For being put out - Mum lying to neighbours

[Devilgate]

My mum never approved of the boyfriend I started going out with aged 18 - but to cut a long story short - by the time we moved in together when I was 24 she accepted it - even wished us well in our new home!

But I later found out that she’d been lying to her neighbours about me moving out. Apparently when the neighbours asked where I was she’d say “upstairs in her room.”

One day my Dad picked me up from my house to take me back to visit mum - he always picked me up even though it was only a short bus ride. He then drove to a nearby industrial estate and said :

”you see we haven’t told Barbara (their neighbour) that you’ve moved out because she hasn’t asked”. Which I thought was a bit strange - I mean if that was genuinely the reason they haven’t told the neighbours - I.e. totally innocent reason - then why bother bringing it up in the car? It turns out ‘Barbara’ was there visiting mum at the time.

When me and my boyfriend later separated - by which time Mum had died - I was in ‘Barbara’s’ house having some tea and she said she didn’t know I’d moved out with boyfriend. When I told my Dad I’d told Barbara this - he said “oh, you told her, did you?” then pulled a face. Another neighbour. Maud, (I bet you all love the fashionable names!) said that every time she asked my mum where I was during the year I lived with my boyfriend, my mum apparently said “in her room” when I was living with boyfriend.

The other thing, when I was in the process of moving out - my mum said “No babies! Well not until the house is ‘sorted!”

When my Dad later that year told her I wasn’t feeling well, my mum thought I was pregnant and she yelled “I’LL EMIGRATE!!!!!” Nice!!

AIBU to feel put out by being so ‘not good enough’ for my mum that I was lied about etc.

My parents have form for being (extremely) weird…

on a humorous note … maybe I should have insisted my Dad got blacked out windows for his car and I put some dark glasses on every time he picked me up so no one could identify me 😎

I think he picked me up purposely so that I wouldn’t get talking to neighbours on the way back from the bus stop!

Was this recently OP? I guess you weren't being unreasonable to be upset at the time, but maybe it would be healthy to move on?

Can you ask your dad about it now?

If you've now moved on and have your own family/partner, personally I wouldn't dwell on it. The emigrating comment is weird but I guess your mum didn't want you having a baby so young and while you were still under her roof. Was she joking maybe?

Ah but I wasn’t under her roof then - I’d moved out

But thanks for responding. No - not recent - I just wondered if other people thought it weird

Yes it's utterly bizarre. If they're willing to lie about something so trivial, it would make me wonder what else they'd lied about. I mean your dad only told you when he realised they were going to potentially get outed as Barbara was at the house.

Sorry, I misread your post. It is a bit weird, 😐 yes.

It is weird behaviour, but I’m guessing it was some time ago when attitudes were different and living together was less acceptable - when my sister moved in with her boyfriend in the mid-90s, my mum was appalled (she was quite religious), and worried about what the neighbours might say. She would have had a similar attitude to getting pregnant if you weren’t married.

Was ‘Barbara’ a Hyacinth Bouquet type neighbour 😀 who was known to judge and gossip?

If you go back a few decades, "living in sin (🤣)" was gossip-worthy. Maybe they didn't want the locals talking about you.

I wouldn't be upset about it because it's not about you, it's about them.

Whether they are "old fashioned", "traditional" or didn't like your boyfriend or approve of the relationship, none of that really matters, it was about their own hang up and you can't give it headspace or let it affect your self esteem about being "good enough".

Just learn from it and swear never to treat your own kids that way.

It's a them problem.

My DM did the same thing albeit with my DC. Had DC2 "out of wedlock" - DM was mortified and lied to her whole "village" . She was outed when I invited her "village" to my second wedding. Guessing that was the attitude of her parents and she'd been bought up the same way. Glad I ended that cycle

Oh my goodness! Well done for ending the cycle !

Your mum might have been inspired by Deidre on 'Coronation Street' daughter Tracey was always upstairs playing until she was about 20 😁
Strange how so many people of a certain generations worry about what the neighbours might think, it's a shame really when the neighbours probably couldn't give a fuck.

Sounds like they are a bit old fashioned and mortified about you ‘living in sin’

how old are you Op?

while most of my friends lived with partners before marriage, I’d say that as a young kid in the 80’s, some of the parents still thought of it as quite daring 😄

there was even a sit com in the late 80’s about a couple who were ‘living in sin’ - the storyline included about how her posh parents were horrified.

nowadays it would just be considered the norm and no-one would make a joke about it

So you had to share a delusion in order to get their attention/approval/love? As someone has already said, it's a them problem not a you problem.

I’d also say I bet all the neighbours knew, indulged your parents and were amused by it!

I'm always amazed at the ability of some people to be so small minded. I know it was more the norm a couple of generations ago, but what a depressing scenario. I used to work with someone who was young enough to know better who still had some of these outdated moral ideas... Is there nothing bigger in their world to worry about?

Was your mum's name Hyacinth?
Bless her.

Actually I always saw Hyacinth as a hybrid of my mum and her aunt!

Thanks - this really helps ❤️

I’m 52 - I wish I knew that sitcom - I loved 80s domestic sitcoms

Haha to be fair ‘Barbara’ wasn’t a snob exactly but she did gossip and get too involved in our family issues I think !

Btw - although Barbara was her neighbour - my parents weren’t Margo and Jerry Leadbetter

I'm the same age as you OP, and I think it was very odd behaviour.

Thanks. I’m an only child and it means a lot to me when people validate my feelings ❤️ re my family as there was no one else sharing this experience

So young? She was 24....hardly a teen pregnancy!

Were they very religious, felt they had to keep in line with the social norms, toe the line?

My mum's youngest brother (9 years older than me) and his then gf lived together in their early 20s - so mid-80s. No one in our family said anything odd against this (that I remember).
(North-west town).

By the time I was living with my bf (early 90s, at and post uni) it was very much a normal thing to do.

I was living with my boyfriend in the 70s with my parents' 'permission' - loads of people were in the 60s and 70s, probably throughout history. It's just a petit bourgeoise attitude to disapprove of that which is none of your business.