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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

DBro's Wedding - No invite

72 replies

bigsister2therescue · 02/02/2015 14:19

So, DBro is getting married in May.

Fell out with DM at Christmas and DBro is apparently very angry with me. DSis has been acting as go-between in that she has told me that he's angry, she's told me that he has taken DS's Christmas present back to the shop and that DBro has done the wedding invites.

She implores me to apologise and to build bridges but really, I CBA.

This is the second time he's been getting married and the second time that he's not invited me. Both times because I've been at odds with DM.

OP posts:
bigsister2therescue · 03/02/2015 16:03

ocelot - no, she's not elderly, it's just how she is. She can never say that she's having a good day or that things are alright, there's always something to moan about.

There's plenty of back story but I'd not know where to start.

Though, I get it. I shouldn't have cancelled Christmas and I shouldn't have expected a wedding invitation.

OP posts:
tobee · 03/02/2015 16:57

i could also say sort yourself out but that wouldn't be very helpful so perhaps I'll say you could do with some help (through the nhs) because you're sounding extremely unhappy generally and at the moment, feeling like this, you are just going to make yourself worse. If your mum says things to get a reaction and it happens, maybe you should find out how you can stop this occurring, in a situation away from your family then you can go about healing your feelings. Because at the moment you're being destroyed by your problems.

Then maybe you will be stronger and able to decide how you feel about your family in a more successful way. And discover what kind of a relationship you want to have with them. And hopefully things will be more productive.

BeeRayKay · 03/02/2015 17:33

This reply has been deleted

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BeeRayKay · 03/02/2015 17:35

and if you need more support you've got to ask for it. if you're depressed get to the doctor. get so!e help.

and don't even start on the whole ,how hard you have it with your !mental health.

you've not come looking for advice. yoiuve come looking for people
to tell you how hard you have it.

bigsister2therescue · 03/02/2015 17:42

Again BeeRayKay, thank you for your kind and helpful comments.

It is encouraging to see that it's possible for me to be so strong and that I too, years from now will be able to offer words of encouragement and help to others going through such difficult times.

OP posts:
BeeRayKay · 03/02/2015 17:44

I know I sound harsh. because I was harsh.

I wish I had had someone with good intentions being harsh with me.

bigsister2therescue · 03/02/2015 18:08

12 years since I moved out to get away from my mum and still I keep going back for more. So unhealthy an yet each time I seem incapable of believing that yes, she really does choose to treat me that way.

I've not felt like this since I was pregnant and I was getting the phone calls on my lunch break telling me that my stuff would all be outside in bin bags when I returned home from work. Although I really wanted to sleep on her sofa.

I don't want to minimise what you've been through and I'm sure it was worse than shit but it's all relative and for me, this is some of the lowest I've been and what I need is a ladder out of the well rather than you chucking boulders at me

OP posts:
PintofCiderPlease · 03/02/2015 18:17

OP, this is not what you said when you first posted about cancelling Christmas. You were upset because your DSis, who never does anything for anyone, invited your DM to their place on Christmas Eve and you weren't invited. You felt very left out, got upset, and cancelled on everyone.

BeeRayKay · 03/02/2015 18:40

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bigsister2therescue · 03/02/2015 18:53

Pint - that's not true. Sis and I had planned to go out together on Christmas Eve to get last minute things and then back to her house for some tea. Mum decided that as she still had loads of gifts to buy (and no money to buy them) that she's have to come with us in my sisters tiny car. She's complained herself before about sis's car and how we'd never be able to get us all in and shopping so she knew it wasn't going to work but instead would rather invite herself and then have me ask her not to come. But of course, the only time that she can do Christmas shopping is Christmas Eve! How selfish of me to suggest that she could have gone on one of the days before Christmas Eve, or even to have bought the gifts when my brother had taken her out "Christmas Shopping" the previous evening.

The choices with my mum are either to give her what she wants when she hints or else be reminded of it for years to come.

So either have her come with us and have no room for the actual shopping that we were going to get or else be reminded frequently about the time she couldn't get so an so this gift for Christmas because you wouldn't let me go shopping with you.

I said to somebody last year that she had finally stopped bringing up a boyfriends that I had when I was 16 when we argued - I was wrong, he came up again a few months ago.

I can't live like that. Which is why I cancelled Christmas

OP posts:
LIZS · 03/02/2015 18:57

So you felt your dsis had allowed your dm to gatecrash your trip . Then cancelled dinner next day which presumably you had already catered for. You all sound as bad as one another , pushing each other's buttons.

Blistory · 03/02/2015 19:19

Who knows the rights and wrongs here but is there a possibility that you're all addicted to the drama ? That a series of fights, of being needed, of being rejected are all part of your family normality and that you all have roles that you fill ?

If you want it to change, you need to be the one who does something about it. If your brother's wedding is going to be another family flashpoint, be mature enough to see that not going is perhaps the better option. But you could still wish him well, ask him how the planning is going, ask if you can do anything to help etc. And you don't need to share all that with the rest of the family, this could simply be an opportunity for you and him to find your own dynamic.

So your mother is a negative pain in the arse - it's hurting you trying to fight against this and gain her approval. How much less stressful if you just accept her, flaws and all, and find your own way of coping. You're an adult so it's your choice to take on her misery. You have the option of not doing so.

thelittleredhen · 03/02/2015 19:22

I find it hard to just accept it and enjoy her from an angle. I always get sucked in so will see how NC goes.

I have been brought up with her always being like this so perhaps I am hooked on it...

Have sent an enquiry form re counselling at the doctors.

MoominKoalaAndMiniMoom · 03/02/2015 19:24

OP I think there's fault on all sides but you're getting a lot of criticism here, some of it is very harsh and you seem very stressed so I just wanted to offer a Flowers

thelittleredhen · 03/02/2015 19:45

Thank you Smile

Blistory · 03/02/2015 19:49

NC is just the other extreme and equally dramatic - is there really no middle ground that you can find that allows you to keep your sanity and a relationship with your family ?

I understand that there are some relationships that are so destructive that they have to end but family sounds like it means a lot to you and to be honest, to the others in your family. You don't need to be the Waltons but you can still have a decent family dynamic if you learn to break the cycle you're caught up in.

thelittleredhen · 03/02/2015 20:09

No, mum likes to play us off against each other and she's never wrong and I should be grateful. If she is wrong and she knows she can't get out of it, she brings up the boyfriend from when I was 16.

My bro told me when I was about 19, that he's known her longer than me and she's always been like this.

I can't recall ever being close to her. I can't remember spending time together and enjoying each other's company. We've rowed a lot. Since she left my dad I think, a lot seems to have changed then.

Right the way through secondary school she would go on and on about her problems and I'd just take it all on board. I didn't do homework, was up late not being able to sleep. I spent most of year 11 at friends houses at weekends. Moved out when I was 16 and slept properly for the first time in years.

I tried to phone her once to get a "this number has not been recognised" - she'd changed phone numbers without telling me. I found out a few days later.

So even when we have been on good terms, she can't help herself but keep doing things to hurt me.

You may think I'm being dramatic about it all but year after year of it and NC does seem to be my best option.

tobee · 04/02/2015 00:13

I'm glad you've started the counselling process. I think you have too much going on for this one thread alone. And we're all just bombarding you with advice and opinion when we don't/can't know the full extent of the story.

Let's hope the counceller is good, connects with you and you can start to make sense of stuff.

CrapBag · 04/02/2015 13:51

I think you have had some harsh replies here OP.

I agree that cancelling Christmas was not the best thing to do and seems a little bit of 'throwing your toys out of the pram' behaviour but in another way it seems as though your mother pushed and pushed you (and this sounds like a recurring pattern) that you felt you had no choice?

Your brother, I can understand him being pissed off. I would be I his shoes with that short notice and I wouldn't have had anywhere else to go. But the rest, he sounds like a drama queen. Returning your child's present! It's not your child fault and not inviting you to the wedding, well he's being an arse.

Do you actually get any pleasure from these people? It doesn't sound like it. Counselling will be good. I had it last year (not a great family either) and it really does help.

Oh and a shitty life is not a competition (to other posters). Just because you may be able to get on with things when you have hardships does not mean everyone can. It's clear the OP struggles with her mother but still feels she needs to please her (FOG OP?). Ultimately behaviour like this can't go on forever and something usually snaps. We are human, not perfect and we learn from out mistakes.

UsuallyLurking1 · 04/02/2015 14:00

Not much more to add to my previous, but just wanted to say I wish more people took comments like you do on here bigsis. Seem to genuinely want to listen to people even if they may be saying some 'harsh' things. Makes a refreshing change to the "she's a bitch, I'm right and its none of my fault" responses.

Not to say it is your fault, but at least you are considering that!

It's a strange contradiction in a way. You can take it from others you don't know, but not from a family member. Personally, from what I've read (granted that's hardly detailed psychoanalysis, but my instincts are usually pretty good) in this I think you sound smart enough and tough enough to manage your relationships with your mum and get the family back onside. If you talk to them how you've responded to some tough comments on here, mine included, I reckon they will understand and things will improve.

beeray is evidence you can sort this. Prioritise the little man and don't let history repeat itself and you turn into mum mark 2. She's probably too old to change now but you aren't

Good luck

thelittleredhen · 05/02/2015 11:59

Thank you Crapbag and UsuallyLurking for your kind responses.

The reality is that I can't manage my relationship with my mum. She presents herself as vulnerable and I find myself every time slipping into the habit of supporting her and so really, it's all or nothing.

It's in my nature to always help where I can, but with mum, she needs more energy than I have to give and so usually I find myself really unhappy where I can't eat, sleep and just feel like the world is going to end and find it hard to see a situation where life will be good again not because of things that are happening in my life, but because she wears me down over time and then pushes me until I snap and it's my world that crumbles and I'm the one in the wrong that the family gives no support to, while she plays the victim.

It's very hard and many times in my life when I've really needed family support (as I'm sure is natural for most people to need to have support from their family at points during their lifetime) when because of mum's behaviour and how she's treated me, I've felt like I've had no-one to turn to.

Such as when she was telling me during my lunchbreak while I was 7 monts pregnant and sleeping on her sofa (as my sister had asked her to tell me that I could no longer sleep on her bedroom floor with only a duvet under me) - rather than being able to turn to my Aunt with two spare bedrooms and ask if I could stay with her - mum had told me repeatedly how my aunt could not believe how I was treating my mum and what a bitch I was being - and so I had no-one. In the end, the next door neighbour caught me crying outside one day and let me sleep in her spare room. There was no bed so I bought a blow up mattress. I finally got my own place and moved in the day before I had DS.

And yet, I still take her back and still fall for it every time.

I've had a tough year last year. DS's behaviour became a lot worse as he had two new teachers this year which have been a lot less caring than his teacher last year and so he's been really unsure of where he fits in which is difficult to deal with as he can't process his emotions well and will be really angry and upset about something a fortnight after it happened. Of course, my family has been really supportive. Mum told me that my sister-in-law-to-be was worried when we visited that DS would fall onto the baby and so felt like I was an unwelcome visitor. Bro of course would never say it to me but always via my mum. Similarly when it was my nieces birthday, mum felt it necessary to warn me that DS will have to behave himself while we were at the SIL-TB's grandmother's house in case he broke something - although he means to be naughty and would do it on purpose FFS.

I didn't see her for 8 weeks in 2013 because despite me explaining to her very clearly that DS needs continuity and the pressure that I have been put under by school to do "my bit" to help with his behaviour - she still would undermine what I said. When I would say to her "he's had a bad day at school do not give him chocolate" she would give him some when I couldn't see and tell him not to tell me. Actually having to tell an adult that if they can't behave that they can't see their grandson is just ridiculous.

They'd also invite me round for a family take away evening and then they'd put on a film with a rating far inappropriate for DS but then be all "well this is what we do so if you don't like it don't come" so I stopped going.

I think that NC is going to be a good thing.

CrapBag · 05/02/2015 14:21

"I think that NC is going to be a good thing."

So do I. Don't give them the power they have over you anymore.

That takeaway film thing just shows how little regard they have for you and your DS. Sad

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