Can abuse ever be a child's fault?

[MrsHuxtable]

I have a thread on relationships about my mother but things have come to a head and I want some quick replies.

Basically, my mum hit me a lot when I was a child (not just a slap, but properly with a hover pipe etc) and also abused me emotionally. She's visiting us rigth now and she kept being all negative about me and during the fight I told her how her abuse has damged me and is still influencing my life.

She then went on to say that firstly she hadn't abused me and my memory was wrong. She then admitted to the abuse but said it was my fault because I was provoking her and was already bad as a 2year old.

She is now feeling sorry for herself and packing her stuff. I don't know what to do. Will I just let her leave?

Can abuse ever be a child's fault? How horrible would I have had to be for this to happen to me?

Imagine yourself going up to a stranger in the street and doing what your mum did to you. They'd call the police. And provocation wouldn't get you off!

My DS is pretty good (boasting mum ) but he has pushed and pushed and pushed at times - and he isn't even a teenager. He is just coming up to five. When he is being deliberately obstructive and pushing boundaries and I feel myself stressing...

I deliberately gear down, give him a kiss, call him a silly sausage, find another way to address the problem. Because he is the child and I am the adult. Because if you are the adult then it is up to you to deal with any frustration and anger, not the child's.

Even if the child is truly evil, and I don't think you ever were, then the fact remains that your mother was the adult - it was up to her to keep control, deal with things, and actually act the adult - and not abuse you.

And if she was genuinely wanting to be the responsible adult now she should be grovelling and asking how she can make it up to you and how she can help.

Congratulations on the little one, and unofficial hugs for going through this tough situation at such a vulnerable time.

One of the worst things is when she is negative about my half-sisters and my ex step-mum (if that term makes sense). She is so jealous that I regard them as my family and talk to them about private stuff because she says our family life is none of their business. I said that they are my family as well and therefore I can discuss my life with them.

Apparently, I can also not like my ex step-mum as I used to hate her as a child. That is true but the reason for that was because I was always manipulated against her and made to believe that she broke my parents marriage up. I have since found out that she only came into the picture after my parents had been separated for 2 years and now being an adult, I can see the woman for what she is, a great person and wonderful mother to my sisters. We are now great friends and she has offered me great support since I have been pregnant.

Good God, this toxic woman has you believing things were tour fault! do not let her

I honestly think you need to remove her from your life. I can't imagine she will be anything but a negative influence on your child. She will either treat your baby the way she did you or use the baby against you (as in treat baby with 'Love' bur will tell baby that mummy is useless/awful

Don't give her the chance

I feel exactly the same about showing emotion in front of my mother. So she's decided I'm autistic .
So you've been trying to improve your relationship or at least keep it civil, and she's been making no effort whatsoever to reciprocate?in fact it sounds as if she's been provoking you. But you're the one who feels guilty. Does that make sense?
She can choose to storm out or to stay and apologise and try to make things better. It's up to her. You're not throwing her out. You didn't cause this unpleasant situation and you don't have to fix it. Let her make the first move.

MrsH, my mother made me turn against my father too and ruined my relationship with him. I have since found out that hardly anything she said was true and my father was as much a victim of her as we were. I now have a lovely relationship with him and nothing with her.

You have had some great advice and looking at all the answers you received, you must know by now that she is in the wrong. I hope she is not still being comforted by your partner.

You deserve to be loved unconditionally by your parents. When this does not happen we can feel it is our fault and we don't want to break the relationship because deep down we are still searching for signs that they love us. It's almost an all-consuming need to reach out to them for love even as adults. However sometimes you have to be strong and accept that they often cannot show their love for you because of the way they have been made, sometimes by their parents or by circumstances. Yet we have a chance to turn things around, to find that love we crave in our partners and our children. We have the opportunity to make the very most of our lives and break that vicious cycle of rejection.

It is so very very hard to do, but the more you search for that love, the more disappointed and heartbroken you will be not to find it. The breaking point will come when she treats your daughter the same. Don't let that happen. You have shown her more kindness than she deserves, you have given her every chance but she has chosen her own path in life and there is nothing you can do to change that. What you can do is take a completely different path and start afresh.

Best of luck x

MrsH
Put her out of your life. She is not good for you. She upsets you during your pregnancy, when you are having a stressful time.

Sorry about your cat.

MrsH, child abuse is NEVER the child's fault. That's why it's so terrible.

Massive hugs to you - what a bloody horrible week. xx

Definately not your fault. She obviously couldn't cope and that might not be her fault either though at the time.. however, she has had long enough to deal with whatever issues she has and should be making it up to you know.. you deserve better. She needs psychoherapy as well but if she hasn't changed by now she never will.

wrt counselling - it only works if you find the right person for you. I had an awful one who did no good at all. I did find the right one later.

You don't want her to even see your bump because you are protecting your baby from her. Now you need to protect yourself too. Trust your motherly instincts, she was a crap mother and doesn't deserve anything from you.

No child deserves any kind of abuse. You are too good for her. If you had had different parents they could well say that you had been a wonderful child, never any trouble.

Since she abused you she could try the same tricks with your daughter - would you risk it? I wouldn't. Let the door hit her on the arse on the way out.

God NO ! it is never a child fault. What a vile woman she must be, I am so sorry x

MrsHuxtable, please come over to daughtersofnarcissisticmothers.com/. You can share your story or read that of others like yourself. You are not alone.

Oh MrsH I remember your thread about not wanting her to touch your bump. Being pregnant yourself now will bring all kinds of feelings to the fore because, as a reasonable human being, you feel protective towards your DC before they are even born.

Please go to your GP and get on the waiting list for counselling. I think you only get 6 sessions but worth trying for if you can't pay at the moment. And revel in your dad and step-mum and your sisters' love and sense of family. You do not need or want this woman in your life. She has fucked up her own life with bitterness and there is no reason to leave her mark on yours.

Let her go.

She is an adult and can find somewhere to stay. She managed to get herself on a plane didnt she?

All that huffing and tears and 'well I will go then' is so famiar to me. My mum did that when I asked her not to give my DD a dummy after I had decided to stop useing them.

I caved in and begged her to stay and I still wish now, twenty years later, that I hadnt.

It was NOT your fault. You were a baby and when you have yours it will may hit you really hard just how wrong it all was.

Please try and get some help.

x

There are many positive things that you have said. You have a good relationship with your stepsisters and ex-stepmum, despite that relationship starting on a bad note. You are perceptive enough to put your prejudices to the side and see her as a person.
That's not the actions of a "bad person". You sound mature and giving.

Let your mum go. You'll never get the apology you want - I wouldn't waste mental energy trying.

Agree with everyone else - cut her out. Let her go.

She hurt you. The one person who should have loved you unconditionally and protected you.

Look to the future and your new family to come.

Get some counselling. The hurt will never go away but it will lessen - as will the guilt especially when you start to get true perspective on what happened to you - and you will learn to manage it and live with.

You can be happy. You can be free of this sorry, self-pitying excuse of a mother. She will never change or be half the perceptive and kind person you clearly are.

She sounds horrendous :( and no, you were absolutely NOT at fault.

Your instinct to keep your bump from her is worth listening to, abusive parents do not make good grandparents, and I say that from bitter experience.

My mother was, and still is emotionally abusive. she was at times physically abusive too. I have spent far too much of my adult life untangling her bullshit, but if I cut her out altogether I isolate myself and my DS.
She does not have a great relationship with my DS, mostly because he sees right through her, and also because her relationship with him is subject to the conditions I attach. It's a fucking minefield, and a few years ago I got tired of tiptoeing around her. If she is rude, I cut conversation and remind her that I am a human being who deserves to be treated as such. If she is nasty about other people (usually women, usually mothers) I turn it back to her and will say that other women do not deserve such venom. She has learned to curb her attitiude around me, but it means that she has ever more hatred building up inside her. If I give her any control whatsoever she abuses it completely.

Oh, and she was the perfect parent btw, I was a very difficult child apparently For years I thought I was an unpleasant person; it took other relatives to gently point out that I had been a lovely little person, had grown into a decent adult and deserve to be treated as such.

I notice you are not saying that she actually left.

I assume from this that she stayed in the end?

I hope you are ok.

Of course not. Let her go, shes playing with your mind. You were bad as a two year old, WTF?

This is what abusers do. They (i) pretend it didn't happen or (ii) tell you it was your fault. Never accept responsibility.
I would have said:

"Mum, you did abuse me. And I was NOT to blame, you were the adult and I was the child. Please leave my house, and don't contact me again until you can agree that I am right on this".

Don't let her play mind games.

My Mum and I had a similar summit meeting when I was 8 months pg with DC2. Once she realised that she couldn't blackmail me anymore and that she'd be the one losing out (i.e. no contact with DCs) she sent me an email agreeing that I had not been to blame. Our relationship will never be easy but at least I have that.

Let her leave - sounds like she is still poisonous.

No abuse is never ever a child's 'fault'.

I am so sorry for the problems you're having, and also for the loss of your cat.

First, I should say that i was not abused by my parents as a kid, but my mother was. Badly, physically and emotionally - we are talking about abuse that would make the news. I've seen what it did to her, and how she has tried to deal with it. Unfortunately, the only way she could cope was to completely repress those memories - she has barely any memories of her childhood. So when my dad wanted us to go and stay with family (not knowing any of this background), she had no argument to stop it...

You remember the abuse. Whether your mother agrees with you or not, those are the memories you have, and they are valid. Whatever the provocation. And you seem to have turned out a decent person with a loving DH and extended family, so you can't have been that bad! Even if you were, what would you think of someone else behaving like that?

I don't know whether this is your 1st child, but do you really want her imposing her views of you on your kids? I'm assuming you wouldn't be letting your kids stay over with her, but if she is still in denial, she is not a good person for you or your family to be around. Quite apart from the stress you are under whilst pregnant!

My mum had very good counselling on the NHS. She didn't go into details with the GP, just said she needed to talk to someone about childhood abuse and could he please refer her, and did he mind if she didn't talk about it to him? (I just called and asked her, and she recommended taking cosmetic wipes with you so you can nip to the loo in the surgery and run repairs if it makes you cry and you feel self conscious. That's what she did). She is still dealing with it, but gets better all the time. She's accepted now that it was not her fault (the same blame games were played as you've had), and that she cannot fix her parents if they will not accept anything needs fixing.

I hope this is slightly helpful, and am aware that I am not a therapist or anything, but I can't watch this happening again and not say something. As other posters have said, she can find a hotel - she's an adult.

Good luck. And enjoy your baby when it comes - you will be a fab mum.