AIBU to feel I have lost love for my auntie?

[PurplePinkRoses]

Is it possible to lose all your love for a family member so easily?

I have this auntie whom I loved very much. Let's call her Auntie A. Growing up, I actually saw her as my second mother. She was my most generous auntie, and she would always buy stuff for me and my siblings. She would always give gifts to us every birthday and Christmas.

I am grateful for all the things she had done for me and my siblings. She would take us out, because my parents couldn't because they were too poor at the time. She would take us to the park, the zoo, everywhere, so I can say that she was a very good auntie, and my childhood was fun because of her.

I can say I love her, but things have changed when I started to work at the same job as her.

So I lost my job last year, and I am grateful when she told me there is a vacancy at her workplace. So I applied, and got the job. I am thankful for what she has done.

But she has been making my workplace hell for me. She would torment me, always policing everything I do, because she said I might get in trouble and that I might get fired.

My love for her has slowly faded since. She would bully me too, and belittle me.

Then I realized this is how she would treat my mother and my other auntie, Auntie B, all because my mom was poor, Auntie B has a deadend job, and she is the one with the most money among them.

My mom just endured it because she owes her money.

So the last straw was when someone bullied me at work. Everyone at work said what the person did to me was not right, and even encouraged me to launch a formal complaint.

Basically Manager A told me something like “You don't have common sense”, and shouted at me in front of everyone, all for a mistake that was not even my fault.

It reached the upper management because Manager B (higher rank than Manager A) was present when it happened, and he also agreed that what the manager said was wrong.

Now the upper management wanted to do an investigation because what Manager A did was not right.

My auntie learned about this and she was not happy that it had to reach the upper management. She was siding Manager A who bullied me. She said I should have just kept my mouth shut and not cause conflict. She said, “Maybe you really did not use your common sense.”

That is when I felt like all the love I have for her as my aunt was gone. I realized she doesn't have my back in these times.

Is it possible for someone's love for a family member to be gone just like this?

She has been tormenting me since I joined the workplace and only softened when I cried to Auntie B months and months ago, and Auntie B told her. Auntie A then said “I am only trying to teach her” and has no remorse.

Now, I can't stand her. I don't even want to be near her nor be with her in family gatherings.

Has it happened to you before? Am I being dramatic or ungrateful?

And is to tell a colleague "use your common sense" a form of bullying?

Because I can't believe how my auntie was not even upset for me, and even said I deserve to be told such words. I am thinking, she has been verbally abusive to my mother and Auntie B so maybe for her that is a normal way of talking to people.

Has manager A done this before?
At school, we teach children that bullying is 'several times on purpose'.
If this was an isolated occurrence then I would say it isn't bullying. It isn't very nice though.

Oh, and your Auntie sounds horrible. I don't blame you for being upset after the way she has been treating you at work.

It sounds like you loved the person you thought she was but now that you can see who she really is you dont like or love her, which is understandable.
The only thing that you can do now is find another job away from her and avoid her as much as possible in future

I'd consider that them days out may have been a way to get one up on your parents rather than a genuine good deed. Sometimes people can seem like really good people when they're doing things for others when in fact they're doing it for themselves. With you saying how she was with your mother and the side you're seeing now, I think that could be the case with your aunt.

How old is she ? Or too outing - roughly ?

I'm so sorry that's awful. I have similar with my Grandma. She's a rich and wealthy lady. As a child she took me on trips around the world, always gave the best gifts and got to really know my soul. I had a hard childhood.

But she didnt have my best interests at heart. She completely turned me against my parents and for years I hated them. She never said anything untrue but you should say these things to an impressionable child.

Now she is so quick to jab me where she knows it hurts. If I say something against the political party she supports she will come back at me with my biggest insecurity.

I know she's and old, lonely, rich lady and that controlling emotions is all she has for entertainment.

I still love her dearly but I dont like her. Theres a part of me when I'm with her that remembers the love and care I had from her but then I will quickly find out she's not really on my team. I now distance myself from her. Your aunt sounds horrible, I am so sorry. But it reminded me of my grandma.

You sound way too enmeshed, OP. Are you very young? Why on earth would you pay the slightest attention to a relative trying to police your workplace behaviour? Just tell her that while you're grateful she alerted you to the vacancy, she's not your aunt at work, just another colleague.

And no, I don't think that telling someone to use their common sense at work constitutes 'bullying' unless it's part of a pattern of behaviour targeting you.

Without a background of your work history, or how this person has treated you before makes it difficult to know if it is bullying.

Also what the mistake was, did it endanger someone? Could it have been avoided? Did they know for sure it wasnt your fault ?

Manager A may need to be pulled up on how they talk to staff, or deal with issues

Re your love for Auntie. Yes our feelings towards people change as we get older and understand our own minds and get a bit more wide. Some of my aunts and uncles are complete dicks and speak to people in the most belittling way, but its as if they have to get one over each other... its boorish and i cant be arsed with it, but these same aunts and uncles I enjoyed spending time with as a kid but I wouldnt have seen or acknowledged that side of them as a child.

I wonder if your aunt actually made your mum pay one way or another for the treats but you would never have seen that as a child.

Let me tell you a story.

I have a member of my family who got addicted to heroin, robbed a woman at knife point (ended up in jail, apparently, though I don't know the full story) and stole wedding gift money from another family member. I was the only member of the family who actually stood up for her when there were family discussions about it. I was the only one who had her back. I was the only one who didn't badmouth her and told others off in the family off for doing so. I was the only one who empathized with her and told her family to treat her better.

But then I heard she had said some not nice things about me, so I separated myself from it. Now when my cousins and aunts and uncles badmouth her, I don't get involved, I just step to the other room.

My advice to you, is do what you feel is right and morally good but also protect yourself. I always stand by my morals of being the 'better person', even when everyone else says or thinks otherwise. But where I draw the line is when it affects me personally and my own mental health and well being.

Put yourself first, because nobody else is going to.

She is treating you like a) her niece and b) her child at work. Neither are appropriate. You are only A outside of the office and you're not B at all.

You need to say to her, "Auntie, I'm grateful to you letting me know about the vacancy, but they didn't give me the job because I'm your niece - it's because I'm good at it. At work I'm Jill in Accounts, not your niece - and you don't get a say in whether I make a complaint or not, any more than you would with Steve or Jane. Let's keep work at work."

Whether you're being reasonable to call the manager's behaviour bullying is a separate issue. That's for those involved in the complaints procedure to decide, not your aunt/colleague.

Yes, you can lose your love for someone in a flash, and once the scales fall from your eyes, they never go back.

I have a very similar story, also an aunt who I worshipped as a child. She was kind, generous, and young, pretty and cool too, and everyone loved her. But as an adult, I noticed her bending the truth a lot, but excused it as deep down I believed she was a good and wonderful person. When my DF, her brother, was dying she couldn't have done more for us as a family.

But after he died, she started to be unkind about him, and said some untrue things that really upset my DM. Then when my DSis was ill, she tried to take DM's place as DSis's main support, and in one fell swoop the true person came out - she was a white knight narcissist type, and a liar too. She was only interested in helping people she thought were beneath her, in any sense, and was intent on being seen as the saviour of the family even though we could look after ourselves without her help. All the little things I'd been sweeping under the carpet, when viewed together, showed a pretty nasty woman.

She turned against me and another sister when it became clear we saw through her, and she resented us for being able to do so.

I have been no-contact with her for years now, although she occasionally sends me abusive emails, packed with lies about things I allegedly did in the past. I keep them as evidence but otherwise ignore.

It does hurt, to have to acknowledge that the person you adored as a child is actually awful, but distance was the solution for me, and I'm almost amused at some of the bizarre lies I hear about myself.

Hope you can find a way to get away from her influence OP, but don't try to restore the past. Once they reveal themselves, there's no going back.