To hate my mom because she was controlled by my dad

[TheDaringOchreQuail]

Trying to simplify this. All my life it was about him and treading on eggshells to please him. She always has to be the victim too.
he is basically like a dictator. Everything revolves around him and his needs. I feel so much hate for her. She didn’t put me first. She never spent time with me or listened to me. Even now, as he controls the money she has to pretend that I ordered food when she was the one who paid for it but he can’t know, please say this isn’t normal?!

She's exonerated her Dad because that's 'just how he is' but why not apply the same to her mum?

As someone coerced, perhaps she had no more ability to change the situation than her Dad had. She just didn't have the wherewithal 🤷‍♀️

I understand. My parents had a similar relationship and it screwed up all four of their children. Me the least, but it's still affected me.

I know it was my Dad's fault and I understand how he chose her and how her childhood had primed her for a relationship like that. However, I can't help but feel annoyed with her for staying. I could see the dynamic between them clearly from a very young age and would ask her to leave but she wouldn't because he'd told her he'd have nothing to do with us children if she did. I told her we'd be fine without him but she chose to stay.

My Dad's been dead for a few years now. She's so much better off without him but still says she misses him and feels she wasn't a good enough wife. It's tiring growing up watching this kind of stuff and being powerless to do anything to stop it because you're a child. My role now is to remind her of what he was really like and to reassure her that she was a good wife to him. I am pretty bored of all of it.

My only advice would be to distance yourself. Focus on your own life and not letting the pattern repeat.

Honestly good therapy is worth its weight in gold with things like this.

My father was abusive, my mother enabled him. Lots of people (family mostly) felt I was wrong to have anger toward my mother as well because she was a victim of his.

She was a victim of his. I was a victim of his, but also a victim of hers. Not in the same way, but she failed as a parent to me. She failed to keep me safe and also sometimes used me as a shield to protect herself. She had choices and opportunities, but as a child I didn't. It's not as black and white as many people think it should be.

Good therapy will help you work out all your feelings.

Look I get it. More than you might know.

But you realise that because you grew up in an unhealthy situation you're normal and that's probably why your mother is staying because this was and is her normal.

The problem with saying "it's who he is" is it codifying his actions into normal or in the very least a range of normal. It is not normal behaviour because not all men are like this and most would be horrifying even behaving half as badly. But because he's your dad, it's easier to be pissed at your mum than hold him accountable because he is an abuser.

What do you think about Ted bundy. Would you say "ah well he is who he is , it was those silly vitcims fault"? If the answer is no (and I hope to god it is)

I bet your thinking it's different dad isn't a serial killer... that should signal to you that means your normal is so warped that you think on some level his actions are somewhat justified and aren't probably the best mental state to comment. You need to get to therapy asap because even if your mum and dad split or he died you have grown up in a family where lots of "your normal" so you won't be able to quickly identify when your in similar situations opposed to others who didn't grow up in this environment.

I say all of the above and share one last thing, it's shit that you have to deal with this, with all the painful work therapy will throw up (and if you think you don't need therapy then that should be at least another red flag to signal you do)

You're wavering because you posted here something has gotten outside even your parameter of normal which means something bad . I wavered like you and came on here and got good advice. You won't want to hear any of this but my god do you need to hear it.

It takes victims of abuse 8 times to attempt to leave before they do (if they survive leaving)

Also your distain for your mum is probably a reflection of what your dad's shown your mum over the years. She deserves compassion, not distain but I do understand.

@TheKeatingFive because expecting an abuser to change is pointless and delusional. It's why some women stay, in the hope he'll change. He never does. Because he doesn't have or wants to.

So what would the point be in OP drumming on and on about her dad? As an abuser he's automatically in the wrong. What else is there to say?

That's not exonerating him.

I don't hate my mother but I have absolutely no respect for her as a parent.
Her weakness and actions affected everyone in the house.

It sounds as if your mum is a victim of coercive control, which definitely is a form of domestic abuse, @TheDaringOchreQuail. Victims of domestic abuse often find it very difficult, if not impossible, to leave their abuser, or even to stand up to them.

Leaving means uprooting their entire life - they may not have an income of their own, or the means to obtain new accommodation. It means having to make lots of big decisions, when every decision in their life with their abuser up to that point is being taken by their abuser.

I realise understanding and forgiveness are difficult, but your mum is a victim, and maybe if you see her as a victim, you can come to empathise and to forgive, eventually.

Expecting her mum to change might be equally pointless and delusional. Why doesn't she get the same approach as the father?

Absolutely brilliant response. Well written.

It's not that easy is it. Why haven't you helped her leave?

Therapy OP. You need to understand why you are more accepting of his behaviour than hers.

He didn't put you first either.

Neither of them did but she's the victim here, as are you.

Yeah, and he could have stopped being an abusive bastard. Why can't you make the leap from this to "she is the way she is", i.e. scared, cowed, incapable of asserting herself? You're blaming her more than him, when what he did is worse. Is sounds like you've grown up in a house where women are treated as lesser, and you've come to believe it yourself. I second the people who advised therapy.

Have you offered to help her leave now? Said she can stay with you, offered to help with the legal / financial stuff? Worth a shot.

@StMarie4me as a child?

God I hate this ..
No, your mum couldn't of just left
Unless you've been in that situation yourself you cannot imagine how that person has suffered.

@livingonaprayer321 OP WAS in that situation! As a child with no choices or options. Do you even hear yourself?

I do think it is possible to try to understand how a victim of domestic violence feels, and why they find it so hard to leave their abuser, @livingonaprayer321 - I have never been the victim of domestic abuse, but I have taken the time to read or listen to the accounts of people who have, and of people who have worked with the victims of domestic abuse, and have empathy and understanding.

So you feel nothing for your dad, but you feel HATE for your mother?

Even though he’s the one abusing her?

@TheDaringOchreQuail

Hey, I hope you don't feel this has been a 'pile on'. Posters aren't really criticizing you for your feelings. They're trying to make you understand why your mom has been the way she has. It's more about trying to get you to see a bigger picture than the one you're currently seeing.

Take seriously poster's suggestions on seeking counseling or therapy. I really think it would be unbelievably 'freeing' for you.

Best of luck.

I think you are just being obtuse and know full well that she meant in the position of the mother.

Often the mother in these situations is staying (as has been explained already in the thread) because she is scared that leaving will make things even worse for her child.

Because the father might get custody.

Because she is scared the father might kill the children to punish her (there are cases of this in the news at least a couple of times a year).

Because she thinks that if she stays, she can appease him - she can sacrifice her own wellbeing to try to run interference to buy her children enough time for them to get to adulthood.

She might well be wrong in all of these things, but this is her belief. This is her motivation. This is why she stays.

Generally speaking, Mothers, women in general, will always be held to a higher standard than Fathers, than men.

I do actually ..after having been in that situation first with my parents and then with ex (for over 10yrs) so yes! When someone says “just leave” it riles me

And that's not right in a general sense, but particularly when the
other is being abused by the father.

No. Another victim of a misogynist. She's blaming her mother for not protecting her growing up. Seems like she's already written the father off but have ambivalent feelings towards her mother which is absolutely normal considering the circumstances.

@DangerMouseAndPenfoldx

1.not always.

1. Even if that's the case, that does not make OP wrong to feel what she feels or woman hating, or a mysoginist or victim blaming.

She can understand the reasons why and still hate/resent her. And that's ok.

Yes, we can agree on all three of those points.