"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.

It doesn't matter how late the update its great to hear!

You have overcome sooo much Scifi pregnancy seems to be typically the worst time of high drama from them, as I think, this is perceived as rejection and they must raise the stakes significantly to remain significant if that makes sense.

Sorry to hear of birth trauma and preND, but whatever you've been through you sound to have found such a happier and contented place with your wonderful DS and DP.

I don't recall your OP but no matter, its an inspiration to hear the changes you have been through... keep her in that box

Thanks ladies. Yes, Hissy, I did post on AIBU after a horrific Christmas. Under a different name, though, good spot!

I went non-contact with my sister after Christmas because I just couldn't deal with her. Predictably, this makes me the villain. On Sunday, I learned that because I didn't rush to make up with my sister, who was sulking and threatening to flounce out with her children as soon as I arrived, I had spoiled Mother's Day. I got this view from my mum.

I went non-contact with my mum, too, after Christmas but in January I bumped into her in her home town (I don't live there, I was visiting) and she cried and insisted I come back with her "because your father is distraught". I went because I thought she might have learned something. She hadn't.

What do you think of this strategy? Be honest:

I speak to my parents on the phone twice a week. If I don't call my mum rings me, hysterical, saying that she's worried that I've been in an accident. I am 42 and married. My mum is in complete denial about the problems in our family, even though I've firmly told her, several times, that if she persists with her bad behaviour, she will drive me away.

I plan to call her tonight and ask her whether she truly thinks I am nasty, wicked, horrible, deserving of ending up on my own, a liar etc etc.

If she says "yes", then I will end the conversation and say that if she feels that way, we should have a nice long break from each other and that when she feels ready to be my friend and to be nice, she should call me, but not before.

If she says "no", then I will ask her to apologise for having said all of those things, and tell her that her behaviour, and that of my sister, has got to change. I'll ask her to commit to not saying spiteful things in future.

What do you think? Is it worth trying?

That sounds a good plan to me contingent. Firm and straighforward and very reasonable.

Best of luck with it.

Hello scifigeek Nice to hear that things have gone so well at last!

Hi Contingent,

I would cut contact with both your mother and your sister; they both sound as bad as one another. It seems that your mother kowtows to your sister and wants to remain on her good side.

Re this comment:-
"I went non-contact with my mum, too, after Christmas but in January I bumped into her in her home town (I don't live there, I was visiting) and she cried and insisted I come back with her "because your father is distraught". I went because I thought she might have learned something. She hadn't".

And she still has not either and likely never will.

I sincerely hope the conversation goes well but be well prepared for the outcome that it may well not. She may well say no re the answer to your question but will not apologise (or if one is given it will be superficial and not heartfelt). Such people never apologise for their actions let alone take any responsibility for them.

Your people pleaser nature (learnt from them) could again cost you dearly here.

Never forget you are dealing with your birth family, a family who are deeply dysfunctional so the "normal" rules of dealing with familial relations do not apply. Your conversation strategy is flawed because you are dealing with a person who like your sister is inherently unreasonable. You are a threat to these people because you challenge their world order of dysfunction. They want you to stay in the role assigned to you (scapegoat) and keep quiet.

Your sister's behaviour, like your mother's, will not change. Asking them to change their behaviour is about as effective as spitting in the ocean; you're basically asking them to have a heart. If your mother is a narcissist in terms of personality this will then give her the green light to turn really nasty against you.

Thanks for your help. I will let you know how I get on.

Why would you allow yourself to be held to emotional ransom like that?

Tell your dm that you will call when you have time/feel like it, that if anything did happen to you, that she'd know and that you won't be guilt tripped into making calls for the sake of it.

The way she's making you live your life is *insanea and other people don't live like that!

Why would you allow yourself to be held to emotional ransom like that?

Tell your dm that you will call when you have time/feel like it, that if anything did happen to you, that she'd know and that you won't be guilt tripped into making calls for the sake of it.

The way she's making you live your life is *insanea and other people don't live like that!

If she won't respect that, then NC is the way to go.

Her choice.

I have gone nc too. It is hard to admit to yourself that you don't want to put up with their crap anymore, but it is worth it. I am in a much better place now. Read toxic parents by Susan forward. I have only just started it but she writes about you having to parent your parents whilst being treated like their child. Being responsible for your parents happiness sound familiar? Crap isn't it. Thank goodness for this thread.

Sorry to gate crash. DH and I have been NC with inlaws for three years.

Last night dh announced that he HAS to tell his parents that Im pregnant (18 weeks).

I asked if he thought they would contact us directly to tell us good/bad news, to which he replied "that's the wrong question, its would I want them to tell me and the answer is yes, if my mother was ill I would like my father to ring and tell me"

I said he needs to make peace with the reason/idea of being NC, which DH says he has.

It wasn't up for debate, he's telling them, he just doesn't know when or how.

I don't know why he feels he HAS to tell them, they will find out straight away anyway as soon as he tells his gran and brother.

Can someone help me get my head round this/DH.

We did this when I was pregnant with ds1. Mil managed to barely control herself for a year. Then the relationship broke down again after a huge row and her gaslighting. It caused a lot of unnecessary upset for all involved and we have been nc for 8 years. He is hoping that the news of a grandchild will make them change and he can have a relationship with them. My mil didn't change. If they have made a lousy set of parents how can he expect them to be good grandparents? I had to decide with my own parents that I didn't want their bad behavior around my dcs and have been nc for 7 months. Ds2 has been emotionally damaged through their awful behaviour towards him. I have to live with the fact that I let it happen.

Hi Whiteblossom,

Spanky2's messages needs to be heeded by your H in particular.

Your H certainly needs to examine further the reasons as to why your DH feels such a need to contact them in the first place. The acronym FOG (fear, obligation, guilt) springs to mind with regards to obligation. What does he expect to happen as a result?. That they will be lovely to his child and behave better this time around to him/her despite his own crap childhood at their hands?.

Re your comment:-
"I asked if he thought they would contact us directly to tell us good/bad news, to which he replied "that's the wrong question, its would I want them to tell me and the answer is yes, if my mother was ill I would like my father to ring and tell me"

He liking something to happen (e.g father actually phoning you if his wife was ill, I doubt very much that would happen anyway) does not follow at all that this would actually happen. There have been examples on here and other forums whereby a parent have died and the adult child has not been informed of the death.

If your DH contacts them he will basically undo the last 3 years of no contact with his parents. He will undo all the good progress he and by turn you have made. No contact is precisely that, no news from you is ever imparted. Also from what you write as well, other family relations will likely tell them anyway so its no point bashing the nest of hornets even further.

Toxic parents more often than not make for being toxic grandparents. I would keep any children you have completely away from these people because if they are too toxic/difficult for you they will certainly behave the same to any children you have.

hi spanky thanks for the response. We already have a ds 8, sorry I should have mentioned that. The problems were highlighted when he was born, things went down hill from there. They are not interested in GC, they say they are but the reality is VERY different.

I know my dh misses having 'parents' but you don't get to choose them, he knows they are better out of our lives. I don't understand why he misses people who have told him several times they don't like him and haven't done so since he left home. After the things they have said, there is no going back.

ds is not aware of any of this, as far as he is concerned they live a long way away (true by the way)

I would remain no contact and keep both children well away from them. They do not need such toxic people in their lives, they need decent role models for family.

He is still deep in FOG with regards to his parents and is waivering.
Your DH will harm his own family unit if he is frankly daft enough to make any form of contact with his parents. That harm will impact on him and his own family i.e you people.

my dh had a very good childhood until he was a teenager and started thinking for himself, then he left for uni and which point they decided they didn't like him. DH is the scape goat, his younger bro the golden boy.

I agree we undo the good work over the last three years but he is adamant. He's all about doing the right thing ie being seen to do the right thing. What does he expect them to say???? Congrats? Oh another gc we wont see grow up? Tears and tantrums. Ive no idea what he thinks will happen.

I really don't think they would contact us if something big happen. His gran is in her 90's and Im half expecting to be told the funeral was last week...I wouldn't put it past them.

They once said to dh that they don't think that if they got ill that he would be there for them...talk about plant the seed!! They treated us like shit. They want us there for them but not the other way around.

I could go on and on, you all know how it is.

Contingent - your situation is not that dissimilar to mine. My mother and sister live in a really unhealthy bubble, in which a very strange version of reality operates!

Here are my thoughts about NC: I think it can work in two ways. The first way is really healthy: where it is a useful tool to enable someone to shrug over something they can't fix, and move on to live an independent life free from the bitterness of the dysfunctional relationship. The second way is not so healthy: here NC works as a kind of dialectic. What I mean by that is that the lack of contact is predicated on the belief that there somehow ought to be contact, so instead of being a striking out for independence, it is actually a constant reminder of the brokenness of the relationship, perpetuating the hurt and pain.

To put it another way: NC is very useful if it's a tool to forgive but not forget, and move on. It is NOT a useful tool if it simply perpetuates the dysfunctionality and pain in another form, a constantly simmering anger and frustration rather than a genuine and deep-seated acceptance that the relationship just didn't work and that there's a need to move forward in new directions.

(NB None of us are emotionally serene at all times and we can oscillate between these two things - but the main thing is to adopt a strategy that promotes your contentment on the whole).

I think you have to figure out a strategy that lets you get away from being constantly hurt by their comments and behaviour. That means trying as far as possible to set your emotions apart from them so that you're no longer hurt by their words and behaviours. It might mean NC, or a more managed form of contact with stricter boundaries, or simply cultivating an attitude of 'sigh and don't care'! Whatever, it has to work for YOU.

again and over again i would be the one that she went nc with, because I had been awful again. I would be the one to phone because she hadn't called in two weeks and her usual was pretty much every day, and it was definitely NC as punishment saying "well if you don't know, i'm not going to tell you!" and i would try to placate and understand, upset that I had hurt her again and apologise and make amands. She was in pain, I don't doubt that at all these perceived slights.

It took me to realise that I was never going to match up, and always going to be the one responsible for ruining the relationship before knowing i couldn't do it anymore because it was ttruly and utterly pointless in the end.

We couldn't interact at all. I did feel angry at times and then I realised that there was no feeling left, just that it couldn't work no matter how hard i tried.

thanks for the advice. Ive mentioned it to my parents today, who know about everything that has gone on. They both said to leave dh to it, let him decide what to do and he will see for himself. They did say that as soon as they start "treating you as divorced" then the contact has to stop. The last text we rec'd from inlaws said this, to which dh replied we are a family and come as a package.

My concern is, once contact is made the door is opened. Pandora's box. After I had ds they made our life so stressful and made dh and I argue over them- I refuse to have a second baby and have them ruin it again. I just wont. Im bloody stressing about now, when I should be concentrating on the baby and our future not them! arrghhh

whiteblossom i'm afraid your H can't just arbitrarily make a decision like that without your agreement, otherwise he's no better that they are.

I get that he feels guilty and frightened, but that's exactly why he shouldn't tell them. Not automatically anyway.

You have 20wk or so left. Tell him that you won't entertain his contacting them until at least the baby is born, and then only on the understanding that he enters therapy to deal with his feelings around this relationship.

His contact with them places your relationship and family at great risk of damage, and you're not about to sleepwalk into undoing all the progress that's been made these past years.

This isn't his sole decision. He doesn't get to decide for you. You are a team, you'd both end up suffering the consequences, so why wouldn't you be able to participate in the discussion/decision?

Bumping this for the two most recent posters who put their messages on a full thread that is no longer accepting messages. This thread is the current Stately Homes thread.

Hi

Please would one of you wise Stately Home visitors come and help me get some perspective. Just over a week ago my mum had a fall. My dad packed her off to hospital on a bus on her own. I found out by chance and did the 2 hour trip to find her (no one knew what ward she was on etc.) She'd broken her arm. My dad said he couldn't go with her as he needed lunch and couldn't wait round a hospital. (He has, we now think ASD, but never diagnosed.)

Finally get my mum home late at night. he hasn't made food, just stood in kitchen panicking. I go and buy food, prep it and settle her in for the night. Two days later was mother's day so I bought her a microwave, mainly for him, to help him prep food as she can't. I spent two solid days cooking food for them as he won't eat ready meals. Get to their house for mother's day. (Two hours' drive.) And he starts ranting about serial killers. (Nice, on Mothers' day. I suggest he stops as it is Mother's day and the focus should be on, you know, the mothers around the table. He turned his rant on me. For once in my life I'd stood up to him. No one does.

DSis reckons the real source of his fury is that he wasn't centre of attention, it being Mother's Day and DM had broken her arm, so double focus on her. He has always picked fights on other people's special days. And my mother is his Girl Friday, so he was hacked off that he was at her beck and call not the other way round.

He has always ranted. His venomous fury was the backdrop to our childhood. Before we left last Sunday, I tried to make peace with him, as he does love to bear a grudge.

I left it a week, but called today to see if he was willing to make up. I'd decided to apologise because I knew he wouldn't and got the most appalling tirade. He listed me among the people he most hates in the world, and gave dates (dates!) of when in his life people have dared to slight him, and he has now added me to this list. He agreed that my slight was to dare to suggest he shouldn't rant on Mother's Day, thereby humiliating him in public (we were just family and one friend from my mother's childhood, so someone he's known for sixty years who lives nearby, as close to family as anyone can be.) So that was the sum total of my appalling behaviour and reason enough for me to be added to his blacklist of people he refused to speak to again (but happily ranted ill of for about forty years.)

I have a landmark birthday coming up and DSis wanted to organise a party, as I did for her on her birthday, but it's in three weeks and he won't have de-grudged by then, so we're postponing because neither of us can face his wrath and narcissism.

So, I know that is a one sided story, but am I right in wondering if he is abnormally toxic or does this sort of fall out happen in normal families?

On the phone he showed absolutely no understanding that the row may have upset me too, it was all about how awful I was. Again, because I'm nearly bloody fifty and it's about time, I stood up to him and told him that him adding me to a list of women (all women btw) who he hates, and has openly hated all his life was very hurtful. At this point he screamed that my mother should bear witness to my wicked accusations.

His line of attack is that he is a very vulnerable person that bullies love to kick. And I am one of those vicious bullies. (DH reminded me that I hadn't actually raised my voice to him and that I had been knackered from commuting four hour round trips, working, looking after DC and cooking batches of food for them!)

Am I right in thinking he is way off the mark and I should stand up to him and this time wait for him to come to me? That's twice today I rang to make peace, and once, in person on the day itself, and each time he has reacted like this.

So sorry this is so long and sounds so unbelievably petty but he is such a self obsessed, vitriolic bully and this year, after 49 years of peacemaking, something in me said 'Fuck this,' I'm going to stand my ground.

This is very petty of me, but I'm in such a state about it, I actually need a stranger to come on here and tell me whether or not he is toxic. I've lost the plot.

"So, I know that is a one sided story, but am I right in wondering if he is abnormally toxic or does this sort of fall out happen in normal families?"

This type of fallout is completely normal in dysfunctional and emotionally unhealthy family units. Your father is a narcissist and a bully and all inadequate men are bullies who pick on others to bolster their own stupid selves.

I doubt very much he is anywhere on the spectrum actually and he has never been diagnosed (so it cannot be assumed either). Importantly ASD is never linked to abusive behaviour like your dad has shown you and his family over the years. He is an abusive man plain and simple.

Its a great pity that your mother for her own reasons has decided to stay with such a man, she made a rod for her own back doing that. You got the narcissistic rage from him because you dared to stand up to his abusive behaviours. Also as it was mothers day and your mother had broken her arm he was also not centre stage.

I would actually not have any further contact at all with him. You would be happier without his presence at all in your life.

Don't you dare postpone the party!

Sod him and his grudge!

You pandering to him and his frankly vile behaviour and foul treatment of your poor mother is unforgivable!

Help your mum, tell him he's failed you all a by being too selfish to step up, and tell him he's no loss to you if he can't see that.

I cracked a bone in my arm as a kid. Felt every bump in the road. I was in dad's lovely great 7 series bmw. Not on a fecking bus.

Your poor mum. :(

So sorry this is so long and sounds so unbelievably petty but he is such a self obsessed, vitriolic bully

You know that you were right to stand up for yourself, don't you?

if you do need the outside feedback - YES YOU WERE.

Again, you have a right to stand up for yourself becuase you too are a human being and are entitled to be yourself, to have a voice equal as his, and for your views to be treated with respect. His behaviour is very far from normal indeed.

Good on you.

It will however make things difficult for the foreseeable I imagine :/ He;s not going to forgive quickly or forget is he? But you sound immensely tactful and Im sure you can manage to keep on good terms with your mother and sister. But I would say that you have apologised (tactful, but you had done nothing wrong!!) to him and now, yes, you wait for him to come to you. I also don't see why you can't have your 50th party just fine.

and agreed with attilla, if he has any ASD traits they are completely a separate issue from the fact that actually, he's a bullying and woman-hating tyrant.