This and I speak from being in exactly the same situation. I have after much LC and therapy come to realise she is also abusive albeit not in the same way. She might have become abusive as a coping mechanism or from being abused herself - in my parents choice she could leave - they are plenty well enough off to do that or get therapy but won’t. Mine has chosen to stop contact as my Father could not (like yours) choose a healthy relationship with foundations.

For me - she is an adult. Her behaviour is not healthy, so yes block her x

If your father is a psychopath and your mother a narcissist then you have no option but to cut off all contact. This is the core of who they are and neither are capable of empathy - it literally doesnt exist in their brains, it's like expecting an apple tree to produce cherries. Never going to happen. If your psychotherapist is right about your mother then even after your father dies she wont change. She will continually triangulate you with your father even after he is dead and she will still try to manipulate and control you. The "good times" you had with her without him are just her keeping up the facade with you to keep control of you- it was done for her benefit, not yours. This hot and cold dynamic is typical of narcs. They reel you in just to spit you out again later on down the line.

In that sense there is no "solution" because you cannot ever have a healthy relationship with either a psychopath or a narc.

The only "solution" is to get away from both and focus on your own family and seek support and love from other sources and to seek therapy to help you process your own damage that they have caused.

Resigning from the role of being her mother will undoubtably be hard but at the end of the day it all comes down to this- you can only save one person here and I hope you pick yourself. If you cant do it for you, then do it for your lovely children. Be the person she will never be.

Honestly, I don’t think you should be in contact with your mother either. She enabled the abuse. She didn’t keep you safe and choose to stay in an abusive relationship. Like many women, too concerned about keeping up false appearances, seemed to do at that time.

My heart goes out to you, having suffered a similar setup. My mother condoned her partners abusive behaviour under the guise of we needed discipline. The horror of my childhood lives with me and my sister to this day.

My mother now very elderly and with dementia feels we owe her !

please take care of you and continue the excellent care you have given your children

Just thinking the PPs idea of checking the messages once a week to see if anything's changed could be an idea?

Really though what you need is to move forward and find a way of coping with how this makes you feel, and that's where the therapists come in

Hi OP. congratulations on finding the strength to cut contact with your father. You have been more than reasonable in your actions/words. As for your mother's daily messages, can you work on 'detaching' from them? As hard as it seems, it would be a way of 'putting them away'.
Stay strong, your children and family are very lucky to have you

She has chosen him, over you and your children, she did it as a child while he was abusing you and she still does it now.

Trust me on this, cut contact and never look back, once she is out of your life you will grieve for her, but you will come to realise over time that you are only grieving the concept of her.. and the concept of a loving mother figure.. she isn't that person and never will be, but we are programmed to seek that affection, love and acceptance, no matter what they do to us, it's not your fault, but you can end it now.

Would you accept your husband beating and abusing your children? .. That's all you have to remember that when you feel guilty about it.

I am finding it hard to walk away because I am the parent, not the child, in this relationship.

You sound very self aware. You do not sound broken, even if you are still undergoing trauma you sound strong, and capable, and caring.

You didn’t have parents, so now you must parent yourself. Your mum has your brother, your father and your extended family to parent her. It’s absolutely not your job.

Mute the WhatsApp conversation.
Don’t message your news.

This can be a temporary decision, done quietly just for yourself, for now. It’s not forever. Mute the WhatsApp now and therapy in the meantime to help you come to terms with your fear of the future.

Sending love, internet stranger

Please do consider therapy again. I think you have spent so long concentrating on your father and his behaviour you are only just opening your eyes to the part your mother has (and continues to) play in this.

You need to get to a point where you are as comfortable as possible with the (imo, correct decision) to not see your mother again and understanding that it is because she does not deserve to see you again. Not because of you, because of her. She was responsible for you and she failed you, in a horiffic way. You are not responsible for her and you do not owe her a damn thing.

You have to put your children first now and part of that is protecting your own mental well being for their sake and yours.

Tell her you are going to block the messages, and if she wants to speak to you to call XXX instead.

Love is what you do, not what you say.