Nc with mum and feeling insecure about it

[mixedbaubles]

I’ve recently gone nc with my mum. I’ve spent years trying to manage our relationship.
When I was growing up our family had awful dynamics. My dad was a raging alcoholic who beat me and my mum. My younger sister was my mums favourite and she always stopped him hitting her. I think with all the stress my mum then turned on me and I could do nothing right. She beat me with whatever item was close to her at the time. So then I had my dad and my mum bullying and beating me. Anyway with no other family this was my normal and I hated the idea of no family at all. As I got older I got married my mum has helped me and looked after my sisters boy and mine. However, my mum is still with my dad and she mentioned that he tells my nephew he’s not a real man because he’s small and he pushed my nephew into a fence because he was annoying him. My nephew is 5.
Anyway (as a result I think of our upbringing) my sister and I don’t talk at all but I felt so uncomfortable knowing this, if I said anything to my sister she would definitely brush it off and accuse me of being nasty about our parents as she’s in complete denial they could do anything wrong. She is still my mums favourite. Anything I invite my mum to will be dropped immediately if my sister asks for her help. That’s ok i suppose but I do get a bit hurt. And sometimes me and my mum go out together say shopping and she takes a call from my sister for the entire time I’m out with my mum and my mum just walks off away from me if we’re in a shop the whole time then gets off the phone and let’s me drive her home so I normally only get about 5 mins with her. All this started to really grate on me until I said to mum it’s not ok the way you treat me and my sister. She’s your favourite and it’s not really on with me. My mum said that my sister was her favourite but she couldn’t help that because my sister is the ‘baby’ of the family.

So again I’ve passively ignored it all. One day my mum got in my car and said I’m going to leave everything I have when I die to your sister because she needs it more than you. My sister has a lot more than me and I was so hurt I told her to F off. I very rarely swear and tbh was surprised at my reaction.

Since then I went along with things until about a month ago I just didn’t want to see either of my parents again. I’ve cut them both off but I feel like I’ve done something awful and I’m not sure what to do. My mums only phoned me once since then and tbh that’s just helped me think maybe I’m doing the right thing. I’ve had counselling but it hasn’t helped. The counsellor said I should forgive my mum because she’s been through domestic violence, but so have I because of my mum. I think now I have dc I cannot even imagine putting my dc what my mum has put me through but I’m not sure if that’s a bitter way of thinking. I want to do the right thing but I don’t know what that is. Should I take my mum not contacting me as a sign I am?! I’m not even sure if I could contact them again because they’ve made no effort to contact me other than my mum calling me once in the first week. I have said I’m not going to tolerate the way she treats me for a while now but she has ignored me and carried. I really felt I had no other option.
Sorry for long post.

Please talk to your sister, she may be more understanding than you are assuming and may recognise how you were treated differently, but her relationship with your mum is different and you may find that you can have a relationship with your sister but not your mother.

For context, I am the golden child, my sibling cut me and my children off because of the relationship between my mother and i. I have spent my life trying to negotiate a positive relationship between my sibling and parents. Its impossible to manage but you may get some comfort from you sister, who can't change things but can provide friendship and love.

Hand to hold, @mixedbaubles . You might want to come hang out with us on the Stately Homes thread - there are lots of us in similar boats.

You don't have to forgive your mum
Yes she was damaged herself but that doesn't mean that what she did to you was alright
it wasn't
you were abused, you did not receive the nurturing and care that you needed and deserved

for your own well-being, to preserve your sense of self-worth you need to stand up for yourself and protect yourself from people who abused you

Your mother might have been the victim of domestic abuse but she should have protected you as a child, and she didn't. And now she is abusing you by so clearly favouring your sister. Your counsellor is wrong to tell you to forgive her.

If the only way you can stop her being abusive to you is to stop having contact with her, then that's what you should do.

I haven't seen my parents in years and it's been a good thing for me. Not having their abuse in my life has made other things much clearer to me. I don't think you've done anything wrong by cutting contact, but only you can know for sure.

It can take years to really see clearly what's going on when you have abusive parents because they've been able to control you right from the start
you must get rid of her influence on you so that you can understand what's been happening

all the while she can get to you she will create confusion and chaos in your mind and stop you from seeing things clearly

Both your parents are abusive and now they're abusing your nephew. Keep drumming into your sister the damage that your parents are causing her son.

Thanks, @Happygolucky009 to clarify my sister doesn’t want to speak to me, I don’t blame her at all for my m actions but more that I can’t do much about the fact that if I ever try to reason with how my m treats me to her she blames me. Thanks for the hand holding. Feeling so low today as dh away and friends are telling me what they’re doing for Christmas and I’m feeling like an awful person going nc. I’m actually too embarrassed to tell anyone I’ve gone nc with my m in rl.

I have been no contact with my abusive parent for about 25 years
don't feel embarrassed, you have to prioritise your own mental health

I think you're right to go NC. But at the same time, stop going over and over again in your head about it. You drew the short straw with your parents but don't let it spoil the rest of your life.

@Singlenotsingle yes you’re right. It doesn’t help I live 5 minutes away so I’m constantly thinking about bumping into them.

The first xmas I was NC with my mum I felt ashamed and sad.

The second year (and every Xmas since) I've felt grateful that I've made Xmas a lovely safe and joyful time for my son.

The whole reason I chose NC was how she tret my son on boxing day. Literally the first words out of her mouth weren't "Happy Xmas!" or even "hello" they were criticisms of his clothes.

When your counsellor says forgive, donthey also mean that you should maintain contact?

If so, get a new counsellor that has experience with toxic families and doesn’t advocate for contact at all cost.

Have a look at the stately homes thread and spend your Christmas with your lovely family and make wonderful memories with and for them.

My m text me this morning saying she misses my dc and can she see them. Nothing about me just them. I’ve just ignored it so far. She’s very controlling. I’m waiting for her to turn up at my door as she has done on previous occasions when I’ve said to leave me alone or worse come into my house. Once I was in the shower and she just let herself in and took some things she asked me to store because I said she would have to wait until the afternoon for me to get them to her but she wanted the immediately just to prove she can control me. When I got out the shower she was just there and tried to run away from me.

Unfortunately she still has keys to my house as I wasn’t planning to go nc it just so sick of all of this. Will change the locks in the new year when I have time to sort it I think.

Can you put the key in the inside so you can’t put the key in the other side?

I can’t because it’s a bolt door but I can set my alarm. The problem is she’s set that off a few times sneaking in pretending she ‘thought I said to meet her at mine’, to the extent once I couldn’t get home from work (so basically no chance of asking her to be at mine) to turn it off and had to pay £100 to get the alarm engineer out after she put the wrong code in too many times (because I haven’t given her the code) problem is this then incentivises her to check if my cars around before barging in. Thanks though @Aussiebean

Don’t quote me, but I have read a number of times here that there are YouTube videos on how to change the locks. And they have said it was easy. So if it’s a case of having to wait on a lock smith, have a look there.

I'm sorry you had to go through abuse as a child and your mum is still kind of abusing you now, it's unfair of her to treat you like this when she should have done everything to protect you and your sister.

I think you're doing the right thing- stop beating yourself up.