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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to still be angry at my mother for beating us up, three decades later?

23 replies

BarStools · 09/01/2018 23:22

My mother used to beat up my brother and me when we were kids. My brother a lot more than me. She used to beat him up for little to no reason at all. She also emotionally and verbally abused me and my brother. Again, my brother more than me.

My mother beat me up less, but called me names. I was a fat child and she never let me forget that. She called me a pig, once I was playing with my cousin outside in a makeshift pool and I was probably 10 years old. She said I wanted to be all wet and show how I was all wet to men passing by. I didn't understand what she meant until several years later.

My mother was a teenage mother, so maybe she was taking it out on my brother and me. She was a housewife and my dad was always away doing business so he didn't see how she used to beat us up.

My brother grew up with rage issues, had a shitty married life, and now seems to be happy with a much younger girlfriend and a new child.

I think my life turned out a lot better. I finished school, have a happy married life. But again, I was abused much less than my brother. I also never wanted to have a child and just now I am realizing maybe this is linked to what I experienced in childhood.

My mother is 63 now. I live in another country and I only seldom see her. But I still cannot forget and still feel anger whenever I remember our childhood.

AIBU?

p.s.

Name Changed for this, obviously.

OP posts:
DriggleDraggle · 09/01/2018 23:25

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

RickOShay · 09/01/2018 23:28

No, I am so sorry this happened to you and your brother. Flowers

Flockoftreegulls · 09/01/2018 23:30

YADNBU it's totally understandable. Maybe you could speak to a counsellor about what happened? It might help you to make peace with the past.
Sorry this happened to you

twattymctwatterson · 09/01/2018 23:31

No I think it's normal to feel anger. My childhood was nowhere near as bad as yours but things my parents did have left lasting damage I'm only now starting to address. I'm angry and feel a sense of loss over the life I could have had

Bambamber · 09/01/2018 23:31

YANBU Flowers

TestingTestingWonTooFree · 09/01/2018 23:31

Do you want to see her at all? Does she bring you any happiness? If it was better for you, you could quite legitimately cut her off. Have you ever challenged her on her abuse? I’m not saying you should hace necessarily.

LovingLola · 09/01/2018 23:31

I have a friend whose father beat him with a belt, several times a week. From the age of 4 until he was 16.
And he was locked out in the shed with the family dog when he wet the bed. At 6 years of age. How he can even speak to his parents now, 40 years later, never mind have a reasonable relationship with them, is beyond me.

Lalliella · 09/01/2018 23:43

You are not at all U for feeling the way you do about your mother. But you are U to yourself if you let it affect your life now, because you deserve to be happy after such an awful childhood. If you feel it’s still affecting you please seek counselling, so you can move on and leave your past behind. I’m sorry this has happened to you Flowers

BarStools · 09/01/2018 23:56

She recently came to visit, and before she came I was excited. But when she came, I guess I was reminded of why I went away in the first place. She's very negative, narcissistic and feels like the world should bow down on her. She has nothing good to say about other people, shallow, and always described people based on their physical appearance.

My brother, for some reason, seems to seek her validation until now. I blame her a bit for the demise of his first marriage, as I know she didn't like her and was not nice to her. The ex-wife is a bitch too, but then my brother had anger issues so I can't really blame the ex-wife.

Nothing I do is good enough for her.

She also did this thing wherein when my father died, she gave everything - my dad's money, my dad's business, etc to our younger brother. Her favourite child. The only one who never got beaten up.

I know they sent me to school etc and we were all adults when my father passed away but surely my brother and I are entitled to some?

It's so weird. It's like her visit reignited my animosity towards her.

OP posts:
BarStools · 10/01/2018 00:05

Now she complains TO US that my brother who got everything put her on an allowance, and the wife (he was single when my dad died) is getting everything that she deserves.

OP posts:
susiew1981 · 10/01/2018 00:48

you be as angry as you want. i was also beaten up by my 'mother' worse than my little brother. my faults were often talked about to anyone who would listen. she once decided i was no longer a part of her family as i looked like my father and she didn't want me around, she ripped up my birth certificate and threw it in my face. i attended my own parents evenings as she was too busy in the pub to bother (and was banned from the school grounds due to being a drunk). i am now NC with both of my parents and feel much better for it. my eldest son refuses to have anything to do with her and my middle child has met her once when he was much much younger, she will never know my youngest child. out of my five siblings only one of us talks to her at all. i suggest you find someone to talk to, let the anger go and move on in life. i had someone to talk to for a few years and it helped me to see that my parents were truly f**ked up people and that i was better off without them around

BarStools · 10/01/2018 00:55

Sorry I meant - now the wife is getting everything that is hers (my mother's).

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BarStools · 10/01/2018 04:33

Have you ever challenged her on her abuse?

No. I seriously think she might have forgotten about it. She always complains about my brother, and how he's "different" from me and other brother (fave child). Well, he's different because she beat him up everyday from childhood to when he was a teenager.

Once on Facebook, she was talking to someone in her timeline, someone she grew up with and they were talking about how strict my grandfather was. She claimed she was not a strict mom and how she let us do what we wanted to do. Of course, all bull.

I don't know if she was beaten up as a child. But she did beat us up - physically, emotionally, and verbally.

She gave us everything we needed financially. There was no problem with that. It just came with soul-crushing abuse.

OP posts:
flumpybear · 10/01/2018 05:25

In all honesty I'd write her a long letter, probably start it with something like 'you need to read the whole of this letter from start to finish to understand what I'm about to say' then explain what she did to you all those years ago and how her attitude still stinks - I'd either close it with now I am no longer wanting you to contact me, or I'll never get over this and it's affected both my life and my brothers but we'll try to patch things up .... whichever you feel you'd rather do

What she did to you I The was so wrong and she has no excuse for this bullying and vile behaviour she was your mum ffs - personally I'd draw a line underneath her and move on

IfyouseeRitaMoreno · 10/01/2018 05:33

Of course YANBU. How awful for both of you to have to live with this in your adult life. Your poor brother.

Fuck her and her messed up favouritism. Leaving money to your kids is about helping ease the financial burden not a manipulative tool to make them feel bad.

I would go NC, get some therapy with a good therapist to sort it out in your head and encourage your poor brother to do the same.

Seriously some people shouldn’t be parents and her narcissistic behaviour is infuriating.

ArsenalsPlayingAtHome · 10/01/2018 05:47

I'd remind her of the abuse, OP. I'd take her back & talk her through all the excruciating memories.

I'd tell her how you're still carrying the trauma around with you & how your heart bleeds for the horrific childhoods you & your brother lived.

Then I'd tell her I never want to see her face or hear her voice again & go NC.

Flowers YANBU

toomuchtooold · 10/01/2018 07:04

There's nothing at all wrong with being not over it in adulthood. The effect of abuse doesn't just go away once you leave, sadly, the trauma can carry on into adulthood. I think your feelings about your mother are entirely healthy and appropriate. If it were anyone else who had treated you in that way you wouldn't question your aversion to them.
You might find the Stately Homes thread helpful, lots of people dealing with childhood abuse, particularly emotional abuse.

QuackPorridgeBacon · 10/01/2018 10:33

Not unreasonable at all. I was abused as a child (sexually) by my mothers husband. For about ten years. I still get angry when I think about it and even though he is now dead and buried I’m annoyed I will never hear him admit it. I’m still not believed. I also suffered at the hands of my mother and still have to tread carefully. We talk but it’s strained sometimes or I hold back not to cause a rift. She is great with my children so I think that helps.

However, she denies all the beatings or spitting in our face etc that we experienced. I bring it up and she calls me a liar. My whole childhood was abuse and I’ve never got over it. Is there any way you could write down how you feel to see if it helps? I used to write down what was happening to me when I was a child and it seemed to help a little bit. Or at least get me through it.

BarStools · 10/01/2018 19:47

QuackPorridgeBacon

Do you also experience flashes of what happened hit you in random times? Sometimes, it happens to me. Like scenes from my childhood or even adulthood when my mom was being her sadistic narcissistic self would just replay in my mind.

OP posts:
BarStools · 10/01/2018 19:50

My mom is great with the children of her favourite child (younger brother).

My brother's children stayed with her when they were little, and I heard she also beat up the eldest, the first child of my brother. Maybe she blamed her also because my brother got married early too. I was away, in uni, during this time so I didn't know. I only knew many years down the road when my niece joined her parents in the US and told her mother what happened.

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GreatDuckCookery6211 · 10/01/2018 19:52

How bloody awful for you and your brother. I'm not surprised the way you feel. Have you had any counselling/therapy?

BrieAndChilli · 10/01/2018 19:57

I haven’t spoke to my mother for 6 years. I have occasional moments when I feel guilty for it or I get upset when I see the great relationships friends have with thier mothers .
My younger sister is on the verge of going non contact too now.

It’s weird since I’ve become a mother I can understand where some of her frustrations came from and sympathise a little bit (I don’t beat my children though) but the rest of me is just enraged that she could treat tiny children the way she did.

BarStools · 10/01/2018 20:53

Have you had any counselling/therapy?

No. It's also something we shoved under the sofa and don't talk about.

Interestingly, the favourite child who never got beaten up mentioned something once that I can only assume was about my mother's sadistic behaviour. He said, " X didn't have the childhood we had".

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