Awful email from my DM

[Toastandstrawberryjam]

I have posted on here a bit before about my marriage and DH moving out. (Can't link on phone - sorry). But basically after 20 years of EA I asked him to leave, divorce is now under way.

From the start my DM was incredibly unsupportive, her first reaction being that it would mess up the seating plan at a family party! Over the last few months she has gone from ignoring me, to telling me I'm overreacting and should have tried to make it work. I told her a few home truths about it all and we settled into a somewhat normal pattern of occasional emails where she just ignored the situation.

She hasn't seen or spoken with my DDs since this all happened.

Anyhow this morning she sends me an email. A long email. It tells me exactly what life on my own will be like. A full detailed awful explanation. The rundown house with no nice furniture. Awful neighbours. DDs going without everything. Never a hope of doing better for myself. Saying goodbye to all the nice things I have.

But not to worry! She has a solution. I need to let DH move back in. We should spend more time together. Have lots more sex. I should stop putting the children first and concentrate on him. It goes on and on and about how great that will be.

She knows that his behaviour was so bad my DDs don't even miss him. In fact they say to me regularly "please don't let daddy come back".

I don't know how to reply to her. I'm utterly broken by this. I never expected support from her, but this is absolutely vile.

Toast you will dwell, you will have it play over and over and over again in your head.

For me it felt like 50 first dates or momento, I had to relive the shock and horror that she's moved and not told me the address. (I knew the county, but nothing else) the pain is indescribable, but it gradually gets less.

You have to dwell sadly, as the scar tissue forms and you cope with it slightly better than the previous time.

The stately homes thread will help you through this, having your thread will help you, and if you need a real voice, please call woman's aid

Mmmm..sounds like time to deploy the 'Get to fuck' email Toast. I'm sorry for the massive amount of shit in your life. You sound like an amazing person to have come back from that with humour and clarity.

I feel like I've been set up to fail now

Only if you choose to engage with her ... in fact the very fact of doing so gives her unnecessary power even before she does anything

Of course you'll keep turning it over in your mind, but at least it could be about things in the past - there's really no need to put yourself in a position to accept any more crap

Ah - as a PP said, she 'broke cover'. Yes indeed. She tried the apparently 'sweet voice of reason/normality' and it didn't work so couldn't restrain her instincts any longer.

I think that for some people, a hard thing is knowing that despite realizing what has been done and perhaps still is being done to them, they're never going to be quite the same as they would have been if they'd had a different and genuinely loving mother. They can still get through it and move on to be fine and loving people themselves but there's always a small sadness there still, a small hollowness. So be it.

Don't try to fix things (she and they can't be fixed) or respond to her. She's not your 'DM' and she never was. She's now an ex part of your life.

You are being set up to fail - that is her MO.

Your Mother has chosen to do and say the things she has for her own reasons. It's not YOU that caused any of this and the only change you can effect is to STOP her doing it to you or your DC going forward.

this bit is the hard bit, but please know that it will get better.

When we escape our abusers it's not a destination reached, it's a journey started. Mostly that abuse started WAY before our abusive partners showed up on the scene.

when you have poisonous people in your life, this is what happens. they dent you as a child, and that places you at greater risk of falling prey to others of their ilk. You are drawn to the familiar, and the familiar is not good.

You have to think of yourself now, and your DC. Protect those she would harm because she wants to feel the power it gives her to do so.

Its jealousy, resentment, fucked up. But you don't have to allow it in your life. it's seen as a taboo to dump your parents, but it's not a decision any one has ever taken lightly, and if ever there is a whiff of 'oh but she's your mother...' tell them to walk a mile in your shoes and then come crying to you.

I wonder often who I would have been had I had the support and love of my parents as opposed to criticism and resentment. I never thought my mother was so set against my happiness. But now I see that she was. :( SUre there were many times that she showed it, but i'd been conditioned into thinking that what she did/said was normal. only when my Ex left and friends asked if my family were supporting me and I told them they had all fucked off to the other side of the world (again, planned all year, but only communicated to me on Christmas day, 8 weeks before D day, which they knew full well)

It's the pain of the realisation that we got them so wrong that hurts. i remember feeling utterly and completely idiotic for days after my loathsome ex left, but that was a skip in the park in comparison to the day I realised that, yes, she really WAS going to keep her address all to herself. I didn't ask her for it. I let her do what she wanted to do, I left her the rope to make her own noose.

Now is the time for you to sit back and observe her unravel as she realises she has lost her victim. it will be unsettling, but you have to let her go. as you did your ex. they are AS bad for you as one another. They are one and the same.

Sounds like DM knows you are upset with her and trying different tactics. Let her keep trying. Dont answer the door. Shes lost control and doesnt like it.

I thought I would update this.

I replied to her (I know, probably a mistake). A well written email asking her to stop being so negative with her opinions or I wouldn't be able to speak with her anymore. She replied back asking if I would have lunch with all the family on my birthday, I said I didnt think so as I didn't think she would be able to not discuss the issue.

Her reply just said she would put my card in the post.

And another nice little touch was today STBEH went to my brothers. With my DDs. They invited him. And there they talked about my "falling out" with my mum and basically he has sided with STBEH.

I've lost all my family now and I'm absolutely gutted.

Good grief. I'll be your family. That other lot are welcome to each other eh?!

You're free of them love. In time you'll see. It will be better. I'm so sorry.

It hurts so much. I always expected it of my mum, but I didn't expect this too. Didn't expect everyone to be treating me like I was having some kind of childish strop.

And of course STBEH is revelling in it. I look unreasonable and he looks like super dad.

Luckily my DDs are totally bemused by it. In fact my middle one put them all straight about exactly what DM had said.

I know the pain will stop but I'm not sure how much more I can take. It's relentless trying to keep on through all of this.

I know :( I never expected any of it. The sense of shock and stupidity I felt was absolutely crushing

It does get better. Allow yourself to feel, whatever emotion that comes is yours, you have the right to those feelings.

There IS the other side to come out of, keep going, be determined, you'll get there.

One day your girls will be mums themselves. They'll remember the day they said to you, "Don't let dad come back" and how you didn't. By this point, sadly, they might also know more about your childhood. And they'll think what we're all thinking... What a woman!

I feel for you so much toast. It's a horribly painful situation. My situation is very very similar but all slightly more subtle. I broke contact a month ago and have blocked all means of communication. My children are older and my teen has watched the blossoming relationship between my ex, my mother and sister on facebook and has asked me what is wrong with them that they don't support me. Please give yourself some time to come to terms with this and please don't collude with them against yourself because they are treating you abysmally and you deserve so much more x

You have the strength to get through this. Just take one day at a time.

Your stbeh is being an utter manipulative shit and your bro is blind to this because manipulators can be very clever.

Your feeling powerless, like you did as a child. But your not powerless, you are taking action and that is powerful. The action you are taking is to go no contact - it is hard to go nc so you are being very powerful. And your power has got them annoyed and this is showing through their gossip. You are so powerful they have to create a little pathetic gang to gossip.

You are not their victim. You are making a positive choice to go nc based on solid logic reasoning. You are powerful and can get through this. You don't need any of them.

Be strong my lovely women.

It feels as if you're wandering all alone on one side of a fence and they're all laughing together and whooping it up on the other side doesn't it? Horrible - but as Hissy said, it does get better and there are plenty of posters on this board who can testify to that.

Just remember that you're now on the way up again - although it may not quite feel like it right now - but their temporary 'coalition' will peter out soon enough without anything from you to keep it going. Hang on there and keep thinking of the DCs as well as yourself.

The fence thing....that's totally it. Absolutely how I feel my life is.

Well I wouldn't want to stretch it too far but - imagine that they're having a Friday night party fuelled by what they perceive to be your behaviour? The next morning, they have to wake up and get on with things just as ever they did.

Hang on, stay cool, and try not to give them any more fuel. It improves - a lot.

Toast if you feel the need to reply to her emails in future just say "I acknowledge receipt of your recent email, the contents of which are noted, but are not a subject for discussion" if she asks to meet you or see you "I am in receipt of your recent email, I am afraid what you propose is not convenient at present" just keep it brief and business like and impersonal, hopefully she will get the message.
keep on as you are doing if your brother questions you about your apparent "falling out" with your Mother just explain to him that your marriage breakup is your business, and is not something you need her uninvited opinions on.
Just be firm about your marriage is not a subject you wish to discuss with them.

Good luck, you are doing really well1

Cozie, I have been on that side of the fence for a long time, desperately trying to walk on my own piece of ground, and now, after years and years I am comfortable, and guess what, they all now look up to me. It is like a Disney movie, the underdog was right all along. Toast, be yourself, even the crap bits, or especially the crap bits. Hold your nerve. Love who you are, and let them get on with their own delusions. If you love yourself it frees you from needing anyone else's.

Did they really side with him though? Have you spoken to your brother?

It's not that you are misunderstood or in the wrong it is that your whole family and their relationships is 'messed up', to put it politely.

Mostly due to your DM being 'messed up' - if you knew her past you would prob find her DPs or childhood was screwed.

So the decisions they seem to make or things they say are the views of messed up people.

You, fortunately, have seen the light.

Follow RickoShay s advice. Leave them to get on with it.

Be strong and put your DDs wellbeing first (by keeping them away from the rest).

Your brother had the same twisted upbringing as you. he is still under her thrall, & your XH is now working on him too. You know what he is like, likeable & believable on the outside.

You are ALLOWED to divorce, you don't have to pursuade everyone he is an abuser. your reasons are your own. You are not happy, that is enough.
Not everyone has to be convinced that you are "right".
100's of Divorce happen everyday. They will get over it !

It's Your life, now its time to enjoy your escape to happiness, with your wonderful canny girls. Its time to fly.
If they are obsessed by your choices, more fool them !

Oh toast, they really are messed up aren't they.
Did this brother support you when your Mum's new husband was abusing you? (I can't call him step-father, because he wasn't, he was/is a criminal).
It is difficult, but wash your hands of the lot of them.
You are such a strong woman to break free from their warped cycle, don't let their whirlpool suck you back in again.
My IL' s are so toxic and officially, "despicable." My DH & I have both received what can only be described as poison pen letters from all 3 of them. It's as though they don't know how to behave. Luckily for us, my parents are decent, loving people who are sane & DH has a benchmark of how bonkers his lot are.
We have been NC for 5 lovely years, & moved away. Mil has just got back in touch with DH, but she'll have no contact with me or the dcs again, ever.
Can you possibly move address so that they have no way of getting in touch with you?
You are a good Mum with a square view of how relationships should be.
Don't get sucked back into their warped, mad, world; you're so close to escaping & you're nearly there -x-