To destroy my mother's happiness to protect my daughter from my father? Please help me.

[Haahhpy]

I'm sorry in advance that this will be long. There's a lot of history and the back story is necessary. I am worried about the influence of my dad on my daughter (12 weeks old) but it would completely devestate my mum to restrict her contact with her granddaughter. There are several aspects I need help and advice on.

My dad is a very difficult man. He is I think extremely emotionally abusive. He has been diagnosed with depression but I am unsure whether there is some other mental health disorder which is undiagnosed (he lies to the GP). His default reaction to any adversity in life is rage. This used to be directed at me and my brother but since we left home this is focused solely on my mum. He can go months being very nice and kind, he's very good at DIY and loves to help people. But then when something goes wrong (can be quite a small thing) or there's any kind of slight disagreement in the family he will just turn. He becomes so angry, shouts and yells, says terrible things, is menacing and hostile. This can go on for weeks or months with long periods where he just completely ignored your existence (as a teenager living at home with him he once did not acknowledge me or speak to me for three whole months). He also gaslights when he is in these episodes (and I know the term is bandied around but I mean properly). He hides things like keys etc, breaks things and denies it, rewrites history, swears black is white and makes you question your sanity. He has had therapy, he's on antidepressants, he's done CBT and mindfulness courses. There have been numerous 'showdowns' and ultimatums about his behaviour. Things will improve for a while and each time we all start thinking maybe he has changed but eventually he slides back to his old patterns of behaviour.

My mum is a kind, patient, gentle woman. She has spent the last 35 years trying to 'fix' him. She spends a lot of her life miserable because of his episodes. We have a very close relationship and speak or see each other every day (usually just us, not with my dad too). I have thought for as long as I can remember that she should leave which she knows but does not have the strength to do / chooses not to. I feel like my heart is actually breaking watching how much he hurts her.

Through the years there have been times when I gave cut him off completely but gradually for my mum's sake I have let him back in to my life. For full disclosure out of me, my mum and brother I am the least affected by him and his behaviour. I have never been afraid of him like they are. I call him out on his shit and will say it like it is (have told him to his face I think he's an emotional abuser). He hates this as he can't stand being disagreed with. Also, for full honesty he was physically violent with me a few times growing up (kicked me quite hard a few times etc) but as I said our personalities do clash and I always gave as good as I got (verbally as I was obviously no match for him physically). I have told him that any relationship we have is for mum's benefit only.

When they found out I was pregnant both my parents were overjoyed (it's their first grandchild). They immediately offered to provide childcare for her when I go back to work and were generally very excited for the future. My dad loves kids and we all thought maybe this would be a fresh start for him. Looking after her would give his days meaning and purpose and he seemed very positive about the future so all was well. We were all very hopeful.

Fast forward to this week. His estranged step father died (virtually NC for 20 years) and he's gone into a tailspin. Screaming and raging at my mum to the point she had to come to stay with me. All our hopes that he'd changed have been dashed again.

I'm now wondering if leaving my daughter with him is an irresponsible move. I don't honestly think he'd ever hurt her but I want her to be influenced by seeing positive relationships as she grows up, not abusive ones. However, when I broached this with my mum she was devestated. She's so looking forward to having her when I'm back to work the thought of missing out on that destroyed her. I know people will say she shouldn't depend on her grandchild for happiness but what else has she got while living with him?

So to my AIBUs:

1: AIBU to accept their offer and let them care for my daughter (possibly but setting good toke midels for relationships). I feel incapable of hurting my mum by taking this away from her when I think it's basically her only source of real happiness.

2: OR AIBU to be so hard on my dad when he does after all have mental health issues? I am so unclear in my own mind how much of his behaviour is illness or if it's abuse? Where do you draw the line? And how much should you tolerate while making excuses because of his mental health? I'm so confused as to whether I'm a cold bitch with no sympathy for mental illness or whether my mum is just buying into the old chestnut that all abusive men are actually tortured souls who need a woman to save them.

Sorry it's so long and thank you if you've read to the end. Any opinions or advice are welcome. Thank you x

You cannot trust your mother.

Even if you allow her to look after your daughter in your own home, you cannot trust your mother preventing your father getting access to your daughter. If he insists, she will cave.

It is not your responsibility to sort out your parents' problems.

"To make it work I will need to relocate. Geographically we live very close together and I think if I were to get paid child care I would need to move further away to make it less hurtful to my mum. Having my daughter in paid child care just up the road from her would feel like running salt into her wounds. Financially and career wise I will have to make big life changes to arrange paid child care. "
NO. No, you will not need to relocate. Do you not see what you are doing? You are still centring your mother, and not yourself. Stop it. Why should you and your husband uproot yourselves just to pretend to your mother that distance is why she cannot be allowed care of your daughter? It's a lie! She cannot be allowed care of your daughter because that gives your abusive father access, and that is what you should tell her.

You seem to think that you owe her huge effort on your part to salve her conscience. You don't. If you owe her anything, you owe her the truth. "Mum, growing up around Dad was shit. It screwed up you, my brother and me."

In my, admittedly very wish-full thinking, and my no means an expert opinion - scenario, it would be OP setting the rules and standing her ground.

Unfortunately, Hollywoods, the OP would be out at work and not able to supervise. Her mother, who has a long history of putting up with abuse being perpetrated on her children, will be supervising. Her father, who has a long history of abuse, will be present. Nothing will be different in this generation. They won't love their grandchildren more than their children. They won't transform. As someone said the mother and father are locked in a toxic duality. No need for another baby/child to be exposed to it and damaged like the OP has been (look at the OP struggling to put her own child first - that is quite a number her parents - both of them - have done on her)

NO. No, you will not need to relocate. Do you not see what you are doing? You are still centring your mother, and not yourself. Stop it. Why should you and your husband uproot yourselves just to pretend to your mother that distance is why she cannot be allowed care of your daughter? It's a lie! She cannot be allowed care of your daughter because that gives your abusive father access, and that is what you should tell her.

^This.

To dislocate your lives rather than tell DM the reasons is to enable your DM's support of DF's behaviour. You will be telling her that there is no problem, that you are the problem.

I haven’t read all the replies, have read all your posts OP.

I don’t think the situation is as clear cut as other posters are making out. It’s so, so complicated.

Of course you want to do what’s best for your baby. But the arrival of a baby doesn’t necessarily change your feelings about your parents. You clearly still love them both, and clearly still have mixed feelings about them both. Practicalities are now forcing you to address a situation which had otherwise been stable (in its predictability, if not in fact) for all of you. Your pregnancy suggested an upwards trend, even. But now things risk becoming more stark than ever, with potentially irreversible choices and decisions having to be made.

I don’t have definitive answers. But I do advocate going slow. You never know what goes on in a marriage, not even your parents’. There are a million reasons why your mum might stay, and actually maybe she’s actively decided many times to stay. Equally, maybe she needs a little nudge from you to leave, and has just been waiting for you to reach out. Do you know for sure which it might be? If not, there’s a long road ahead for all of you. Don’t make the mistake of assuming you know what’s best; reality may shock you.

Talk to your mum, and more importantly listen to her. Take her cues. Push nothing on her. Ask her probing questions. Let her guide you. She’s had your lifetime of protecting you and your brother from your father, after surviving a first abusive relationship. She’s a strong woman, perhaps stronger than she seems. And scope out your dad too. If he has undiagnosed MH issues, who knows what’s going on in his head.

They seem united on certain things. Perhaps there’s scope for finding common ground, without your baby being stuck in the middle.

Good luck.

She’s had your lifetime of protecting you and your brother from your father, after surviving a first abusive relationship

But she hasn't. She has spent a life time working around the DF's abusive behaviour, being coerced into accepting it, resulting in one sibling removing themselves from the family and the other fearful for her own child after a childhood of "surviving" an abusive DF.

I wouldn't trust DM's judgement where DF is concerned.

Sadly your mum has likely enabled his behaviour.

GFIL was extremely emotionally abusive, to the point that Hubby and his siblings were terrified of him. Later it came out that GFIL had been physically abusive to his children and had sexually abused AIL. Yet FIL worshipped him.

Needless to say FIL is now Granddad Who We Don't See.

You can't risk your child's health on the altar of your mother's happiness.

I wouldn't leave a dog with your parents, to put it bluntly.

You say you are the member of your family who was least affected by your father, but I think you need to take a look at yourself.

• 'my mum could care for her at my house but I'm worried the tension of this (my dad knowing I'm not allowing him to look after my daughter) would goad him make her home life even worse.' 'She's been telling her friends and family about her new future caring for her granddaughter. It just feels like the cruellest thing in the world to take that from her'

• 'I've always been able to support my mum when it kicks off. I'm used to making things better for her and it will be so hard for me to be the one contributing to her unhappiness.'

• 'I just feel if I take this away from my mum it will push her to leave him. While I think this is the right decision I know it's not what she wants to do. If she is pushed to do it by me so that she sees her grandchild I just know I will feel eternally responsible for her happiness. If she's miserable without him I'll blame myself.'

• 'My mum is the one that needs help. If I step back from her I honestly don't know what would become of her.... ...Because I (think) I am the stronger one I have stayed close to be there for my mum so that she has someone to talk to when things get bad. I know it's not really appropriate for her to run to me for support every time but I do understand because I'm the only person she can talk to that really knows what he's like'

• 'It's honestly hard for me to comprehend that people don't feel responsible for the happiness of their loved ones though? Maybe that is me being conditioned into that role but it's hard to imagine feeling a different way.'

* 'It is however difficult to get across just how hard breaking away from the situation will be. To make it work I will need to relocate. Geographically we live very close together and I think if I were to get paid child care I would need to move further away to make it less hurtful to my mum. Having my daughter in paid child care just up the road from her would feel like running salt into her wounds. Financially and career wise I will have to make big life changes to arrange paid child care.'

You have sought to control your father and you are still locked into that impulse. You have carved out a role and a self image for yourself in your very dysfunctional family and you don't see how much you are operating within that context.

You need to look at codependence.
experiencelife.com/article/no-boundaries-overcoming-codependence/
Read this. You are described here.

Check out the resources section at the end for further reading suggestions.

Your first responsibility is towards your daughter, who is a helpless child.

Your father is an emotional abuser who is capable of violent fits of rage. You mother enabled this for 35 years.

You shouldn't let your daughter stay alone with either of them. Your mother cannot be trusted. Do not repeat what your mother did to you and your brother by placing an adult's desires above a child's wellbeing.

I'm very sorry, OP. I think you should seek support and/or therapy. It's hard.

And no, you are not responsible for your mother's happiness. SHE is.

It sounds like you have been conditioned since birth to parent your own mother, to be the one running interference between your parents, to be the shoulder on which your mother can cry.

That's really, really, really unhealthy, OP. Your mother's life and her relationship with your father are her own responsibility. Her happiness is her own responsibility (as yours is yours).

I second PPs who recommend therapy. You are completely emotionally entangled in your relationship with your mother, and it's really not good. Closeness is one thing. Dependence is something else altogether.

Thanks to mathanxiety for doing that list. OP you are saying things that those of us with half-way normal parents would NEVER say.

This really struck me:

'It's honestly hard for me to comprehend that people don't feel responsible for the happiness of their loved ones though? Maybe that is me being conditioned into that role but it's hard to imagine feeling a different way.'

Yes we do feel responsible for the happiness of our loved ones. Those that are dependent on us. Not those who should have minded us. Uou are responsible for the happiness of your loved one - your daughter. Not your mother.

Your mother was equally responsible for your happiness. As was your father. He failed completely and she failed utterly.

Are you really going to visit this on another generation. Another little girl afraid of the scary man in her home who is out of control? Another little girl learning that women should shut up and put up with crap and dance around dangerous men? Another little girl who might get a hard kick some day? Seriously?

Your daughter should be your priority - not your mother - she has consistently made her choices without reference to your happiness or even her own. She is a lost cause in my opinion. I hope that isn't true but I think it is. She is probably addicted to the drama of the whole sorry thing by now.

You had a terrible childhood. I am so sorry. Get therapy. Prioritise your dd.

@poster 7salmonswimming
What awful guff. Dreadful fucking advice.

[Post removed at other posters request, so MNHQ have removed the quoted post]

Really not trying to have a go at your aussiemum8. I know you are trying your best with a brutal hand being dealt to you. But this is utter shit and I doubt your parents' presence in your childrens' life is doing enough good to outweigh this kind of really scary stuff. I had a normal lovely childhood and I find this shocking. I think you should also look at minimising contact even more than you have.

It is always amazing to me on these threads how utterly shit parents who are cruel and abusive still manage to have their adult children in thrall - sometimes far more than parents who were decent and loving. It is like part of their abuse is to make sure the adult child will never feel free of the sense of guilt/responsibility/fear,

[Edited by MNHQ]

Abusive parents hold their children more in thrall than parents who were decent and loving because the adult children of dysfunctional families are still looking for something form their parents that they were never given when they were children, and because the role of the adult children in the families was set in stone when they were children.

Thank you to those being supportive. Lots of people choosing to ignore me repeatedly saying that I will protect my daughter. I was here for help and strength in a difficult decision. What looks black and white from the outside can be much more complicated on the inside.

I've said I know what I need to do but some of you are stll making things worse. @Poppylizzyrose you don't need to make this about you and how you sleep at night.

I hear what people are saying about getting counselling but as I did already say I need time to digest that suggestion.

Nobody actually seems to hear me when I say this but I'll say it one more time, my daughter is my priority and I will protect her.

It can be very exhausting caring for a baby as everyone knows but it's bound to lead to stress if she cries at your parents house.

What about putting her in daycare 3 days a week then asking your mum to come to your for the other two days and get a nanny can you can check on your phone. Get a baby monitor that is linked to your phone too. That will give her time with your daughter but not be overwhelming.

Sounds like your dad will go mad but if he goes mad anyway then you've got nothing to lose

And I would break the week up say she has her on a mon and Friday at yours so that if your dad comes, you can see what's going on in the nanny cam and it won't be too stressful for her

I think you are brave and strong op but you have been damaged by growing up in such toxicity by having such strong attachments to people who should have ensured your childhood was peaceful and nurturing rather than intimidating and violent.

Why don't you put a comprehensive account of yours and your mother's and brother' s years of abuse and fears in an email and cc it to your family members?

Get it all out in the open in a matter of fact and objective way.

Why not let the domestic violence unit of your local police force and gp know as well.

Stop keeping this "family secret". It's not benefiting anyone. Your father has to be called out on it once and for all.

Your mother has to stop enabling him for an easy life.

You are the key that can ensure the toxicity ends with your father and doesn't continue down the generations.

Even people with mental health issues don't always behave like your tantrumming destructive father.

Call him out on it.

Only when he has a whole year of sensible, measured behaviour should he be allowed in your dds life .

I think you are strong enough to do this op, let your dd's birth is the catalyst for change for the better for all of you.

Good luck.

The real answer here is your mum needs to leave your dad - he's a monster and she's enabling him hi continue. This is not a healthy environment for your baby, even at that age they sense danger and shouting etc ... she may be damaged emotionally if not physically ... I can't believe your dad kicked you! .... what would he potentially do to her if you now defy him - he has access to your most precious thing in the works if he's given caring responsibilities, the abuse he's shown you yes may play into her life but think about him using her to hurt you

It's a HUGE no from me

I haven't read all the comments, though all the ones I've read have been spot on.

OP, your own brother was very severely damaged by living with your parents. Your own mother was badly damaged by her upbringing? Do you know how heart-breaking it is to deal with a damaged son or daughter? Do you know how hard it is to repair that damage?

My dgd was two-months-old when her father held her in his arms while he screamed by my dd. For the following two weeks her crying was angry, she had absorbed his rage. Fortunately they split up then and she is a happy and healthy child but it makes me think about all the babies for whom this is their life.

It is honestly most peculiar to see how you put your mother's needs above your baby's.

Haahpy "Nobody actually seems to hear me when I say this but I'll say it one more time, my daughter is my priority and I will protect her."

Because most of the other things you are saying suggest otherwise. It is all about how your mother will feel and what you have to do about that.

If this is true, you have to start from the position that your daughter is never in the company of your abusive father. Then you work from there.

It will suck, you may well lose your mother as she is likely to choose your father over you and your daughter. So be it.

There is a person in my family who I will not have around my children, no ifs buts or maybes. He is not welcome in my home, I will not attend events if I know he is invited and we immediately leave if he shows up.

It is painful, I have had a lot of shit over the years (and lost previously close relationships) because he has not been formally accused/convicted of anything and 'never done anything to my kids' .

Indeed, because he has not been given the opportunity.

Who knows, maybe your dad won't kick your daughter, maybe he won't emotionally abuse her. But are those dice you are really willing to roll just so your Mum isn't unhappy? THINK about it.

haahhpy
What looks black and white from the outside can be much more complicated on the inside.

Lots of us have been there and I would say that it's the other way round - what seems complicated when you're stuck in the situation is actually quite simple, if you once get a bit of outside perspective.

A lot of what you're telling us about your behaviour is codependent. I know it because I've been there. You've had a lifetime of looking out for your mother to the point that you probably can predict her feelings far better than your own. You have very little in the way of boundaries with your mother. That's why you're not making much of a distinction between a) telling your mother she can only see your DD alone and in your presence as long as she stays with your father, and
b) telling your mother she needs to leave your father

The first one is you healthily establishing a boundary on what you will allow to happen to your baby DC, who is entirely dependent on you. The second is you taking responsibility for the feelings of your mother who is a grown adult. I know that because the a) option means that your mother will probably be forced choose between her DGC and staying with your father, it feels like you are forcing her to make that choice. But you're not. You're not responsible for your father's behaviour. You're responsible for your own behaviour, and for your DC, and that's it. You don't have to twist yourself in knots anticipating other people's actions. You know your father is dangerous. You need to take the steps you need to take to make sure he doesn't have contact with your DC. What everyone else chooses to do and think about this is their problem.

The reason people are being so harsh is that we know that this - not wanting to upset anyone, feeling like you have a responsibility not to upset one or both parents - is how the cycle of abuse is allowed to continue. People worry that e.g. you will let your mother have your DC at home and she'll promise not to let your father be involved, and you know yourself that her promises are only good up to the point where she would have to do something that would displease your fatherWhat looks black and white from the outside can be much more complicated on the inside. - I know it, I lived it, my wee dad, I loved him to bits but my mother's word was law and he would never go against her. And if it happens you will be there trying to think your way through the rights and wrongs of it and it will feel complicated because you are used to bending over backwards to help your mother manage your father, but it will be really simple: your father should not be allowed to get near your DC. Your mother cannot be trusted to put your wishes over your father's while she is still with him. So you need to make sure she is never in the position where she had to choose.

You need to detach from your mother, OP. Your relationship with her is not healthy.

The fact that you can even imagine moving so that she won't be upset because you opt for childcare over her speaks volumes - it's completely insane thinking, but I know you don't realise how distorted it is, because that's the way you were brought up.

I have no doubt that you intend to protect your daughter. But you cannot make your mother happy. Your mother chose your abusive father over your and your brother's wellbeing. And she still actively chooses him over everything else today. She can end it any day, and chooses not to.

You are not responsible for that.