y sister financially benefitting from our parents AGAIN - Theead 2.

[QueenofmyPrinces]

My mom is due over in 20 minutes so let’s see if she turns up on time for a start......

Feeling very nervous and already feeling upset to be honest. I’m worried I’m just going to burst into tears when I see her

Thanks everyone for your support on the the first thread and I will let you know how tonight goes

warandpeace - thank you for your message, it’s all scarily similar and has helped give me some clarity

@Sureyouwill I'm not going to indulge you for much longer. Well done.
I have said from the start that in my view,( & what helped me) was to back off, enjoy your own kids & distance yourself from the person who causes the pain.
I am not part of a posse, it's not a vendetta, it's a debate, & you seem very poor at accepting any other POV without insulting people who don't think the same way as you.
Furthermore there are some completely conflicting points in your posts, which show you are fixed in your rhetoric from the PND sufferers POV,, so speaking from the Mother's part rather than the child on the receiving end.

Yes , to this, She’s treated me the worst, but it’s made me the only person in the family actually able to withstand her, and to understand her behaviour from arms length. Everyone else is in the web.

As with my brother and I, it would do your sanity good to accept that it's just 'the way things are'. You appear to me to be relentlessly trying to change current circumstance and past history and are working yourself into a frenzy in the process. As I said - with acceptance comes peace. For sure you can continue to engineer the various relationships within your family, but I see nobody winning at the end of the day. And a whole shit wagon of hurt, humiliation and pain being the result of your machinations.

While this is good advice on the surface, it sounds to me like the OP is doing what she needs to do to accept the situation. Most people don't want to just 'give up' on their parents and allow their relationship to fall by the wayside without trying to do anything to repair the things that they see as problematic in their set-up.

You may have accepted your situation, but the fact that you are reading malign intent into the OP's attempts to fix the fractures in her relationship with her family demonstrates that perhaps your approach swings a little too far the other way - accepting that your parents will treat your poorly may be the easiest option for you, but it's not for everyone and I don't think many people would find it easy, or even possible, to force themselves to abandon any hope of change without trying.

Your assertion that parents love their children no matter what may be how you cope with the inequality in your family, but it simply isn't true. Depressing and disappointing though that is for those of us who have had to accept the fact that someone we feel 'should' love us unconditionally does not (and doesn't even attempt to hide it), the fact that is not the case for many, many parents has to be acknowledged.

I think what it is about money is that it is easy to treat your DC the same financially - it's not always "fair" to dish out £ the same but it's not like love or affection that has very deep intangible motives.

SIL had the big wedding paid for DH got £200... 😂 and no we were worse off than SIL, they then moaned that we didn't host a big piss up 

@Sureyouwill Doesn't seem to realise that Queen's mom is very different to her. Sure is aware that her PND will have impacted her DC at some level and correctly understands that she needs to leave behind that guilt and move forward being a good enough parent to all her DC.

Queen's Mom has spent all these years punishing and blaming Queen and literally on occasions taking from her to give to sister. The person who the blame is being placed on in this family is Queen who in all of this was innocent DC like her sister. Hopefully now big sister wants out of being the "helpless toddler" things will change for the better.

I'm not sure I have come across a more nasty poster. Your obsession with this thread is quite odd. No one is forcing you to comment, you clearly dont like the OP.

Seriously starting to think you are the mum...

OP you're not different. There is a difference between 'we treated you differently because you are different people' and 'we treated you differently because you deserved less'.

I don’t understand the posters who don’t want to “indulge” op. Or who think the op dwelling on these issues is stopping her from moving on or dealing with her issues.
There’s been a lifetime of “conditioning” and that all has to be “undone”.
OP isn’t a machine who can get Over this.
I’m sure we would all like op to come back and say I’m happy, it’s all sorted etc but that’s not gunna happen anytime soon.
The mother is wrong.
She might have had undiagnosed and untreated PND but she must have had some sense of awareness that treating her children so differently was wrong.
I honk your doing well op and hopefully this thread is cathartic and helpful for you.

Honk=think

Waronpeace has very nicely shared her own experience and painted a picture of a possible future with your mother, I agree that that will likely be what comes next because the reality is you can't change her and she won't change (much) so your new normal is to decide how much your willing to deal with.

I said the next bit in my last post but I think it's worth repeating

The other stuff about how she treated you and your sister so differently and absolutely wouldn't take responsibility for that I'm not sure will ever be completely resolved. Her experience of pnd is what she will always fall to if pushed but if her attitude and treatment of you both change from now on then I'd be inclined to move forward tentatively with a relationship, but a newer, equal, healthier relationship

The important thing is though that you will never again allow yourself to be put in the position and hurt that was normal before. You have much more control and Imput in this relationship and if she tries to go back to previous bad treatment you'll stand up and reset the boundaries very quickly, and if that doesn't work you know you can step back from the entire relationship if you needed.

I think I’m going to have to accept that my relationship with my mom is always going to be tainted by the events of the last few months.

After 20+ years of her having set views about me and my sister and having assigned us into certain roles I just don’t see how she can suddenly switch those feelings/opinions off.

I’ve woken up this morning to a text message off my grandad (her dad) asking me to give him a call. We haven’t spoken since that argument we had over the phone so no doubt he’s after Round 2 in some form...

I wouldn't call back, he is a flying monkey.
You already know what he is going to say. everyone has indulged her actions so she is not accountable
Actions are actions however, the fact is, you were collateral damage, & have decided that you don't accept it any more

I'd take the initiative here: " Hi Granddad, lovely to hear from you! If you were calling to chat about Mum, I just wanted to let you know that she and I have sorted things out and drawn a line under it, so no need to discuss further. Thanks for understanding, speak soon xxx"

Even if/when he shows it to her, you're not saying anything that's untrue or unreasonable, and are elevating yourself above gossip. Win/win.

I think Contress makes a hood suggestion. As at some point this will rear it's ugly head I would think of a few statements to shut others/the conversation down.

I have been hurting my whole life being treated lesser than DSIS in every way but it's between Mum and I

If you think it's about money then you really don't understand/haven't heard the full story but let's leave it there as it's between Mum and me.

PND doesn't make it ok to treat one child favourably in every way to the expense of the other their whole lives, that's favouritism and it's not ok, but this is between me an Mum so let's leave it there.

In my experience, so far, in order to maintain your own dignity but not start off recurring dramas, you do need to have a sort of statement ready as random says above. You defend yourself but don’t ask for them to agree with you or even understand you. Stick to facts and stick to boundaries. Your grandfather has no business really asking you to call, because it’s putting you on the back foot again. Text back, don’t call back, and don’t get suckered into their narrative and back where they want you to be. Be firm, calm, and distant if need be.

The statements have to be closed ended. As we’ve sort of established with your situation, like mine, you get nowhere with probing into the whys and wherefores of it all. They all go into hysterical self-defence mode and you somehow end up as the bad guy, and they feel vindicated - which will just fuel your frustration and anger. Don’t ask any of the flying monkeys open questions about their opinions on any of it. None of this “but don’t you think that what she did was....” because they’re in the web, and to admit that your mum is in the wrong, means admitting that they are complicit. They won’t do it, and so will join forces with her.

.

I don't know if you've phoned your grandad back but IMO I don't think you have anything to lose by phoning him...don't forget you can always hang up if he starts ranting at you or talking shite.

Best of luck @QueenofmyPrinces

I did my phone my grandad back last night and he actually apologised for what he’d said to me when we last spoke.

He told me that he’d had a good talk with my mom about what had been going on and she made him realise that what he’d said was based on half facts and that actually it was a lot more complicated than what he had thought.

He said that my mom hadn’t wanted to go into details about the complexities of what was going on between us all but just said that he should apologise as she didn’t want any more ill feeling within the family.

My grandad is an extremely stubborn man so his apology completely took me aback. At one point I felt like he was trying to draw information out of me about the fall-out but I wouldn’t let myself get drawn into it and said I would rather just draw a line under it all. I thanked him for his apology though and the phone call ended on good terms.

Wow, that sounds promising Queen

Hopefully that although your Mom doesn't quite get it/want to accept responsibility she does understand and admit enough.

I really hope that over time things just carry on improving.

I’m glad that call with your grandad went well. It does seem that your DM is trying. The relationship may never be perfect but it may reach a point where you can all rub along and still be in regular contact without friction and awkwardness.

Well done OP I’ve only just caught up with your updates. Glad things are going better for you

I just have to work out whether I’m happy to live like that and whether I’m prepared to accept that that’s all I’m worth.

OP your worth is not based on your mother's love. Yes, maybe she loves your sister more, though I am not so sure, reading the detail you have given; I think she find's it easier to love your sister (her own problems, not anything to do with you). She may or may not be correcting a guilt she feels inside towards you and she may be saying inside herself, look actually I can do this right, even if I fucked up the first time.I have a few kids, I love them all, but mistakes I made with the first were corrected for by the second and so on and so on. You can't and won't get an answer that satisfies you and you have to find a way past it. Even if she came to you tomorrow and said I love you, I have always loved you; after years of feeling as you do, it will not fill the hole. You have been given some good advice in recent messages, take it.

Well I’m now officially done.

A few days ago I really needed some help from my mom and she wouldn’t give it despite knowing how much it would mean to me.

There was a course that I’d been booked onto for about 2 months which was very important to me and would open up the doors to me being able to do something I really care about, but the night before I had to attend the enrolment session my childcare let me down and said they could no longer look after my youngest whilst I attended.

As a result I went to see my mom and I asked her if she could please, please watch my youngest for 2.5 hours the next afternoon so I could attend the session (she already knew about the course and what it meant to me etc) but she said no as she was taking my eldest niece out for a nice meal and then to get her ears pierced.

I told her that I knew it was a last minute ask but if I didn’t have anyone to look after my youngest I couldn’t attend the initial session and if I didn’t do that I would not be able to enrol onto the rest of the course. She said sorry but no as she didn’t want to let my niece down.

I got really angry and told her that she knew how much this course meant to me and where it could lead to in terms of my career so why couldn’t she just take my niece to get her ears done another day?! She said she understood my predicament but that my niece was excited and she didn’t want to let her down.

I was so, so, so angry and upset that I just stormed out.

As a result my husband had to take the day off work to enable me to go on this session.

I know my mom is under no obligation to help me and she was well within her rights to say no but it still really, really hurt that she did.

All I wanted was her help for three hours so I could do something incredibly important to me but she wouldn’t do it.

It feels like absolutely nothing has changed.

I have to agree, she didn't even consider it, I would be so hurt too