This is a long one, but I’m really struggling with the type of relationship I’m comfortable with between my parents, specifically my mum, and my son.
For context, I grew up in a very conflict heavy and stressful household. There was physical violence from my mum to my dad, emotional abuse and manipulation from my mum to me, awful levels of parentification (she told me when I was 11 she thought my dad was having an affair. He wasn’t. When I cried and told him she then blamed me for the subsequent fights. I was 11). My Dad also had his issues (his own dad was a violent alcoholic and whilst he never drank or raised his hands, he could fly off the handle easily) but he’s been able to take responsibly and apologise for some of the things that happened. My mum never has. I’m convinced she could be diagnosed with some kind of personality disorder. On top of that, she painted this picture perfect life to the world. She remains a respected professional, her and my Dad are married, and she speaks as though we’re super close. It’s all for appearances and growing up it was like a double life.
Anyway, after years of therapy, I felt like I had got to a point I could accept my mum for who she is, and move on. Until I had my son at 32. He’s now 16 months and the strength of feelings and resentments it’s thrown up towards my own childhood has been wild. I look at him and wonder how could she have put us through some of it.
So now, age has mellowed them
to a point (although not entirely, they both still have huge fights on a semi regular basis) and they want a close relationship with my son. But I have this overwhelming urge to protect him from them. Then I have guilt, because they probably would be great to him. I doubt he would ever see the side of them I know is there. But every single time my mum says something to criticise my parenting, or dismiss my thoughts, I fly off the handle. It’s like being a teenager again. It makes me physically shudder when she plays the role of doting Gran, and tells my son how much she loves him. I feel like it’s all an act and my skin crawls.
But she does love him. And she does love me in her own warped way. And she hates how at arms length I keep her, but whenever we have any real discussions about the past, where we really could develop some closeness, she dismisses me. It’s like her ego can’t handle hearing she’s less than perfect, because she really likes to think she is. They want to be pseudo parents to my son (they’ve said as much) and often say ‘we’re the grandparents’ to justify trying to overstep my husband’s parenting etc. She’s also ‘joked’ about getting my son to move in with them. It makes me
so wary.
I’m good at boundaries and do set them but I feel constantly awful that it can’t be different.
I’m all over the place with how to move forward. Even my therapist seems a bit at an impasse. Has anyone else ever been in a similar situation? What did you do? Is it possible to facilitate a positive relationship between them when mine has never healed? Am I being a terrible Mum by keeping them at arms length?