Difficult: resumed contact with Mother

[blockednose]

Hi Everyone,

I'm new to MN, but have commented on a few other threads. This is my first post, and apologise if it is too long or appears a big vague - I don't want to out myself re my daughter.

Last year, my DD had an accident at home, and was in hospital for a week. My mother had never liked my husband and at the time of my DD's accident se literally went on a crusade against him. She first blamed him for my her accident ( it was not his fault, both of us "were to blame"). At the time, her dislike for him was unleashed and there was no more politeness which she had exercised previously. It all came to a head when she came round my house and was unhappy that his family had come to visit out DD as she had been released from hospital and my mother had not allowed them to see her when she was in hospital. At the time both myself and my DH did not stop her being so controlling and excluding his family as we were both too distraught to confront it.

She abused my DH and his Aunt (who brought him up after his mother died). I told her to leave my house, that it was unacceptable for her to speak to my DH that way or his family. We did not speak from that August until Christmas, fell out again in January '12 and so have not spoken for a year...my siblings sided with her and none of them have seen me or my DD. they have all sent many abusive emails and texts to myself and my DH including one in which my mother disrespectfully talks about my DH's deceased mother. None of them attended our wedding in the summer and have refused to see my DD up until now.

This morning my mother called me and asked to see my DD, I agreed. What she failed to tell me is that she brought one of my sister's along, who has been extremely abusive towards myself and DH. I did not want to see her, I could just about cope with the stress and anxiety of seeing my mother again.

My mother would like to see DD next week to give we her Xmas presents, but I really want to tell her not to bring either of my sisters along or my brother. They never make any individual efforts with their niece, and I feel so angry about the fact that they are trying to sweep everything under the carpet and as usual only do something of my mother does it.

When she calls me next week, I want to calmly tell we to just meet me by herself. But I am so anxious about them over reacting (as they normally do) and creating another big family feud.

Thank you if you have read this far, my husband feels very hurt by all of them, and he supports me taking our DD to see her grandmother but I know he does not really want to see me this stressed and anxious. I guess I'm looking for support and others opinions.

Thank you all xx

I don't normally post on these threads because I feel I have no experience to offer.

But the one thing that stands out to me is that blockednose can ensure visits are supervised for now, while her Dd is small, but what happens later?

blockednose I think you need to ensure that as your DD grows up she gets a factual (and hopefully unemotional) education in the background to your relationship with your family, otherwise when she's older (and maybe in that rebellious phase ) it may enter her head to seek out your mother for "her side" of the story.

I think if she's not had contact she'd accept your view, but if she's getting some, albeit supervised contact, especially if the contact has proven civil at least, then she might start to wonder.

I get the distinct impression from the description of your mother that once she gets to meet your DD on her won she'll start to twist things and badmouth you, not necessarily to hurt your DD but to get at you.

I have the t-shirt for the above scenario (3 sads don't even sum it up tbf)

Hmmm fry and springy that is definitely a good point to consider. I really don't have the answers for myself right now, but I think I will have to go by past experiences when considering the above.

For example, in the case of my mother and father, who divorced when I was around 12 years old. My mother kicked me out when I was 16 and sent me to live with my father (he is equally as dysfunctional as my mother). Whenever my mother got into a fight about money with my father, she would call me and start bad mouthing my father. All sorts of really atrocious and hurtful stuff. Whether it was true or not, I feel that because she was not there and she sent me to live with him, but then in the next breath abused him and wanted me to take sided with her over him, I did really wonder is my dad as bad as my mother says he is. I did ask my father for his side of the story, and I came to see that my mother and father are both abusive, but my mother has a real hatred for my father, but still uses him in family feuds IYSWIM.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I want to completely supervise visits between my mother and DD. I will be honest and tell her why my relationship is the way it is with my family. My DH is a devoted dad to her, and his side of the family have never once abandoned us, even when me and his sister were not really getting along. I think that she will see that if his side are there for us, and my side are not, it's more their problem then ours. I think FACTUAL is the key word. I won't be biased, I will tell her the truth if and when she asks.

I really don't want to make mistakes with my DD's upbringing, so I am just trying to rationalise my thinking behind all of this, and go from what I have also experienced in the past. I am listening to what you are all saying though, as I don't want my DD to see me in any pain WRT my family.

springy I'm not trying to pry, but do you mind elaborating?? Or do you have a thread about it? Thank you...

I kept up contact with my horrible family 'for the sake of the kids' (how I deeply regret that misguided decision now!!). My family capitalised on that link and, when my kids were at their most vulnerable and during the teen rebellion phase, moved in on them and, ultimately, effectively separated them from me. I currently have no relationship with my children as a result. There is no thread about it because kids estranged from their parent/mother doesn't go down well; people think there is no smoke without fire.

Talking of fire, you're playing with fire to facilitate a relationship between this viper and your child.

blocked you are in such a tricky situation and some of the stuff you have said is sad and contradictory, I think counselling would be great for you :)

I don't have contact with my mother any more because she was toxic and manipluative toward me and DH. She told me to not contact her again when I made a decision that she didn't like (to have a small wedding), but I did, I contacted her a lot to try and explain. It was pathetic, she never got back to me. She never told my siblings I was trying to make amends so they thought I was in the wrong too. I have had to fight to keep a relationship with them! (sadly not worked with Db but me and DSis are cool)

In the meantime she did send my then 2 year old DS b'day and xmas cards and presents (just to him, not to our family!) which broke my heart and finally helped me realise how manipulative and cold she could be and that maybe no contact was a good thing. Over the past year I have become so much stronger without her around. even tho she doted on him DS doesn't see her. I won't let them have a relationship because she is treating me the way I saw G'ma treat her. It was awful growing up and seeing the way my g'ma would manipulate my mum, tell her to get lost (as in I knew they weren't talking and my mum was sad) then let my mum creep back into the family, making excuses to us about why g'ma was the way she was, all while my mum's siblings watched. They live close together and never rock the boat with g'ma, I don't know why her and my mum had such a bad relationship.

Watching my mum being treated this way (and children are sooo canny) was heartbreaking and made me hate my g'ma. None of us see my maternal g'parents, they are cruel and pathetic people and now my Mum is turning into them. I will not have her and that behaviour in my little family; I will not let DS see me - a normally strong and assertive person - being belittled and manipulated into being a sad little girl again; I will not let her turn on him, or slag us off to him. This might be wht you are setting yourself up for... If my mum, as your mum has, can turn against me and DH while smiling at DS then she can choose and manipulate her allies -and this is only divisive and will only cause sadness. Do you not see that you are a package? A unit, to stand together? Do you not in any way feel that your mum is being divisive, choosing who and how she loves those around her?

having maternal g'parents is not automatically a precious relationship, sadly :( It too can be toxic and ensure the cycle of abuse continues through learned behaviours.

I hope you are ok! I really, really feel for you. good luck!

blockednose as I mentioned I don't have experience in this sort of thing. I can only send my wishes that you, your DH and DD can have a happy future.

I can only reiterate what I wrote earlier:-

Some grandparents really shouldn?t be allowed access to their grandchildren.

A percentage of the general population is dysfunctional and/or abusive. That percentage, like everyone else, has children. Then those children grow and have children of their own. The not-so-loving grandparents expect to have a relationship with their grandchildren. The only problem is, they?re not good grandparents.

Many adult children of toxic parents feel torn between their parents? (and society?s) expectation that grandparents will have access to their grandkids, and their own unfortunate firsthand knowledge that their parents are emotionally/physically/sexually abusive, or just plain too difficult to have any kind of healthy relationship with.

The children?s parents may allow the grandparents to begin a relationship with their children, hoping that things will be different this time, that their parents have really changed, and that their children will be emotionally and physically safer than they themselves were.

Unfortunately, this is rarely the case, because most abusive people have mental disorders of one kind or another, and many of these disorders are lifelong and not highly treatable. (Others are lifelong and treatable; however, many people never seek the necessary help.)

The well-intentioned parent ends up feeling mortified for having done more harm than good by hoping things would somehow be different ? instead of having a child who simply never knew their grandparents and who was never mistreated, they have an abused child who is now also being torn apart by the grief involved in having to sever a lifelong relationship with the unhealthy people they are very attached to.

If your parents were not good parents and you are considering whether or not to allow a relationship with your children, consider the following factors, as well as others, before deciding:
?Have they fully addressed their issues in SKILLED long-term therapy? (A few weeks or months is nowhere near adequate if your parents regularly mistreated you).
.
?Have they been treated for all the root causes of their dysfunction or abuse?
.
?Have they sincerely apologized and made amends for the hurtful things they did? Not just said, ?I?m sorry?, but really talked it all through with you over many hours? time?
.
?Are they very different people to you from the ones you remember?
.
?Do you currently have a healthy, functional and stable relationship with them?
.
?Do they respect your choices and boundaries as a parent? Do they follow your requests about how you want your children to be treated and to behave?
.
?Would you recommend your parents to your best friend as babysitters without any hesitation or worry, and feel comfortable giving your word that they?d never harm your friend?s child, without any doubt?
.
?Have you worked through all of your feelings about the mistreatment you experienced through your parents?

It is important to keep in mind that if they are too toxic for you, they are FAR too toxic for your vulnerable and defenseless children.

If I recall correctly you stated No to all the above questions.

Please don't let this horrible woman have access to your DD, she will damage her and possibly separate her from you in the future. It is your job to protect her. She only 'loves' her now because she is a compliant child. Once she has her own ideas and opinions it will be a different matter. Dysfunction bleeds from generation to generation if you don't put a stop to it, it is crazy to let this go on from some sort of misguided, sentimental idea of what grandparents should be. What children don't have they don't miss but toxic families can do irreperable damage.

Aargh, typed out large reply earlier on my phone and it disappeared. My thread was called toxic overload, I think, and contained a lot of very good advice that may be relevant to you too. I was so scared back then, still am, but I'm much stronger and determined to protect my dc at all costs. My parents did not listen - they denied everything, accusing me of being mentally ill and 'having it in for' the hideous brother. Apparently he never said any of those bullying things to my ds - and when he called the baby I lost a 'mistake', he was only joking.
Now they have turned around and accused my lovely dh of 'bullying' our children and all the rest of it, projecting their disappointment at their horrible son onto him, at a guess. This is why we are now non contact. I hope the thread helps!

She only 'loves' her now because she is a compliant child. Once she has her own ideas and opinions it will be a different matter.

I agree 100% with Cleo- my poor ds found this out once he started growing up and being himself.

Hi springy that is very sad, that your own parents would do that to you. I can?t believe that any mother or father could live with themselves after separating their own child from their g?children and themselves. I would not want the same to happen in the future, but given the way my mother already alienates me from the rest of the family, this would not be out of her capabilities. I know I am dealing with a very poisonous and manipulative woman (when it comes to me) but if I do decide to continue with this contact with her then I will not be going any further than supervised visits. It couldn?t go any further than that as she has shown no intentions of making amends with myself and DH. But when I read this back I do questions myself as to why I would want my DD around someone that I fear could do such disgusting things.

Santa, your mother sounds exactly like mine. Every falling out we have ever had is as a result of her not agreeing to decisions I?ve made in my life. Even when she kicked me out at the age of 16 years old, she still wanted control over what I was doing. I am glad that you still manage to have a good relationship with one of your siblings, something I sadly don?t have. I have given up fighting to have a relationship with them. They are disloyal, even with everything laid out before them, they still enable my mother to completely isolate me from the whole family. I have not seen any of them for the same amount of time as my mother, and they ALL said to me that if my mother was not going to come to our wedding, then they wouldn?t. However, if even just one of my siblings had told her they would attend, then she would have too.

My arsehole brother had the cheek to text me last night (after a year of not seeing me or his niece) ?I heard you say mum, that?s good?. This is typical of their behavior. Now they all think I?m in contact with my mother again, they all follow suit. I just ignored.

Santa, I do see that my mother is being divisive and choosing who she loves, and how. Yes, me, DH and DD come as a package, but I don?t want a relationship with her anymore, nor does DH but I guess we both feel that as DD?s grandparent she automatically has a right to a relationship with her, which of course is wrong. I am well aware that I need counseling, I am very conflicting about all of this.

Cleopatra I agree that what children don?t have, they don?t miss. But I think really I need help. I said earlier that I think maybe the reason I am doing this is because I have not fully accepted that no relationship with my mother means that I no longer really have a mother. I have nothing to say to her anymore because I can?t make her be a mother to me, I can?t make her love me unconditionally as a mother should, to make her be happy for my happiness, to not attempt to sabotage my happiness with DH, and other relationships such as those with my siblings. I really do need counseling.

Creepy, I am going to find your thread. Until posting this, in RL I felt like I was the only one with such a dysfunctional family, and have always felt like people have never quite believed me, or don?t quite understand the behavior of my family. My DH didn?t quite believe it until he was on the receiving end.

Attila, I did re read over your post, and I will keep doing so. I need it to be reiterated to me anyway to have the strength to stand my ground with her.

Last year I had a few counseling sessions with my college. I think because it is offered free, they didn?t really encourage me to come back for any repeat sessions, but I can?t actually afford to pay for counseling (I did check out the website, thank you attila), so I?m not sure if I should just go through the college for now. Anyway, the counselor there told me that even though I?m not having a relationship with my mother, she should still be able to be a g?parent to my DD. I think this has also influenced my decision in allowing contact between DD and mother (while I?m there).

Since the meeting on Saturday anyway, I have not heard from her, just a stupid text from my brother.

Blocked, you sound amazing to be thrashing your way through this. Your family are fools not to recognise your worth.

On the other hand, your dd is so lucky.