Niece and nephew

[YetiAnotherName]

I am nc with my siblings due to a lifetime of belittlement and other difficulties. My siblings are fine with this - they want nothing to do with me either.

My mother has never come to terms with this and pushed and pushed for us to reconcile with the effect that we were actually pushed further apart as there was no time for us to sort things out ourselves.

I have made my feelings very clear time and again to my mother. She won’t discuss it. Now she has taken to Skyping with my nieces when she Skypes my children. We live at the other end of the country.

My dc have met their cousins only once or twice and don’t really ask about them so imagine my nieces feel the same way. However my mum tells me they are “desperate” to skype me and speak with me and my children. Yesterday I had an hour with my family between jobs and she insisted that we skype. I ended up saying it’s not convenient and could you please respect my boundaries. No reply so I suppose she isn’t talking to me now. I’m just exhausted with the whole thing. It’s come to the stage that whenever my mother does this I just stop engaging altogether.

How do i deal with this? Every time it happens I end up so stressed I lose sleep and my heart pounds. I’m an adult and my whole life I feel like my mother ignore’s what I want and how I feel. How do i stop giving a damn?

I’m sorry, this is upsetting and i dont have any experience to advise so bumping this to see if another mumsnettter can help you

You probalay can’t in reality but just take some solace from the fact that she didn’t actually insist that you Skyped. She asked insistently but you got the outcome you wanted.

Do you want a relationship with your niece and nephew? Do you want this for your children?

Now she has taken to Skyping with my nieces when she Skypes my children.

Is she connecting the call to the nieces first and then dialling in your DC? If so that's very underhand.

If she's dialling your DC and then saying "I'm going to add your cousins to the call, you want to speak to them don't you?" then I'd simply supervise the calls from now on and say "No, that's not appropriate as I've already told you."

Is she dialling them direct or dialling you and then you put them on?

If she continues to push boundaries I'd uninstall Skype (or change profiles if you need it for other things) and tell her she'll have to just speak on the phone instead. Unfortunately I don't know of any video calling app that doesn't allow group video chats. Facetime and Whatsapp both do.

I imagine it must be heartbreaking for your DM, having her DC not talking.

Have you told her why you don't speak to them?

Was she aware that they all belittled you?

I suggest you tell your DM, you won't be skyping with her anymore and will stick to phonecalls until she respects your wishes.

It is heartbreaking for her and I am sorry for that. She skypes when her granddaughters are over visiting. She knows exactly what happened (there was violence when I was small too) but thinks we should all move past it. I don’t really want a relationship with my nieces until they are old enough that it can be done independent of the other people in the family. I know that sounds uncaring. I have grown quite cold and distant in trying to protect myself over the years.

You are right that she didn’t actually insist, she tried to. So I did put my foot down this time. I wish she wouldn’t put me in that position because then she stops talking to me.

Do their parents know that she skypes you while in her care? We are NC with sil and as inlaws are deceased it's not an issue now. However before mil died she would talk about them and it got to the stage where I told her not to mention them to us. You need to shut down conversation about them as soon as your mother starts. If she has them with her when skyline then make your excuses. While it's not the kids fault, realistically there is no way of having a relationship with them while being NC with your siblings. If your mother cannot respect that she'll find that you may well end up being NC with her too!

'When skyping'

I don’t know if their parents know. I don’t want to go nc with my mum but she can’t seem to stop herself from pushing in. Every so often she’ll kind of tantrum and say “fine! I’ll never mention anyone to anyone ever again!” And I breathe a sigh of relief and then it all starts up again. I’ve stopped visiting my home town altogether - we visit nearby and she comes to meet us. Because she kept planning surprise dinners with my siblings when I came home that were the most awkward painful events. I don’t know how to distance myself further without cutting contact altogether whichever i don’t want to do.