Bollocks. Pressing 'send'.

[Imbroglio]

Wrote a number of therapeutic emails tonight. Deleted them. Thankfully.

Then after a bottle of wine wrote one last nasty one liner and hit 'send'. Bollocks.

It was deserved [I think]. Cat now among the pigeons. But Bollocks Anyway.

It was to my SiL. She has had loads off my mum, including holidays, money for the house, money for the children. All fair and above board, no more than waa given to me..... plus her engagement ring. My mum's engagement ring from my dad. Fair enough, thinks I, at the time.

For context, my brother got my dad's signet ring when he died, gifted by my mum, not left in the will. Again, Fair Enough.

My SiL is an only child so will get 100% from her mum when the time comes [irrelevant I know...].

My brother (my only sibling. Her husband) told me a while ago while we were sorting out my mum's house that his wife wanted to 'pick through' my mums jewellery. This was while my mum was losing her battle with dementia and didn't know which way was up. My mum is still alive. My brother has taken possession of the jewellery box.

I have never been given any valuable jewellery or any other special tokens from my mum or my dad and its too late now. I will never experience the 'this is for you..' moment.

For info, my mum is now in a care home near both our houses, my SiL rarely visits, and I've been given a lot of shit about my mum from her.

My email asked my SiL if it was true she had asked to 'pick through' my mums stuff.

I'm a bitch.

So sorry to hear this Imbroglio. I found it quite powerful that you said you were being bullied. If you do have to reply to any of the outer-fringes of this group, I would use that word, because they must all be aware that you are being bullied & that by appeasing the bully they are enabling him.
for you, & at least you know that you can look yourself in the eye in a mirror & be proud of what you see.

Yes, agree it is definitely scapegoating. My brother and step-brother turned on me when my father died, and did exactly the same thing and tried to drive me out of the family. It was the only way that they could carry on not facing their own issues.

In a funny way, your own therapy has probably been very threatening for them; you've changed but they are desperately trying to hold on to the old family dynamic. Which is going to change anyway with your mother ill.

Yes the dynamics have changed because my brother was the Golden Child, and now his former worshipper is a vulnerable person. My aunt (my mothers twin) has moved into that position by mutual agreement (there has been a lot of 'my favourite aunt'/'my favourite nephew' bollocks going on), so my brother is still the Golden Child, and I'm still the scapegoat, but of course this new alignment is rudimentary and unacceptable because there is a vulnerable person involved.

They say that the Scapegoat often takes on the role because it fulfils a purpose within the family system. I have had moments over the years when I've been really hurt by my mother but on the whole I muddled along with my mum, had very little to do with my brother and let them get on with it.

The rest of them can't function without a scapegoat - I always think of the role as being like a pressure valve, to 'let out' all the bad feelings in the family. Without the scapegoat, the other members would have to accept that some of the 'badness' belongs to them, and they can't face that.

When I had therapy, my brother solved the problem by starting a new relationship, with someone who could do all the 'acting out' for him, now that I wasn't prepared to any more.

So the new person became the scapegoat?

That must have been fun for them, new to the family. . You've reminded me that my mum used to give my sil a hard time, but not to her face. She would be charm itself in person, but anything that went wrong in my brothers life would somehow be down to her. I used to tell my mum to get a grip!

Will this never end? Having told sil I wasn't going to be visiting over Christmas they have now dropped chocolates outside my house.

Telling myself to ignore, ignore, ignore.

It will probably take them a long time to let you fully escape they need you as a scapegoat and you've stopped playing that role. They will be panicking away inside as everything is shifting and they can't cope with that!

Just ignore it, polite and distant and refuse to get drawn in.

Yes I think that's right, Random.

I imagine that they are also struggling with what my decision says about them, at a time when my brother and I should be pulling together to look after our mum.