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.

Sorry your Dad and SM are so awful. You try your best to live a normal family life with them but they just screw it up every time - been there!

Many years ago I stopped speaking to my Dad. I was very sad, as I am really fond of him but he was ruining my life - shan't go into details here. After about 5 years, my sister begged me to speak to him again so we could both be at her wedding. I do speak to him now and then but a) he is so terrified I will bog off again that he really listens to me, and b) I have learned I can live without him so I take his shenannigans with a pinch of (only as part of my daily recommended allowance!) salt. We have never resolved what went between us but I have been able to move on.

Sadly I also have a more difficult situation with my sister now. We had two years of rowing, horrible emails, letters, and now we don't speak either. At least I know she won't take it out on DD so I can still sometimes arrange for the cousins to get together. Your DH is right, though, to suggest you find a way of closing the situation off because it doesn't just impact on you. My row with my sister (and BiL) really took it out of my DP at a time when we all really needed the energy and time for our own family.

Maybe you need to sit down and write out exactly why you don't want to be with these awful people so you feel you have said it, send it off with one right of reply and then have your time back for making new lovely memories with your own new family? I have had some such great times with DP's super parents, never regret not having to be part of my sister's self-pitying world, although I feel sad she is stuck in it.

I know there will be mixed emotions there, although this is illogical, we do always love those who 'took care' of us (said through gritted teeth!), sometimes people who commit truly horrendous abuse are still loved by their children. But we need to focus on giving our own children something meaningful to love us for.

freshmint - thank you. Only saw your message after I'd posted mine.

People keep saying that I mustn't let this row with my sister go on to our graves, how awful it would be if we never became close again. (We were very very close.) But I know I feel loads better with her out of my life. I do feel sad about that, but I feel so much more free to be happy without her depressive tendencies always at the end of a phoneline.

I wish my sister would get her head together and we could be close again, but I really don't want to spend time with her as she is now.
Thank you freshmint for helping me feel I'm not an unnatural sister.

just come back to this.

it is actually very easy to change a phone number. i had my daughters changed when she was being targeted at school. somehow, and i dont know how, they changed the number without her even having to change the sim card- very sympathetic. it could probably be done with a land line. seriously how much effort to tell those that need to know your number in exchange for peice of mind?

Hello,

Just got back from weekend away (during which we did not visit them and DH texted to tell them why not - I don't think we'll hear from them again in a hurry) and really interested to see these latest posts. I have often wondered if my dad is a narcissist but not considered Aspergers - will go and have a look now and pop back when I've read the links...

(Ironically he is actually a psychiatric nurse - would it be unusual for one to actually have a problem like this?)

ahhh politix
you aren't unnatural!

you don't need to like someone just because they are related to you. if you don't, you don't. I'm sure you ARE happier and therefore better off without her in your life as she is at the moment. Nobody could blame you for that.

some people just aren't very likeable. I was not the only person who didn't like my father - he had few (and later on, no) friends.

Right, have done some googling.

Terra - thanks so much for your posts. The more I look into it the more I think you might be onto something. Not all of it rings true (the routine loving etc) but socially he can appear very aloof and he doesn't really like mixing with people outside of the extended family that he knows. He can give off the impression that although he's talking to you you are actually quite boring and irrelevant, there's no real animation or enthusiasm. He is a bit obsessed with football (used to leave my birthday parties when I was a child so he could go and play) but in the last few years even that doesn't get him fired up.

I will do some more research into it but it certainly seems like a possibility: he has no friends really and doesn't do anything without my SM particularly. I read a bit more about NPD and I wonder if it coudl be a bit of both?

Weirdly I feel a bit better for thinking it might be Asperger/NPD because it means it's definitely no my fault, and maybe not entirely his? He's definitely not wired up quite right, people always used to comment that he was good to have around when bad things happened/people died as he was so calm and together. Actually it's just because he doesn't cry or seem to care...

hang on, more to say, back in a mo...

freshmint Sorry to hear he died, but glad that you haven't found it hard to come to terms with. Actually that's really reassuring because I don't really see me and my fther ever sorting this situation out. It's funny that you had people telling you that he was really proud of you etc - I have the same thing, especially from my SM, which makes me think, "awww, maybe I should make an effort" and then when I do all I get from him is venom.

politix That's great that you managed to make some sort of peace with your father, even if stuff isn't resolved. I guess the fact that he actually wants you around and listens to you makes it possible, it definitely has to come from both sides. Sorry it's all gone awful with your sister. I have similar problems with mine, only she's not depressed, she's just the most shockingly selfish, self-centred individual you could ever meet (which is not surprising, given who her parents are and how they have brought her up.) There wasn't even a particularly big event that brought things to a head with my sister which somehow makes it hard to rationalise but I do feel so much better for not having to tolerate her and all her two faced small minded crap.

On the upside, I did visit my aunts as planned and ended up talking to them a bit about it. I'd assumed (as they're on SM's side of the family) that they might have taken against me but they couldn't have been more lovely and I'm really glad I saw them. Goes to show it's not all the family, just my own peculiar little branch of it that has brainwashed me into thinking that I would be on the outside of the whole thing if I put a foot wrong.

Terra - will PM you...

I feel for you OP sounds like there both very toxic

big hugs

I think what youre doing, keeping them at a distance is best, they don't seem like they'll ever accept their past behaviour and I think that in itself would be very hurtful for you.

freshmint and bintofbohemia it has helped me to post with you and realise I am not the only one with tricky family. When I read your situations, I can see clearly that you are rational and your families are devious and difficult, and that the best thing to do is to keep contact to a total minimum, so I shall continue to take that for my life too.

I am glad your aunts were able to give you some grounded perspective too bintofbohemia.

Thanks!

xxx hugs