What on earth is my mother doing??

[Hummingbird75]

For context I am an the adult child of an abusive father, the kind MN would always say LTB.

My father would tell us regularly he hated children, and couldn't stand us and spent most of my childhood hitting and abusing me physically and mentally. Being told he did not love me was far worse than anything he did with his fists as a child. It was devastating. He barely spoke to me when he wasn't losing his temper.

He abused my mother for years in a controlling way but stopped physically assaulting her when he started taking his temper out on us. My mother always said she would leave him, and she had many options to do so, but never did. I grew up desperate for his love and approval initially, to be even noticed enough for him to talk to me. It never happened.

Once I reached adulthood, I realised my 'normal' childhood was not normal at all, and over the years my father and I have been low contact. I remained close to my mother, mainly because he didn't want to be around us anyway beyond keeping my mother happy. My father and I settled on a very superficial relationship that was entirely empty of all meaning.

Once I had dc and he became abusive towards them (making my dc cry calling them fat and being unkind about their appearance when they were young) I went completely no contact with the help and support of MN at the time. To protect my dc. This has been the case for over six years or so. We just keep in contact with my mother which makes things very awkward at times. My mother says she is happy to stay now with him, they have worked out their differences, it suits her to stay with him, at her age.

Last year my father became very, very ill. I supported my mother, but did not contact him. I still choose to keep my children safe, and away from him. It was very hard and sad at the time. My mother said he is getting old we need to 'make up', so I gave him a choice. If my father agreed to be nice to us and not say anything harmful I will restart contact given his age and ill health.
My father refused outright on the phone - he said no and actually laughed at me. He should be able to say what he likes to us, and he will not agree to anything of the sort. I was only asking for him to promise to be kind, nothing more. I was hardly asking for the world.

There was no way I was going to restart contact with him basically telling me he would continue to abuse me/us (as he has always done)

Since then my mother has completely stopped calling. She seemingly will not forgive me for stopping contact and ruining her illusion of a 'happy family'. She has not visited my house in over five years, and refuses to meet me other than from her house (which is very triggering now for me being there, I sometimes have panic attacks when I am outside because I am still so afraid of my father) unless I collect her a few times a year I would never see her. I had a serious illness at the beginning of this year that could have been a terminal diagnosis, she did not even call me then or offer any support whatsoever. I was so hurt by her total indifference. She really did not seem to care.

What she does every day, is send me a WA message saying she loves me to the 'moon and back' and variations of very over the top love messages which feel very insincere and sickly.

I don't FEEL remotely loved by her.

The messages and words feel completely empty to me. I don't know why she sends them, and I have no idea how to respond to her. I asked her to please stop because they were upsetting me, but she carries on anyway. The same message on repeat every single day of undying love, but she never calls or asks how we are in the messages. I am expected to do all of the calling and all of the visiting still regardless of my health. These 'issues' seem irrelevant to her. She sometimes talks about the weather but nothing else, ever. It feels really pointless. I have tried to engage with her properly and she then retreats into silent treatment and this can last for months at a time.

I am so confused.

What is happening here? Why is she sending these messages to me?

It feels like she has cut me off to all intents and purposes, and her daily text hurts me because it seems like she is saying she loves me, but it doesn't feel like she loves or cares about me at all.

I have no idea what I should do about this now.

What am I missing about this situation?

OP, I'm so sorry this happened to you. I don't think you've fully accepted that your mother abused you, too. She abused you by allowing it, something no loving mother would ever do. You are a victim of abuse and neglect by BOTH PARENTS, something I don't think you've quite grasped.

She made her choice a long time ago. She chose him over her children. Her flowery words mean nothing and aren't aimed at you as much as at herself to try to assuage her guilt. Love is a verb; it is not meaningless texts with emojis and she has not loved you like you deserve.

For your own mental health you need to go no contact. You can't help her. You can't change her. She's chosen. Now it's time for you to choose for yourself and your children.

OP, you are one of the most thoughtful, insightful posters I have ever read on this forum. Your ability to protect your children and work your way through the facts and emotions of your childhood and your current relationship with your mother are astounding - it is amazing to read your posts and see you prioritising yourself and your children and working out in real time the toxic dynamic your parents created for you - and are still creating. I am filled with admiration for you.

I don't think your mother is coming from a place of love tbh. I don't think she knows what a loving relationship is like - she committed to a bad man at the age of 17 and it fed something in her - she has had 60 years of living with this and 60 years of it giving her something she likes. She isn't capable of being the kind of mother you are. She probably doesn't even understand the emotions you feel when looking at your children as she never experienced them. Hence, she can't understand your desire to protect your children from your father. Even if he dies, she will be the same person - her ability to hurt you and not protect you will be the same. that is who she is.

I wish you every good thing especially peace.

I've a similar mother, and had a bit of a crisis a couple of years ago when something happened to make me realise that she would never be the mother I hoped was there underneath.

My Dm is also superficially loving, but on her terms, similar to your DMs texts, but its all for show and for telling herself what a good mother she was.

I'm still in contact but like my siblings bar one, it's the bare dutiful minimum. I work on being emotionally detached, and it helps to be analytical rather than take it personally. She's damaged, and from a terrible childhood herself, I know that. So was my childhood and my focus is stopping the dysfunction with my generation.

I'll do my duty to DM but my DS comes above all. She began to treat him a bit like me (the scapegoat) a few years back and DH and I subtly pulled back and now he really only sees his nan when the other cousins are there a few times a year so low contact. I'm at the point where I could cut her off forever and have zero fog about it. And I suspect she is aware of that and behaves.

I grieved my DM over the last couple of years. The loss of the mother I thought I had. Think you are going through the same

It looks like the messages are not intended to show your DM love as they show neither emotional or sentimental values nor any signs of interest in your life. Just empty words. It looks like the messages surve the one and only purpose - to demonstrate and provide self assurance that your mother is a good one (she is not).

She appears to be as abusive as your father, but in more brushed way. In some respect those messages are some kind of punishment for you for not obeying to rules your parents established. The fact that you asked her numerous times to stop it, but were ignored, speaks volume.

I am really sorry. In more or less similar situation I choose to minimise the contact and focus on my own family.

It’s a performative way of self soothing by someone who is quite damaged but finds comfort in things exactly as they are, even though they are quite sad really.

Your mum sounds exactly like my mum. My mum met and married a convicted paedophile. He sexually abused his daughter, pled guilty to it, has admitted it to her, has abused others since they have been together.

We obviously went NC with him as soon as we found out. I ended any contact between her and my dc, but kept the lines of communication open with her for several years, in the hopes she would see the light and we could extract her from this dysfunctional life they’d built. She was literally exactly as you describe.

Very happy to talk to me about surface things, big pronouncements of love, lots of daughter/grandchild posts shared on Facebook 🙄 but any attempt to talk about the really serious issues that meant she couldn’t have a relationship with her grandchildren, and she would shut down and I’d not hear from her for months.

Any suggestions for how to move forward, getting support from friends, therapy for her, family therapy, meeting to speak about any of this, lots of enthusiasm, but then she’d run and hide and do none of it. It’s not because she’s being controlled. Her husband, despite abusing children, is a wet fish. I’d say she controls him more than he controls her, he doesn’t have a car, she chooses what he eats, it’s very co-dependent, but she has a lot of control and freedom. It’s because she literally can’t face addressing the fact that the life she’s built is a fraud. She’s damaged and emotionally immature and loves a fairy tale. As long as she keeps her head down, she still believes she’s living in one.

We are NC now. My children haven’t had anything to do with her in nearly 5 years. But I’ve been NC for 2 and a bit. She directly told me that she’d never work on our relationship and never address the fact her partner is a child sexual abuser, and if it means never seeing us again, then that’s what has to happen. She hopes one day we will ‘change’ and get some help. 🙄

But she still regularly messages me over the top exclamations of love. It isn’t daily. It’s only every few months. She used to send them on Facebook or WhatsApp but I’d leave her on unread. Now she emails because she can’t see that I don’t read them, I think.

It’s both self soothing and performative. It allows her to go through the motions like we have a relationship. She asks questions about the dc and school and dh’s work. Oddly, she almost never asks how I am. 😂 It’s like performing a relationship like we have one when we don’t. I think it emotionally serves a purpose for her. Gives her an outlet for her feelings because she can’t really emotionally self regulate. It gives her something to do and fixate on, and for her, it probably takes the place of an actual relationship, but without all the hard stuff that would come with us repairing our relationship.

I think an element of it is performative to others too. She gets to say, look at how much I tell her I love her and how she doesn’t even care. It helps to explain away our estrangement to friends because she can say ‘look how hard I try and she doesn’t care at all!’ I know this because I have had a friend of hers contact me to tell me to sort myself out and apologise to her. She was completely floored when I explained what really happened as apparently that isn’t the narrative at all.

I’ll be honest, going NC was the best thing I could have done. I have so much peace now and it’s been the catalyst for me being able to move on and heal.

Despite your mum protecting you from what she went through, why did it still impact your relationship with her? How did she prioritise your grandmother over you?

She cared for her mum (my gran) for years when she was very ill to her own massive disadvantage, cut herself off from friends and her job, she became very bitter about it, and while I sympathised I had my own kids to look after. She was constantly chasing approval and love form someone who was never going to give it to her and it ate her up. She still has their wedding photo on display in her house.

My gran was an enabling narasist who was perfectly suited to her physically and sexually abusive husband. There is a reason they were together and she was as responsible for the abuse as he was.

Everytime you read those emotional abusive texts (as that is what they are - otherwise she would have stopped when you asked her too) you are feeling that pain. You may try and hide it from your children but it will be affecting you.

I feel for your mum actually. 60 years is a long time to be abused/ indoctrinated and times were different then.its not always simple to ltb. Presumably she is all sorts of confused, maybe get advice off woman’s aid or similar?

That is so incredibly sad. To be so beholden to your mother after many years of her abuse is heartbreaking . I hope you can find a way out. It will be a different and more heart wrenching way out than you achieved with your father but hopefully you can do it.

I would in all honesty delete both of them from your life. You have gone far beyond what is reasonable to maintain a relationship of sorts. Now it is time to stop and be free.
I had to do this many years ago and never once regretted it. It was like a ton weight off of my back. Only wish I hadn’t waited so long.
Drawing my own “no more” line gave me a tiny sliver of the self esteem which had been squashed out of me from childhood.
Cut them both off and never look back.

I'm sorry, I haven't read every post. It sounds like an awful situation for you.

I do understand that your mum has been abused by your dad, and I'm not intending to blame her, but I do wonder if the daily message is fully intended to be a guilt trip. She's saying "I love you so much, why don't you love me, why did you abandon me?" In her mind you would show your love by playing happy families. Obviously you can't do that, and you do very much love your mum. But she's playing a victim in this situation, which is a familiar thing for her to be because of your dad's behaviour. But you're not the aggressor, in this case, she is. It's controlling, manipulative and quite narcissistic.

I understand that blocking her feels impossible. Can you mute the conversation? Go in and read it only once every week/fortnight/month. Send her an occasional message repeating the terms you could see her under. Let her know how you feel. But don't read it every day.

I've been reading this in horror thinking that it can't get worse & then this-, including serious neglect of not taking me to the hospital when I was seriously ill, which led to an awful disability.

Honestly she is a bloody monster.

Tbh I feel little sympathy for her.

She listened to you screaming whilst being beaten & now cuts you off for going LC with the man who beat you.

At her behest rather than it be your brother if I have understood.

She deserves nothing from you Op.

Like all abusers she is very occasionally idk what word to use "understanding"(?) enough to keep you clinging on.

This is why I become sad when I read posts where the op is clearly in this position now, and always willing and cheering them to find the strength to leave. The damage can be permanent and irreparable to the children involved, even if you take away the wasted life opportunities of the op. That is hoping they all survive the experience. I very nearly didn't.

The way I live my life now is vastly improved, unrecognisable, I live and celebrate every day that I am alive, because I nearly didn't have my life or my children. Or anything of any meaning. I seem to be able to really enjoy my life now when this situation does not weigh me down as much as it is today, simply by living very much in the present.

The thing that keeps me tethered to them is the small child that wants the 'fairytale ending'. The part where they realise they love me very much and we are reunited. It is such a child like wish that I know it comes from a very young part of me, and still offers a faint hope of a rekindling or a repair.

Every Christmas for all of my younger life, I would hope and pray for one like the American movies, only for the reality to come literally crashing down by lunch time at the latest as my father's temper exploded.

There is a tender child like wish not to have to be the adult ALL of the god damn time, it is so heavy and exhausting. A wish to be put to bed, wrapped up, hugged and someone else to say I will take over, leave it to me. It is exhausting being the parent for a life time, and I am sometimes worn out with the sheer amount of responsibility I carry. And have always carried. I don't know what this is, or how to explain it beyond wishing for a just a short while to be the child for once with someone else in charge. To put the heavy rucksack down, and just breathe and sleep peacefully without any concern for anything. I don't know what that is like.

I don't think I have ever been that child. I was hyper vigilant constantly aware of where the next landmine might lie in our house, and rarely felt at ease or safe.

Wrap your children up in bed at night, allow them to feel safe and a sense of peacefulness. It is the greatest gift we can give children.

I have made a list of the reading suggested on here, and I have now started to download them.

I have contacted a therapist that specialises in family trauma. I hope they can fit me in.

I have silenced my WA messages from my mother, and I imagine I am in for a very long stint of silent treatment once my dm discovers I am not responding as quickly as usual. Another punishment will be meted out, but at least I am anticipating it this time.
I am prepared, and I don't mind if she wants to silence the last remaining thread between us, there is not much to salvage anyway.

I am looking to find a way to feel acceptance for what they are and not what I want them to be, and be at peace with it, and when I do I will share it on here.

I have to finally accept both of my parents were equally abusive in different ways, and my mother is not the ' poor victim' but actually at least part of the problem, and she choose to hurt me rather than do the right thing across four decades.

Really wishing for the pp that are going through this as well, especially the ones where the parents have passed recently or just about too, are well supported and cared for.

The thing that keeps me tethered to them is the small child that wants the 'fairytale ending'. The part where they realise they love me very much and we are reunited.

So in effect there is no point to staying tethered as what you are hoping for will sadly never happen.

I am prepared, and I don't mind if she wants to silence the last remaining thread between us, there is not much to salvage anyway.

Good.

Don't forget that this punishment is her choice for what she sees as you doing something wrong.

You are very eloquent OP.
Well done, I hope you can forget her. Life is short, don't let her ruin it.

Yep, from personal experience the convo goes -

That didn't happen.
Oh well, if you say it did, I don't remember it happening.
Oh I remember that now but it wasn't how you're describing it.

You cannot win with a narcissist. And yes, moments, odd occurances of 'normality' before the veil descends again.

Brilliantly well done on the actions you've chosen, OP; I've said it before but you really do have an incredible level of insight for someone who's been so badly abused

I'm sure you know you're doing the right things and that you'll get through it - there may be the occasional wobble on the way, but I wish you nothing but the best with it

All the best to you Op.

OP there is a form of therapy, regression in a way I guess, that is used for victims of childhood abuse where childhood is recreated, from baby hood onwards to enable the victim to experience normal emotions at each stage, it's full on but it, or a version of it, might be what you need to move forward. Sorry I don't know the proper name of it.

Psychodynamic therapy involves this.
It does other things too, so might not be what @wibblywobblywoo is referring to.
I had a clinical psychologist on the NHS and the therapist was this style and has helped me immeasurably and I have a manipulative and abusive, gaslighting mother.
There will be therapists that work privately with this style of 'depth work' therapy and it has Freudian elements to it, but is adjusted to meet reality and the modern world. The bigoted Freudian ideas would have no place in it, if that is what worries you.
I think psychodynamic therapy usually costs alot unless it is NHS or subsidised. I wish you the best xxxx 💐

That wish to be a child, to have someone parent you, even for 5 minutes cab be overwhelming can't it. I recently took something to a friends parents house and they made me a cup of tea. Afterwards, in the car, I burst into tears because they were lovely and for a few minutes it reminded me of visiting my grandparents as a little child, the only people who did love and parent me.
I try to give myself permission to have fun, to relax, to let other people (dh mostly) take care of me and a lot of my early therapy was centered around that. It's so hard!

I think you miss your mum. But I don’t think she can be what you need her to be right now. It’s her choice. She has to live with the choices she makes and it’s not your job to sacrifice yourself, your sanity, your happiness to try and make her feel better. Perhaps when your dad passes away, you can reignite your relationship when she is ready to have a reciprocal relationship. Your needs are important. It’s not your job to fix her. It was her job to care for you and support you, and she didn’t.

Op, I wish you all the luck in the world as you navigate this.

I know you know this already, but you will never ever ever get from your mother that true feeling of being cherished and cared for. However many interactions you have with her, however many times you hope and pray for the script to play out differently and give you that happy ending, it can't because of her lack, not because of anything you do or say, or anything about the way you are. If she does drop any breadcrumbs, they are not worth the while you even stopping to notice them as they don't come with genuine love and care for you, they come with manipulation and self interest.

Wishing you lots of strength to step away from it all, and find the love and care you deserve in your own family (DC and partner if you have one).

xxx

I hear you @Hummingbird75 . I am a relatively successful, generally popular and articulate woman in my late forties. But with just one single word, gesture or look from my M I am instantly again the frightened and humiliated 7 year old, crouching in the shadows, desperate for affection and kindness.

I can bear it now because (with therapy) I have understood that nothing I could ever say or do - now or then - could change the attitudes and behaviours of those responsible. They are not capable of change or even of the most basic insight. All I can control is how I react. They have no power over me now.

You've done the right things and all you can do to bring this under your own control. If you don't feed the plant it will eventually wither and fade, whereas you can bloom forever more.

I think you are a wise, insightful and decent person who has found yourself in a wretched situation through no fault of your own. I appreciate your updates and to know that you are doing what you can to protect yourself and those who matter. Your children are very lucky to have you. xx

OP - have you posted about your mother enabling your father and playing the victim before? On a Christmas thread? The bit about your mother ignoring your father's physical abuse of you and just continuing to cook just rings a bell.

In order for you to be able to have a relationship with her, she expects you to allow yourself and your children to be abused by your father.

You were a child and for years, she turned a blind eye to his abuse of you, and did nothing to protect you. And now you have managed to protect yourself by staying away from him, she wants you to come back and let it happen all over again?

If that isn't fucked-up thinking, I don't know what is.