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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Original poster

Would you cut your mother out of your life? - long, sorry

308 replies

Pages · 10/08/2006 06:42

It sounds really harsh but she has upset me so much and I just don't want her around to hurt me anymore.

A year ago she told me my SIL found it difficult to be around my child who has special needs. It hurt me really badly at the time but I didn't say anything because my brother and SIL are not the most approachable people. In the end I told my brother about it in a row which wasn't the best of times and I apologised for that. I also rang my mum and apologised if I'd got her into trouble (although really it needed to come out into the open and be dealt with).

My mum then completely astounded me by denying telling me any such thing and she, my brother and my SIL have ganged up on me, called me a poisonous liar and my SIL has told me she never wants to see me again (no great loss there actually, I am pretty sure she is largely responsible for my mum's reaction).

My mum subsequently some weeks later asked me if we could put it behind us. I have told her not until she has apologised and accepted responsibility for what she has done. She refuses to do so (she has never been good at apologising, always has to be right) and whilst telling me to my face that she wants to move on I have found out that she is telling other people in the family that I have done a good job of splitting the family up. It is true my older brother has supported me but only because he knows I am not a liar and my mum has always treated him as an outsider in the family and pitted the rest of us against him.

She is really a very manipulative person. I realise that now. But she is very loving if you agree with her. I have liked to think we have had a really close relationship till now - I used to ring her several times a week and talk to her about almost anything - but the reality is that there is a price to pay for that. Whenever there have been disagreements between us she has always blamed me or DH and I have accepted that to keep things running smoothly between us.

I have been aware for some time that she gossips about me to others in the family, mainly because she gossips about all of them to me and criticises and badmouths them, the way they bring up their children, etc. I used to think stupidly at one time that I was her loyal confidante and then realised with a shock that she was talking just as much about me too.

I really feel that I have so many friends and people who I trust and who really seem to care about me in my life, including DH's family (MIL I think loves me more than my own mum does, she is so sweet), why have people around who don't support me and who I am? Certainly there is no subtext with DH's family - what you see is what you get with all of them and I prefer to have friends around me like that too.

I have never stood up to my mum like this before. My older brother always has and that is why he has been badmouthed and ostracised all his life. My little brother (who always agrees with everything my mum says, worryingly so) even told DH some time ago that he doesn't care for my older brother - but he has never got to know him. My older brother is a really nice person but he has his own thoughts and opinions.

I actually feel hugely liberated by what's happened, like I can be free to be who I am now without the shadow of pleasing my mum hanging over me. I will never stop her seeing her grandchildren but don't want to have a close relationship with her anymore. And yet a part of me tells me this is wrong because we have always been close.

By the way, I have tried talking to her over and over and have put my side across numerous times but she keeps side-stepping the issue and not responding to it, says there is no point in discussing it, we both feel betrayed and that's that. And recently she has implied this must be about more than the immediate incident. It isn't! I just don't like being called a liar and blamed for all of this.

Does anyone think I am overreacting about all of this and should just let it go and get on with my mum? Would you feel as upset as I do?

OP posts:

Cam · 17/08/2006 21:06

I'm not upset by your telling me I have nothing to contribute to this discussion because you don't know me and you have no understanding of my situation as I haven't mentioned anything about my own life in this thread.

However, having being called ignorant, judgmental, rude and offensive just because I am not falling over myself to tell Pages to cut all contact with her mother is totally bizarre.

Cam · 17/08/2006 21:08

And I'd still like to hear the mothers' sides of these stories

VeniVidiVickiQV · 17/08/2006 21:10

Why are you harking back to that again?

I have to say, I do find you a bit ignorant on this thread unfortunately, because you appear to be oblivious as to how emotive this is.

Your suggestions and comments have been utterly belittling to the experiences of Pages and Greensleeves. Im not surprised you got the reaction you did. I find it bizarre that you think otherwise.

VeniVidiVickiQV · 17/08/2006 21:11

Yes, Im sure there is a very reasonable excuse for being an abuser.....

Cam · 17/08/2006 21:11

As for not being able to understand the "deep feelings" involved, how do you know what I can and can't understand?

You should listen to yourself.

Why do you think I don't understand deep feelings because I'm not encouraging Pages to cut all contact with her mother?

Why do think I don't understand just because I'm not agreeing?

That's nonsensical.

VeniVidiVickiQV · 17/08/2006 21:14

Err because your posts have been ignorant towards the subject?

Dior · 17/08/2006 21:14

Message withdrawn

Cam · 17/08/2006 21:14

Pages thread title is: Would you cut your mother out of your life?

2 people said no.

catsmother · 17/08/2006 21:14

Oh Cam, wake up and smell the coffee .....

Rosemary West was a mother. Do you think if she made a nice apple crumble, all her evil should be forgiven ?

A great many people have no redeeming features at all ....... for a feature to be considered redeeming it not only has to be a positive attribute in itself but it has to outweigh the non-redeeming features too.

None of us are perfect and we all have faults but that generalisation is NOT what many posters here are talking about - they are talking about sustained misery, persecution, deliberate cruelty (mental or physical), extreme stress, drug and/or alcohol addiction, mental conditions which may explain someone's behaviour but which makes it no less easy to cope with (or to expose children to), sadism, erosion of self-worth over decades, bullying, people who are determined dangerous liars (and so on)- surely you get the picture now.

They are NOT talking about merely "falling out" over a silly misunderstanding like a remark about a new haircut taken the wrong way.

VeniVidiVickiQV · 17/08/2006 21:17

Oh well, we mustn't deviate from the thread title must we?

Starlover, is that you?

Cam · 17/08/2006 21:19

If they're really all those things, how have they escaped court action or notice by some authority or other?

Some people are talking as if their mothers are Rosemary West.

Dior · 17/08/2006 21:22

Message withdrawn

Cam · 17/08/2006 21:23

Plus, Pages having asked whether people would cut their mothers out of their lives, why have those who would attacked those who wouldn't?

Far too many assumptions have been made by those posters.

I do think there is some immaturity being displayed on this thread and I still object to being labelled ignorant, judgmental, etc.

catsmother · 17/08/2006 21:23

It is not offensive BTW, to suggest that someone thinks long and hard about such a huge decision.

But it is offensive, once people have said that they had very serious, damaging reasons for doing so, to then make them feel bad (in multiple posts, again and again) about their decision .... suggesting that they are selling their own children short, warning that they will be abandonned themselves because of that decision, saying that their problem is they want their mothers to be perfect etc ......

... to my mind, that is rubbing salt into the wound and is completely unnecessary.

Can you not imagine that anyone who literally cuts off all contact with their mother has almost certainly gone through years of anguish before doing so ?

Cam · 17/08/2006 21:25

I'm not here for you to take your anger out on, I'm as entitled to post as you are.

Dior · 17/08/2006 21:26

Message withdrawn

VeniVidiVickiQV · 17/08/2006 21:27

If you object to being labelled ignorant, i suggest you stop being so.

There are no assumptions on my part about Greensleeves either.

Cam · 17/08/2006 21:27

Yes catsmother, but its not necessarily the best long-term solution.

And I gave a few reasons for that.

CountTo10 · 17/08/2006 21:28

For fear of stirring up an obviously already fraught thread, i think you forget that there is more than just Pages and her mum in this - there are also the children. My 'maternal grandmother' is someone I never knew as she committed suicide at the age of 43. She was a selfish, alcoholic, child abandoning witch. I've only ever grown up knowing the truth of what this woman did and then all the good memories my mum had of her as she resolved things with her at the age of 18 not long b4 she died and still holds no bitterness. I made the decision long ago (on my own) that I would never recognise this woman as my grandmother as I couldn't bear the awful things the woman had put my mother through. Unfortunately my 'step maternal grandmother' has not turned out to be that great (reasons too long to go into) and I've made my decision to stay away from her too. What you have to remember is grandparents do have rights but so do grandchildren and why should they have to spend time around people that from the sounds of it are obviously not the type of people you'd want your children involved with. Blood is thicker than water but so is common sense. If your parents were alcholics/drug addicts/peodaphiles, would you encourage a relationship on the basis of 'well they should have the right to know their gparent???' When they're 18 they can make up their own mind. Till then its mum's job to do the deciding and protecting, something Pages mum sounds like she's never done. Sorry to go into one but its an issue I feel very stongly about!!!!!

VeniVidiVickiQV · 17/08/2006 21:29

Oh and in answer to your question about how they have got away with it? Same way many many many abusers get away with it for so long.

Christ - Fred West had about 8 bodies secreted about his house and it took 20 odd years for someone to notice.

Original poster

Pages · 17/08/2006 21:34

Just found the time to read carefully through all the posts, and can't believe what some of you have been through. Thanks for all the support. Actually, Dior it was reading your post and the book that was recommended that gave me the courage to stand up to my mother and that is what has thrown the family dynamics completely because I have always caved in in the past.

I totally agree with what one of you said (think it was coolmama) about not expecting our children to be grateful for having been clothed, fed and sheltered. That is the very least of our duties to our children when we make the decision to have them. I certainly do not expect my boys to be grateful to me for any of this.

OP posts:

Original poster

Pages · 17/08/2006 21:39

Actually Cam, I didn't have a relationship with my father, any of my grandparents, my uncle or my cousins, because my mother decided to cut them all out of her life. The only person she let me have a relationship with was my abusive stepfather. That's her side of the story.

OP posts:

catsmother · 17/08/2006 21:39

I'm baffled here.

There are millions of different human relationships happening as we speak. Some good, some bad. How can any of us say that someone (unknown to us except online) "should" or "shouldn't" do something ?

We can only suggest what we think might be a good idea, based on what that individual has told us about themselves and their circumstamnces.

So, if Pages, or Greensleeves, or anyone else who has taken, or is thinking of taking such a monumental decision tells us that they believe they have very good reasons for making that decision, who are we to argue about it ?

If someone says "I have cut contact with my mum because I fear for my children's well-being" then how can anyone not take that statement as read, and insist that what they are doing is the wrong thing ? .... and persist in saying stuff like "2 sides to every story" as if the person telling us about their unwelcome parent is a liar ?

VeniVidiVickiQV · 17/08/2006 21:40

Exactly Cats.

Original poster

Pages · 17/08/2006 21:42

And yet, if you read my posts carefully, you will note that I have said I would never stop my mother seeing my children. That is how I feel, But I totally respect that is not how Greensleeves and others feel. Only they know what is best for their children.

OP posts:

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