This is really chilling, I think

[404NotFound]

Namechanged for this, as potentially too identifiable to FOO stalkers.

I am NC with FOO, for a variety of reasons, none of which I particularly want to rehash here. Occasionally I lurk on a FB forum for parents of estranged adult children, because I find it morbidly fascinating and actually quite validating to observe just HOW bonkers the mindset is.

Today I found this post on there, which sent shivers down my back because it is SO similar to the kind of thing my NMother has sent to me:

The last time I wrote my daughter...a few years ago, I stated the following: "When a person is charged with a crime, the accused is presented with a list of grievances. As your mother, I feel I am entitled to no less a list of grievances in support of your claims of hatred towards me." I've never received a reply, because she has none. We as parents shouldn't accept responsibility for our adult children's short-sightedness and bad behavior.

As ever, it's much easier to see the crazy when it's not your own personal situation being hashed out, but OMG at the demand that the adult child justifies her emotions with a bullet-pointed list of grievances before there can be any question of her being permitted to feel her own feelings. And these people wonder why they are estranged. You'd think round about the time you wrote about your entitlement to a list of grievances to support your child's claims of hatred towards you, you might get a glimmer of realisation about why your adult dc didn't want to be around you. But apparently not.

I hear you Yoko
'But I'm your mother'

Leaf, sounds like you've done an amazing job of raising children with a reasonable set of values & emotions, despite onslaughts against you and them! All power to DD.

She's a very strong woman, Garlic. Or "fiesty" as ex often disapprovingly said. She would insist on calling him on his behaviour and mind games. Ungrateful child!

We can afford holiday, we go on one annually, nothing overly extravagant, no idea why she was so angry about it apart from the fact she wasn't expecting it
This comes back to what other PPs have touched on I find, my mother is another own who fancies herself as a matriarchal figure/head of family type, even over cousins, and gets very angry if she isn't the first to know even the most mundane things. She'ld accuse me of disloyalty if I mentioned anything in conversation to anyone else in the family before making sure she heard it first (although sometimes, even if she WAS told first, she'll deny being told and accuse me of leaving her out of the loop anyway)

GarlicShake having insight is half the battle. My mother has none at all. She will swear blind whole events never happened even to the person who was there. I actually think in a strange way she genuinely believes her cleansed versions of history, which makes any sort of discussion or mediation impossible. I'm never sure whether he re-writing of history is deliberate gasslighting (sometimes it definitely is) or her own delusions of a cleansed version of events (sometimes I do believe it's more this). The combination of deliberate gasslighting and genuine believing her own lies makes any sort of management of her/the situation impossible.

Just had a quick look at an Estranged Parents forum. Wow.

'You’ve tried everything you could think of – you’ve tried minimizing, ignoring, explaining, reasoning, accepting blame, begging, bribing, threatening – but it hasn’t worked. Again, not your fault. They don’t want to reconcile. Period.'

Yoko funny that "accepting the parents decision" isn't on that list. If that option had been on some GPs radar from the start then perhaps some NC situations could have been averted from every having to happen.

I've been lurking here with interest :) MIL is a classic paranoid narcissist and I think that whole thing about the 'fragile ego' is spot on. As I understand it poor parenting means that as children narcissists are never helped with feelings of shame - in fact shame is actively used against them - so they never learn to deal with it and it becomes completely overwhelming. Fast forward to them as adults and parents and they will do ANYTHING to avoid that feeling - deny that the thing happened; mishear accusations levelled at them (even of very minor things) so that they can argue about something else; deflect blame to others etc etc.

If MIL spilt milk on the, perfectly wipeable, kitchen counter the first thing she would do is blame whoever put the milk there/designed the kitchen/built the house. She cannot EVER cope with having done anything wrong even when no-one gives a shiny shit about a bit of milk.

And if she saw DH spill a bit of milk that would be a perfect opportunity to remind him what a clumsy twat he has always been and how she's such a martyr for having put up with him as a child.

It must be exhausting to be like this. I feel very sorry for her. But not to the extent of letting her trail her poisonous slug slime around our lives :)

Oh MyPockets, have we got the same mil? The shame issue definitely resonates. We are not nc, but have had periods of it. Dp is getting close to it, again, as is his dsis.

Fusion your father sounds awful, dp and possibly his (d)b went through SA at boarding school. He was meant to shut up and not let the family down. Db has hinted something similar happened, but as the Golden child, has never said...

A really interesting thread 404. Dp's family is very dysfunctional and the whole fragile ego thing is very familiar. Coming from a relatively normal family, early on, I stupidly tried to have rational conversations with family members. We are now nc with 2 of them, as obviously they would rather be right than have a relationship with us. Given their awful behaviour, I'm not too bothered!

(And I don't mean to nastily pick at that poster in particular because God knows what their story is, but how can they really ask that question? Who is that oblivious?)

Mine tells people that I don't pass on gifts. it' s not true. I have however screened a few where they have been chosen to cause upset, e.g.:

DD1 given tonnes of age appropriate gifts
DD2 given a tiny gift aimed at DD1s age

I still gave them but I mixed them up a bit first to make them more even/less upsetting for DD2

There's often a sting in the tail when it comes to her gifts.

She writes to DDs asking them to send them proof that I've given them their gifts.

DD1 asked "why does nannie give me all this homework?" one time when the card with the gift demanded that DD write back confirming which gifts she'ld recieved via me!

So maybe if the parent says no gifts, try sending no gifts, to demonstrate that you are capable of not undermining the parents decisions at every turn! maybe then there might be some hope of cooperative contact!

Basically the gifts are just another way to get at me via the kids, and use the kids in her games.

They don't need that in their lives. If she loves them she wouldn't use them like that, she'ld just love them.

some of the posters on the GN openly post about the gifts and cards being just that, part of their game against their aduld children: "I keep sending them to show my ED/ES that I'm he better person" etc

Oh I know ... Mine uses gifts to make a point or to justify horrible behaviour too ("sure I called you a nasty slut when I was in a bad temper last week and have never and will never apologise - but here! I bought you this huge fluorescent orange furry dress in the wrong size! I'm tagging you on Facebook with it, why haven't you thanked me?!") ... it's just a method of control and a dig and not a kindness at all.

My point above was someone took the trouble to look up "the other side" and then said in all sincerity, "but what about the GP's feelings?" - I sincerely doubt that any of us have gone NC for some lark ffs!!

Like I said, maybe that poster didn't deserve to be cut off for whatever reason ... But she's still displaying a mammoth lack of emotional understanding about people she's actively researched. Unbelievable.

I agree Merd, the GN thread description of the MN threads (not this one, the earlier ones) don't bear any resemblence I see to the real thing.

Some read them and then go and convince themselves we are all nasty evil DILs/SILs turning their adult children agaisnt them (most posters I've seen on any of these threads are posting about their own parents, there are IL posts too, but I'ld say the posts are roughly 70% own parents, 30% ILs, arguably perhaps because a narc parent usually makes their son's the golden child, and so hates when they marry, and the daughtes of narcs are usually not the golden child unless there is more than one daughter)

Which is worrying in itself, how they're re-writing such blatent facts like most posters posting about their own parents, and not a coven of evil DILs sharing tips re how to make their MILs lives hard.

Shows that their children have no hope of a frank discussion with them.

LizKeen

That sounds so similar to my mother. She is a control freak and filters all family relationships through her.

At one point, I couldn't even have my Dad answer a landline call without her picking up the extension landline to listen in!

No, none at all, screenshotting

I also bet lots of NCs do happen after relationships - for example, I'm sure DHs father blames me a bit for DH being NC as it happened after we'd got together. Actually DH said he realised for the first time what it was like to be loved properly by someone who was caring and not abusive or horrible. He felt he was worth something and that he'd never treat a child the way his dad treated him. It's sappy, but love gave him the confidence to fight back - not "me".

Anyway - their thread ends today with a few "well, the mumsnetters better watch out! It could happen to them one day and then they'll be sorry!" comments - which miss the point entirely.

Of course we'd be sorry - that's the abusive cycle we're trying to break.

(Not the point of this thread of course but come to think of it, why is there a Mumsnet and a Gransnet anyway? Shouldn't there be a sort of WomensNet where we can all share experiences and advice and frustrations?

It's all very well them snapping about evil DILs and then people here moaning about nightmare MILs, but surely we could all potentially do better in one forum where everyone could bring more balance and insight from both sides?)

Yes that's certainly a good point and definitely true in my case.

Having had a good relationship with DH and MIL that doesn't run hot and cold all the time and isn't volitile has just highlighted to me how abnormal my mothers idea of normal families/love is! And has given me faith that DH and I can show the DDs something better, what a normal family is like, what healthy love is like

Evening folks. We're all for a discussion about this but we do think that dragging over comments from another forum is a bit unsporting, especially when we know nothing of someone's personal circumstances. We've deleted a few comments. We really don't want to have to pull the entire thread so could we ask everyone politely to stick to general observations and personal experience on this discussion? Thank you.

Hope the same message posted on gransnet Iona

Plus mners quote from other forums a lot are we not allowed to do this at all or does it just apply to GN?

My first ever deleted comment, I'm - since when can't we post from other public forums?

And yes, there's a sniffy quote over there too MN. You'll want to post there too. Or is it ok if it's a shorter quote?

Sorry though, don't mean to be rude and am sure I'm just projecting a bit. I agree that this thread and their self-absorption has been triggering...

Ah - a quick look on GN reveals no! They've not had a similar message!

Seems to me this is supporting an idea that mners are unreasonable to discuss but gners are not!

More purchasing power maybe?