To think I can’t ever forgive my mum for this?

[Iamlosttoday]

I’m pregnant, second trimester and have just left an abusive relationship. It has taken me around 4 times of trying to leave to actually leave. No physical abuse, but bad emotional. One day loved me, next day hated me without reason. Would constantly put me down, tell me that he hated me and resented me and the baby, then the next day change his mind. It was awful. Would hug me and in the next breath say oh god why did I do that. Would game play, withhold money, that type of thing. Would sleep with me and say ugh after and shove me off. We’d been together years and it’s only been like this mainly since the pregnancy.

So after my self esteem finally hitting the floor, I left this time and this time for good. But it was bad before I left, I was literally at the point where I felt suicidal whenever he was near me and had also become frightened of his moods. He’d spent so long telling me I’d be a bad mum when the baby came I’d started to believe it.

so I reached out to my mum once I left, we are in contact most days and close. Her initial reaction was “you always say you’re going to leave and never do. You’ll be back there this week” I told her no, I’d reported him and seemed support from a DV charity. I then confessed to her that at my lowest ebb I’d had suicidal thoughts, had confided in my midwife and luckily when away from him don’t have them. She said “so you’d hurt your baby then? You’d be a baby killer? You obviously don’t love baby much if you’d been thinking about that”

I just hung up. She’s tried to reach out but I feel so disgusted with her. I’ve held her through many of her MH crisis and never judged. And she’s fully aware peri natal depression is a thing. I just can’t bring myself to speak to her again.

My issue is I’ve been told I need a C section and with her and my ex gone, there isn’t anyone but me. But I really don’t want her near me post partum.

Hmmm, some mums can be emotionally abusive. Not all mums are “always there”. It may be that you have followed a pattern set in childhood and found yourself with an emotionally abusive partner because that is the type of relationship you are used to? If she is normally loving and supportive, maybe this was a blip. But a loving mother does not make those kind of comments even as a one off. Focus on you and your child and building a network of genuinely kind and caring people around you.

Your mum's only human. She's helplessly watched as you've repeatedly gone back to this vile cunt for years and presumably bitten her tongue. And I expect she was sick to her stomach when she discovered you were pregnant by him. Saying you'd considered suicide tipped her over the edge. You say you've always been close and had a good relationship, so this was a knee jerk reaction born of extreme anxiety. We don't always say or do the right thing and few of us are natural born psychiatrists especially when it comes to our own children.

In a way I think she was saying….

1. You’ve said all this before (Make sure you actually don’t go back this time)
2. Don’t kill yourself or your precious baby over this prick.

Think she was trying to shock you, but it’s backfired. I’d ring her and try and move on.

Occasionally you read a thread and you just know that the back story will be huge and very much put a different slant on things. This being one.

As a mum of a young adult woman finding her way, I feel so much of her worries and anxieties as if they are happening to me. It's weirdly worse than when she was a kid in terms of my worry for her.

That. Being a parent to young adults has been the hardest part of parenting, for me. I want to protect them, just as I wanted to protect them when they were toddlers. But I can't. They have their own life and independence, and watching them make mistakes, without me having the power to prevent those mistakes, is agonising at times.

As I said above, if either of my girls had been in an abusive relationship and kept going back, I'd have been in bits. Then a pregnancy with their abuser, and then expressing suicidal ideation? I really hope I'd be able to say the right thing, but the shock of being told about the suicidal thoughts would probably get in the way of a calm and considered reaction.

Except it hasn't been years. He started to behave like this when she got pregnant. She's still pregnant, so it's a few months.

I agree.

It is normally the people who are emotionally uninvolved who manage to say exactly the right thing, simply because they stay cool, calm and collected - because they don't really care, or at least, not enough to get rattled.

I have a couple of people I know well who gravitate to these slick types, thinking they say the kindest things so must care the most, but from where I stand I can see they just don't have the involvement to bother risking saying the wrong thing. Some people struggle more than others to see through this.

I agree. Also, she was, maybe, trying to make you see that both you and your unborn child would have died had you committed suicide. Her intention to show you made the right decision?
I wish you all the best. The future can only improve without this man. Your mum might be needed.

Is your mum the type that expects support with her mental health but never supports anyone when they need it? Does she hate not being centre of attention? Does she normally put you down?