Feeling quite upset, mother thinks im being unreasonable.

[aibubrotherandsisterinlaw]

Backstory: My mother is a compulsive liar and a narcissist although as she is now elderly and my mother we still keep in contact. My mother and father split up years and years ago however before they split up I caught my dad having an affair which I kept to myself for a very long time but like all family secrets it came out eventually through someone else but I also agreed it had happened. My brother seems to have taken exception to this and every christmas/easter/birthday or anytime he has a few drinks he brings it up but calls me a liar and says it never happened. I am of the opinion that continuing to ask the same question and look for a different answer is a totally pointless thing to do but he does it. ALL THE TIME. Most recently xmas last year and then again my birthday in July. We have always talked about it when he is sober but I am tired of it and it came to a head last month and I begged my dad to come clean and stop making me out to be a liar and I was assured this had happened however when I asked my brother about it I got a load of abuse and was blocked on social media and his phone etc. Under current restrictions he lives too far from me to go to the house to contact him.

So today, my mother rings me with the great news that my brother and sister in law are going to have a baby. They have been trying for a long time and this would be the first other baby in the family bar mine. She says he rang her and stepdad second after contacting SIL family and then my father and apparently put it up on instagram after that. I got so upset that my brother or SIL did not have the decency to tell me themselves and that I had to find out through a third party today - most notably the woman who has pitted us against each other all of our lives (im her scapegoat child, he is her golden child) and my mother of course started a fight with me telling me I have no right to feel hurt or humiliated and that I need to just suck it up. My heart breaks in all this because I get on really well with SIL and aside from the drunken rants from my brother we are very close so I feel I am the last to know and that really does upset me. So - have I a right to be upset or not? I cannot help my emotions but I just want to know if I am being overly sensitive to the situation? For context when I had my child my brother was the first person I told - even before the childs father and my brother is my childs godfather too.

I would have just sent a text. Maybe we are a detached family though. We all care about each other, but don't have big expectations of each other and just get on with things so we don't fall out often. Maybe that approach would work better for you? Sounds like your mum is behind all the drama and I would just leave her to it and avoid your brother when he drinks.

You are taking finding out through someone else too personally. Pregnancy is knackering, so SIL may have been preoccupied with just coping with symptoms etc, and it probably didn't click with your brother to tell you until you visited in person. People who are on SM tend to think their posts are broadcast to the world and everyone knows once the post is up. I have the issue of knowing nothing about this sort of thing as I'm not on any facebook, twitter etc, but people assume I know because they have announced their news on them.

Sorry to only come back to this now but I had a lot of processing to do along with working and parenting and normal life really.

@Oliversmumsarmy the person was my mums sister. She had the affair with my dad and apparently my mum knew but everyone kept it quiet until my aunt died and decided to admit it on her death bed so basically it would have been dad who is alive against aunt who is dead and dad could have manipulated himself out of it only I and another couple of people came out and said actually no, we witnessed this. It all has been quite painful for me as not only the child to have seen this and then been made out to sound crazy for it but now as an adult being made out to be some kind of liar and stirrer because of it.

@AIMD they treat my child fine but in the event of my death he does not go to any of them. He will go to my best friend and this has already been signed and sealed as she is the only one I feel that will raise him the way I want him raised but shes also the only one that knows the real me and would tell him nice stories etc about me if that did happen. Shes been my rock since we were kids and also witnessed what my dad and aunt did over the years.

@Griefmonster I have ordered that book so thank you for that.

@Longtalljosie valid point. I never seem to get angry at him and have always made excuses as he is my younger brother but the past couple of days I have started to see that I am a scapegoat for his anger. We were once very close, super close and it seemed like overnight we were not but I have clung to it as without him I only have our parents who are basically liars and manipulators.

@Facelikearustytractor Yes my mum is behind it all. Even since then she has called me every day at least twice and every day has tried to bring me into an argument. She of course now can discard me for a bit because she has a new grandchild to concentrate on and everything out of her mouth is 'your brother says, your brother feels, I can understand where your brother is coming from' thus putting me in my place, letting me know he comes first and minimising my feelings. Again.

Thanks again for the responses, some really have resonated with me. I have taken today off work and now my child has gone off to school so I have a doctors appointment this morning and think I need to go back on sertraline which is something i needed some years ago. I have decided to not answer the phone to my mum for at least a week till the meds have kicked in and until i have read the book that was advised on this thread to get and try and sort out ME this time. I need to stop this people making me feel like I need their validation. I really do not.

Thanks to you all for taking time to respond. I do appreciate it. x

I'm glad you are seeing the situation more clearly now.

Yes to prioritising yourself and establishing that you don't need their validation anymore. Coming from a toxic/unhealthy family makes things very tough.

Take care of yourself

I think probably for a long time you had a certain idea of how your family was and tried to keep up your end of keeping the family going when it is a fractured family.

Your brother and mother in one place, your father in another and you trying to keep everyone together.

I think you are coming to the realisation that if you took yourself out of the picture then you wouldn’t be missed apart from then having no one to be able to make the scapegoat of the family.

More than likely your father would be next on the list of blame and then your SIL.

This type of dynamics need someone as a scapegoat.

@RandomMess Yes its hard to put myself first but I need to do it. I also re read this article again. I know in my heart that my mum can never change. I also know she has every trait of a narcissist but then something happens and all is calm and I relax again which is silly but when all you want is a normal family you do anything to find that. This article is something I have had to read over and over the past few years just to remind myself just how toxic she is but I am starting to see a few traits of gaslighting in my brother too.
www.psychologytoday.com/ie/blog/communication-success/201707/6-common-traits-narcissists-and-gaslighters?fbclid=IwAR2uSmxa2faS14MV3UMAosj66q2cMde3-Quclb-LB3Fo8ePKWnS70jEbpH4

@Oliversmumsarmy yes that is it. I know I am on the periphery and always wanted to be on the inside. It is so hard to be on the outside always looking in but I need to resign myself to the fact that I will never be in their inner circle and I need to remove myself and my son from that. We have terrific friends. I cannot see them under current restrictions but they are always there for both of us and I need to concentrate on that now and let my family to themselves. I feel positive today, no doubt by the end of the day I will be a crying, crumbling mess and I know it will take time but you know what, I have nothing but time right now so soul searching and grey rock right now will have to be my allies.

I got sent a pm directing me to other threads on the topic of narcissistic behaviour in families so going to gorge myself on them for the next while. This thread, while put up when I really was in the pit of my own sadness, really has come to help me in an invaluable way.