here we go. i knew it wouldnt take long....(long post!)

[ThatVikRinA22]

I have a very complex background, but to cut a long story short i have recently got in touch with my brother after about 12 years.

We had a very very bad upbringing. we were neglected and abused. i ended up in and out of care, he ended up homeless and on heroin.

i escaped our abusive parents at 15, married at 19, and have built a wonderful life for myself, with lovely DH and my two much loved children. I feel very guilty that i left my brother there, but i honestly thought he would be ok, they were very different with him while i was there. It seems when i left he got it, (then when he left, our mother got it)

My brother has only recently managed to turn his life around, but is doing very well, is off drugs, married, and has a child whom he appears to dote on. He admits he still has some issues around alcohol and cannabis.He has been nothing but honest with me.

we havent met up yet, as he is undergoing chemo treatment for hep c, but the plan is to meet up at some point. We do speak on the phone. I am being very careful, and am mindful of my job (i am a police officer)

Up until now, the subject of our "parents" hasnt really come up, though i am aware that our father (my step father to be precise) is dead and our mother now lives alone. My brother has chosen to stay in touch with her. I cut contact many years ago and am all the better for it - i did try for years to engage with her - but she is hard as nails, bitter, has a sense of entitlement that galls me and takes no responsibility for our past, and basically when i had contact with them both, i got very ill with panic attacks - when i cut contact they stopped. That says it all really.

My mother (and step thing) emigrated and never bothered to get in touch - i went on to move house and change my phone number.

i did find out when he (step thing) died, and my mother apparently then came back to live in the uk.

My brother says that she was very angry with me.

Anyway - i spoke recently to my brother who states that she is not averse to making contact with me. (ha ha ha fucking ha.)

he says she sends her best. (whatever the fuck that is)

he appears to want me to bury the hatchet, and appears to think i should be grateful that she wants some contact or something. he reckons he has dealt with his demons, and im very pleased for him, but the truth is that my life has been so much easier, calmer, nicer, without her in it. She will not tell me who my father is, and i cant forgive her for the things she put me through as a child.

I want a relationship with my brother. i want to meet his child and wife.

But now, with this rearing its head so quickly into our relationship - well i am a little spooked.
would you continue down this path?
would you continue to try and build some kind of relationship with my brother?
Would you give this woman a chance?
i dont want to end up feeling sorry for her, and i will, i always did, she is manipulative, and i have no doubt now, that she probably cuts a fairly pathetic figure - brother says she is an alcoholic.
but really - i feel like i got past all this and now.....i just dont need it. I have been so strong for so long, and i dont want that to waiver.

im sorry for the length of this post....and thanks if you got this far! i just want to hear what others think.
DH says i must do what i want, and truth is i would love to know who my father is, yet she always held this over me, and would never divulge even the smallest details, i dont even have a name., but i think she likes the sense of power and i dont want to give her that, i want to be free of how i felt all those years ago.

i guess my options are to back away completely from the whole lot of them.
to state clearly that i dont want contact with my mother
or to bite the bullet and allow contact with them all.

thoughts please....

Oh Vicar I feel really sorry that you've been dragged into your family's drama after such a long time away from them and their destructive behaviour. :(

I'm wondering whether you wish to maintain contact with your brother long term? You're earlier posts seemed to imply that he was improving his life (less drugs, child he dotes on...). Do you think that now you know that he has survived his childhood, that you can "just" leave it there? Knowing that his life hasn't been completely destroyed by your DM and her husband?

I don't know much about facebook, but at the very least I'd be tempted to block your DB immediately if I were in your shoes (even if that's only temporary).

So sorry he has done this to you... he doesn't sound much of a "D"B to me :(

I'm so sorry to hear what you're going through.

You are NOT stupid. You are strong and brave, and just from reading your posts have a massive respect for you and how you have got your life back.

All I can say is do whatever it takes for you to feel in control. If it's closing your FB account for a while, or not contacting your brother then do it. You don't have to make any big decisions right now, no one is going anywhere. (EG You could delete your brother from FB - even just as a temp situation).

Take some time to be kind to yourself (counselling sounds like a great idea).

Please change your FB settings so someone who isn't a friend can't contact you.

I owuld take the opertunity to change your name on fb and block your db account - that way he will not see your fb account at all and if he searches on soemone elses fb account for your name you will not appear with a fake name. I

It is easy to change your name on fb to a normal vicar in a tutu Smith Jones or Johnson - other friends will comment but don't worry about that ignore

then this gives you time to think about what you want to do

your brother will ask about fb you can tell him you got spooked by this woman getting in touch with you and so deactivated your account for now - which is sort of true

Then take your time, keep them both at arms length and decide what you want to do and whether you want them in your life at all

Don't be too hard on your brother. He is obviously manipulated by your mother. Everyone copes in different ways and his way is to think he can get you all back together and gloss over the past. He is in denial and it's quite sad.
Explain to him that you want a relationship with him but are deactivating your account for a while because he needs to understand you do not want her looking at it. He needs to respect your wishes and stop pressing her on you. If he continues to do so then you will have to distance yourself again.

With your mum you could put some questions to her about your dad, and ask why she allowed the abuse to go on, but i have a feeling that you will never really get proper answers. Maybe the best thing is just to block her.

Blimey youre from school of hard knocks and made considerable achievements in a Vocational role contributing to community and helping others.
Take care,don't set self up to be hurt again...and good luck

Even though you aren't friend with her on fb, you can still go to her profile & block her. That way she can't see you, or message you.

Hide all photos from your brother, so she can't access his account. Or consider putting him on restricted profile, or blocking him too. Simple tell him you can't trust him not to share your stuff with her.

And walk away. DO NOT let them do this to you! You feel incredibly sad because you feel that it is all about to start again. That your peaceful calm life is about to blow.

You feel guilty for hurting people? Why, when they don't feel guilty for hurting you, for what you had to live with?

Walk away. If you have to walk away from both of them, so be it. Think of you.

Vicar, what a ghastly situation you are in.

Have you managed to get anywhere with the Council yet, re your old files? You never know, they might answer all your questions and then you can ignore your mother, because you'll have what you need already.

You know that you have to gird your loins and explain to your bro that if he facilitates contact from your mother then you'll have to walk away from him. Tell him that things are moving far too fast right now, and that you only want to see him and wife and child, and that anything more than that is too much for now.

You have all my sympathy.

thanks.

tbh i didnt follow up with the council but i will - just need to gather some strength. no one has any details though of my father - thats just something i guess i have to learn to live with. (and i mostly do - its only her popping up thats made me even think about it)

i would love to read my files, i think, i need to follow that up when it feels like the right time to do it. i feel a bit fragile so need to feel in a good strong place i think before i do that.

thanks everyone - you really just affirm what i know to be the right thing in this.

off to get some shut eye if i can, DD wants to go shopping tomorrow and i need to be feeling normal to stomach a shopping trip with a teenage girl!

thanks again everyone.

Try and have a good day with DD Vicar (even though shopping is the last thing you probably want to do) x

I hope you have a nice day shopping with DD today vicar

I am sorry you are in this situation. Its not your fault.

You dont owe your birth mum anything and everything should be on your terms.

My DS's b.mum pops up on FB in the same breezy fashion. Seemingly oblivious to the carnage she caused.

I wish I could do something to help you. Your poor head must be spinning

Hold on tight x

Vicar I can relate to your story, though mine isn't as bad - but the cutting off contact, the guilt, the mess, the family members who haven't let go in the way that you have. Your brother might think he has moved on, but IME, a child of a dysfunctional family can still basically be seeking approval from a bad parent - and he is probably doing this to try to please her at some level.

I think confidence's post further down made a brilliant point. In some situations, if you cut off properly, if you really reject that crap once and for all, you have a better chance of happiness. If it's all still in a muddle, it drags on and drags you down and sucks you back in. What you are feeling now is natural, the horror and discomfort. My own skin actually crawled when I read about her seeing your facebook and saying things about your kids.

But you DO have the strength to say no. Your own family and your own sanity are what matters and you have to insist on what is right for you. You don't actually owe either of them anything - and the fact that your brother is doing this shows he is so not sorted. Not that any of us ever are, 100% - but I mean not sorted in the way that you are.

I feel for you so much and offer you a large ((((hug)))).

Things are rarely what they seem.

Why was your mother the way she was?

Recently, my ex-SIL got in touch with me. I'd never met her, she lived (and still does) abroad. I knew of her, that she had 'caused trouble' in the family and was thrown out at 15, left the country at 16, married very quickly, had 2 children she couldnt cope with, put them into care, the husband then retrieved them and brought them up.

Bit of a similar story with husband number 2. Couple of kids, couldnt cope, 2nd husband brought them up.

She's now living in the USA. Having undergone a great deal of councelling, approaching 60 she needs to make amends with her children.He 2nd husband has always remained on friendly terms with her BTW.

We'd all make judgements on what I've posted so far.

But if I told you the 'trouble she caused' was reporting her father for sleeping with her and her sister, he admitted it and went to prison. She was the eldest and the younger children blamed her for sending daddy away. The mother never left him, went on to have more children with him.

But she has spent her life running away from the past. Only two of her 8 siblings talk to her. She is still terribly frightened of her father (hasn't seen him since 1974) and he's an 83yo man now. Only one of her 5 children talk to her although she is tentatively building a relationship with one of the others. The older two flatly refuse to have anything to do with her.

So I ask again why was you mother the way she was? maybe she does genuinely need to attone.

trois you have a point, but it isn't the OP's job to excuse her mother's behaviour or meet her need for forgiveness/whatever. Some of us get dealt a shit deal as children but what's important is doing our best not to pass it on to our children.

I deal with this all the time - my mum's needs, my mum's weakness, mum's desperation to be important to all her kids even though what she did, and what she allowed to happen, verges on criminal. Yes, she had a tough time growing up - so did I. But I've been the "parent" of the family throughout (until I recently started putting my foot down) and she hasn't.

The OP is now a mum to other people - her own kids. The happiness of that family unit and the mum of that family unit is more important. If being in contact with her mum makes her feel ill and gives her panic attacks she has a right to say no. If her mum has emotional needs she could maybe get them met elsewhere - friends, counsellor etc.

I agree with lady

We can understand, empathise even feel desperate for people like the OP's mum and my DS's b.mum.

We still need to protect ourselves and our children.

This is not up to vicar. She is not the person to help her birth mum.

Troisgarcons, a woman who wants to "make amends" with her children, approaches them by acknowledging the wrong she did them when they were children and that she has no right to have a relationship with them, so any contact will be on their terms.

She doesn't pretend there's nothing to discuss, no history of abuse, no problem with a potential relationship in the future.

Anyone who is behaving the way the OP's mother is, is simply looking to continue an abusive relationship, not to have a root and branch change in the nature of the relationship.

Tht's why the OP can't countenance her. The old woman hasn't changed one jot and can only bring negative stuff to the OP's life.

just a quickie before i brave the shops with DD to answer that point Trois.

I know that she has had some stuff in her life to deal with, and yes she had some abuse to deal with from her own childhood. For that i do feel very sorry for her but she has always stayed in the role of victim and thats allowed her to completely absolve herself of any responsibility for anything further down the line.

and she left me in the care of her abuser, who never abused me in any way and whom i grew to love like a dad, So then when i was about 10, 11, something like that - she banned me from seeing him and she chose to tell me that the only man id ever known in my family was an abuser.
great.
how to mess with your childs head. This is after she had married my abuser. So i was getting beaten black and blue every other day by her husband, spoken to like shit daily and the only people i could go to were then cut off from me, literally one day i could see them, the next i couldnt. bam. gone. out of my life and just for good measure, because i told a teacher what was happening at home, she put a chair in the middle of the room, waited for me to come home, (it was like an interrogation - really chair under the light bulb) made me sit on this chair, tell her what my abuser was doing (even though she witnessed it!!) and then belittled it all, told me that wasnt abuse - this is abuse before she told me what had happened to her, and while im not belittling what happened to her, did that give someone the right to do that to me?

what sort of woman does that?
what sort of woman buys herself new things but lets her child scavenge and beg and borrow?
what sort of woman stands and tuts as she watches her husband knocks her child out cold because while babysitting the baby fell and cut their lip?
What sort of woman tells their child that they wanted an abortion, then put them up for adoption but "couldnt go through with it" ?
what sort of woman tells their eldest that they dont love them but that they love their youngest?
i was beaten, slapped, punched, kicked, hit with canes, spat at, dragged about by my hair or ears, and called some names that at the age i was i didnt even understand. I never had clean clothes or clean bedding or underwear. My first bra was pulled out of a charity bag.
and on top of this i was their house keeper and their baby sitter.

They despised me and i lived in fear. I walked on egg shells around my step father all the time, trying not to trigger his foul temper. I learned the path of least resistance. i admitted things that i hadnt done just to pacify him and try to avoid a beating which came anyway no matter what i did. And i was a child and i couldnt do anything about it, because when i did "tell", they convinced the social workers and the teachers that i was lying. I went into care while investigations were carried out, but got put back, and after that he had free reign - he actually used to say "what you gonna do? tell the social services? go on then."
so i didnt. I had tried and failed to get help. Both myself and my brother were on the "at risk" register but no one ever checked back.
At 15 i ran. i was messed up and depressed and skin and bone, and my DH mended me. I mended me. it took years to realise that the only way for me was to have no contact and to distance myself totally from that life.

Now where do i start with a breezy message saying basically in a nutshell
'ive changed, dont reject me, the past is in the past - all water under the bridge, very proud of you, love you.'

just where do i start?

typing that has made me cry, i need to pull myself together and get ready to go to the shopping centre with dd....i havent thought about what happened to me for a long time. its still quite raw when i do think about it.

off to shake myself, wash my face, stick some slap on and go out so wont be back till later. thank you for letting me ramble. these are things i cant say out loud.

vicar you do NOT need to justify yourself.

x

Blimey Vicar, reading what you have posted has made me cry. No wonder it has done the same to you

You are so brave, you managed to escape. Don't let this woman ruin what you have

I work in a school where there are children from some horrible backgrounds, it breaks my heart, if I could put my arms around them and just give them a huge squidge, I would.

Thinking of you xx

I would not get in touch with your mother.

It's great what a success you have made of your life. Is is going to cause problems professionally for you with your brother having a problem with drugs that you know about?

Good luck

I am crying too.

She may well have her own demons but I can understand why you feel the way you do.

I am no expert but given the strength of your feelings my gut instinct is to say avoid her at all costs and do not send any sort of message back even an angry one as it would be giving in to what she wants following her agenda. It might be that there is some healing to be found but that should be on your terms if you ever want it and if you ever feel there is a way you can trust her to treat you properly.

She is either damaged and to be pitied or just plain bad and beyond redemption but either way you have to look out for yourself and your family first.

So sorry I have nothing useful to say but I hope so much recent events do not hurt you any further and that you continue with your content and successful life.

I would have so liked to be wrong when I thought, half a year ago now, that you'd do better to turn down the opportunity to open a dialogue with your brother. You believed you had to give it a try at least, and no-one can blame you for that. You tried not because you're stupid or a mug, but because despite what happened when you were a child you have grown up to be a decent, empathetic person and you like to give people another chance, especially what little family you had left. Completely understandable. You've hinted you feel a bit guilty about leaving him to the treatment you escaped, too, although you couldn't have known they would turn on him and at 15 there wasn't a lot you could have done about it anyway, so let yourself off that one too, k? And there was a nice SIL and a cousin for your DCs in the mix, no wonder you wanted to try. It's just shit that your own decency, via his naivety, is used as a stick to beat you with. And now they're saying you can't back out because he can't take the rejection. Dirty trick or what? Even if he genuinely feels that way. Frankly I think you can, and should, although as gently as possible of course.

Thing is, whereas I see where troisgarcons is coming from, ultimately, although you might understand how your mother got like, that it is not the point. You may forgive her on the grounds that she can't help it (or you may not - you don't have to!), but that is not the same thing as letting her back in your life. A scorpion doesn't sting you out of malice, it's just in its nature to do so - so you don't keep one in your bed! (By the sound of it you'd have had a better childhood if you were brought up by scorpions.)

Btw was it true about your grandad, did you ever find out for certain?

You can, and should, back out I meant - if that wasn't clear.

Troisgarcons is quite right, I'm sure that pretty much every abusive parent has been abusive, because they were themselves abused.

But that doesn't mean their children owe them anything. As adults, it's up to them to try and work through the damage that was done and not repeat those patterns with their own children. That some are too badly damaged to have done so, is not their children's fault and does not entitle them to anything from their children.

Parents who don't recognise that, are still in abuser mode.

I only read your OP, but you sound lovely, very together and very perceptive. It sounds like you have really tried hard to analyse and deal with your rough upbringing and I don't think you should jeopardise the life you have worked so hard to build for yourself by letting your mother back into your life at this stage.

I think if your brother wants a relationship with you he is going to have to accept these conditions. Perhaps you will both need to make a pact to allow the other to make their own decisions about contact with your mum and not to discuss it with the other.

Good luck.