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

[DontstepontheMomeRaths]

Thread opener here: webaunty.co.uk/mumsnet/
You may need to right-click and 'unblock' it after downloading it.

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.

Thank you momeraths... atm despite my lovely husband I am wobbly a bit.

My adoptive mother was wonderful. I wish so much she could be here to see our second son when he's finally born. My father just ... doesn't care. You've summed it up perfectly, it's not the same as those who've known me my whole life and in honesty, it's been lonely since having to get out of the home as a teenager ... no shared history. Right now that just hits me more.

Did not sleep well sighs keep waking at 3am with everything gnawing at me. I do think I need to do more work in therapy. It'll be painful but this just isn't bearable at the moment. Am dreading night times at the moment.

We try again with the inductoin on Tuesday. If the foley catheter and prostoglandins fail again, I'm not sure what the next step is, they don't like elective caesarians in the Netherlands. I honestly think life is going to be relatively easy once the baby actually arrives!

and thank you pumpkin .. im sorry, did not see your post.

I'm so glad that you have been able to protect your baby. The black leather ribbons that tie us to the poisonous relatives really constrict and hurt us don't they :( I suppose in a way it's good that my adoptive father doesn't really care. No chance of nastiness.

Are your husband's siblings still fully in the FOG? Got to be even harder when you don't even have -one- relative who sees clearly.

Welcome whimsical. Love your name. Must have been so hard after 11 years for your DSD to move so suddenly. Your MILs behaviour is awful. She's blaming you both for her moving away. That's the last thing you both need in your pain right now. It sounds like you're going through so much. After all this abuse she's now moving to be nearer DSD? And what about her other granddaughter? It all sounds so toxic and dysfunctional.

Attilla often posts on here about toxic grandparents and how we hope things will be different with our children. I think it's a good thing in a way that her recent actions have opened your eyes to who she really is and that she won't poison your own DD anymore. But the loss of your DSD and now the breakdown of your relationship with MIL is a lot to take. How's your H coping with it all?

Meerka I hope you can sleep better tonight. I'm sure once the baby arrives it will help a lot. This waiting and being uncertain of the next steps for induction or if you'll need a c section must be difficult. It's also a new season, a new baby and knowing you do not have that family to share it with like others is so hard.

Hi Pumpkin. Glad to hear things are better.

Have a Happy Easter tomorrow everyone. No big plans here. Not seeing family but I may go to Church and then try to do something nice with just my kids as I'm divorced.

Hi Momeraths,

Thank you for the welcome. I fear my posts may be long at the mo as I feel the need to vent!

DH is coping remarkably well at times. He does have moments of doubt and guilt thinking that it's his fault and what he could have done to be a better father (!), which is utterly ridiculous as he's a wonderful father to our DD.

DH's last straw was when MIL came round to shout at him ('you're a spineless man, grow a pair and tell that evil fucking wife of yours ... Blah blah blah'). I very calmly said that she needed to talk to DH out of the living room where DD was sat open mouthed with shock at the shouting from her grandma. MIL, after leaving the living room, burst back in and spat at me 'not in front of the "little princess"?'. At that point DH told her to leave. All this was over DH refusing to give DSD more money (on top of maintenance already paid monthly to DSD's mother). Upon DH saying no, DSD was rude to DH and put the phone down on him. I got in touch with her and gave her a bollocking. DSD then phoned granny, told her I had been mean, but not the whole story, and she came flying round to ours in a rage about how awful I had been to DSD.

MIL has been on really poor terms with me and DH since the summer last year when DSD left. She then had the cheek to say that we were cutting her out of DD's life and still wanted to take her to school, like she had last academic year (3 times a week), but couldn't guarantee any days as she was up for sale and refusing any contact with me!

Tbh MIL doesn't really care about DD. didn't phone on her birthday, sent a t shirt as a gift and a card, DH's birthday a few days after DD, he got money Ina card and a loooong letter saying how upset she was over our behaviour etc. it's my birthday in a few weeks, I'm hoping I don't get anything from her as I will be returning it.
DD is better off without MIL, she's only just turned 8, and has said that she doesn't like granny as she shouts and is mean. She regularly tells me that once DSD had been mean to her, she went and told granny (my MIL) and when DSD protested that she hadn't done it, MIL called DD a grass. She was only 5 at the time. Who does that?!

My parents are great, very supportive and live close. They provide us with a lot of support.

DH has lost all of his family in the last seven years,

• grandmother (paternal) passed away 7 years ago
• dad passed away 6 years ago
• Sister, BIL, 2 nephews and niece moved 100 miles away 4 years ago, we see them twice a year
• Grandfather (paternal) passed away 3 years ago, leaving DH's uncle to inform us that grandfather was in fact not the biological father of DH's dad. All of the extended family knew apart from DH, SIL, MIL and their families. All extended family gave known for 35 years+! The only person who knows who DH's real grandfather is was his paternal grandmother and she's already dead! No name on birth certificate, we've tried everything, no luck.
• The will that DH's grandfather left cut out his side of the family as he was not 'biologically linked' to them. This caused a massive fall out and we now have no contact with DH's aunts, uncles, and cousins. DH's aunt and uncle also got married and didn't tell any of our side of the family as they didn't want to invite MIL!
• DSD left in July last year
• and MIL is fucking bonkers!

I'm amazed DH is still here tbh. When he had his breakdown he disappeared off several times. It was on,y after he started his CAT therapy that he told me he'd been stood in three feet of water waiting for the tide to come in.... He is on the road to recovery now though thankfully.

Wowsers! What a lot of stuff I've been bottling up!

Happy Easter peeps!!

Hello to WhimsicalTwattery, great name! Will have a read through now. Reasonably quiet on the mad mother front here, but have realised she is totally obsessed with drama. Can create a drama out of nothing.

Thanks GoodtoBetter

I know the feeling! A drama obsessed MIL and a manipulated DSD, who has turned into mini version of MIL

Saw mad mother this morning and was listening to her latest nonsense drama and it does my head in, make me feel ragey. Think I need some professional therapy at some point, especially as regards anger and unresolved anger. Saw a place nearby goes gestalt counselling...anyone know what that is?

hi good .. it sounded a bit weird to me, lots of seeing yourself as defined by your relationships and primal screaming. Might be a bit badly informed though. could always try a session or two?

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy seemed quite good to me. Main thing is making sure you click with the therapist and that they are well-accreditted and experienced. There's some evidence that that's more important than the form of therapy iirc.

sorry for ignoring yoyu whimsical, didnt mean to. Hope you're managing easter, it's second only to christmas for strain isnt it.

Thanks, Meerka...have googled it and it sounds a bit weird. My googling has turned up a counsellor near where I live so have e mailed to ask about rates.
Feel like DM provokes so much rage atm, not sure it's normal.. Felt like a needed a decompression chamber today after seeing her.

Hello, first time posting on this thread, I've been aware of it but avoiding it...
My childhood still affects me everyday. I feel so screwed up and damaged that I don't know how to be happy or if it's possible for me. I have fleeting moments of happiness that take me by surprise.
The only reason I stay within society and a community is for my children, if I didn't have them I'd move somewhere isolated and live a hermit's existence.
I feel so let down by so many people, people that should have cared but didn't.
However I shall continue to put on the mask everyday and act normally.
At some point I'd like to go into details but I don't know where to start yet.

Hi BookWorm. Welcome. You don't have to post a long history. But if you want to talk about anything at all, we're always here to listen and we understand. I put on a mask but struggle hugely with self esteem, self worth, even phoning people.

Meerka , you're right about the stress being second only to Christmas. I have been anxious all day, worrying that MIL would turn up unexpectedly.
Thankfully she didn't and it was a quiet day for me, DH and DD.

BookWorm I'm new too and feel welcome already. I know that I personally wear a mask to protect DH from my feelings at least 50% of the time. He has MHealth, so there is pressure for me to be the 'strong one'.

Wrt therapy, I don't know if CBT is necessarily the recommended approach.

It would help in changing how one reacts to things, in that it teaches copping mechanisms and can help to break negative patterns within our minds. Would it go as far as tackling the worn down bits? Worth asking about, that's for sure though.

Laptop has seemingly gone on internet browser strike. Can't get any one of them to work, so am posting from phone, which is a bit less than ideal when I kind of need to braindump a bit.

Dsis rocked up at my place unannounced last week. Fair enough she said if she's have called or texted, i'd have ignored her.

There were a few words exchanged on the doorstep, but once I had her undertaking that she'd leave if asked and that i'd not have to call the fuzz, I let her in.

Apparently she was drunk when she said to me that she'd ignored me on purpose, and she's sorry for saying it, that it wasn't what she meant to convey, and didn't realise the consequences of saying it.

She asked if I wanted her in my life, I said I wasn't sure, but had come to terms that perhaps she wouldn't be, so was ok with whatever happened tbh.

I said too that perhaps 2 years on, we are both different people, and would react differently now, but back then I was a shell; terrified of everyone and everything. Confrontation was beyond me. I'd been hurt, by ex, by dm and by her and I didn't want that to continue.

I told her that if she was a winged monkey for dm, she could trot along happily, cos that's one situation i'd not repeat in a billion years. She assured me she wasn't.

I gave her a bit of a taste of how her relationship with dm is poles apart from mine. She couldn't get her head round a few things, but that's fine. She doesn't have to. It may sink in, it may not. That's her journey.

We've left it so there's an open door. But i've no idea what the next step is. I had all this resolved in my head, now it's less so.

I don't want to get sucked back in to anything.

RL friends say leave it to her to make the next move and see how I feel about that.

So for now, little has changed, only the possibilities. At all times dsis said that it be on my terms.

Confused. To say the least.

marking my place as a newbie. not ready to talk I am definitely not a survivor!not yet but I hope to be. one day. going to have a read through the links.

I think I'm quite good at coping with her generally. Think what I'm probably looking for is reassurance and also someone to tell it all to...sort of. I don't know. There's a lot that feels unresolved. Take things slow with dsis, hissy. Caution would be my advice. Xx

I think you endure her G2Bn you do this at the expense of your feelings, which is why you get so angry.

Knowing that YANBU (from us) and from A.N. Other will help you feel more validated.

Won't solve your dm issues though... :)

Wishing you all a very Happy Easter, haven't been around because I have been on holiday.

Hissy, I would still advise caution re your sister. She being drunk at the time is still no justification or excuse for acting in the ways that she did; being drunk simply lowers any previous inhibitions.

G2B - you tolerate her at your own expense because you have been trained to. Small wonder you are angry. The only way forward ultimately re your good self is to completely detach emotionally and physically from her.

Ahb Atilla! I'd noticed your absence! Welcome home! :D

Yes, caution is the way forward.

Apparently I was supposed to have asked her how she is often, how she was finding motherhood, being back in the uk etc.

But seeing as no bugger ever asked me any of the above, how on earth would I have known to ask? Especially when she didn't seem to want to speak to me after her dd was born.

Yes, caution.

I have posted in the past about family. I have been NC more or less since February. Until sister (mother hench woman and greatest defender) posted photos of my daughter with a birthday cake the day before her birthday. I remonstrated and she over reacted, claiming I was dragging kids into argument etc.I wasn't.
SInce then I have been in the guilt gutter and so on. Stilll stuggling to accept that my family as it stands is unwell, unbalanced and unlikely to get any betthier.
I am going through cycles of depression. I get new drugs. I get admitted for a bit. Suicide is always in my thoughts, though my children keep me alive.
My eldest daughter has adopted some of their behaiour toward me. She is here ofr a visit and is being vile.
We are in America, dd1 has come to ivist for 10 days 5 of which she treated me like shit....DH stepped in.
My family is disappearing over the horizon and I am letting them go. I am not very well mentally at the moment, the stress of it is killing me. My therapist is good. She wants me to go to group therapy but I don't think I can handle it. At least the crying has stopped.

Hi jellymum. Welcome.

Lola that sounds flipping awful. I have no words. But I'm listening if it helps to talk.

Hi Hissy. Wise words from Attilla. Welcome back from your hols Attilla.

I have found Easter difficult too, but I was able to cry about my abusive parents which is better than Christmas as I was really wound up then. I am sorry I have no advice for anyone. I am glad you all are here. Well you know what I mean I would rather everything in the garden was rosy!

That's ok Spanky you don't have to give advice. I often feel I don't have much to say that's wise. I'm not succinct enough. But the support here is so great.

I'm sorry you've found Easter tough.

Think I've found a therapist!