Bad relationship with my parents

[Kittycat87]

Hi ladies,

I would like your advice about what to do with a very difficult situation. I never had a good relationship with my parents, particulary not with my dad. I found out I am pregnant with my first a few months ago and me and DH were over the moon. I shared the news after a few days with my mom and asked her to not tell my father until I was ready. She promised to do so. In the upcoming weeks she was pressuring me a lot to tell him and eventually I told her she could tell him because I didnt feel ready. She told me she had, but he never called or said congratulations in person. A few days ago my mother admitted she told him already months ago before I was ‘ ready’ because she felt it was not ok to keep such a secret from her husband and lie to him....so instead she lied to me that he didnt know! She said he was disappointed I never told him in person thats why he said nothing.

A lot more has happened during my pregnancy that has left me hugely disappointed in my mother so I wonder if it’s strange that I am so upset about their behaviour?

To be honest, I'd say that it was unrealistic for you to tell your mother, then ask her to keep this secret from your father. Being told you are going to be a grandparent is a BIG thing ( I know, I am one ) and the idea of telling Mum and saying "you can't tell Dad" is very unfair. I'm, not surprised that she wasn't able to keep the secret.

And now your Dad is upset because he knows you didn't want him to know ......oh dear the plot thickens. He probably feels really upset that you didn't want him to know, and that you now expect to be congratulated . Surely you can see that it's not just you that is upset ?

I know that pregnancy makes us all do odd things.....but you telling one parent, then expecting her to keep it from the other parent, was really strange . You might have issues with your parents, but you should have either told both of them or neither of them .

I understand what you say Birdie, but I had my reasons for it. My dad is very religious and considers abortion murder. I wanted to await the results of all the bloodtests and scan to be sure baby was fine and we wouldnt have to consider abortion because of a severe handicap.
I knew my dad would condemn me in such case and I wanted to avoid that. I also explained this to my mother but she ignored that.

I completely get why you didn't want to tell your dad, and I can also understand that your dad would be hurt. But it's your mother that caused this by lying to you. If she couldn't keep her mouth shut, however hard (and however unrealistic), she should have told you. At least then you could have done something about it. Lying to you is no better than lying to him - it's worse because it's your news, and it's hurt both you and your dad.

I completely understand why you feel hurt. I'm afraid you just can't share anything else with her that you don't want to go any further. And I'd tell her that too.

Sorry you are feeling down about this but your parents are a team. They may not have been a great parenting team or great parents - unless I misunderstand you - but they are a team. It's not fair to ask them to keep secrets like this from eachother. Unless this is a drip feed and there are some other rotten stories here I think maybe just move on. Hard as that may seem. I'm sorry.

Firstly I want to say that I can completely understand your point of view and why this has upset you. Often people who have never experienced this kind of family dynamic can't get their heads round it but I also don't have a fantastic relationship with my parents. Unfortunately the only thing that I have found has helped and improved my relationship with my Mum was to stop telling her so many things about my life as I couldn't trust her with them. I will only be telling my Mum I'm pregnant when I'm ready to tell everyone else for this reason. Perhaps going forward it might be easier on you to employ similar tactics?

Thank you so much ladies for your supportive responses ❤️! Yes indeed I do understand why my dad is upset but I think indeed the main problem is my mother. She has been doing some other things that I can not get over. We had a qarrell 2 weeks ago over something small and shr sent me a really mean email afterwards saying so many nasty and mean things. I am moving to another country in a few weeks to be with my husband and she didnt help me at all moving out the stuff I need to get rid off, knowing very well I had to carry too heavy stuff. She hasnt even offered to come with me to the airport to say goodbye. When I told her that her behaviour is causing me stress and I am afraid to hurt the baby she said stress is bad for everyone and she has gotten stressed as well. I am so disappointed in her and thinking of going very low contact or no contact with her once I moved abroad.