To think this isn’t normal behaviour

[FlannelCure]

NC for this one. I am currently low contact with DP’s due to difficult childhood and constant overstepping of boundaries as an adult. I spoke to a close family friend yesterday who knows that I’m not in contact with DPs but not all of the details. She said that I need to try again to have a relationship with them but keep being firm with boundaries.

I’ve now started to doubt my decision to keep them at arms length. I’ve been replaying all of the incidents in my head that have led to this and there’s one that stands out to me as proof that they won’t accept boundaries but now I’m wondering if I’ve blown it out of proportion, so wanted some opinions on it.

Several years ago DH and I had recently bought our first house together and hadn’t given DPs the address as we were still decorating/unpacking and didn’t want unannounced visits. I had told DM that this particular weekend we were going out of town to celebrate FIL’s birthday so wouldn’t be available. For FIL’s birthday we went to a country pub that had poor signal. During dinner my phone connected and I saw that I had lots of missed calls from DM. I thought there had been an emergency so excused myself to find better signal and called her back. She was hysterical saying she thought something had happened to me, that DH (although we weren’t married at that point) had done something to me. I then got alerts from our home cameras and realised she was outside my house. I asked her about this and she said she’d got the address from DB and gone there in case I was in danger. I assured her I was fine, calmed her down and went back to dinner.

When we got home we watched the footage of DM running around the house, peering through the windows. It also transpired that she’d been to talk to our new neighbours to ask if they’d seen us or heard anything. She also used one of their bathrooms. We were very embarrassed and went round to apologise once we realised. DM was adamant she’d done nothing wrong and, when I spoke to her again, she just kept saying she had a bad feeling and thought DH had done something to me. For context, DH has never and would never hurt me and I’d never spoken to DM about us having so much as a minor argument, so have no idea where that had come from. DH was unnerved and asked what I thought would’ve happened if he’d actually been at home on his own when she showed up? I had no answer to that.

There have been lots of issues since then but for me this was the tipping point where I started to pull back.

YABU - DM was doing the right thing as she thought I was in danger

YANBU - It was a massive breach of boundaries, and pretty bizarre behaviour

Nope i dont think she overstepped. I think its a normal thing for any parent if suddenly they can't get hold of you to be worried

I would go to my daughters house if was worried and couldnt get hold of you for a couple of days. And i was unaware youd gone away. You could have had an accident or something

Nope i dont think she overstepped. I think its a normal thing for any parent if suddenly they can't get hold of you to be worried

I would go to my daughters house if was worried and couldnt get hold of you for a couple of days. And i was unaware youd gone away. You could have had an accident or something

I spoke to a close family friend yesterday who knows that I’m not in contact with DPs but not all of the details. She said that I need to try again to have a relationship with them but keep being firm with boundaries

Your ‘close family friend’ needs to mind her own fucking business.

It’s ironic that your friend is telling you to ‘be firm with boundaries’ because she’s obviously not respecting the perfectly valid boundary you’ve already put in place by stopping contact with your parents.

Your decision to stop contact with your parents was clearly not made lightly - it happened after years of them making things difficult for you. Staying in contact with them while ‘just being firm with boundaries’ wasn’t an option because your parents simply ignore the boundaries you put in place - the fact that your mother lost the plot when you went out for a meal, accuses your DH of hurting you and got hold of your address when you hadn’t given it to her, while staring into your home and pestering your neighbours, is a very good example of that.

Your mother is, frankly, nuts. Her behaviour is obsessive, hysterical and possessive and that isn’t going to change. You are absolutely right to have made the decision to stop seeing her and your ‘family friend’ needs to fuck right off and stop poking her nose into your personal relationships.

I wished I had gone NC with my awful parents.
They are dead now but caused me so much grief.
My mother was a narc and my father an abusive bully.
They had no boundaries.

After being nc for 10 years I contacted dm. Had hoped she had something in exh I could use on a nasty court case... She didn't but we fumbled through 2 years trying to form a relationship.. It didn't work. Been nc for 12 years this time and will stay nc... Stay away is my advice. They really don't change.

Did you actually read the OP’s post?

She had TOLD her mother that she was going away and wouldn’t be available.

I also think that it isn’t actually remotely normal for a parent to keep tabs on the whereabouts of their adult children at all times and expect to be able to speak to them on demand whenever they want to. DP speaks to his mum about once a week. If she calls and he doesn’t answer, she doesn’t have conniptions because she ‘can’t get hold of him’ or decide that I must have murdered him. She simply thinks ‘I expect he’s busy or they’ve gone away for the weekend’ . Because he’s an adult with his own life and his own relationship and she doesn’t feel the need to know where he is and what he’s doing at all times.

OP, only you know the whole background of your relationship with your mum, so we can only say how we'd feel if our mums had done what your mum did. If all's comfortable in a relationship then what she did might be totally ok - if there are already issues, then it might be utterly inappropriate. I'd say, if it didn't feel good to you and your DH at the time then it was not good and you don't need to question that now. The passing of time blurs the reality and things look different in hindsight.

Likewise, you friend is probably saying you should give things another go with your mum because she's judging your experience by her own. People who have uncomplicated relationships with their mums will often say, 'Ah, but your mum's you mum and the only one you've got'. They don't understand.

You know your boundaries. Nobody else understands like you (and perhaps your DH). Some people only bring grief and hard work and low contact is a good balance.

Me too! Why wouldn’t she give her mother her address. Very odd

The first element that’s a bit difficult to understand is moving and giving brother but not parents address details. The backstory is missing.

It’s certainly true that if OP said she’d be in a situation where she wouldn’t be contactable that her mother should have remembered that. Looks like she didn’t or did she use the situation. It’s difficult to know

Who said ops parents were unaware... the post says she told her mum she's going away to celebrate a bday.

It's odd that you didn't give her your new address - but if she has history of overstepping then I can see you might want a bit of space to sort things out before she comes round.

That example does seem a bit extreme of her.

Only you know how she makes you feel. If you are happy at keeping them at arms length, then carry on.

I'm a bit confused about how long you were uncontactable for? Was it just for the duration of the meal or was it for the whole weekend?

This is spot on. No one else can really know what it’s like unless they’ve lived with parents that don’t act like parents. It’s awful when people say “your mum’s your mum etc” because they have no idea that there’s people out there that just aren’t a mum. There’s more to being a mum than giving birth.

Except you would've known, because your daughter told you she was away celebrating a birthday.

had told DM that this particular weekend we were going out of town to celebrate FIL’s birthday so wouldn’t be available.

It's right in the OP.

Do you instantly assume that your child's spouse has murdered them in a fit of rage because they've told you they're going away for the weekend and haven't answered their phone? And then screech down the phone at your other child to force them to disclose the new address so you can go and try to force entry/tell all the new neighbours that you're convinced the spouse has beaten her to death/strangled her (as that's what she would have meant - and the neighbours would think when she was giving her reasons for acting like that) and it's all so awful, you just know something terrible's happened? Had the OP not called back, she'd have been sure to call the Police, I reckon - and therefore wasting police time on a non-existent crime, just because she wasn't able to monitor or control the OP for a couple of days.

It's completely ridiculous where there isn't a history of domestic violence - and would probably make things worse if there were such a history.

There’s not really enough information here to determine anything. How long had you been out of touch before the move? Had she not heard from you in a while and put two and two together and thought that maybe there wasn’t a house move at all, that something had happened to you or there was coercive control at play? I think I would have given the address but made it clear that we would invite them around once we were moved in and felt comfortable. But that’s just me, I don’t know your circumstances and you did what you felt was right for you. Could have all just been a misunderstanding/overreaction or could have been crossing boundaries. To the PP who said your close friend needs to butt out, presumably you asked for their input on the situation and they have known you (and the background circumstances) for a long time? My best friend regularly asks me for feedback on her situation with her mother which I give her openly and honestly - it’s what friends do. Different if your friend is volunteering her opinion unsolicited of course.

If the friend who told you she thinks you should reconsider your decision is a " family" friend she is not unbiased. You say she doesn't know all the details of the reason you are nc from your side but she will probably have heard your DPs version of events. So the advice she is giving is probably with their interests at heart, not yours.

The decision to go nc with your dps is not taken lightly. I echo what a couple of pp have said. I wish with all my heart I had gone nc with my family in my 20s but i let the negativity of my relationshipwith them skew my life until they died. I felt nothing but relief when when my dps died.

I am nc with the remainder of my family. I miss my sister but it is the idea of having a sister that I miss because in the past when I have relented and got in contact with her again the reality of the relationship soon hits home and I realise once again my family only cause me pain.

You know the reasons why you are nc. You do what is best for you. No one should be trying to persuade you other wise.

People have different thresholds for what they are prepared to tolerate. Your family member doesn't have or need all the details. You seem to have been quite comfortable with your decision until your family member chipped in.

Your firm boundaries don't appear to have worked in the past so why would they work now? If LC works for you then stick to it and do not be influenced by people who will not have to deal with the consequences of you trying to maintain a closer relationship with appropriate boundaries with your parents.

"Hi Mum. We've just moved house and will be hunkered down decorating etc. for a few days and then we would be happy to see you here. We are looking forward to showing off our new home when we are sorted."

That would have been polite and would have stopped all this happening. Your Mum's reaction was OTT, but the situation need not have arisen at all.

Heaven knows my upbringing was difficult enough, but I would not have kept parents in the dark over a house move.

Ignore your friend OP, the vast majority of people who have good,healthy relationships with their parents can't even begin to imagine the shitshow that some of us lived.

They see all (no matter how many) incidents as one singular issue , that's a bit quirky and "aww bless" and "she's your mum" through their lens of healthy,loving,respectful relationships. When for you it's the cherry on a 7 tiered shit cake.

Why do you assume there was no communication? OP just says she didn't give them the address. She also says she communicated that they would be out of touch for the weekend for FIL's birthday celebration. Her mum KNEW she was away. Wtf did she think she would find at the house?

I think there needs to be a bit more context. Just this one example could be construed different ways. Is it possible pre marriage she may genuinely have thought you were being isolated from her and had legitimate (in her mind) concerns? You describe it as the tipping point so I'm assuming there had already been many previous incidents so my following questions will probably be irrelevant but what was the reason you gave other people the address but didn't tell her? Did your brother know that you were keeping the address from her? I'm slso unclear how you were still unpacking but already had a fully functional CCTV system, perhaps that's not that odd though I don't know if previous owners leave them behind?

OP - people whose families are normal will not understand what it’s like to have a parent like this.

I get it. My mum was the same. A small thing would be blown up into a huge thing. She would immediately jump to ridiculous conclusions because of her own anxieties and insecurities. She would make bizarre and unfounded accusations, get hysterical, etc. it is utterly exhausting to have a parent behave like this.

Ultimately you did what you needed to do in order to protect yourself from your mother, who sounds very mentally unwell. It’s never just one incident leads to NC, but MANY. I’m sure you have countless other experiences that you could fill this thread with! But that’s irrelevant.

You took steps to protect yourself. Don’t feel guilty for doing that, and don’t pay any attention to the opinions of others such as your friend - they clearly don’t understand the dynamic and the dysfunction of your family.

Learn to trust yourself more and let go of the guilt. You have nothing to feel guilty about.

This
I had great parents.
But mil total different story.
Dh was lc and sil nc.
And I could totally see why.

Just trying to play devil's advocate here.

Maybe because your mother hadn't been given your address she thought something was going to happen to you - no idea why, bit irrational. Did you call her to tell her about the FIL birthday or just text/WhatsApp her. If you didn't physically talk to her she might have thought your DH had sent the text

Personally I can't understand why you didn't give her your new address, I know it was only for a short while but I would find that hurtful but hey that's just me