Oh lord, my relationship with my mum is so screwed up!

[colditz]

I have just walked home from my mum's house in tears, after she insisted I leave, saying that her and my younger brother have just walked in and she didn't want me there 'clattering about'. I was cleaning her squalid kitchen, because my 16 year old sister still lives there and nobody has cleaned anything since I did it two months ago. She has been away since FridaY and the house was uninhabitable, and I didn't want her to have to walk into such a messy house.

Sod it. I know I have said this before but this is it thgis time - I am not going to contact her. I don't know what to do so for the first time in my life I am going to do nothing.

colditz if that is someones attitude (even families)
I would not bother until you get an apology

you havent been put on this planet to be treated like a piece of shit tbh

find some strength and just worry about your own family unit at home

xxx

I know, you see, in my head I know all this, but when she is standing there in front of me telling me how ridiculous I am being for saying I will call the police if my brother hits me, she takes my certainty.

I don't know what she wants, I have never known what she wants. She used to get at me for making a mess, now she gets at me for helping. It's not like she wants tyo do it herself, she hates cleaning, that's why the house is such a mess.

I hate that my brother can kick off and start throwing things, but if we comment on it we are told to stop winding him up, because he's had a hard day at work, just been dumped (usually for being a bully!) or whatever else excuse.,

At the heart of i9t, I suppose I am jealous. He can nevcer do a thing wrong, I can never do a thing right, and all I want it for her to love me and want me around. And i don't think she ever will.

i know this sounds lame but
old sayings are truthful

re "abscence makes the heart grow fonder"
etc

ikwym re favorites as i am not one neither but sometimes you just have to sit back, let it hit you slap bang in the face
and start living again

start thinking on how far you are going to go now and what you are prepared to do for your family and stick to it

accept things as they are, let your mother come to you

and btw you are no punchbag for your brother
or anyone else

xxx hugs

Colditz, don't know your full story as others do, but really sympathise. Your mum and younger brother sound like mine - they preserve each other's image of each other as saints and someone has to be the bad guy and that's you (and me!). But whatever else you might have been willing to put up with you should not tolerate your brother's violence, and your mum is clearly too weak to protect you. As someone said on my thread, you do have a right to set limits on how you will allow other people to treat you.

The whole family thing has got me feeling just like you lately. Haven't spoken to my mum for nearly 3 months as a result. I have realised that my mum will never love me the way I love my children. It is a hard and shocking realisation but you are not alone. Sorry you've had it so tough. x

Thanks for your replies.

I feel that she isn't too weak to protect me, she seems to think my brother has the right to do as he pleases. If I find out once more that he has hit my sister, I will call the police. It may well shatter th family, my mother will never talk to me again, but I can see my sister going through exactly the samne treatment as I did at 16. She is expected to skivvy because she is female. My brother is almost expected to be violent because he is male.

Colditz

Had to add this as struck a chord with me. After years of bullshit from my mother (whos house is a pigsty btw) I decided enough is enough. I cannot keep going back into her life to have her abuse me and compare me time and again.
So, i decided this is my life, and she can live hers however she choses to. And I will accept her choices. But I'll be buggered if I am ever going to accept her viciousness and sarcasm again. So - as soon as she starts - the minute she starts - I am out the door. No snidey comments, just bye then! And off I go. I concentrate on my own family and then when she is ready, she comes round the mountain again.

I just wanted to be loved too hun, and let me tell you something, nobody is going to love you as much as you can love yourself. You sound fab to me and your Mum is a wally for missing out on a great daughter.

Stay strong and calm, dont retaliate and give yourself lots of love and attention. And I am sure all of us on here will do the same when you need it

Hugs

xxx

Oh and tell your sister that your door is always open and always will be no matter what time. And insist that she comes to you if she gets hit again.

I have, she has my number, I've told her if she ever needs somewhere to go, no matter if it is day or night, she can come to my house. She doesn't even have to phone, just turn up and ring the doorbell until someone answers.

Thanks

(who are you, MSTG)

Well then SHE is screwed up if she thinks violence from men is natural! Was your Dad/her Dad violent Colditz? Just wondered if that's something she expects.

You are a really sweet person for protecting your sister (and you are right too, you have a moral obligation - wish someone had protected me when my stepdad beat me). Hopefully you and she will go on to have a strong relationship. And yes, you will probably shatter the "family" but what is the cost to your sister if you don't? Who are you protecting by keeping silent? Me and my brother have recently done the unspoken thing and told the truth about my family and we have been ostracised but I don't regret it one bit.

Her dad was violent, and my dad had his moments. My brother was never hit as a kid, although he has seen me being hit more than a few times.

Colditz, I know it's easier for me to type than you to do but I think you SHOULD call the police if your brother or ANYONE hits your sister. If it was a stranger it would be illegal, why is it ok because he's her brother? And why are you protecting him? (I know it's complicated). I'm glad she knows she can come to you. And this isn't you or about you, it's about your mother and how unacceptable her behaviour is.

I'm not protecting him, I've called the police on him before. I actually have to catch him doing it or persuade my sister to snitch on him though.

Irt is a very long story. Mum took out a mortgage on the house that she can't afford to pay if my brother moves out. So my sister is being put under huge pressure to not rock the boat, because if he moves out they will lose the house. My mother genuinely believes that men have no control over themselves and women should moderate their behavior because men can't help it. Add to this the fact that my sister can be vicious when provoked, and that he is shagging her best friend, and you have a big heap o' trouble.

Well I thought it prob wasn't as simple as that, sorry, didn't mean to suggest simple solutions to complicated situations. Will your sister get out soon do you think?

Her behavior around my brother borders on the bizarre. It's as if she enjoys it when someone else pisses him off, so she can shout at them to shut, stop it, get out, leave him alone, and then make soothing noises at him. It is really strange to see.

I am sooooo pissed off though. I wass only trying to help.

I can't see my sister leaving to be honest, she hasd only just turned 16, and is a young 16, IYKWIM.

I've told her if the crunch comes, she can crash on my sofa until we can rent a 3 bed house, and she can apply for some benefits to keep her at school, and live at mine.

Colditz, there are so many weird dynamics in a dysfunctional family that it is difficult to grasp if you are an outsider but it sounds like everyone is colluding with your mum in pretending it (the violence and dominance by your brother) isn't happening and you are the only one screaming "but it is!!".

It is a hard choice to make as to whether to rock the boat but sounds like you have already been prepared to "stand up and be counted" and possibly that's why you are being treated as the scapegoat. I think you are doing the right thing by walking away but letting your sister know that you have a spare bed for her if she needs it.

Have your read "Families and how to Survive them" by John Cleese and Robin Skinner? It seems to be agreed that once the "scapegoat" walks out the family dynamic has to change - maybe not immediately, but like shifting sands.

Colditz, I really don't know what to say but just wanted to give you a big virtual hug. You're great, you are, for watching out for your sister like you do. It's appalling that she's the target of violence and, she's having emotional blackmail heaped on her too over the house thing (she's a child FFS!)

My reaction to what you've said is to hope your sister gets the strength from somewhere to come to you, and that your mum and brother are left to stew in their own juices - and whatever consequences their violence brings about (yes, theirs .... she is enabling his). The house and what happens to it is not your sister's responsibility, nor is the housing situation of 2 adults who should be big enough to take responsibility for their own actions. If your mum ended up homeless 'cos brother is in jail, then she must share a large part of the blame for things getting to that point.

But I appreciate that saying all that doesn't alter the fact that we'd all like a mum who can be trusted to do what's right and who loves all her children equally. It's shit when you don't feel you've got the "mother love" as defined by the society you live in, but I wonder sometimes if you end up hurting yourself even more (than by not feeling loved) by continuing to hope that one day things will change. Chances are, that unless an apparent lack of love is caused by some sort of medical condition which can be successfully treated, that you're never going to get the mum you long for. I don't know how to stop that hurt though.

I don't want to sound patronising but have you ever considered (and are you able to) counselling of some sort to help you come to terms with the relationship (or lack of) between you and your mum ? It sounds truly dreadful, but I sometimes feel my (pretty much emotionless) mum would be easier to deal with if she were dead. There's no violence in my family but lots of coldness and I struggle all the time with "guilt" over how a daughter is expected to (dutily?) behave towards a mother who often seems very unfeeling. It's an impossible situation to get your head round, and I know exactly how it feels to imagine the sort of mum you could be close to.

It occurred to me too (with my amateur psychologist's hat on) that maybe your mum "sides" with your brother so she is protected ?

Not that that's right .... as a mum, her 1st duty should be to protect her children (even if the perpetrator is also her child) rather than herself.

I'm sure we can all recall the school scenario where certain kids would suck up to the bully so they didn't get it in the neck ? Sounds like this has been going on for so long that she may no longer be aware she does this. She seems like a very weak woman.

She has not been able to deal with the world since my dad left, I had to find out the gas supplier, blah blah blah.

She can't or won't do these things, but screams at me when I help.

I have wondered that maybe she thinks if she does nothing for long enough, he will come back and sort it all out. he won't, I know that, but maybe that is why she won't change anything.

I know she is depressed, I sent her to the GP 2 months ago - that was the last time I sorted the house out. Nothing at all has been done since, she has washed up (and so has my sister), some washing has been done, although I hoiked a pile of filthy throws out of the living room and washed them, but that is it. Not one floor has been hoovered or swept for 2 months, the bins were full of maggots, the only clean room in the house (ironically) was her bedroom, which I only went in to put her clean clothes on the bed.

I'm so cross, she is acting like I cleaned her kitchen, hoovered her living room, killed the maggots in her bin and sorted her laundry simply to piss her off.

It looks like you can't win whatever you do. Maybe it's best to keep your distance as far as possible and instead of trying to help someone who seems pretty much like a lost cause, concentrate your energies on trying to help your sister instead ?

It could be that the fact you're round there helping serves to emphasise what a crap mum she is .... in other words, you helping forces her to look at her situation - even if only for minutes - if you didn't do it, she could kid herself that everything was okay ? If that makes a sort of sense ?

You may have hit the nail on the head there, catsmother. My dad's girlfriend said tonight that she probably feels guily, and I am drawing attention to the mess.

But obviously even if that theory's right it's still not doing you any good if your efforts end up with you getting it in the neck and being rejected.

Why did you take it upon yourself to do all that cleaning ? ..... if it was so your sister had somewhere clean to live then I can understand that, but it obviously wasn't for your pig of a brother's benefit, so maybe did you help out hoping your mum would be grateful and things could be momentarily pleasant between you ?

If so ..... I think you set yourself up for a fall. Sorry, I really don't mean to sound harsh 'cos I can see this must be awfully difficult. But it comes across to me like you need to detach to an extent and pull right back, or else you are just going to get repeatedly hurt. It's bloody hard trying to accept that some people just won't change no matter how much others may want them to, but the only person who can make your mum a nicer person is herself .... and do you think after all this time she will ever be capable of being "better" ?

Because it's just such a mess. It's not like I wanted it to be showhome, I don't go to that effort in my house never mind anyone elses', it's just last time mum went away it was an absolute dive when she cqame back, and she hit the roof at my sister, who has live in a shit pit for 3 years, and I genuinely think has become desensitised to it. I went round to help my sister clean it all up, I didn't realise mum would be home so early and I wouldn't have cared if my sister had pretended she had done it all herself, I just wanted it cleaner.

I couldn't bear the thought of my family (mum and brother too!) living in such a horrible atmosphere, how depressing! I didn't want my mum wal;king in to a tip, because it's horrible to have to do that when you have had a nice weekend away.