i'm just looking for interpretations here - I don't think I'll change what I do much (which is keep my parents at polite arms' length and engage with them as little as possible).
My parents are absolutely nuts and I have moaned about them on here, as well as having extensive counselling/ CBT/ etc both recently and intermittently over the last 20 years, to deal with the effects of having been brought up by people incapable of emotional maturity or honesty.
I recently had my first child; DS is now 5 weeks old. Parents disapproved of the pregnancy (they think I'm incapable of running my own life, despite abundant evidence to the contrary) and apart from initial bitching refused to discuss it with us at all, though they bitched about it behind our backs a lot to relatives and mutual friends.
Since the birth they have said multiple times that "they would be willing to offer support but they probably wouldn't be welcome", usually at highly inappropriate times such as in the phonecall when we told them DS had arrived, or in front of their own guests when we have skyped in to say hello to relatives that wanted to congratulate us on DS. Every contact with them has involved statements both of "we will visit" and "no, we won't visit because we'd be in the way". They also repeatedly offer support and then withdraw it because apparently we clearly don't need or want it so it would just be a nuisance. They keep referring to the fact we apparently have loads of friends doing things for us, as though it's a surprise that we have any friends at all, let alone any that would be willing to be any help.
We have politely said, repeatedly, both by email and on the phone/skype "you would be welcome to visit and meet your grandchild if you would like to" and "thankyou for the offers of support, they are greatly appreciated; while we don't immediately need support we would be delighted to introduce you to your grandchild".
But they just keep repeating this every bloody phonecall and at least once a week by email. The way it comes across it looks like my dad wants to visit and my mum doesn't want to.
Of possible relevance is te fact my mum is insanely jealous of other people's friendships. She has successfully got rid of all my father's close friends by finding reasons to dislike them or their wives and hammering home nastiness about these people until my father begins to spout the nastiness too, and drops them. My mother has always seen me as competition for my father's attention (which is a bit of a joke because my father sees me as academic competition so behaves like an arse towards me - i.e. not in ways that might make me push out my mother from the relationship!). I wonder if she has decided that now is the time to make sure she destroys any relationship between me and my father?
Or that she only wants to be "needed" so she can moan to her friends about how put upon she is by her lazy daughter who demands help?
Has anyone else had this? Gah it's annoying. Though obviously, it's not as annoying as having them in the same country and having to listen to my mother's wittering 24/7 for a week. So it's in my interests to have them keep game-playing. Though that can't go on indefinitely...