How do I help\support DP? Toxic family who have completely let her down.

[whaaaaat]

Hi,

My DP has really lucked out when it comes to family and I'm so incredibly sad and angry for her. Brief (ish) background...

Mum is a narcissistic, selfish, controlling bitch, who buggered off abroad when DP was 13 and left her with an abusive 19 year old MAN. She couldn't escape him, had nowhere else to go, as she was a child. She is has pretty much NC with her mum now, but she tries to worm her way back in occasionally, with a crappy, cold text message. Her dad was also abroad at the time (still is) and had started another family. Nobody did anything to get her out. Nobody. Her nan occasionally visited her and saw the misery and squalor that she was living in, but again did nothing. This is her mum's mum and whereas she's done more for DP than her mum (not bloody hard!) she's still an incredibly selfish woman, but has a lot of people fooled, because she's very vivacious and confident. Not me. I could see through her from day one. She's a self centred user.

DP has a relationship with her dad, but mainly over the phone and email. His other DC have all his time, money etc and DP gets a fortnightly phone call. He and his wife will sometimes come over to England to visit friends, but not usually see DP. I see her face light up when he calls and says he's coming over, only to be told he won't have time to see her and then her face drops. It's fucking heartbreaking actually. That said, I do believe he loves her and when I see them together, I can definitely see a bond.

She is better than all of them put together and has made so much of her life, against all odds.

I think she just used to accept all this and so was emotionally kind of shut down, but gradually the realisation is hitting her and it's tearing her apart. She sees how tight and how caring my family is and I think that's what's making things clearer, yet harder to accept. She has my family now, but I know it doesn't stop her longing for her own family not to be so fucking useless!

Her other nan died and she was the only person in her family who she could relate to. She sounded like a lovely woman and I'm so sorry DP doesn't have her in her life anymore. Would have loved to have met her. Sounded like she knew DP was gay too and tried to have "the conversation", but DP just wasn't ready at the time to come out and so she buried it....for years, but the fact she tried, makes it clear to me she had a very strong bond with DP.

I try to be as supportive as possible, but I can't fix it for her. I get so angry when I think about how much she's been neglected and let down. Her mum has done some terrible things and there are too many to mention.

I'm not sure what I'm posting for. Maybe just some advice on how I can help her more.

Thanks for reading.

It sounds like she would benefit from some talking therapy to help her process all this. On a personal level I guess all you can do is support her, not judge but be there for her and listen when she talks about her childhood.

Mighty, I've suggested she does this, but she's very career minded and is worried she'll need to take time off work.

All I can do is tell her that none of this is her fault and that she doesn't deserve it.

Some therapists do telephone or Skype consultations. Depending on her job, she may also get some counselling through an employee assistance programme. Her work wouldnt know she had accessed it but it is designed to be used. She may come to the realisation that this might help in her own time. I only realised it might be for me through reading mumsnet and other online forums/articles, and I only came to these when my work eased off so it may take time. Always useful to have some counselling in relation to career too - I took part in a sort of management training thing that had some counselling elements and it opened up a lot more for me. I suppose I'm trying to say in the meantime you can discuss psychology and how people behave and normalise questioning those things. Good luck to you both

Hello whaaaaat - have a pop over to the Stately Homes thread. Full of wisdom and compassion for your DP's situation. There's also the Stately Homes annexe in OTBT for those of us who have, or are going through, coming to terms with toxic/dysfunctional family set ups.
You sound lovely

Mighty, thank you. I will pass all that on.

White, thank you. I'll head on over.

Can I just ask a question? Should I encourage that the nc continues with her mum if I know she's just going to hurt her again? When I say encourage, I suppose I just mean agree. Dp knows it's probably for the best, but there's still a little thread of hope left dangling I think and that's what's causing dp to get so upset. Her poor excuse for a mum might send her an empty text once every 6 months and dp ends up in our room, sobbing, feeling really dark and I wonder if this is avoidable. Could she block her number for example? Or is that pointless, as I suppose she could contact her from another number. Dp isn't on FB, I should point out, so she can't get in contact with her that way.