Did anyone else’s mum have an alternative “fantasy” family whilst you were growing up

[Justiceishalfblind]

My mum did. She was obsessed with a professional cricket player. She was in love with him but the love extended to his (thin) wife and (sporty) children.

She would sit at the dinner table telling us merrily what that family had done that day.

I have never met anyone in real life with similar. Is this a thing?

No, but my DM often bemoaned the fact that we weren’t like A and B (cousins) or C and D (neighbours’ kids) - all apparently so much more satisfactory.

I vowed never to do the same with my kids, and never did. Never even wanted to, since to me they were always better than anyone else’s.😄

NoPrivateSpy,

Mum does struggle with friendships. Most people make her feel insecure, so she either resents them for being "superior" or laughs at them for being "inferior" like a dark Hyacynth Bucket.

She did have one friend for 35 years until the lockdown pressures got to them. 35 years is good! And that lady was also of a cheerful temperament with an ability to turn potential bad stuff into light with a jolly but not meaningless remark.

So oddly enough, what I can say is that she has chosen genuinely nice people to obsess over, and what they had in common was that they didn't trigger her insecurity, being so secure themselves that they never make barbed remarks - salt of the earth.

"never getting close enough to them to call them real friends"

weirdly enough they did become friends - proper ones, or so the stalked family believed and believe to this day. The friendship appeared entirely wholesome to outsiders, no-one knew about the obsessive recounting of trivial remarks and day to day events that would follow at home.
The way it became more normal was that the obsession extended to John's parents and brother and the brother's family and at that point it began to sort of get less concentrated iyswim. county cricket players don't get many "fans" unless they are the team star so it isn't annoying - it's exciting. When John lost his job mum forced dad, who is in the arts, to do the benefit concert. John's entire family was truly grateful to dad. She was also helpful to john's sister in law when their child was born with a significant disability.

They are all still in touch today and, so far as I know, these lovely people have absolutely no idea how much pain they caused me and my brothers and father :(

Not quite the same, but when I was a teenager, we had a family friend live with us while he was at university. I had just changed schools and everyone assumed he was my brother. I didn’t tell them that he wasn’t. He finished university just before I went into sixth form, and went elsewhere to do his PhD. Then he got married and moved right away, although we are still in regular contact. I’m not in touch with many people from school, and had forgotten about this until an old school friend contacted me recently and asked what my “brother” was doing now, as she had always had a bit of a crush on him. So I just said he had moved to Cornwall with his wife after he got his PhD and that they had recently moved back up north to be near her parents.

"Never even wanted to, since to me they were always better than anyone else’s"

so you need to change your username then :)

it's the same here. I simply can't imagine what it would be to want someone else's children instead of mine. I just can't bear to think of the pain it would have caused my little ones, it makes me feel sick.
But that's what happened to us.

oh tangled web Schadenfreude, tangled web!

quite fun though!

lots of idealised big brother themes emerging....

Those who have admitted to complex and vivid fantasy lives: have you ever considered writing any of it down, or turning it into fiction? it would give you an outlet for your talents, and for your research skills (I'm in the middle of researching Russian telecommunications infrastructure in the mid-twentieth century, all for the sake of one scene in a story I'm writing involving a phone call.)

Is maladaptive daydreaming more prevalent amongst women? All the examples here are mothers, aunts, sisters etc

I think the research that's been done has shown that it is (or at least women admit to it more). But it's also more common amongst creative people, especially authors. I once read that JK Rowling does it, which is probably how she managed to build her wizarding world in such detail.

When I used to do it, my normal life would be interweaves with my fantasy life. So I never wrote my kids out the fantasy, they were always in there somewhere. I never denied them in that respect or pretended that I had someone else's. Tbh, the OP's mum sounds a bit different to mine. I always knew it for what it was; complete fantasy and an escape from real life and boredom. The mum in the OP sounds to be verging on stalkerish (sorry, OP).

@Putthegasfireon

Is maladaptive daydreaming more prevalent amongst women? All the examples here are mothers, aunts, sisters etc

I think the research that's been done has shown that it is (or at least women admit to it more). But it's also more common amongst creative people, especially authors. I once read that JK Rowling does it, which is probably how she managed to build her wizarding world in such detail.

When I used to do it, my normal life would be interweaves with my fantasy life. So I never wrote my kids out the fantasy, they were always in there somewhere. I never denied them in that respect or pretended that I had someone else's. Tbh, the OP's mum sounds a bit different to mine. I always knew it for what it was; complete fantasy and an escape from real life and boredom. The mum in the OP sounds to be verging on stalkerish (sorry, OP).

JRR Tolkien had to be a bigtime maladaptive daydreamer.

@Respectabitch

Those who have admitted to complex and vivid fantasy lives: have you ever considered writing any of it down, or turning it into fiction? it would give you an outlet for your talents, and for your research skills (I'm in the middle of researching Russian telecommunications infrastructure in the mid-twentieth century, all for the sake of one scene in a story I'm writing involving a phone call.)

I’ve got loads written down articles, emails etc but I don’t think it would make a good book. It’s quite mundane. Exciting to us but no one else.

that's ok, it was stalkerish, or at least it began that way.

@Justiceishalfblind sort of! She asked if I saw much of him and I said I normally went down to Cornwall a couple of times a year, but hadn’t yet visited his new house as they were doing it up. Both true, although I didn’t always see him when I went down to Cornwall.

"researching Russian telecommunications infrastructure in the mid-twentieth century"

having been in a forest near Rostov during the 1991 coup, been told that "no we wouldn't be leaving the forest, and no we wouldn't be arranging to contact the UK", then getting back to Moscow with an absolutely interminable Gorbachov speech blasting through the speakers, emerging from the underground to find myself next to a tank with a man on it shouting (I later found out he was called Yeltsin but my Russian friend didn't notice him she was so excited about the flag on the Lyubianka having changed) and finally having gone round most of Moscow trying to find a working phone until a call came through to me from a boyfriend, I can confirm that Russian telephone infrastructure in the early 90s was anything but dull and I suspect it was even more "exciting" during Krushchev's time :)

but I digress.....

loving your work Schadenfreude.

I have considered writing it down but its missing the key detail of a cogent plot!

It would just be a record of family life, for a non-existent family, almost a pastiche, and I can quite clearly recognise that as the central character is flawless, she wouldn't read well.

It wouldn't make a very good book. However, as someone who is quite creative, through my work anyway, I do sometimes sketch from fantasy.
My favourite part in fantasising is less the characters but dressing the scenes, imagining the clothes, the decor, the way the table is laid. Occasionally I will sketch the styling, but to my family this just looks like an extension of my day job and its something I do for my real life outfits/rooms/tables so doesn't attract attention.

I wasn't actually thinking of its being one day published or publishable. Probably nothing I write will ever be officially published. Just of as writing it down as something that is fulfilling in itself. I'm not a big daydreamer, but I am always writing something in my head, and actually writing it down is a much more fulfilling process than just thinking it. (Plus more challenging and I develop my skills.)

I would never write down my fantasy life, it would tarnish it for me to see it written down. Sharing my characters on here sort of 'diluted' the amazing bond that we have I only really enjoy it in my head, where I am free to dip in and out and/or change characters/settings at short notice. If it was written down it would lose that flexibility.

My over riding memory of my DM was that she believed she was so wonderful that she always deserved more usually money. She was so special though that she wouldn't work for it. So in her head I suppose she thought she was either living or should live a different life. This just meant she didn't live at all apart from the constant affairs that went nowhere

This is so tragic but I think many of us recognise it

‘ in her head I suppose she thought she was either living or should live a different life. This just meant she didn't live at all’