"But We Took You To Stately Homes!" - Survivors of Dysfunctional Families

[DontstepontheMomeRaths]

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It's February 2014, and the Stately Home is still open to visitors.

Forerunning threads:
December 2007
March 2008
August 2008
February 2009
May 2009
January 2010
April 2010
August 2010
March 2011
November 2011
January 2012
November 2012
January 2013
March 2013
August 2013
December 2013

Please check later posts in this thread for links & quotes. The main thing is: "they did do it to you" - and you can recover.

myriad it sounds as if you and your husband could do with talking things out, once the dust from the argument has fully settled. Ask him if he means it and make it clear (again) that you do not interfere with him seeing his mother. But that the unpleasantness is very difficult for you and a real strain. YOu can say it without accusation, presenting it as a problem for you to solve together, and making it clear that you want to both hear his pov and present your own, then work together on handling the difficult situation.

HOld hard to your guns though, a toxic parent is ... ye. Toxic.

Hello ladies.

myraid I used to be like your dh when I was a young girl and had visited my DM. I was very agitated and distructive when I came back , I once had a physical fight with some one a few minutes after putting the phone down to my DM as she really knew how to get in my head and do some damage with just a few words. I can kinda guess what your dh is feeling.

I bet there is a piece of him that knows dam well what she is doing and it's easier to blame you than to realise how horrid she really is.

After this weekend I've literally spent two days manufacturing rows in my head with her so I can force the NC.

Hi dizzy I felt like that when mil started her cafe. It stopped her from randomly turning up at mine.

We are being bombarded with food at the moment as she knows she pissed me off on Saturday. It can all go n the fucking bin as far as I'm concerned but I've just shoved it in the freezer. She will be waiting for the gratitude messages but she can fuck off. It's just another way off keeping her fingers in my home.

I'm worried as my DM was visually nasty so it was understandable for me to walk away. But mil rarely comes above radar, so I look like I'm imagining it. I don't want her round my dd but that would be an issue with dh. BUT I'm getting to the place in my head where I would just walk away from the lot of them - with dd of course.

I'm also really fucked off she takes so much fucking brain space as m mad all the time.

Ah yes, they can have an effect without even being present or in contact can't they! Even just the mention of them or increased contact has me start thinking through all the things that might be said/could happen - I also end up manufacturing arguments in my head, but it's only me who comes off worse from it. It does just feel like we're so much happier the less we have to do with them.

I know what you mean about taking brainspace. The situation with a couple of relatives of mine who are ... difficult ... weigh on me heavily too. Wish I could put some washing up liquid inside my head and wash away the black grease from them that clogs up my head.

Cigarettes i totally empathise! I sometimes think i just want take my dd and fucking run!!!

dizzy how did you have a big row? I've not stood up to mil properly yet. She tried having a go at me last week and I was taken back by her shouting and missed my chance I'm a big wuss

Thanks Meerka; i am holding hardto my guns on this one. I definately need to change my tone when going on about his mum. It hurts him that i tell my fam about her , it is really horrible actually how nasty i am about her infrint of him. Not on at all.

if you have got to the point of hating the effect she has on you and him both, then it's understandable you get that heated and nasty. But yes, being calmer and more neutral in -how- you speak about her might help take the heat out of the sitution (even if you both know you still hate her).

He has to love her a bit, or at least be heavily bound up in her; dissing her openly might only drive him to defend her more

Well, she went to the docs as far as I know. She rang me before, all tearful sounding worrying about whether to drive she's "not safe behind the wheel" apparently or to walk. It's a 10 min walk tops. Said she thought she wouldn't manage to get there and back on foot. That's bollocks, she walked more than that on Sunday with us. I said it was up to her, to leave herself lots of time if she wanted to walk, so she didn't have to rush.
Then, should she go to reception or sit and wait outside the room, how would she know t was her turn? I said, sit outside, he'll call you in.
I'd deliberately arranged to be out so said, sorry I'm not able to help you as I'm out and she said something like don't worry, I know you're busy ad if you had wanted to help you'd have offered. i.e..."you won't even offer to help me in my moment of crisis" "everyone abandons me" "I have no one" wah wah wah.
Still fighting off the feeling that I'm being hard by not helping someone who's feeling bad...but I think she really milks it for me.

Hello meerka

myraid I I spoke about mil to my family in front dh he would get upset as it's sort of an assault on him too. When I talk to dh about mil now it's very matter of fact.

He knows I'm with drawing from her, there will be no mothers day cards, birthday presents it xmas stuff as she refuses to acknowledge anything I get her. So she will get nothing as dh won't remember.

Last year she refused to come to my grannies 80th party that I organised because hers was the next day and no one did one for her. Mil is in her 50s.

Ah well I've baked some lemon shortbread biccys to cheer me up!! They look lovely !

I would post a pic but there is no tab!!

wow good she sounds hard work! I bet your mentally exhausted

Hello, have you room for one more? I've been here before a long time ago and have been nc with dm for three years or so. My marriage has fallen down the proverbial and I've had a lightbulb moment that my dh's emotional abusive behaviour towards me and dc is almost certainly learned from his father. I have an overwhelming sense of sadness for my dc since it has dawned on me that despite seeming outwardly unscathed so far, they are the products of two generations of two dysfunctional families

Rather, can't even get the flamin smilies right!

Hello anon the good thing is that you have recognised this and can put steps in place to 'undo ' any wrong doings.

I know that sadness I have it fir my dd1. I had her when I was 16 and tbh didn't emotionally take care of her very well. We have a fantastic relationship now but I continually talk to her about when she was little and often apologise for my bad parenting.

Oh my god.

Im getting sick of my MIL keep texting and trying to guilt trip us. She has texted and totaly and utterly contridicted (sp) her herself in every way possible.
Oh and she has had health scares. that old classic.

We have texts from her to prove she is lying.
We also have texts off FIl which i dont think she knows we have.

Its like she's denying all knowledge of her bevhaviour. Im so angry right now.

Is it too early for

It was actually by accident cigarettes, it was because of a disagreement with SIL1 that MIL had to get involved in. I pretty much exploded and bought everything up about what MIL had done and all the things she'd said over the years - I know you shouldn't do that, twas 6 years of repression waiting to get out.

Meerka and ciggarettes you are right. No more scathing remarks about his mother. As hard as it is!!
Good- ouch she sounds a handful- familiar too haha. Mommybird the guilt tripping is an old classic of my MILs! No point in willing them to see the error of their ways as they wont! My mil never will cease to be a victem as it all she has ever known. I know it sounds extreme, but it is true. I just have to keep remembering it is only me that can change and I have to go nc to do this. (And vent / ask for help on here to you fab ladies :) )

Ive posted so many times on here and everytime i feel 100% better.

She has once again, managed to turn it back onto us and make us seem to be unreasonable.
She has even admitted saying i have an eating disorder but made it into a compliment! What the hell?!

She has made up a bunch of lies. Saying the reason she didnt see the girls for 8 weeks was because she was ill and didnt want them to catch it.
When we have got texts saying she cant get a lift down to our house on weekdays. We also have texts off FIL saying she is missing the girls and she wants to see them but we're making it akward.

But apparently she was ill.

I give up.

Hello anon, alwyas room for one more :) Not quite the 'more the merrier' int he circumstances, but maybe "the more, the more survivors" and damn, you know, we should be proud to have survived.

The other thing is that having had the lightbulb moment - that's the start of being able to see what's really going on and maybe doing things differently.

mummy she sounds just unbearable. Iirc you and your husband are on the same page here? you both find her incredibly hard work? I hope you can find the strength to ignore her crap and guilt tripping and keep things at a very, very low level of contact.

dizzy that's what I'm scared off! I remember ever little thing in chronogical order! Starting from 1 month in telling my dp that I told her my dd1 was jealous off him. Which was an utter lie.

The thing is dp has has already been NC with her when he was a late teenager because she had a physical fight with his gf. He didn't speak to her for three years.

I know he would choose me over her but it would take something big, not the continual pecking she does.

mommy my mil flew out the country on the day dd2 was due in secret as I wouldn't let her be present. So when dp phoned to let her know dd was born she had her own little surprise.

I need to confront mil, hell I need to confront my own mother but I'm Nc with her so it's not pressing.

The next time mil comes round and dp is here I'm going to say

" I'm glad your both here,
" mil , after having dd2 I thought we had got back on a even footing, but recently I feel like we are going down the old path of where I feel your secretly pissed off with me and I don't know why? "

" I also feel like your pecking at dd2, to get to me"

What do you think?? Of course all hell is going to break loose but I'm too old to be scared of some one now, I'm a grown woman for god sake!

I have left out bitter, acidic,abrasive , nasty.

Well the cool, collected measure is definitely better than the explosive one . Perhaps if you could use some examples to explain why you feel the way you do? Such as, what it is that she says/does with DD that makes you feel she's getting at you through DD, or if there's anything specific she's done that caused you to feel she's angry with you. I'm thinking if there's examples it's harder for her to deny (though no don't she'll explain, twist, confuse etc. to put herself in the right). Though I'm not confident using concrete examples won't backfire on you anyway. Is there any way to win with a toxic relative?

Best of luck in any case.

dizzy I've got plenty of examples....
I just don't know if they are appropriate a lot of them are before dd birth but it's creeping back in.

The latest is to talk to dd in a sing sing voice to say I'm lazy or the outfit she has on looks stupid. Which I know is her way of gettng to me through dd.

Or why she won't acknowledge gifts I buy her .

I really want to ask her why she let me think dp was cheating on me. But if I start on that I will lose it.