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

As you tell it, it sounds as if she got herself into a flap and was really worried about you and put two and two together and got twenty seven. Particulary if she didn't know you had moved. Without more information it does seem strange that you gave your brother your new address but not your parents. And what is the relevance of her using your neighbour's toilet? You have obviously to do what's best for you-but I do think you might have over reacted a bit...

I'm presuming op didn't give her mother the address because she knew she'd turn up even after being told not to come because they were busy and had plans for the weekend.
I'm sure op expected her mother to not actually be helpful if invited either.

Ops mum was probably enraged at not having the address and created an imaginary situation to emotionally manipulate her son into handing the address over and then decided to punish her daughter by embarrassing her, turning up, planting seeds of disparage over ops DH and making a scene infront of new neighbours.

Your mother is batshit op, people like that rarely change, maintain your boundary and possibly cut down visits with your flying monkey family friend.

I had told her that I was going away, so she did know that. Also, it wasn’t a couple of days, it was a few hours.

Disregard this person's opinion, it means nothing.
If you feel you would prefer ot to be in contact with your family, then follow your gut.
Your mother's behaviour was unhinged.

Listen carefully to your gut.
If you feel better not seeing them, follow that.

Thanks for this. I think sometimes I became so desensitised to this kind of behaviour I start thinking I’m overreacting. Family friend means well but I have purposefully not given her every detail as I don’t want to drive a wedge between her and DPs.

My mother always comes to my house when she knows I'm not going to be there. If I'm there I won't let her in but she knows the (now adult) kids will let her barge past. She was probably hoping the neighbours had a key so she could go in and have a good nose.

People who have normal parents don't understand. Keep lc, you know what they're like.

Sorry, I was trying not to make the post too long as there is a lot of backstory. DB helped us with the move so had our address. We didn’t want an unannounced visit whilst we were still trying to get situated but of course I was planning on giving them the address at some point.

It was for two or three hours.

You need help

How are so many people on the mother’s side? And claiming they’d be in a flap over a couple of hours without contact, even if they knew the other person had plans? If I can’t reach my mother, or vice versa, we assume the other is somewhere without signal, has lost charge or there’s something else up with their phone. If it went on for a couple of days we’d worry, but we’d probably be worried the other had lost their phone. At worst, we might wonder if there had been a car accident or something. We certainly wouldn’t jump to the other being murdered by a spouse without a history of domestic violence, then go over to spew this batshit theory to all the neighbours.

You’ve done nothing wrong, OP, clearly your mother has behaved shockingly and her reaction to not being able to reach you for a couple of hours clearly demonstrates why you have the boundaries you do. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if you said she pulls crap like this whenever you have a special occasion, in order to make it all about her. No wonder you didn’t tell her your address - you just wanted to organise your lovely new home in peace, without any drama. Some people don’t understand how toxic relationships can be if they’ve never experienced it.

I mean she sounds ridiculous, but I wouldn't have cut contact over it. I also think it's a bit odd for your family not to have your address even if you're just moving in. On its own it wouldn't have been a huge deal, a chat with the neighbours, an eye roll 'my bloody mother' etc and no harm done.
Depends what else is in the backstory though

There’s an awful lot of history and the post would’ve been a novel if I included everything. In terms of the move, I’d sent pictures of the new house, been updating on decorating, etc. DM will sometimes be full on with long phone calls and text messages and then I won’t hear from her for days/weeks/until I get in touch.

I didn’t ask family friend for opinion. She only knows we’re not in contact because there was a significant family celebration and my parents weren’t there, so I had explained why very briefly.

I don't think you can understand this is you haven't lived it. My MIL used to do things like this, she was a complete fucking nutcase. Extremely controlling of DH and just all round emotionally abusive.

They weren’t kept in the dark and that was very much the message I sent at the time. The only thing I didn’t tell them was the address.

It’s only strange not to give your parents your address if you have a healthy, functional relationship.
I have read the OP twice to make sure I got it.
No address given to parents initially to avoid unannounced visits.
Informed you would be away for a short trip, your phone was out of signal for a few hours.
This then propels a mother to procure the new address, go round there, make an absolute scene and get the neighbours involved.
If DM was that concerned why not ring the police?
This is my own personal take. She was furious about the lack of address and few hours of no contact because it leaves her with a sense of no control.
No respect at all for the OP’s new home life by disturbing neighbours she hadn’t met.
Causing drama over DV that doesn’t exist to harm a relationship.
There is absolutely no real concern or care here for the OP who is a grown adult and looks like she needed a bit of space.
The concerned family friend is listening to the ‘woe is me’ story of the DM and of course just wants to help.
My advice is to make the best life for yourself in your new home and go NC.
It doesn’t feel like a ‘nice’ thing to do at times, but trying to set any kind of boundary at this stage would feel
like a waste of time to me.

The number of posters coming on all faux confused about why the OP didn't give her mum her new address when the OP's mother's behaviour is a perfect example of why she didn't. Some people don't behave normally. Trying to put boundaries in place to manage their behaviour is advisable, but it will likely trigger escalating behaviour as OP describes in her OP.

Because they really,really don't get it. They have no experience of living with a crap parent, or abusive one, or a narcissistic one, one with poor boundaries, one that doesn't give a shit about their wants and needs.

So they make up crap and pretend the info isn't there and go through all kinds of mental gymnastics to justify batshit behaviour because "it's your mum". 🙄

You don't give your own parents your address when you moved as you didn't want visitors?

You're all as bad as each other probably

I’d been in a horrible marriage before and put an end to it after a relatively short time so she knows I’d be unlikely to tolerate abuse. My DH has/had absolutely zero red flags or behaviours that would make her think he would behave abusively. There have been many previous incidents where I have been ignored if I’ve set boundaries. There have also been more since then.
We hadn’t been moved in that long but DH’s friend is an electrician so set up cameras. I hadn’t specifically told DB not to give our address but he knows what our childhood was like and he did felt pressured to give it as DM had called him very upset.

Yeah that’s fair enough, can totally understand you not wanting to turn it into a TLDR post. Sounds like a massive overreaction on her behalf then.

That extra context around the friend helps, you can choose whether or not to take on board their feedback in that case. Personally I wouldn’t.

I’ve suspected narcissism for some time but think there may be other MH at play as her moods are very extreme. I’ve always felt like an extension not a real person in her eyes. It hasn’t been an easy decision and even though I decided NC I have caved and replied to a couple of texts. It’s so difficult.

Anyone AT ALL who defends the mother here, and doesn’t get the daughter, just doesn’t get it. This IS NOT A NORMAL MOTHER. Whoppee for all you people with normal mothers. Of course, you’d give them your address. Of course, you’re probably ‘as bad as ‘ your mum if something like this happens.

No. When you have a narcissist for a mother, the rules are entirely different. In fact, there are no rules. It is utterly devastating to be the child of a personality disordered parent. You question everything since deep down you really want your mum to be normal, so you blame yourself if things go wrong.

Took me until my late 30s to understand what my own mum was up to. To understand narcissism. And it took having a child to see how very very very different I parent my children.

No, it’s not normal to not give your mother your address. But there was a very good reason why the op didn’t. And when she didn’t, oh look, mummy turns up at her new place, and bothers all the neighbours, showing the neighbours what a very caring mum she is, and beautifully helping to raise their eyebrows about the daughter and her relationship. Mummy also disrupted the birthday celebrations for father in law, drawing attention to herself and questioning daughters husbands suitability among his family,

But hey, mummy only did all this because she cares. What a bitch.

It absolutely wasn’t the start of it. Not giving the address until we were ready to host them was one of the boundaries I’d decided on. I didn’t want an unexpected visit whilst we were trying to get settled in.

YANBU. In addition to which, your friend has no right to tell you what to do re your family. Just do what is best for you - it is nobody else's business (and I happen to think you are completely correct).

That’s the way I saw it. I also felt terrible for DH because she’d implied to neighbours that he was unsafe. Luckily they then got to know him and realised how lovely he is. I did wonder if she was trying to drive a wedge between us. My previous marriage was awful so she’d stayed my ‘support system’ and I was forced to move back in with them temporarily when it crashed and burned. However DH is very stable and supportive and our relationship is very healthy. It became apparent early on that I wasn’t willing to put my husband down and I shut down any conversation where she seemed to be encouraging me to be negative about him, so I think she was scared I would ‘need her’/be dependant on her.