To be confused and upset about this situation with my family and Christmas presents

[Macnabber]

I have a really distant relationship with my parents. My mum had a drinking problem when i grew up and was very violent and unpredictable. I was the oldest so bore the brunt of it. Have some terrible memories including her trying to smash my bedroom door down with a knife, waking up to see her cutting up my favourite dress with scissors. She hit me a lot. Really awful things.

Fast forward 40 years and i talk to her and we have a semblance of an ok if distant relationship. She doesn't ever visit me (2 hours away). She doesn't drink any more.

My younger sister has a drink problem and some mental health issues, as do my brothers. I've spent many years looking after them and supporting them. For the last 20 years I've been married to my dh and have two fab kids. I have a lovely home life with no arguments and a calm and loving atmosphere.

This year my sister has hit rock bottom and I've spent many hours helping her to sort her life and find some temporary accommodation for her and her dd.

This is all background to the problem i have. We are quite strapped for cash this Christmas as one of our dcs has gone to uni and its been expensive among other things and I spoke to my mum and said would she mind if we only did presents for the kids this year not adults. She seemed fine about it. I have bought my niece and nephews nice presents but nothing for adults.

Yesterday I got a Christmas card in the post from my parents with no messge, just their names. Nothing for the dcs, so clearly making a point. Then tonight my brother rang me and said he wanted to discuss how much i had upset my parents by not buying them anything for Christmas. He said they "lived" for presents from me and I'd ruined their Christmas.

I'm afraid to say i put the phone down on him.

He's since texted me quite nasty texts.

I'm 54! Please someone tell me IABU? I know it's impossible to get all the detail across. I sometimes wish I could cut myself off from my parents and siblings as they never add anything positive to my lives and are obsessed with the fact that we have money and a happy life.

Eagle please do as your DF said, can you make him something nice ?

OP go to Stately Homes x

YANBU at all!

If I were you I would actually remove them from my life. I have done so with my own mother, she brings nothing positive to my life and the only reason that I tried to maintain our relationship for so long was because I couldn't accept that she would never be the person I wanted (and for a long time, needed) her to be. All the hope in the world can't change people.

Let them go if you need to and give yourself permission to not feel guilty about it, keep only those around you who bring you happiness and add value to your life.

No contact. Love them from a distance from now on.
Very toxic family.
I had to do the same with my family.
It's amazing how peaceful my life is now.

You can cut them off. They use and abuse you as they feel. You really, really don't have to have a relationship with any of them. Relationships should bring you joy, not stress and anguish.

If you need permission to cut them all off op, you have mine!

OP my mother was a daughter of a family with an alcoholic dad. She died of cancer at 43 but gave us a fantastic childhood, was very emotionally mature and was a Head teacher of a primary school. Since she has died I have put two and two together over the years to make sense of her and her siblings relationships. I am 51 and she died when I was 13 so I still find I am discovering insights years later!

Basically she was the Golden Child in a dysfunctional family. She had an older sister and two younger brothers. The Golden Child’s role is through their stability and functionality to show to the world that the family is OK. Like you, my mum gave a lot of emotional support to her older sister who I remember clearly criticizing and berating my mother. It’s almost as if the family system put her in the role of parent.

I see a lot of the same patterns in your story. The rest of the family were also very interested in how much my parents earned and had a constant mixture of pride and resentment that she had managed to live such a highly functional life. It was very rare that they gave my mother any kind of help, even though she frequently supported them, and after she died they didn’t reach out to me or give me any kind of meaningful emotional support - in fact even as a teen my aunt seemed to think I should help HER cope with her grief rather than support me.

It is often emphasized in literature that the Golden Child is a favorite of one of the parents (my mum was her dad’s favorite). However, I’m not sure if that’s always the case. I could see the oldest child (like yourself) stepping in as a parent figure.

If you have heard of being in the FOG : Fear, Obligation and Guilt this is how dysfunctional people/families emotionally manipulate family members. Unfortunately your expectations are totally reasonable but your family of origin is clearly not as functional as the one you have created for yourself.

I would try your best to keep your expectations at zero. If you don’t expect anything they can’t hurt you. Don’t give huge explanations for your behavior just say simply, “We can’t afford to buy gifts for anyone except the children this year”. For what it’s worth I have 3 teens, my eldest also just went to Uni and I would NEVER send them passive aggressive notes or expect gifts from them.

The fact is, you are more emotionally mature than them. I would distance yourself and go low or no contact. You are under no obligation to suffer because of problems they have, especially if they don’t thank you and are cruel and unkind. Put yourself, your well-being and your husband and children first.

Fuck that mind games, guilt trip bollocks right off OP. Can you ignore your brother and the parents’ tantrum and have a good Christmas with your family. You owe your parents nothing in this scenario.

@ihatethecold did you mean “ Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents” - just wanted to check it was the right one as I’d be interested to read that

OP YANBU - It took me a long time to extricate from my family dynamics and I had a lot of counselling. However I found that I had to do it in stages. As you said, you may need to go back for my counselling. Best wishes for the future

My = more

@NotSorry
Yes that’s the book,
Adult children of emotionally immature parents.
Absolute eye opener of a book.

It didn’t just help me recognise their behaviour but also see mine.
I could also see other family members actions and personalities in the book.

I can’t stress how useful this book was for me.
How I was always available to help, fix, rescue and wasn’t looking after my own needs.

Omg thank you all so much for your replies. They've made me feel quite teary and not one AIBU reply saying I'm awful.

The book sounds good and I will order it. I definitely need to go back to counselling but not sure where to go and can't really afford it atm but might have to make it a priority.

My brother called me again last night and I'm embarrassed to say I told him to fuck off, and put the phone down. I never use that kind of language so he then texted me to say the way I spoke to him was "fucking disgusting" (the irony) and "did I think that was ok"

I literally don't know what to think, so I've blocked his number.

You owe them nothing, and you have done so much.
Obviously when in the grip of her illness she was not fully in control of her actions, but you still should have been protected from the abuse. But now, she has absolutely no excuse for continuing to be a bitch and is nothing like a mother.

I think that's one if the hardest things to come to terms with hoho. When she was drinking it was easy to blame her behaviour on that. Now she's been sober for years but is still paranoid and bad tempered. She also has a thing where she is convinced she can see "through" people, even if someone is nice on the surface she can see the real them (which is always negative of course!). I think my siblings believe this.

It was an incredibly stressful way to grow up as she was completely irrational and had such terrifying outbursts. She seemingly hated me and made my life very difficult. I was a really clever child, properly clever, but she made life at home so difficult that I did badly in my A levels and went to a really poor uni. I did love it there and got a first but recently I've been dwelling on it a bit, presumably as my dd has just left for uni.

My brother called me again last night and I'm embarrassed to say I told him to fuck off, and put the phone down

Well done!

Just go NC with the twat.

You need to go no contact with all of them. They all sound abusive. The irony of your brothers text! Adults getting upset over presents drives me mad! In our family you stop buying for the kids once they’re over 18. It works.

yanbu

I know going nc is a big thing to do but in this case I’d seriously consider it. I hope you and your dh and dc have some lovely and peaceful time together this Christmas x

So you had an adult conversation with your mother explaining why you weren't buying presents this year. She appeared to accept it but has then passively aggressively displayed her true feelings in her Christmas card and by complaining to your siblings. The child never grows up does it and that's the problem.

I would be very grateful that you have been able to survive such an awful childhood and done the sensible thing by moving away. You are the lucky one, your siblings unfortunately are still enmeshed with her and at her beck and call. You definitely haven't done anything wrong. You will never change her. You can only stay detached as possible and ignore, ignore, ignore. Have a lovely Christmas.

As Helen Mirren said recently her only regret in life is not telling more people to fuck off. Go for it!

So you had an adult conversation with your mother explaining why you weren't buying presents this year. She appeared to accept it but has then passively aggressively displayed her true feelings in her Christmas card and by complaining to your siblings. The child never grows up does it and that's the problem

Yes, this is exactly what's happened. I'm so tired of carrying this around with me. It's like a big black cloud that's always there. It's just horrible.

You have done nothing wrong at all. You made a sensible decision based on your current financial circumstances.

Even without that sound reason for only buying for children, it is a sensible thing to do. There really is no point in adults accumulating stuff they really have no need of.

We have done this in our family for years. It simply makes sense.

I think you need to distance yourself from these toxic relations as much as possible.

And have a happy Christmas with your lovely children and OH.

Op I would gift you my copy of the book but its on my Kindle.

Please cut them off. They are toxic. You will feel so much better and relaxed when you have, trust me.

You really, really don't have to carry that black cloud anymore. Are you able to access some therapy? Do loads of reading about dysfunctional families, narcissism? Follow the stately homes thread? You can detach from this nonsense with a bit of help.

Yes financially its helped, but also I've had a really tough year, not only with my dsis (at one point thinking my niece would have to come and live with us) but one of my dcs has been very ill and in and out of hospital and money is a bit tight. As my mum is always difficult and critical about presents (one year when i was small i bought her a book about wine and she literally threw it in my face and cut my eye) I thought it would really help to not have to bother with it this year. I aleays before had bought her something from m and s with the receipt so she could take it back, which she always did.

I do have a dad btw but hes just a shadowy figure in the background!

What is the stately homes thread?