To cancel seeing parents and to avoid them for the foreseeable future?

[bintofbohemia]

God, I barely know where to start. I?ve had a lot of very good advice on here in the last few years regarding my relationship with my father and stepmother. They got custody of me and my brother when I was about 5 and he was about three and we were treated like shit for years. Then they had a child of their own and she has always been the priority. Things really came to light after I had my DCs, they were totally controlling and expected to dictate how we did things and then when we didn?t do what they wanted us to they withdrew completely and had little to do with us or the children.

After several years of angsting, getting good advice here, having counselling and reading ?Toxic Parents? we finally managed to move far away from them all and hoped that would make things easier. Anyway, we?re heading back this weekend to see DH?s family nearby, to visit my aunt who?s just recovering from cancer and other friends. We had planned to pop in and see them so that the children could see their grandparents but we have that many people to get round in two days it?s all getting a bit stressful.

Last night I got a call from SM asking if we were going to stay with them. I politely said I thought that would be much too awkward with all the unresolved issues. (Last year I brought up the fact that my father beat me up when I was 16, and he didn?t respond for about 6 weeks until I was literally starting my car to follow the removal van and he denied it anyway.) She then said two things that make me think screw the pair of them and we?re not going to visit at all:

1. She asked me why I was slagging off my grandfather on Facebook. I had mentioned in passing that I was getting some expert help with tracing my great grandfather and someone said good luck as it?s hard with Irish relatives. I said it?s even harder when they weren?t truthful about their earlier lives and that there must be a really interesting story behind him feeling the need to fabricate this alternative story. How she?s got from that to me ?slagging off my granddad? is beyond me ? he is out of living memory and what I am saying is fact. And I can?t believe she?s had the time in her life to gossip to a relative and twist what I?m saying on facebook!
2. She then asks me ?why do you hate your father so much?? At this point I feel like slamming my head against a brick wall ? I must have spent hours talking to her about this recently and I explained that he has acted very cruelly and is incapable of showing any feeling towards me at all ? not the case with my half sister as was demonstrated at our respected weddings. And the fact is I don?t hate him, she is trying to put words in my mouth. However I do feel like compiling a dossier about reasons I feel very let down by him and I might do if only for my own reference.

It just seems so manipulative, I?ve not even communicated with them directly and she?s come up with ?you?re slagging off your grandfather and you hate your dad.? It?s pathetic. Am tempted to send a text saying ?thanks for the lunch invite but we can?t make it? and not going round to see them at all. I can?t be bothered spending any more of my life angsting about what she says, and the fact that my dad never says anything at all. But then they?ll start telling everyone that they?re gutted because we were in town and didn?t go round, and that we?re keeping them away from their grandchildren (who, incidentally, they never spent time with when we lived two minutes away) and it?ll be all twisted around to what a bad person I am.

Sorry for the lengthy rant, I just don?t know how to proceed as saying we won?t go round will cause a kick off but I can?t face sitting there with them when they make all this stuff up about me and refuse to deal with anything/take responsibility for anything.

I might actually put a list of reasons together.

I have now put anyone who might speak to my SM on limited profile, so no one can see what I'm writing but I don't have to delete the entire family. (Some are ok.)

The changing the number thing is a bit of a ballache, we've literally just moved house and had a new land line put in and I don't know how easy it would be to change that. Mobile might be easier...

I might be over-assuming that they actually care enough to bother...

Brilliant advice from olderandwider.

Bint good luck with this. I know how hard it is, believe me, but you end up going over the same old ground. It's horrible.

Tell them you are getting a lot of nuisance calls, so you need the number changed.

Mobile is easy, just go onto a site and most of the networks will give you a free sim card.

change your mobile numbers now, before you are due to go up.

Do what you have to do on the weekend, if you run out of time, you run out of time.

When you get back say, if there is any contact somehow, say "oh sorry, 2 days is so little time to see everyone, we'll catch you next time."

Don't engage with them. Your SM is never going to get it that the H she married is abusive to his DC, that he IS a lousy dad. She is never going to acknowledge that SHE allowed it all to happen, on her watch as a supposed mother. if she did, it'd show up how lousy SHE is as a person.

You will never get through to them, they are Mr and Mrs Denial. don't stress yourself trying to make them into nice, decent, acceptable humans, it's never going to happen.

Oh gawd, yep, what olderandwider said...

You owe these people nothing.
Seriously, when you see how families act when the people care about each other, or even just tolerate each other, it isn't like this, is it?
'Duty' is only applicable when people have nurtured and supported you, or at least not done anything nasty.
I wouldn't even text them, I'd just ignore them. iirc you've done that before for a bit?
If they start behaving semi-normally, then it's time to waste your energy thinking about how to deal with them. Otherwise - your dh is right, it's a waste of everyone's brains! People like this who have been indulged in their monstrousness (out of duty or desperation for them to love their children) never change.

Have you actually arranged a time to go and see them? Have you told them you are definitely going? because, although it's very rude, I'd be tempted not to bother contacting them at all unless you have a definite arrangement to cancel.

Even if you text them, they are going to be hounding you on the phone to try and change your mind - or sending really nasty texts to make you feel bad - so I just feel that it's best avoided altogether, unless you have a specific arrangement already in place.

Sorry, know I'm repeating myself, side effect of living in Australia

Well, I wish I'd read the last few posts here last night before I decided to call them and tell them we would not be going round and why.

It went very badly. After I decided to communicate directly with my father (so that he wasn't just getting twisted crap from SM/whoever else) he was unbelievably cold and told me that "I've painted him into a corner" and that "I need him to be wrong". He told me that apart from "two alleged assaults" he has no idea why I have a problem with him, that either he doesn't remember incidents that I mentioned or that they didn't happen. He has apparently seen a lot of what I do on FB (I can only assume my half-sister logged in and let him look around my profile) as he seems to think he is an expert on what I do on there. He had a go at me because there are no pictures of them or my half-sister on there (mainly because they've never bothered to come along to anything we've ever invited them to or spent any time with us) and told me that I exaggerate things.

What I find unforgivable is the example he used of me "over-exaggerating." Last year DS1 was in a terrible car accident where the car he was in was hit by a motorcyclist on the wrong side of the road. The car was written off, the motorcyclist nearly died (and may never walk again) and my stepfather who was driving has been depressed ever since. The window next to where my DS was sat was smashed by the impact, glass flew into his face and he immediately screamed that glass had gone into his eye, which was streaming. My mother rinsed his eye out and he was taken to hospital for x-rays and tests which happened over two days. The x-rays came back with some shadows on which the consultant couldn't explain as there were no entry points on the eyeball and eventually concluded that the marks must have been anomalies on the x-ray. We just have to assume and hope that that is correct but the whole thing was extremely worrying.

My piece of shit father said that it was "funny that I'd said that DS was injured and we suspected we had glass in his eye, but he walked away days later without a scratch on him." Is he implying that we were all so delusional that we invented the story and got him taken to hospital and x-rayed because I like to exaggerate? DH heard all of this and is livid as well, am still processing what was said and reeling from him actually saying out loud how little he thinks of me.

Strangely, this actually makes my life much easier. No way are we ever going anywhere fucking near this man again. I usually dither about whether I should send a father's day card etc because it makes me look bad if I don't: FUCK THAT. I know I said yesterday that I don't hate him but after last night I am substantially closer to doing so.

(Weirdly ten minutes after I got off the phone my half-sister who I haven't spoken to hardly in nearly two years called, but I wasn't going to pick up as it was 11pm and I'd had more than enough.)

I am really grateful for all the advice - and if any of you ever see me angsting about any of this shit ever again give me the kicking I deserve.

What a total, utter shit head.

Only just read the thread but I would just cut all ties with them completely. What help/support/benefit are they in your life? Change your number, take them all off facebook and delete their numbers from your phone so that if you're ever tempted to ring them you can't!

So sorry they are being so awful :(

Thank you. I am going to take any family off Facebook, which is a shame as some of them are fine and nothing to do with any of this but it's not worth the aggrovation. I wasn't sure if changing my numbers was necessary but have now changed my mind and will look into it.

I can't believe what a tw@t he's been (he also basically said he did his best and if I don't think it was good enough, well life's tough) - of course I exaggerate, everbody does (he certainly did at times last night) but ffs.

You know what bint, if you HAD have read the last few replies and acted accordingly, you would still be stuck in this dreadful situation.

At least now you are not.

As I said, he will never take responsibility for it all, because only true monsters would have done what he did to you. If he accepts what he did, that makes him a monster. My 'H' is the same. I can stand there and scream at him until I'm blue in the face about all the horrid things he has said and done to me over the years, but he has literally zero recollection of 95% of it.

Likewise your SM, she won't be wanting to embrace the reality of being abusive by allowing her H to treat his own daughter like that and her collusion.

At least now you know where you stand, cut them ALL off FB, refuse ALL contact and get on with your life.

Bint, so sorry you had to go through that in ONE way :( but as LMHF says, at least it has sorted everything out for you now. That man is a cunt, you can cut him out of your life now completely without compunction.

What a vile git. And a liar, and a fantasist. Let him go, let him poison someone else instead.

Can you block his number, rather than changing yours? Would that be easier? Agree totally with taking any connecting family off facebook - you can block them as well so they can't find you again.

Big unMnly (hug) for you - because it's horrible to realise that he has no fatherly feelings at all for you and that he is a waste of skin - but you can move on from this. Hope your DS doesn't have any glass in his eyes, btw - but if he does have any tiny residual specks, they will probably work their way out now and get washed away.

"Strangely, this actually makes my life much easier. No way are we ever going anywhere fucking near this man again. I usually dither about whether I should send a father's day card etc because it makes me look bad if I don't: FUCK THAT. I know I said yesterday that I don't hate him but after last night I am substantially closer to doing so."

You see, I think it's a good thing you called last night, as now you can see what they are doing to you and you won't let it happen any more. You have nothing whatsoever to gain from having any contact with them, so don't. Don't feel guilty for stopping contact, they have made the situation what it is.

Take care, and focus on prioritising the people that really matter. I find it helps me to think of my close friends (who I chose ) as a kind of uber-family - like family but more important. Some members of my family (eg. my sister) fall into that category, most are simply related to me and mean nothing more.

You don't need them, they only need you for some cruel sense of spiteful satisfaction. Don't give it to them, and certainly don't expose your own children to it.

Incidentally, regarding grandparental contact, I believe that it is only granted when previous frequent contact can be proven, and when the children will genuinely lose out by not having contact. Not the case here, I believe.

Take care. :)

You are an adult with your own life and family, you need not have contact with them at all, and from what you have said I think that is for the best

Thank you - (and thanks for the hug thumbwitch - gratefully received!)

For some reason it made me smirk to hear him called a cunt - he really is being, isn't he? This really isn't me just being hysterical or over reacting or making things up, he seriously is a soul-less bastard.

Reassuring to hear that about the law LoopyLoops - they certainly would be hard pressed to come up with anything to prove they've had much contact. I can't believe they'd be arsed really, but I just wonder if they'll need to be seen to be doing something when they inevitably start telling people that their bitch daughter is keeping them away from their grandchildren.

Don't take my word as gospel, do look into it as I don't have experience of this, but this is what I had gathered.

Thanks Loopy.

Bint

Just to add my agreement to the previous posts - at least now you know for sure where you stand and hopefully will no longer have any guilt about cutting them off.

It's a bit catch 22 - if the family were reasonable people you wouldn't need to do this, but unfortunately there seems no other option. YOU have been forced into this position time and time again.

What was it Einstein said about the definition of stupidity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results (no offfence meant but hopefully you know what I mean - they won't change).

Sorry it's so stressful but I do agree that having it come to a head is better than having it fester (and I was saying 'don't bother contacting them' - I was wrong eh?).

Hope you start to feel better soon.

Hi bintofbohemia. As it's clear from what everyone else has said, YANBU. I just wandered if anyone has suggested to you before that your Dad might have Aspergers? Don't get me wrong, I still very much agree with everyone else that you're better off having them out of your life, but if it turns out to be the case then it would probably help you loads to have an explanation & understanding of WHY they are so awful.

The thing you said that made me think it might be Aspergers is the story about the peas when you were little, and when you said.... "It's just they both make out like they've never done anything wrong and it's all my "perception" which often makes me wonder who's actually right." This is a classic symptom of having a parent with aspergers - it's called 'The Cassandra Effect' and can literally drive you crazy.

Here's a website set up by people who have suffered or struggled with an AS parent if you want to look into it - aspar.wordpress.com/ There's plenty of stuff on the internet these days about AS, but I found this website to be a great help back when I first realised.

It sounds like you & I may have had some similar experiences growing up. I have spent so much energy trying to communicate with my dad and it is like banging my head against a wall. When I was in my early 20s I stumbled across something about Aspergers and it was like a lightbulb moment. I read everything I could find about the subject and have wept tears of relief that finally it all made sense. My Dad is still a nightmare of course, he hasn't changed at all, but my mental health is a whole lot better knowing it really is him and I wasn't crazy.

Of course I might be completely wrong and your dad doesn't have AS - in which case sincere apologies for being an armchair psychiatrist! No offence intended at all . However, if it turns out you think he might have it then please feel free to drop me a message if you want to talk to someone else who has an AS parent.

Best of luck with it all :)

I wrote that having only read half the thread (am new to MN and didn't notice the second page) - having just read the rest of it I just wanted to say omigod you poor love! The tone of my post seems a bit wrong somehow in light of the rest of the thread, but I now think even more than ever that he might have AS. That doesn't excuse his awful, uncaring behaviour at all, but it might (might) help explain it.

I'll stop banging my AS drum now & go back to lurking

Terraviva I just looked that up. Very helpful, thank you. I am going to look down that road further in relation to my own father. I have been consistently not worthy of his interest or consideration and have learned to live with it - at the same time I've had conversations with him about his own psyche where bells have been rung. Really interesting.

Thanks Ooid. I'm sure it's so much more widespread than we realise, and it is incredibly damaging to a young girl's psyche to have a father who has no empathy or shows any kind of paternal interest etc. It just batters your self esteem. Someone once explained it to me that the first man a girls falls in love with is her father - so if the first man you fall in love with is incapable of loving you back, it doesn't take a genius to work out how that's going to do a number on you as you grow up!! In the long run I like think it's made me a strong, kind, tolerant and non-judgemental person (well, I hope so anyway! ) but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a bloody and rocky journey.

Rubbish Dads eh? Psh.

Terra that is really interesting. I haven't had time to look at your link properly but will save this and do so when I am less tired.

My mum suggested a few years back that my dad (they're divorced) had AS and I thought at the time, 'Whatever, armchair diagnosis.' But then through work I came across a lengthy factsheet about AS and as you say, it was like a lightbulb moment.

My dad is not inherently nasty but he is VERY childish and spiteful in the way he expresses his emotions. If he feels bad about something he cannot let it go and hits out at the nearest person. When he feels sad or lonely he becomes suddenly very needy but cannot see that the fact he just swore at someone means they can't hug him or whatever. A lot of the time it's like he's on a totally different emotional wavelength to most people: he just reacts to other people the 'wrong' way iykwim.

I had no idea other people had similar things too....

Sorry for hijack OP

Terra sent you a quick PM....

I'm not actually a mum yet (expecting my first) but my mum always told me that the only thing you should consider when parenting is what is best for your child. Is it in your children's interests to see your parents?

bint I don't know if this helps you at all but I didn't like my father who was an angry and unhappy man during my childhood and took it out on us kids (me particularly I think but maybe me and my sister equally). He was also a bit of a fantasist and could argue that black was white and actually believe it. Once he and my mother divorced when I was 21 I didn't have much else to do with him apart from a few lunches every so often. then he moved abroad and I saw him very rarely.

He died a year or so ago. People kept saying "I know you had a difficult relationship but his death will hit you soon, you'll be very upset". Nope. I knew when I heard he had died that I wasn't upset and I wasn't going to be. I felt sorry for his new wife, but that was it. She kept saying to me "You know he really loved you, he was really proud of you" and I kept saying "well he could have told me that" (not that I really cared). Relatives would say "are you sad?" and I'd say "no, I didn't like him much and he spent most of my childhood hitting me so I'm not sad, sorry"

You don't have to like your parents. You don't have to forgive them for things they did in your childhood, especially if they don't request forgiveness or acknowledge the damage they cause. Parents have to earn your love and respect - if they don't, the don't get it. Children have the right to their parents' love and respect - for them not to give it is a breach of trust.

I would stop contacting them. If they want to contact you, listen to them and if they are not being loving and respectful (or making some move in that direction) put down the phone/close the door/leave.

xx