Hi everyone, I feel almost embarrased posting on this thread considering what some of you have been through. The thread title attracted me through the thread as it reminded me that my parents do something nice, then something not so nice, but use the nice thing to show how nice they are and to justify any bad/dysfunctional behaviour.
I was just reading the thread yesterday morning and started thinking well at least my parents are not as bad as so many others, and they are not so bad now that I am an adult (though this is partly because I limit contact, keep an emotional distance from them, repress myself when I am around them and don't say what I am really thinking, and so on). Anyway as if to contradict any cuddly feelings I was having about my parents then my mother said something really nasty to me which has shocked me. I just feel I have to write it down somewhere as it has upset me and this seemed like a good place.
She had a bad weekend and clearly was lashing out verbally (she was always like this growing up, but obviously as a child a person is much more vulnerable to it, and living with them as a child it is difficult to get away from it). She caught me totally of-guard this time though.
Anyway to get to the point (finally!). A close relative of mine had her partner cheat on them and the relationship ended. This has obviously been very stressful. My mother said she keeps hearing of people now who have had affairs since then. Then somewhere in the conversation said that she was thinking of me and my ex-boyfriend. I thought, that is nice, she is thinking of how difficult the break-up was for me and how dissapointed I am about it. Ha, stupid me. No, she said she wondered if I had broken up this mans (my ex's) marriage!!! So basically she was accusing me of having and affair and being a home-wrecker.
I had made sure this mans marriage was definitely over before getting involved with this person. This was partly was I did not want to be with someone who was still really in love with someone else, and also if the marriage could be worked on I would be inclined to let a person try to work it out if they could. I would definitely never had an affair as I would not want to hurt anyone. I am as quiet as a mouse and try to always to the right thing and not hurt peple, even if I suffer for it myself. My mother knows this about me, even gives out to me for it sometimes! Unless of course I am being careful about her feelings.
As it turns out my latest boyfriends ex-wife was abusive and this is why the relationship had ended. His ex had aggreed to the seperation in the end. But apparently she didn't want him, but didn't want anyone else to have him. She went ballistic then when he told her he was going out with me and caused him all sorts of problems. She was erratic in when she allowed him to see the children, and did some crazy bunny-boiling-type stuff, only worse! Eventually he ended it with me as he couldn't take the stress anymore. I was very upset as he was really nice and I thought we might end up together in the long-run.
My mother doesn't know all the details of what had happened but knew some of it, enough to know that his ex was maybe not the nicest person in the world. She also knew my boyfriend and knew he was a nice person. I just can't quite believe that she said something so nasty. Nasty about him and me. I felt the relationship I had with this man was special and it was as if she was trying to sully it.
Funnily enough, in reading up about verbal abuse and abusive relationships, trying to understand my (ex) boyfriends situation, I started to wonder if my parents, especially my mother, had been verbally abusive to me when I was growing up. Maybe not as bad as many people's parents, but a lot of the signs of verbal abuse that I read about were things that they did to me growing up.
I had noticed that my boyfriend was behaving in much the same way as I had growing up (and I still do to some extent though I am overcoming it). Though I am very laid back and low maintenance as a girlfriend, he was very jumpy if he thought he might have done something wrong, seemed really worried about saying the wrong thing, put me first all the time but almost to an unhealthy degree, really low self-esteem, feeling not good enough, feeling some responsibility for his ex's crazy behaviour (as I would have felt for my parents behaviour), afraid to criticize his ex, and if he said something mildly criticial of her would say, "well I am not perfect" (as if he had to be perfect to be treated with any respect).
Sorry for the length of this, I just had to vent as I am so angry. On the plus side it made me feel vindicated in keeping my distance.