Living with family estrangement

[Imbroglio]

I've been thinking about this for a while.

I am estranged. I don't miss those people [shudder!] but I do miss being part of a family. And I really feel for my kids who have so little family in their lives.

I feel that the Stately Homes thread is great for dealing with the inevitable interactions and stresses with people who are just no good for you, but I felt I wanted somewhere just to think about the reality of being an ex- family member.

Also it worries me when people recommend going no contact (nc) at the drop of a hat. It's a really tough way to live.

Guilt is a common problem, I think. I feel guilty about my kids having a small pool of family to turn to, and I also have a residual niggling guilt about my sibling, who is probably as fucked up as you can get but who simply can't see it. He has children who will grow up not knowing their cousins. I used to make an effort to have them in our lives because they were lovely kids and we had some good times together.

AndtheBandplayedOn, good post. Makes sense.

As part of my method of dealing with my awful family I used to visit them, and my head would be messed up by how useless they were but to get away I would stay with my best friend, a guy from school.

Now, I am older, my Dad is dead, I live in the same country as them all so don't have to stay at their houses any more, and I still have a very close relationship with my best friend, and we go on holiday together.

I have a female friend who is scandalised that I am close enough to a friend to go on holidays together but she had a fairly happy functional upbringing. My choices are my choices and my friend was always there for me when I had to visit family. And staying with him was like a warm house after coming in from the cold. My life has led to my friendship and despite our unorthodoxy it works for me and I don't let my very conventional female friend guilt trip me.

I had some great advice today. I have been worrying about what will happen when the time comes for my mum's funeral. What a mess it will be. Who will organise it? Will I be left to make all the decisions and criticised for them? Will I eschew the whole thing and not go? Or will it be a huge battle of wills over who does what?

My friend just told me to put it out of my mind altogether. Whatever happens, happens, and I'll deal with it at the time.

Imbroglio
I faced those choices last year.
I didn't go and my siblings arranged the funeral.
I heard about the service from another family member. I would have liked one of my mother's favourite poems to be read, but there was nothing in that service that was personalised my mother at all. Just the bog standard crematorium quick service.
I have no regrets about not attending.

Springing .

I'm the one who looks after my mum (though she's in a care home so its very frequent visits plus all the 'admin'). The 'others' don't reply to any of my messages and rarely visit her, but direct a lot of hatred to me.

I know my friends will support me and I don't want to deny my children the chance to say goodbye properly.

Imbroglio
TBH I'd tell the 'others' to get stuffed. The only person you have to answer to is yourself. We spend so much time trying to please everyone and overlook the need please ourselves.

I would just break contact with anyone who was being negative towards you. Visit your mother, take the children and ignore the 'others'. If they don't like it the can put up or shut up.

Sometimes we just need to harden ourselves a little. I did. I don't regret it. What I do regret is that my son went to the funeral, was treated as a complete outsider and it upset him greatly. But at least he could then understand these crazy family dynamics that led me to going NC all those years ago. He has done the same, which is sad, but he reached his own conclusion. It wasn't me.
Make your decision in your interest.

I have cut contact as far as I can but if I'm left to organise a funeral I can't see it being anything other than massively difficult.
I can't see my sibling taking it on.
Anyway, as my friend said - trying not to worry about what hasn't happened yet.

Sorry they were mean to your son.
It was hardly the time to make a point.
Hideous people!

I have been estranged from my family for 17years ,after many years of living in my private hell.I wrote to my mother and told her of the abuse I suffered at the hands of my older brother.She abused my physically and emotionally which I believe enabled this to happen.I never heard from her again until a week before she died from cancer.It was clear the contact was to make sure I didn't rock the boat so wider family members would find out the reason I hadn't been to Ireland in so long.I did tell a cousin of mind at that stage who phoned me when my mother died ,I never heard from her again.My mother left a substantial amount in her will to her two children,not me.I regret the years before I had the courage to speak out and am grateful for my loving husband and beautiful son.No one would for a minute believe he had a mother who had suffered in this way.He is so well rounded and has just gained a place at one of the top schools in the country.But more than that he is the kindest most thoughtful boy you could meet with such a positve attitude.My horrible upbringing made me so determined that my son would never suffer as a result.To live a good life is the best revenge I could ever have.Some families are poison to be a part of and like is much to short for that.

connamara its good to hear that you got away but it must have been terribly painful.

I would love to be able to just get on with my life but my mum could live a long time and while he's alive there are no tidy edges.

The never is and my abuser is still alive supported my my family.My father also still alive and although was divorced from my mother did not contact me once he knew what happened.Even though I know he believes me.You only have one life and I believe I have suffered enough I didn't want the rest of my life to be consumed in the way the first 30 years were.

I think many families take the line of least resistance, and as you left the country the easiest thing is to sweep it under the carpet.

And they are complicit if they knew about the abuse and did nothing.

Perhaps in many families there is the abuse we know about and more hidden abuse - making sure people don't form alliances and share information helps to keep it hidden.

We are no contact with my PIL. I find it difficult that they speak to others about us as if they are wise and conciliatory and we are both mad and bad. They are such plausible manipulators and have even spoken to my friend about me, with the result that she cut me off. Recently my mother died and my fil has stepped forward to say that she said things about me to him that were 'so damning' before her death. In the past we've been able to check when he's made similar claims, but this time the person is gone so I'll never be able to be quite sure :(

I hate being talked about, especially by people who have treated us the way they have. I'm so concerned about what will happen when my kids are old enough to make their own choice about seeing them. My PIL earns people's trust for a living and is frighteningly good at it. He was behind one of the biggest 'cult' scandals of the decade in our country and wouldn't hesitate to tell our children what he tells everyone else who will listen-that I'm psychotic and abusive. Some people have warned us quietly that they know he can lie and bully, but he has such a wonderful reputation generally and his followers really adore him.

Apparently they think it's very morally wrong of us not to seek reconciliation through meditation but I see no reason to do so. He probably only wants it so he can use his persuasive powers on the mediator. Even if we did 'reconcile', it wouldn't stop him telling the children what he believes I am like.

I'm just so sick of it all.

How horrible - I've been cut off by people who I haven't seen in 10 years on the strength of untrue things others have said about me. Its a horrible feeling.

My sibling can be dead charming. He'll pitch up to see our mum when other family are there to witness it, so that everyone thinks he's wonderful.

Oh and I tried family therapy at his request and it was one of the most distressing experiences of my life.

Dreadful for you.

There's a limit to what family therapy can achieve. My PIL consulted a therapist and was told that meditation wouldn't work but he wants it anyway. I think it can be a way for manipulative controllers to get a general consensus that they are right.

We had different objectives. I wanted to find common ground and rebuild trust around our mum, so that we could function. Lets just say he had a different agenda.

I gave it a few weeks then put a stop to it and he said that I had 'failed' at therapy, and that because I have had counselling before and also have other relevant experience that I should have been 'better' at it.

Needless to say he didn't stick to any of the things we agreed in therapy.

I had a very incoherent dream last night (classic stress dream) which inexplicably resolved itself by giving me a new surname. I didn't get married, or joined in any way to anyone else. It was lovely.

Feeling particularly stressed at the moment because my ex has been ranting at me. I asked him to step up a bit around the kids, who are also going through it with their own problems. Every now and a again I start thinking that if I don't say anything of course he can't know that they need more from him. So stupidly I try again.

Coming back here for some grip.

Well I've had contact from a family member I turned to for support over a year ago saying he now wants to visit me and my mum. I think this is a good thing but am also feeling quite apprehensive about it.

I would have so desperately welcomed a supportive visit back then. I cried on the phone to this person.

But now I have got used to no contact from anyone in that family and I feel that this is going to crack it all open again.

take it calmly, if you can. Remember you have survived all this shit so far and you are resilient (even if you don't feel it, you are).

It might help to expect -nothing- from this visit. When you are so isolated in the family you desperately want someone to be kind and warm and understanding to you, but in the circumstances that might not happen. It hurts, but perhaps expect nothing from this person and simply take it as it goes.

It's okay to say that you don't want to discuss certain things, if they don't come up.

That stuff about your brother saying he thought you'd be better than you are at therapy .. who the fuck does he think he is? He sounds like he thinks he is superior to you. Seems to me that someone here is doing all the hard work and someone else is bullshitting their head off. What a stone around your ankle to hve to drag around when you're looking after your mum!

Thank you. I probably have come further than I thought.

I have had everything I've done twisted against me for a long time but since my mum has been living near me its been so much better. She's calmer as well.

My brother loved to tell me I have mental health problems and need help. Its part of his bullying MO. We were in therapy because he refused to discuss anything except face to face, alone, when he could say what he liked to hurt me and undermine me. His favourite place was a car on a long journey.

god, it's hell when everything you do and say gets twisted. Even worse when others don't see/believe it. Thanks to the step parent thread I'm facing the impact of this myself atm - and that's from long ago, not the here and now.

Keep strong. You're being a loving daughter in looking after your Mum like this. Your brother - why do people get off on behaving like this? It sounds like you're a frog that he's sticking pins into just because he can.

(not that you're a frog, ahem)

ribbit.

Grr. Relative who said they wanted to visit has not been in touch since despite encouraging response from me. No indication in original message as to when they planned to come. I suppose it's only a week but it now feels like another empty promise.

One of my Easter projects is to sort out my mum's paperwork which I find really emotionally draining but I know I'll feel better when it's done.

I've had thought of my mother's eventual death this week (she had a 'slump' but recovered well) and it brought it home to me just how awful this is likely to be when the time comes

My friend was NC with her father for 20 years and very content with the decision she'd made go to no contact. But when he died she was grief stricken and she said - its not because of what I had, its because of what I didn't have.

It's stuck in my mind because of my own circumstances.