My mum never seems to 'get it'

[BetteDavis01]

I'll try and explain myself as clearly as possible!

I have posted here before about my emotionally abusive childhood. My father was a nasty bully who made me thoroughly miserable as a child and he got worse as I got older. Whilst all this was going on, my mum would make excuses for him or would get us both in a room together to try and 'resolve' our differences. My 'father'. Would give me the silent treatment for up to two weeks. My mother would just carry on as normal during all this. As I've got older and become a parent myself, I realise how fucked up this all was.

Fast forward to now, my parents have now been divorced for ten years and my mum had got a new partner who seems ok. What I am struggling with though, is my feelings towards my mother and her inability to confront or deal with any emotion.

I remember being bullied a school in infants and she told me later that she didn't go up to the school as she thought it would make it worse. I was 5, ffs!

She doesn't really support me emotionally, although she does help out a bit financially. If I have an issue, she just brushes it off. She can never offer a POV or advice. She will not discuss my childhood, she just shuts the conversation down. She will not acknowledge my awful childhood.

I didn't feel safe or secure as a kid, I remember having insomnia and OCD, was never taken to the doctor. I was clearly an anxious child, when I look back.

My mother lives in a world where everything is solved by going on a shopping trip or having a slice of cake. Well it's not, is it?

I feel very angry towards her, in actual fact more so with her than my father who I have been NC with for five years. She just doesn't seem to 'get it'. She never has.

Don't know why I'm posting really but I need to get this out of my system. Thanks for reading x

Yes, hope you're ok OP

Hello everyone, sorry been busy with the kids and didn't get the chance to log on.

I appreciate all your replies and no, I haven't been scared off by the 'get over it' comments. That's just water off a ducks back for me! Heard it all before.....yawn!

You have posed some interesting questions, like why am I not, NC with my DM and did I expect more from her than my father?

Well I guess the truth is, up until about a year ago, I thought she was a victim too, like I was. However since I became a mother myself and have realised how far I would go to protect my babies from harm, that kinda doesn't wash anymore. She should have protected me, she was an adult with choices, I was a child with no choice. I feel very empowered since I became a mother and it's my job to nurture and protect my babies, I don't stand for any BS anymore like I used to, from anyone.

I've lost respect for her and have distanced myself. She must realise but has done nothing about it. I've begun to tentatively question her, in a calm way but she cannot handle it. She immediately shuts down the conversation. I look at her and realise that she is a person with no depth. I don't believe she has a deep emotional connection with anyone. One thing she does do a lot is play on the guilt factor, common phrases are, 'I need to do something for me', 'it's my time now'. These comments have been said on various occasions and it makes me so mad

She seems to believe she sacrificed so much to raise me and my DB and now she can put her feet up. Well, it's a shame she made a complete hash of it. She offers no emotional support ( not that I'd want it) and barely any practical help ( like babysitting). She is a distant GM. I wonder if it's to do with her meeting her new man, when I was expecting my first DC. Putting the man in her life first? She has form for that.

I think I have just written my father off as a vile human being. I hope he felt humiliated when I went NC, as we live I the same community so it's awkward for him, that he has never met his GC, I wonder how he explains that one away?

I don't know, my head is a bit of a mess. I think I need to accept that I had inadequate parents who failed me miserably. I sound like a petulant child; but it's not fucking fair!

Cuddles to all of you feeling the way as me.

No its not fucking fair Bette! It really is not. I recognise the martyrdom you describe - 'oh poor me, I sacrificed ever so much for my children, aren't I a wonderful mother'. It makes you sick because you were the one on the receiving end of all the crap and you know the truth. People like your mother and mine can only think of themselves, despite the Mother Teresa act.

It sucks, its awful and I'm sorry you're going through it

after reading MN for a while, Im starting to think that 75% of people who sacrificed themselves for their children made the wrong bloody choice and of those, a proportion were actually quite selfish.

(Does leave 25% who genuinely had the choice of staying for the children or leaving, loosing custody specially if male and then having to leave their children alone in the care of an abusive parent).

most people hide behind 'it's for the children' rather than it actually being for the children. what it is is using your children as an excuse for your own fear of leaving or continuing desire to be with your partner.

Not for the first time, I agree with Lotta, and I would also advise those whom a PP aptly referred to as the 'get over it crew' to exercise caution, sensitivity and empathy towards the OP while posting. I did wonder a bit, after the first few replies to this thread, what sort of parallel universe I'd stumbled into, where all mothers are essentially good and a child's role is to be grateful and understand.

OP, it was my mother who was the abusive one, and my father the enabler (and he was certainly on the receiving end of her abuse also). I am where you are in a way, at the stage of learning to take hold of and have a right to my righteous anger at what was done to me, but only after a couple of years of therapy and a great deal of guilt and fear and questioning of myself. It's a hard road and quite a lonely one, which people from more intact families find it, mercifully perhaps, extremely difficult to 'get'. Denial and history-rewriting are very common reactions and so is family and even wider groups (as on this thread to a degree) closing ranks - the disruption of a mother-(adult) child relationship is an uncomfortable thing. But, as you can see from this thread - and I don't want to get into great detail about my own situation - there are plenty of us on this road, and I would urge you to hold on, certainly for now, until you have explored it fully and vindicated yourself, to your anger and your recognition that what happened to you was not right and that the enabling was wrong, even if it was undertaken in self-protection - when we are parents, sometimes our self-protection simply cannot come first.

I am not Ms Articulate tonight, been on a long holiday hike [bliss] and had a glass of wine. But I hope I am making some degree of sense, as you certainly are, OP.

How old is your mother, OP?

My mum is in her 80's and I do think women were taught to handle things differently in the past because their options were fewer - divorce was rare, you got on with it, you deferred to your husband. Most women were not financially independent.

Also, the emotional needs of children were not as well understood, and certainly not the long term impact of having emotionally distant and abusive parenting.

My mum is 60 next year

OK - quite a bit younger than mine, then!

and she did get divorced.

Hi BetteDavis your mum sounds very like my mil. Dp was treated horribly by his (d)f and his dm definitely has no deep connection to anybody really.

The whole family has that weird pretend everything's alright and god forbid you should call anyone on it behaviour. As an outsider, I can assure you it is very strange. I'm sure our name is mud among certain family members who we are nc with. We are in contact with mil, who lives nearby, who mostly behaves herself (although, periodically, she tries to reel us in with family dynamics grrr).

My dp was very angry when I first met him, but has come to better terms with his childhood. I suppose I wanted to offer some sympathy and understanding. I have found it hard enough as an adult to be on the receiving end of atrocious behaviour that you can't have recognised.

Wow, reading all your comments it is, I won't say nice, but reassuring to know I'm not the only one who still feels affected by my harsh and emotionally neglectful childhood. In my situation although I was always clean, well dressed and fed, both parents were emotionally unattached and used quite severe violence and threats as "discipline". My parents are still together and have never acknowledged that my childhood was anything other than normal and happy. I was alot more a accepting of the "well they did their best as parents" theory until I had my own children and realised I would do anything in my power to never have them feel as lonely, unhappy and unwanted as I did as a child. Conversely they have become excellent and very loving gp's to my 3 dd's, my dp, says how lovely that they are making up for their past failings with my girls. I agree to an extent and love to see the relationship they have BUT it makes me- think why didn't I deserve that as a child? It reinforces the sense of worthlessness and never feeling wanted, that I have always carried with me because of the way I was brought up. I am as "over it" as I'll ever be, in that I've accepted things are how they are and I don't dwell on it. Having said that the lack of self confidence and little sense of self worth will probably live with me forever. Something that is hard for those who had a loving childhood to understand.

I've found threads like this to be a good free form of therapy, Pat. Obviously they're not quite the real thing but it is nice to receive reassurance that your childhood perceptions weren't just massively off and that you were treated badly. I was almost starting to wonder if maybe I was just mentally disturbed, as no-one else in my immediate family seemed to feel it was ok for me to still be upset. Even DH wondered aloud when I was going to get over it. 'cos yeah, there's a set expiry period on childhood pain if only

What I find hard to get my head around - to this day - is that they're all mad. They sincerely believe I am mad. But it's not me who is mad. Perhaps a lifetime or being told you are mad/bad/difficult/spoil everything/etc makes it especially hard to believe 1. in yourself and 2. that they're completely mad. Like, all of them. I can't help thinking it can't be that black & white: 'you're mad!" 'no YOU'RE mad!'

Mind, I'm a bit mad after being brought up in that mad, mad house.