I AM FUMING!!!!!! SUGGESTIONS PLEASE

[Buttonsmum67]

I will preface this by saying my mother is queen Narcissist.

Last year I did a DNA Ancestry test with my kids for a fun present. My youngest's came back with a random name as his maternal grandfather- then my eldest's came back with the same thing. Then mine with this random man as my father.

I with the help of friends managed to send my mother a message asking for an explanation. She said it must be wrong etc and told me to stop being ridiculous. At this point I did another one and it came back with the same match as before with this random man.

I messaged again and said I wanted answers now. She turned up at my house at 5am in floods of tears saying she had been attacked by a man and she had thought she had got rid of me with the morning after pill and then two months later found out she was pregnant again and had thought it was a miracle to come from something so horrible (she thought I was my dad's, as in my dad who bought me up). She asked me to promise that I would never say anything to anyone as it would ruin her marriage.

When we matched with this other gentlemen he messaged me immediately asking wtf was going on. I told him my mothers name trying to gauge any panic from him and he wrote back a long message saying basically omg we had a couple of months long affair when I was working with her- he mentioned my dads name and that they used to meet while my dad was working nights etc and she called it all off when my dad asked her to marry him. He has asked to meet but I have put that on the back burner for now as I don't know which story is true. And before anyone judges me about saying I don't think my mother would lie about being attacked, she has lied about having serious illness before to get out of arguments she created.

She then began what I can only describe as a hate campaign against me- making up stories to my siblings and dad about how she had had to borrow me money etc and I wasn't paying it back- none of which were true.

Since last year we now never speak. I have messaged and called my dad and even turned up at their house to speak to him and he has said his loyalties lie with my mother and I have greatly upset her with my behaviour. I HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING! Every time I call his phone she picks up and says you won't be saying anything will you.

When I say she was abusive growing up I am in therapy as still in my 30s I struggle to stand up to her.

This morning my aunts messaged me saying about my brothers weddings (He is her golden child and doesn't make any effort to contact me or my sister back). I haven't been invited. I am seething.

I feel like drinking a bottle of wine and writing to every member of my family what has happened to stop this bull, but I also don't want to ruin my dads life. He is so under the thumb with her I don't think he'd kick off anyway.

But here I am sitting a year later left on my own thinking I'm a product of rape and now being completely cut out of the family. My mother says she was attacked, my biological dad said they were having a fully consensual affair, I haven't told him what my mum said.

But I feel like I am keeping a massive secret for the benefit of everyone else and now I am the one being ostracised. I am so upset I am being cut out.

Why shouldn't OP be focussed on herself? Her mum was having an affair. She must have known there was a reasonable possibility that the father of her child was not the man she married. She has had that knowledge for decades and chosen to lie about it, not just to OP, but to him and their other children. She has likely treated OP differently to her other children, even if it was subconsciously. The rest of the family will have picked up on this, and consider OP to be the problem.

Think yourself lucky that you have no experience of this kind of family and the way they close ranks on anyone who challenges their narrative.

How have so many people never heard of Ancestry dot com and their DNA kits 😂

HRTFT-

Just wanted to say I'm so sorry your going through this. It seems to me like you have a choice to make, you either tow the party line which means sucking it up with your mothers behaviour, go completely NC or you tell everyone what you've found out.

Your mum is never going to change and hard as that is you have to accept it. You have the power here to decide what you want to do. There are no rights or wrongs, each scenario will bring its own pros and cons but it's up to what you can live with and how you want to move forward.
Wishing you all the best

Because this is Mumsnet.

On another thread somewhere they'll be someone saying "I don't know what the fuss is, I've never even heard a single Taylor Swift song".

It can only identify people who have given DNA samples and agreed to their name being released to potential relatives.

Turn up to your brothers wedding with your biological dad.

You write as though OP's mum is a normal, rational person and a decent mother. None of those things are true. How on earth can OP work through the issues together with her mother who refuses to even speak to her? She was abusive when OP was a child and is being abusive now.

@pinkgirl2018 you need to read through all of op's replies to get the full story. You mention you've been in a similar situation and it feels like you're projecting a lot of your situation onto the op.

The fact that your family is so quick to turn their back on you makes me think that you have had a recurring problem with relationships with them.
Yes, obviously. Yes she does have a problem with relationships with them because they are all conditioned to scapegoat the op and appease the abusive mother.
You don’t need to keep her secret but avoiding her isn’t helping. You need to work through the issues you have together and discussing what you’re going to do
The mother is making up lies about her to the rest of the family and ignoring her.

We have no such idea if this is even true! Do you believe everything you read?

TW rape

I've been told I'm the result of sex that today would not be regarded as consensual, today it would be considered rape.Although my mother never quite defined it as that the description leaves me in no doubt. I met the man who is (probably) my father once, many years ago as an adult (long pre DNA) He completely denied everything, while looking extremely shifty. I was too upset to challenge him as much as I should have.

I say probably because my mother muddied the waters at times, was far from incapable of distorting truth/lying and I'm not entirely sure things went down as described, even it it's him, because some stuff doesn't add up. I've had a long, long time to come to terms because she was actually honest that I'm not my (adopted) stepfather's since early childhood and I genuinely feel for you in the situation you're in.

My only advice is to protect yourself as the priority. Anger is justified, wanting to expose the lies is justified, but do things in your own time in the way that is least hurtful to you, both with your birth father and the rest of the family. This is not your fault or your creation and don't let anyone convince you differently

It's semantics - ‘working towards’ and ‘training’ are similar enough in informal conversation to be clear that OPs 17yo DS is aiming towards/working towards/likely applying to med school next year in order to become a psychiatrist… that the trolls on this thread are more concerned with the odd turn of phrase than the fact that this poor woman and her children have had their lives turned upside down by the lies and histrionics of a damaged and selfish woman is beyond my understanding.

When someone close was getting married , the registrar said to them {In front of their prospective partner} ''you know you are adopted, don't you?''

That made their world stop spinning on its axis for a few minutes.

What a complete and utter bitch for her to have said that.

Shame on the people who shag about and lie to their families. These kits are totally fine.

Agree. Given what we now know about inheritability of significant diseases (certain cancers, haemophilia etc), covering up a misdemeanour and depriving your children of information that enables them to make informed medical decisions about themselves and their own children is selfish and negligent.

What?!

Yup...it was pretty insensitive.
Horrible registrar to have done that.
Can't see the purpose, even.

OP was conceived in 1986
Lets say she was born in 1987
That makes her 37
Her eldest is 17
That makes her 20 at his birth - perfectly fine - that doesnt sound like exaggeration to me

Her eldest is 17
Wants to be a Psychiatrist
Perfectly fine - my friend's 16yo son wants to be a heart surgeon
OP admits it was her turn of phrase to say DS is 'training to be a psychiatrist'
She meant that he wants to be a psychiatrist
Not unusual in 17 year olds - some know exactly what they want to do (unlike my DS!)

So can the troll hunters please FTFOAWYGTFOSM ('do one' basically)

Ancestry DNA isn't genetic testing for medical conditions.
It's more of a gimmick.

Anyone wanting to know about heritable disease before having children wouldn't buy a gimmicky test, they'd get proper genetic counselling.

Certain serious conditions are recessive anyway, so not marrying a cousin or close blood relative also helps avoid inherited conditions.

Her mum already blew the family up. It's one thing to ask her not to tell, completely different and not ok to make up lies so everyone is angry at and excludes OP. Her mum has behaved terribly, why should OP have to shut up and put up with what her mums done to her? Not all mothers are good people or loving and OP doesn't owe anything to someone that treats her this way.

If she is rational the suggestion from a poster to say to her that she needs to stop with all the lies or you'll tell the truth might be a better option to revealing the truth. But if she is actually a narcissist she'll most likely double down and step up the smear campaign if you give her an ultimatum.

Maybe the wind has blown them all out from under their bridges.

YANBU OP. It's really difficult for people who haven't dealt with people like your mum to understand. They are viewing it through a normal person lens.

Well done for breaking the cycle with your own children OP. That's not easy to do with a parent like that.

Are in touch with your sister? It sounds like she's been on the receiving end of your mum's spiteful lies so she might be able to offer some support.

Disagree it is just semantics. Claiming that her son is "training to be a psychiatrist" and "is undertaking a separate mental health course with work placements to do so" is a long way from saying that he is at school and planning on applying to med school next year in order to become a psychiatrist.

It's just cruel.

I had to organise a family funeral. The celebrant was lovely, but wanted to include a line along the lines of "we see our parents in the face of our children..." Obviously a stock platitude that he used. I can't remember the expression precisely, but I was worried that if it were taken literally rather than metaphorically it might be problematic.

The children were adopted, and I didn't want to cause upset: they were very sensitive around their adoption, further complicated by the fact that the deceased himself had been adopted, had only found out about it as an adult and didn't know that he had siblings until he was in his 60s.

In the end, the eulogy surrounding the early life explained that the deceased had been adopted by kin (but didn't mention that he was in his 20s before he knew) and that they were always "Mum and Dad" to him. It went on to explain how he'd found his (half) siblings in later life and the joy that that had brought to him.

There was then mention of his first marriage and the children were included by the celebrant saying: "Along the way, they had [son] and [daughter]". Later his joy on being presented with a grandchild was described.

In the end, everyone in the family was happy with the eulogy.

@pinkgirl2018

But OP's mother isn't doing herself any favours by making false allegations against her daughter in order to deliberately turn the other family members against her.

Regardless of the exact circumstances of how the pregnancy came about (though I for one am more inclined to believe the biological father that it was consensual sex, given that the mother has a history of telling outrageous lies and is also currently doing so now) the mother's behaviour after-the-fact is rather disgusting. She's spreading lies about the OP which have led to other family members seemingly turning against the OP, which was probably the mother's motive.

OP might have been inclined to have some sympathy for her mother's feelings - IF her mother had not behaved so horrendously towards her after finding out her daughter had made the discovery.

Most people are not going to go through genetic testing before having children unless there is a known risk. By lying to her daughter about who her father really is, the mother removed OP's ability to know about her general risks based on her genetic background. Her biological father may well come from a family who knows they have a predisposition to hereditary disease.

The Ancestry type test I have done can and does identify some genetic risks. It asked multiple questions about whether you wanted to know this information and have it disclosed before they even processed the sample. I blithely ticked all the boxes, because I have no family history of genetic conditions. If I had then found out my father was not who my mother claimed he was, I could have found myself in a very different position.

As someone with a narcissistic mother, the sense I got was that she is doing the work of processing this, has seen the behavioural patterns and is working hard not to get sucked into them but feeling understandable rage at being scapegoated. The cold hard fact is that the mother is lying about her - no nuance there.

It’s classic.

But if you don’t know narcissistic personality styles and how it plays out, either through experience or learning, then I can see your thinking. It’s the trap I used to fall into - thinking about different perspectives and assuming the other person is relational and empathic and just struggling.

You can’t do that in relation to people with a NPS - you get burnt over and over and over again. You have to become dispassionate.

When I talk about my mum I sound heartless and if you don’t understand the dynamic I am. But it’s actually me holding boundaries and no longer being subject to manipulation that leaves my mental health in tatters.

People raised by people with NPS have to fiercely guard their mental health or they get emotionally wrung out and battered.