I just want to start by saying I do love my parents and I do feel they have genuine love for myself, my partner and our two very young children (2 year old and 4 month old). They can be incredibly generous sometimes and do check in with us. This is why I’m so confused.
I am currently dealing with some PPD following the second baby, I’m on the waiting list with counselling and I’m trying to manage things. Today I am beyond exhausted and feel low so DH has taken the kids out for me to have a break. My mum messages me asking how we all are, I tell her I’m exhausted but will be ok. I get a message back “I think we’re all tired this time of year.” This is always the response when we are unwell, exhausted, even grieving. I was especially frustrated by it when I was recovering hours after my cesarean and my father kept sending me paragraphs about how they’re all feeling with the cold they had at the time. My adult brother still lives with them, he has depression and has been unemployed his whole life, parents both work full time and I absolutely respect they are probably tired too but I just hate that when I am asked how things are and find if I say anything negative I get huge stories about how it’s so much worse for them?!
What is this? How do I tackle this? I do ask them how they are too, it is not always them asking me. I’d understand maybe if I didn’t put the effort in to keep in touch? Another scenario is that my MIL very unexpectedly died a year ago just before Christmas, she was only 60 and it was an enormous shock for DH, it has been a difficult time trying to support him - his father and sister are not very present. Despite her knowing that DH struggles to talk about it, my mum brought it up with him over Christmas when they were alone for 5 minutes and she ended up talking all about my late grandparents, she was crying and it was really uncomfortable for DH. Later that week when alone with mum, I gently mentioned to not to bring MIL up in the future with DH and her response was “no we mustn’t bring it up, if he doesn’t want to talk about MIL then so be it”. It was like she was denying that situation happened and assuming DH had not told me the full extent.
Have also noticed a lot of lying, pretending things didn’t happen when they did and vice versa, or rewriting history of things… and notice that when they get things ‘wrong’ like the scenario above, they try to backtrack or tell a different story. My mum has also made up a situation last year that never took place, and blamed me for it then said I was behaving just like my aunt! When I reflect on family relations, we have been no contact with my aunt since I was a teenager and I do get this gut feeling that things did not happen with my aunt quite like my parents say they did. I reflect on my teenage years and things make more sense. I thought I was going crazy.
I might be venting a bit here but it does make me feel sick thinking about it all. I hate when I catch my mum, especially, in a lie. Besides this we get on well, but I feel really disturbed by it all. Find they don’t say very nice things about our family friends anymore either, that come across to me as jealousy. Unsure it would ever be a good idea to confront them about it all, I could definitely see that not ending well at all. Feel conflicted and wondered what others thoughts are. DH thinks they are good people but my mum in particular has narcissistic traits. I don’t know what to think and find myself feeling very disturbed over it all. It has been massively evident since having our children.