Does anybody else have to keep secrets from their family because of negativity?

[EverySongbirdSays]

I'm hopefully starting an MA in the new year, if I can get the place I want and funding.

I have realised I cannot tell my family, and this makes me so sad, because the reason is they always spoil things with their horrendous response to things simultaneously both super pressured and mean spirited.

I got back into work after a long time off for health reasons. I had had a pretty hard time. My sister has always had a good job and a wide circle of friends but long term jealousy going back to childhood means she resents me anything even if she has far more, she engineered a conversation that would deliberately end in people who do my job being slated, but at the same time making it appear as though she was innocent of that motive and it wasn't her intention. This sorry is actually a minor example of how venomously she behaves towards me whilst trying to hide it and gaslight.

Going back, when I got my first job, my cousins DH first question was really rude and ill mannered, wanting to know what salary I was on I felt forced to answer even though I was young and on the spot.

When learning to drive, I was really struggling, and not sure if I could continue, it was all I ever got asked HOW'S YOUR DRIVING, HOW'S YOUR DRIVING? and I just felt so much pressure.

Again, while off work for ill health my Aunt constantly asked :

ARE YOU WORKING? ARE YOU WORKING?

And I felt so judged, and pressurized it is still pretty much all she asks about

The MA is over subscribed and at the end only a few people get what they want from it, the occupation is hard to get into but it's something I have always dreamed of. I may not even manage to complete it and I'm ralistic about that.

I'm not asking for advice really. I have decided to not tell any of my family about my MA, because of their form, for either nastiness or pressure.

But this makes me super sad to know I have to keep secrets from them, because they can't be pleaed for me and have to make me feel bad or harp on about things I've told them I'm doing til I feel intensely pressured.

Is anyone in the same boat, and can share stories with me?

The turning point for me was realising that life is short (I've survived leukaemia - twice!) and I was NOT going to let them ruin however many years lie ahead.
It's possible your family are jealous of your perceived confidence/ success. (This is taboo... families aren't meant to feel jealousy ... or hatred).
I think this might have been the trigger for my DF now loathing me. Nice house, happy marriage/ family life. My biggest crime has been putting my family first and not dancing attendance on DF.

I think it is a generational, British thing.

My Mum told me a while back when I said I was annoyed at dh for something minor, "you toe the line with him or he'll leave you my girl. They need the smallest excuse. And I see you've put on weight, that'll send him straight to a younger skinner girl that gives him less hassle."

This was a couple of months ago. In the same conversation I proudly told her ds had potty trained in the space of a week. She told me "well I don't know why you're so proud, he's been slow to do that the same as he's slow to do most things."

Sosad- did i read that wrong or are you dying?

My mum has no idea I've coslept with each DC for part of most nights as babies. Dc3 just turned 2 and still comes in in the early hours when he wakes. He also still breastfeeds. I never planned it for this long and would love it to end soon, but he's dairy intolerant and it carried on and I've just never managed to stop.

Mum has repeatedly asked with each DC from the day they were born when I was going to stop Bf. She doesn't get either BF or cosleeping. So it's easier not to discuss.

"Are they jealous?"

In general no, but certainly would be if I became the success I was expected to be in my youth. I somewhat failed to launch after graduation, but there were reasons for that.

Sister jealous over nothing no matter what I say or do, can't give a compliment without also simultaneously implying she doesn't feel I deserve whatever it is she is complimenting

eg Your skirt is nice, where's it from?

Monsoon.

Well, I suppose it proves that I can still dress well even if I have put on weight, because you seem to and you're fat etc

or

Your dress is nice, I nearly bought the same so don't think you have better taste than me where's it from? Oh...MINES FROM COAST.

As I say, 40 going on 12

Stuff like that

Daisy - we still go sleep and breast feed (well I do not dh) ds and he's almost 3. My mother is horrified and disgusted and never wasted an opportunity to tell me.

Bummy

It's sosads MIL who is dying not sosad

She is writing about it in secret so as not to hurt her DH

Think they might be jealous when you get your MA!

My Mum said "you look nice ... you really should make more of an effort with your appearance more often!" Ouch

My DM would always be like

"Why don't you jazz yourself up, you need to jazz yourself up" but nots ay what she meant by that.

The answer incidentally was "because I'm fifteen, I don't have my own income sources, so I get the clothes you buy me and I'm bigger and size 16 on trend fashion wasn't massively easy to come by in 1996"

Agh! Fuck em. Fuckemfuckemfuckemfuckem.

Jazz yourself up.

Dear Mother will still comment today on how my hair looks awful or I've aged and I'm so bloody tempted to say something back but higher roads and all that.

Still 20 years later not entirely sure what it means, she was always discouraging me from wearing make up.

To this day she hasn't had a family portrait done, because she wants to "wait til you've lost a bit of weight". I'm about 4 stone heavier than I was the first time she said it.

Ha. We had our only one ever done a few years ago and dear Mother said "everyone looks so good it's such a shame you were so heavy." I'd had ds a month before.

I laugh it off now. But tell her nothing. I'm like a Ninja spy when I talk to her.

I stopped "providing bullets" a couple of years ago. Found it very liberating. I just listen, nod and smile at the family gatherings, offering nothing in return about me. Found it so successful, I do it with co-workers now too. Listen, nod, smile. Listen, nod, smile. I am a lot happier.

What is it with mothers and weight? My mother has been overweight my whole life and yet she never fails to comment on my excess weight or lack of it!
Last year i lost 3 stone as my daughter was getting married. Cue all the comments of how good i looked implying for most of my life i had looked a fat blimp! . Well the inevitable has happened and about half has gone back on. I havent seen her yet and dread it because i have failed again to look the way she /society thinks i should. I swear that part of the reason i overeat is to rebel and stick 2 fingers up at them all because why should i conform to what they want to be acceptable!!
Why oh why do we subject women to all this pressure!?
I have 2 daughters . One struggles with weight as she has my build. I have never once commented on her or other daughters weight. I accept and love them whatever size they are and whatever they do and i tell them they are beautiful because they are!! Just wish i had a mother who could be positive about me and then i wouldnt have struggled for so many yrs to reach the point i am at now .

If my Mother says one more word to Ds ever again about being fat I don't think I'll be able to hold back. I've bounced between anorexia and bulimia since I've been 9 because of her, my Grandma and my uncles comments and still struggle with my body image at nearly 40.

If she ever calls ds 'fat' again I think it'll be the last thing she ever says to me. The first time I was in shock, this time I won't be.

I play down anything good that happens to me to my Mum and sister. My Dad is very encouraging, but I feel that deep down my Mum is concerned that I will lead a better life than the one she had.

She is not happy about promotions (had to pretent my DH's promotion was 'a bit of a pay rise'), the idea I may return to a good job after child-rearing, how much my house cost (saved like mad to get it), that we have money to save each month (wants us to be struggling), new things we get for the house, going on holidays (we camp in England?!), does not want me to try to send my kids to a grammar school etc, etc. Also doesn't like the fact that I went to University. She gets really nasty about it and says things to make me feel that I'm big-headed, greedy, selfish, think I'm better than other people, etc, to try to wear down my self-esteem. My DH laughs that her insults are so far form the truth - i'm actually really down-to-earth and not materialistic at all, often 'making-do'.

I have done the same, I used to confide or naively seek approval from ex Mil my dd''s dg for years.

Until about 2 yrs go I started to withdraw because all I got back was negativity about any one person in my life or my choices and would often leave her company in near tears.

When I worked "I should give up and go on benefits", set up my business it "was a waste of time" even though a year before she suggested it. And lots of other contradictions.
When I was learning to drive constant negativity about how I won't afford it etc.
When I passed test no congrats.

She didn't like that anything I was doing in life.

I stopped telling her any details of my life and any comments she made I was a stone wall, she realised this and further criticised me for it (threw the toys out the pram) and now we don't talk at unless to do with dd.result

I was young when I met her and she was the only support I had but it came with a price that her opinion was paramount and anything said otherwise was challenged vehemently.

Always push negative people out your life as much as possible, you need people to be there and root for you not bring you down.

Bummy absolutely agree that you should not tolerate anything that will destroy your childs self esteem. I put up with everything before i had kids but when they started to try to undermine my children that was it for me and i spoke out and have done my own thing from then on in.
You are so right to cut contact if you have to do so for your child.

Good luck Songbird you'll not regret it or keeping it from your family.
I've been married for 5 years. Still not told my family.

Yes, I do, definitely.

I am not even a secretive person normally, but I have my guard up round my family always. There are many many miles between us which definitely helps me with my edited version of my life.

I can see myself doing similar Unremarkable well done on that one

So sorry to hear all these hurtful hurtful comment.
You literally can't win.
I was once told to "earn more" & "not overdo it" in the same conversation! I called her on it, said she was overly critical, "no I'm not" ... clueless.

Oh my goodness. All of you on this thread deserve huge, massive hugs.

My own, sad little story is that my DS's dad and I split up when he was very little. Several years later I was in a relationship with OH. I got pregnant unexpectedly - I was 43 and had had surgery for cervical cancer a few years previously and, unbeknown to me, should have rendered me unable to get pregnant, let alone sustain a pregnancy. My Mum said that if I split up with OH then I was on my own, no more help from her. Unfortunately, 28 weeks into my pregnancy, OH died. She was on holiday and didn't bother coming back until a week after OH had died. Even then she didn't want to see me.

She is now frail and has dementia and is very vulnerable, but sometimes, I just fucking resent having to help her when she has been such a bitch. Sorry, that was long and bitter. {Lemonylemon here, by the way}