Awful dynamic with my parents

[DrowsyDragon]

I’ve posted here before about my troubled relationship with my DM. Last time, I was advised to see a therapist, enforce boundaries around confiding in her about my DH (she hates him and thinks he is controlling) and to not let her care for my DD, now one, one day a week. I have followed this aside from the childcare issue. Mum was desperately upset, all her violent temper is aimed at me and she is good with my daughter. It has mostly been ok. She doesn’t care for DD as I would and she babies her a bit too much. DD comes home from nursery ready to sleep but home from my parents ready to party because she’s just been cuddled all day.

Until this Friday. DD is under the weather, teething, cold, and just had one year jab. I’ve had a hard week at work, DH was late picking me and then DD up cos he’d lost track of time working ( he also forgot to pick up dinner). When I turned up, DD is clinging to a rag doll DM gave her. This was a small source of conflict because DM always made a song and dance about how special dolls are, how she chose my childhood doll and how lovely it would be when I gave my daughter a doll. Of course DM just gave my DD a doll without involving me.

When I go to take DD home she screams and sobs when the doll is taken from her. Normally i’d Just wrestle her into the car but I am tired, she’s sick and I can’t face crying all the way home. So I say we’re taking the doll for her to have at home for the week. DM is pissed off but gives way. All last night and this morning DD is glued to the doll. I phone DM to say we are going to buy DD a different rag doll of the same brand but can we keep this one until the new one comes and if DD does like the new one as much can we keep the doll here until her obsession dwindles. My mum goes apeshit, screaming and swearing about how the doll lives at her house and she is going to come around and take the doll. I tell her to grow up, this is not about me, it’s about a poorly one year old. She hangs up.

Context, DM is also very stressed cos her estranged but recently reconciled sister is dying and an ongoing planning dispute with her NDN. I have spent literally hours making soothing noises while she rants about the NDN.

DM phones back, continues insisting she wants the doll back right now, puts DF on the phone who backs up her insanity while she literally screams in the back ground. I actually manage to stay calm and stand my ground. After the call I order the planned replacement but feel very shaken. DH is furious. DF decides to come take me out for coffee and we have a surprisingly amicable discussion about how bonkers DM is being but generally summing up as I have to work around her. I just don’t know what to do any more. How do I negotiate with a women who will get this distraught over a toy? How do I keep trusting her with my child?

It will get clearer. It has been a painful experience for me but also one of the best decisions I’ve ever made and incredible empowering. Good luck.

She's only 'doting' on your daughter because your dd is tiny and at the moment can't hear the shouting and hysterics. Once your dd grows up and hears the abuse directed at you she will be very confused why you let her go there. Even worse, your mum may try to gang up against you with your dd.

Your dd is you. You were little once, just like your dd. If she is like that with you, she could be with your dd.

Get away now while DD won't remember her.

My DC were 6 and 8 when their relationship with their gp ended and I wish they'd never had one at all.

My Mother was like this with my SIL, batshit crazy, she had to call the police on her once.

I pity the neighbours of this awful woman, might even suggest I would stand as witness for them in court.

Now really think about this OP. It's not just the screaming fits and the fact that your DD isn't active enough with her. My real concern would be the vindictiveness of her to get a doll for DD, presumably then big up the doll to the point that DD is clinging to it for days (you don't indicate that this is normal for her beyond what you would expect for any child), and then demand it be taken from her knowing how upset she will be. I don't even know how to describe this behaviour but emotionally abusive springs to mind.....are you really going to keep allowing unsupervised contact and for her to offer child care???

I also wonder how people go NC without any doubt or regrets.

I'm NC with my mother and it's taken years to get to a point of feeling more free of the negative emotions. It's been very difficult and I've done a lot of soul-searching. I wish things could be different.

BUT my whole life is better now. I don't suffer from anxiety in the same way, I don't miss work due to not feeling I can cope, I don't doubt my own decisions all the time or have skewed relationships with others thanks to second guessing and doubt.

Even though it's been emotionally very hard, and not a day goes by without me thinking of my mother, my life is unrecognizable from how it was before.

You could say it took a while for my brain to catch up with the life I am now living. My heart still has some distance to go.

It's toxic. I would go NC. Harsh but for your own sanity it would be best. I would not want my child anywhere near somebody so mentally fragile.

BUT my whole life is better now. I don't suffer from anxiety in the same way, I don't miss work due to not feeling I can cope, I don't doubt my own decisions all the time or have skewed relationships with others thanks to second guessing and doubt.

God that sounds familiar. I don’t miss work cos that sets off guilt too. But the second guessing and high anxiety is very familiar. I know I must seem awfully weak to a lot of people. There’s been just me for a such a long time before DH and DD came along. My parents were largely estranged from their families for a variety of reasons starting with my maternal grandmother being the kind of mother that make mine look perfect - though they did leave me with her throughout childhood. My paternal grandparents were lovely but emigrated a not easily travellable distance away.

She’s still my mum. It’s so hard to let go off hoping to fix her.

How can you possibly leave your child with this lunatic?? I'm gobsmacked you would even consider it.

It’s so hard to let go off hoping to fix her.

Nobody ever changes unless they want to and until they are ready. It is hard to accept but there’s nothing you can do to save this situation. It’s all on her and it doesn’t even sound like she recognises that her behaviour is damaging, let alone want to do anything about it

It is not YOUR responsibility to fix your Mother.

I am stunned that, despite advice, you have continued to leave your child with an adult whom you term has a 'violent temper'.
She is as manipulative as fuck. She made you feel that you should get this special experience of buying the doll THEN she undermines you by buying it herself THEN she spends all day (or more) encouraging your DDs attachment to it THEN she refuses point blank to let DD keep it for comfort THEN she goes utterly batshit over getting a fucking rag doll back under her roof. Why? Because it is a tool she is using to massively manipulate you & DD. If you think this isn't all already damaging behaviour for your DD then you are deluding yourself.
I completely sympathise with your wish for your DD to have 'lovely grandparents' but the stark fact is SHE DOESNT.
Time to step up to protect your DD. I wish you well. 💐

Not trying to be harsh by the way. Just trying to help you see the reality of the situation.

When dealing with parents like this there can be religious/cultural reasons why a child finds it hard to break away. In my case it was a very strict religious upbringing it took me decades to shrug off. I came to realise that respect and obedience to a parent is earned not an entitlement.

"Of course DM just gave my DD a doll without involving me.

When I go to take DD home she screams and sobs when the doll is taken from her."

Just this bit alone is baffling,why would it need to be taken from her? What was your mother thinking?

I think the charitable interpretation is that mum wants DD to have nice things at her house. The less charitable it that it is all about control. I just keep hoping she will be better with DD or get more reasonable and mellowed and at times it seems like she has for weeks on end and then something like this happens. I know several of you must think I am very weak, i’m Trying to get there.

"How do I keep trusting her with my child?"

YOU DON'T.

For the love of God, stop handing your child over to this woman.

I am questioning your therapist's wisdom tbh. I mean the decision has to come from you and perhaps the therapist felt you weren't ready to enforce that boundary yet, but... the way you phrased it, it sounds like you thought the therapist was advising you to keep trying?

It's good that you have a therapist because in my experience when you have a toxic mother it only really becomes intractable (is that the word) when you become a mother yourself.

The doll thing is really weird. A way of controlling your daughter, making her come back and something she can remove at will. You did the right thing by not backing down.

No contact is a big step, because it can escalate. Whenever I have had a break from my mother she starts stalking me, turning up at my house without warning etc. In my case I moved away so we are very low contact. That might be less stressful. Checking with the nursery is a great start. She might be doting on your daughter now because she loves babies - cuddling all day, like she is a doll etc - but once your daughter starts asserting herself a bit more your mother will likely struggle as she prefers a docile baby to a toddler. Just a thought.

Good luck. Its shit having a mother like this. I have a similarly passive father who goes along with her crap, although he occasionally stands up to her. Essentially remember too that she is a weak bully and its your child and your family and she needs to go along with what you want. Comes as a bit of a shock to women like her!

You are not weak OP you have been thrust into a shit situation of someone else's making.

Escape hatch, the stalking thing has to be experienced to be believed... My OH could not believe the lengths my mother would go to.

Same here with the stalking!! We moved 40 miles away thankfully so any stalking is either by sending manipulative letters through the post, or by hassling friends and family on social media. OR via my work social media accounts. Yes she really is that self absorbed!

I went NC and it was THE BEST decision I've ever made. Do I question it. Of course. Do I feel guilty. I used to. Not any more. Not since she suddenly decided I was worth communicating with again after I had my DD. Not a chance that toxic witch is having any contact with my DD.

Stay strong. Her behaviour is completely unacceptable and you know that. Trying to control a little girl, for what? Keep your DD far away from her, she does not get to repeat the cycle of abuse.

OP, going NC with a parent is so, so hard. I'm nearly a year NC with my toxic father and I still get doubts creeping in, but I have learned to address them as the old conditioning of the past.

My F was awful when I was growing up, and did something very deceptive and bad to me around a decade ago and I found out when DS was one. I stupidly gave him another chance and it is my biggest regret that I didn't go NC with him back then. As it is, we went NC with him when my DC were 11 and 8 and they have already been affected. My DD struggles with people pleasing already, just like me.

I recently read the latest book by Mae West, Fred and Rose West's daughter. It describes how it took her over a decade to go NC with Rose West in prison, she describes how she had been an emotional hostage to her mother since childhood, and the manipulative tactics her mother used in prison visits and letters.

It's a grim read but it has helped me in one way - now when I'm having a bad day doubting myself, I remember that even Fred and Rose West's daughter was caught in the FOG. That's how powerful the FOG can be. But you can do it for your DD, you really can!

"I know several of you must think I am very weak, i’m Trying to get there."

I don't think you're weak. Not at all. I suffered severe abuse at home while my parents were busy servicing their sexual needs with the neighbours and I still feel guilty about being nc sometimes.

It's hard, really hard.

It gets easier IMO when you have the reason to say your own DC from your parents. Which you now do.

save your own DD that should have said.

Sorry for not coming back to the thread sooner. We had a lot of Christmas stuff planned yesterday and I wanted to just have a nice day with DD and DH.

I can sympathise with the stalking, I wouldn’t say DM does that but we live in the same place and she does like to turn up unannounced. Often staying even if we are doing things or have just returned from things. Thank you all for the sympathy. As I said DD isn’t having her normal day with DM this week, I have her and will talk to the nursery. DD goes through phases of being very attached to a toy and then losing interest but her interest in the doll is definitely still high. I don’t want her upset for DM’s sake

The point about baby to toddler is a very good one too. I have already been worried that her current doting won’t survive meaningful defiance/ just being a toddler and developing more of a will of her own. I am also concerned (much more minor) that they don’t do much with DD. They rarely take her out whereas at nursery there’s always lots to do.