Estrangement.

[medais12]

Hello. About 8 weeks ago I fell out with my mother. She was looking after my daughter and my daughter was a bit naughty ( she's 4 ) throwing a tantrum so my mother smacked her. I told my 4 year old that she shouldn't misbehave when she's with her grandmother but I didn't expect my mother to have hit her, I was upset. I tried to broach this with my mother in person but instead of speaking to me, she instead spoke to all my brothers and sisters about it which resulted in my receiving a backlash of hatred. My mother and I haven't spoken since, in fact I haven't spoken to any of my family since. I am the youngest adult sibling and it has been a common theme throughout my life that I've got this label as the black sheep / villain and I often feel scapegoated by them. Even if I have what I feel are valid reasons for being upset. The estrangement seems a mutual thing as neither side has made any contact. I am really upset about the whole situation especially as my mother is getting older and mainly because for the past few years we've had such a close / enjoyable and lovely relationship I felt. My youth didn't pass without some troubles but I firmly believed that our relationship had progressed from there. Is anyone else estranged ? How did you explain this to your children ? I don't ever want to say anything derogatory or bad about my family but I firmly believe that it's for the best to have no contact as I don't want the cycle of my life / the issues to continue through my daughter. I have had one session of therapy and found that useful and plan having more to firstly deal with everything and secondly perhaps learn if / what I could do differently but I don't feel I was wrong to broach this and feel hurt at how it has ended. Thanks.

I didn't have anything to do with my mother for 12 years, it's very sad.

My mother was a violent alcoholic whilst I was growing up. We were forced to leave, in emergency housing for almost 18 months (Aka homeless) whilst court case went through for dad to get custody, a lot of abuse from mother- physical, neglect, emotional, not getting us things we needed/taking us to drs (didn't go to dr for 7 years of having seizures) etc.

That all ended 12 years ago now and I can honestly say that I am very sad not to have a mum. I have written her a letter (had no contact for 12 years) saying that I forgive her for what happened because she was ill (aka alcoholism).

My official line to other people is that she's "no longer around". Obviously it's never straight forward and my life has been better for the last 12 years without her but wanted to say to be sure that's what you want first. Sorry is the hardest word but sometimes it's better to be the first one to say it in order to maintain the relationship to at least a small extent :-)

Good luck with whatever you decide :-)

Yes, with my sis. She's a major drama-llama entitled princess who leaves toxic chaos wherever she goes. She's spent much of her life eaten up with jealousy of anyone she thinks is doing better than her. I've been a target of her jealousy so many times. She sets out to sabotage my life. After the last drama 3 yrs ago I felt my mental health couldn't take it any more so went NC with. Her 'episodes' of causing feuds with me were becoming too frequent and more bizarre each time. I found it exhausting, as other relatives were revelling in the gossip.

My DS doesn't remember my sis, his aunt, but he does remember his cousins. He's recently started asking why we don't see them any more. I've decided to be honest, in an age appropriate way, rather than telling him lies.

I've simply said that his cousins mum is my sister, but we've had a big disagreement about something complicated. As we can't agree, we've decided the best thing to do is not speak to each other or see each other any more. Unfortunately that does mean we can't see his cousins, as they live with their mum. But unfortunately adults sometimes have complicated disagreements. It's sad, and I wish it wasn't that way, but occasionally adults can fallout.

Hello. Thank you for your reply. It's taken weeks for her to even ask anything. She obviously knew at the time there was an issue because she was upset that her Nannie had smacked her, my issue with the whole scenario was that I tried to speak to my mother about it in a discreet / nice way ( bought some flowers for her from my daughter and me ) to apologise for my daughter upsetting her / playing up in public. But I feel smacking is a personal choice and I choose not to. More upsetting is that I spent a lot of time with my mother so feel that we should have been able to speak about it privately without her rallying in the older sibling troops which then escalates the drama. This has always happened throughout my life I'm in my mid 30s now. I just don't want my little girl upset any further, my siblings blamed my daughter for mums reaction in smacking her, this upset me too. We've had a very close relationship with all the family since my daughter was born and she has lots of cousins and uncles and aunties and I feel upset she's going to miss out on this. But as I've said at the moment it seems mutual as neither mum nor me have reached out. The siblings act like sheep sometimes and I feel that maybe that's influencing mum too. I just want to make sure I broach it appropriately when she does ultimately ask difficult questions.

Sounds like it's a good way to explain it to DS :-) As i said, I have been better off without my mother for 12 years, don't know what my life would be like if we didnt break free from her. Sometimes relationships can be toxic and we're better off out of them :-(

I'd keep my child away from anyone who thought it was ok to hit them.
Onwards and upwards. This is a GOOD message for your daughter - you will always protect her and keep her safe.

Thank you for replying. I've been feeling like I've been going a bit mad running it over in my head so nice to get some outter perspective. I'm also too embarrassed to outwardly discuss it with friends etc yet.

My mum hasn't smacked her before from my knowledge. I have no idea what happened that day except mum said she was really playing up so she picked her up under her arm and smacked her bottom. It was my daughter who told me, I was really surprised. But I also can appreciate having seen my daughters tantrums that she must have really upset mum for her to react like that , hence the gesture or flowers and the invite for an open but private chat. I just didn't expect her to seek approval from the siblings and see it as a personal attack on her. I had no intentions of stopping her seeing my daughter or personally attacking her as a care giver / parent. She's been a lovely mother and grandmother despite our mishaps along the way but again I'm not a perfect daughter and don't pretend to have been. I just wanted to speak about things and find out why she felt the need to smack and how to manage any future incidents really. But it's now gone so far I don't think there's a way back to how it was.

My family were toxic. It affected everything, my self esteem, my parenting, my confidence, my anger, my anxiety, my stress levels.
It's a hard thing when you realise your family are a bunch of fairly toxic narcissistic people who want to discredit you to hide their own dangerous agenda.
Hitting your child crossed the line.

My dad did the same to my daughter and there was a 5 yr split. With no contact.
One day in 2014 I decided to give the family another chance to be nice. Well ! They were all nicey nicey for a while and by August 2017 I was back having anxiety attacks and panic attacks about my father's visits to my home. In september 2017 he said some unforgivable things such as mocking a suicide attempt id had in the past and telling me my sinlings apparently wanted nothing to do with me. It's now a complete break off. I ignore all his toxic attempts to draw me back into his snidey agenda via email ( he is blocked on everything)

I am now in the process of counselling.
I have two rules about this kinda of family estrangement.

1. family are still ' just ' people ...people can be walked away from when they are shitty. The family ethic is actually irrelevant.
2. our success in life isn't measured by how many people we hang on to but more by how many we let go of !

I would not be sending flowers to someone who hit ME. Why would you send flowers to someone who hit a small child?

You are both adults and your relationship with your mum is now beyond what did or didn’t happen in the past or what the other family members think.
The question is:

a) what she did was inexcusable - can you see past it and move on?
b) do you want to remove a granny from her life?

Life is too short ... older people have different ideas to ours ... it would be really something I wouldn’t make a big issue about but make my attitude to discipline known and perhaps try to avoid situation arising again ... if she was being difficult surely she should have been removed

Because she's my mother, and I was trying to talk things out in a mature and adult way with her before making a decision to walk away from the person who bought me into the world on the basis of one event, recognising that there are perhaps other reasons she reacted that way. We've never discussed appropriate boundaries and there is over 40 years between us, that's a huge amount of generation differences I wanted to explore before discounting her as a part of our lives. Also regardless of her reaction if my daughter upsets anyone I plan teaching her that it's important to apologise. My daughter is 5 shortly and is aware of right or wrong to some degree now. I still have respect for my mother and the flowers were a peace offering to what I hoped would be an open and honest conversation between us.

WHAT??? Apologise to someone who hit you? No way. NO. Please do more research on this, and do not teach your daughter to put up with violence, LET ALONE respect someone who is violent to her, and certainly not rewarding that attacker with gifts. What kind of lesson is that?

Paragraphs please...

I actually work in a field where I deal with abusive relationships daily. I don't need to do research or be judged. People sometimes make mistakes, there is a difference between hitting a child and smacking a child hence why I wanted to explore the perhaps age related reasons she did it, it used to be acceptable in her time maybe. But as my daughters mother I wanted to explain respectfully and politely to my mother what I expect or don't expect to happen if my child misbehaves. I don't believe that buying my mother flowers was rewarding her. I don't believe people should be judged too harshly for ONE reaction they make either if that was the world no one would have connections in life.

Sorry I don't have time to to paragraphs im on a mobile.

No. No there isn't.

Ps/ I don't agree with smacking and never have I hope that's clear!

... and also just because someone does wrong to me I don't think it's acceptable to be rude back. I think it's important my daughter learns that too. To try and be kind, and understanding.

The thread seems to be digressing from how to explain estrangement to a child to something else... we are now estranged, it's the how to explain the estrangement I would like advice on. Not the finer details of the cause.

Rude is one thing, HITTING = ABUSE is another.

I'd be telling my daughter I have removed my mother from our lives for hitting her. And stress in no uncertain terms that it is not the child's fault at all.

Fortunately my daughter doesn't remember the incident or if she does it hasn't been mentioned since the day I tried to talk it out with my mother, I don't want to say anything like that to her as it'll ruin all the good memories she has of her grandmother ( there have been many ) for once incident. I do feel very strongly that no contact is the best option especially as there didn't seem to be the recognition / conversation I hoped to move past any issues / draw boundaries but I think saying nasty things about her grandmother added to not seeing the family would potentially be damaging to her mental health too..? I may just sidestep an answer for a little longer but thank you for replying it's nice to get outside perspectives when emotions are high.

Why have you decided to become fully estranged from you mum and your daughters granny , all those good memories , really don't you want her to continue to have contact with her grandmother. What will you feel when she dies , don't you want any contact with your family either ? From my perspective becoming an adult is recognising our parents are human and flawed just like the rest of us. Making adult relationship with family can mean having to redefine relationships but going full on no contact!
Your mum probably know she over stepped and went against your wishes regarding smacking, and has gone on the defensive rather then just admit she got it wrong , being a mother / grandmother does not give automatic wisdom and admitting your wrong to your child is not easy - set the boundaries , spend time with your mum as a family, don't leave your daughter with her unsupervised but don't deprive yourself or your daughter from this important relationship.