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!

Its a living over the brush generation thing 😂😂
Remember an Aunt loudly saying that she wished she her daughter lost some weight for the wedding photos - she was clearly pregnant. Baby came 2 months later and no mention of the recent wedding 😂😂😂

My mum is terrible for telling weird lies to people then saying “Oh if you see Jean don’t tell her we took the cat to the vets last week” and then I forget and don’t keep up and end up apparently embarrassing her.

Some people are bloody weird

They definitely are 🤣

I once got a bollocking off my Nan because aged 8 I was super curious and asking when people in the family’s birthdays and weddings were. I ended up figuring out that my great gran must have been pregnant with her son, my nan’s brother, at her wedding. I said “If Uncle Miles was born in September and great granny and grandad married in March she was 3 months pregnant wasn’t she” not understanding the controversy. I was shouted at and sent to my room!

My mum went to church etc - even though my dad not as religious- they both had toe the line personalities iyswim

My friend only realised at his parents' 50th wedding anniversary party that his mother was pregnant when she got married. He always wondered why they were so evasive about their wedding date. He only put two and two together the night of the party. 🤣

Blimey, I'm in my 60s and the ONLY thing I ever remember my parents commenting on was a girl I was at school with having a baby just after marrying (so this will have been about 1980), when my mum said they got married 'just in time.' I lived with boyfriends, my eldest son was conceived before I got married and not one word of censure ever past their lips.
Maybe they were just more modern in outlook?

Sounds like they were of their generation and upbringing OP.

As I said I am a similar age, and it isn't my experience and in the CURRENT age it seems very out of place, but I am sure whilst people can post their own experiences of it being odd, there are probably many more who can relate.

I hope it is just something that has niggled you, rather than really praying on your mind.

Your Mum was a product of her upbringing - as are we all - but some of us can rid ourselves of those shackles that bind easier than others.
"She's more to be pitted than blamed" - as my DM would have said.

I think PP was referring to ‘Just Good Friends’.

Ah yes I watched this !

I think this is a reference to The Two Of Us with Nicholas Lyndhurst.

No, the whole point of that one is they're not even together (as per the title), let alone living together. I think its The Two Of Us.

You’re spot on ..

That’s the thing …

it’s not the only thing they lied about .

I dropped out of an A level course at 17 and got a job. My mum even told family member RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME

“she’s taking a year off” when i was actually in a full time job - and apparently had told the cleaners I was in college when I was in a full time job

That’s the one!

I remember watching it as a kid. Can’t even remember any of the storylines- just remember thinking it was something that sophisticated, young London types did and marriage was now very uncool!

wish I’d taken that advice on board, but you live and learn 🙃

Your mum reminds me of an old school friend’s mum.

Old school friend recently got divorced. Her mum has been body swerving my mum in the supermarket ever since. was very cagey with my mum when she asked how her DD was doing. ( that’s how we worked out what the issue was)

so weird as I’m divorced. And my mum really couldn’t care either way.

I remember my Gran asking her next door neighbour about her grandson and the verbal gymnastics that were performed in "admitting" he was living with his girlfriend were something to behold. My other Gran also didn't tell any of the family that my uncle and his wife had split up then divorced so they were very confused when he was marrying his second wife as they thought he was still married. I just think times have massively changed on all this stuff. This was in the 90s.

My parents in law were born in the 1920s and didn't care less when their daughter moved in with her boyfriend in the early 1970s , nor when youngest left home to live with me in the late 80s.
Funnily enough, we had a young Irish couple as neighbours and whenever his parents came over, she went to stay at a friends and took all her belongings with her. Even though they jointly owned the house!

Exactly. No way was living with a boyfriend unusual or generally disapproved of in the 80s.
OPs parents were just really weird. And I’d bet my lunch that at least some of the neighbours knew full well that OP wasn’t in her room all the time!

That was a very, very old fashioned view for the 90s. It feels more like the 60s.

I think it depends where you grew up
and what class you are.

If you watch documentaries about the swinging 60’s, you’d think it was all free love and shagging. And I’m sure that for middle class, city dwelling, university educated people it was. But in more socially conservative areas, sex before marriage was still frowned upon.

in the 80’s in my socially conservative, small town ‘living over the brush’ was still worth mentioning. Doesn’t mean it was a massive scandal. Now, people would more likely raise eyebrows if a couple didn’t live together before marriage.

and not everyone in the 80’s was from the 80’s if you know what I mean?

my grandmother was horrified that women went to pubs. A view she held until she died in the 90’s.

My parents were definitely weird !!

Also there was a social class issue here - I’m sure I don’t need to spell it out !

I'm sorry, but your late Mum sounds bonkers. Why would she emigrate if you have children? Why is Barbara the neighbour so important? Does it matter to Barbara if you live next door or not? I quite like the intrigue. Could you tell Barbara that you're actually one of identical twins and your twin has always lived at home, in spite of never being seen, while you moved out with your boyfriend...

These are all very good questions to be fair !! 🤣

My grandmother was OK with the pubs thing (and came with me to them for lunch) but was scandalised that I ordered a pint in front of her - "Women don't drink pints!!!". (Circa 1999). Granddad (older than her ) tried to tell her they do these days but she wasn't having it.