Children of 70s/80s Sally Challen

[freddiemercury]

I've been reading about Sally Challen and coercive control a lot.
My childhood involved a very controlling father. He would flip over the slightest things.. such as a pepper pot running out of pepper, a glass being broken, etc. He told us children we were fat/stupid. My mother tho got the brunt.. she was humiliated in many ways. Ge controlled her financially, when we moved house he was rude at a neighbours party and she was very very isolated. He would go silent for days at a time. We all trod on egg shells
The strange thing is that now he's very different and is an incredibly loving grandfather in particular... and I had mostly put it behind me.
But reading about Sally Challen brought it all up. I spoke to my husband about it and he basically said that it was completely normal for the era of my childhood and we cant compare those relationships with how it's done now. I know his parents marriage was pretty volatile. But my view is that our separate but not hugely happy experiences were far from normal.
Any views would be very appreciated...

So sad to hear what you have all gone through. And no, it wasn't normal- though it was probably easier to get away with.

My dh had a very happy childhood in the 1960s. His dad was old enough to remember the time before the First World War (and had fought in the Second): he was still a kindly man who knew how to get on with people without abusing them.

If you think about it, OP, your father's behaviour wasn't just domestic: he also got himself ostracized by the neighbours. That can't have been normal behaviour even in those days- or do we imagine that people just didn't speak to each other in the 1970s?

Or to put it another way:

decent people will behave as decently as their culture allows

very decent people will sometimes cross the boundaries of their culture to behave more decently (my grandmother congratulating a village girl on her beautiful- but illegitimate- child in the 1930s)

little shits will behave as shittily as their culture allows

massive shits will cross the boundaries of their culture to behave more shittily (and shock even the smaller shits with their shitty behaviour)

we all have a responsibility for where we stand on that spectrum

My late mother was a violent bully. She had an outside face and people loved her, and she smiled a lot, was popular.
I suspect that her marriage was skewed.
She came across to people who knew her better as bitter and frustrated.

I have to say that when she went it was v upsetting but now I am a rather happier person! No more weekly upsetting phone calls.

Sometimes, rarely, do and say things which remind me of her and that concerns me, however I am aware of it.
I don't have children either....

@corythatwas I firmly believed my father was so rude to the neighbours to insure my mother was isolated and didn't make friends.
I do find it confusing that I wouldn't talk to anyone in real life about it.. as I want to protect my father...as I say he is a v sweet and loving grandpa.
I do wish we had all had "normal" childhoods... hugs to all...

I firmly believed my father was so rude to the neighbours to insure my mother was isolated and didn't make friends.

That is horrible but sadly likely to be true. You don't have to spend long on the Relationship board to find abusive men behaving in exactly that way today. So sorry you had to live through this

No, this was not normal in the 70s - 80s nor either in the 50s - 60s when I was a kid.

@flouncyfanny same here! Although it tends to be more 'you looked just like your mother then for a minute". She does this cats bum face when she disapproves or is annoyed about something and (having checked in the mirror) he's right I do the same face. Since noticing this I try SO HARD never to do it, I have to make a conscious effort to rearrange my face if I can feel it coming on!