But we took you to Stately Homes" October 2019 onwards thread

[toomuchtooold]

It's October 2019, and the Stately Home is still open to visitors.

Forerunning threads:
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Welcome to the Stately Homes Thread.

This is a long running thread which was originally started up by 'pages' see original thread here (December 2007)

So this thread originates from that thread and has become a safe haven for Adult children of abusive families.

The title refers to an original poster's family who claimed they could not have been abusive as they had taken her to plenty of Stately Homes during her childhood!

One thing you will never hear on this thread is that your abuse or experience was not that bad. You will never have your feelings minimised the way they were when you were a child, or now that you are an adult. To coin the phrase of a much respected past poster Ally90;

'Nobody can judge how sad your childhood made you, even if you wrote a novel on it, only you know that. I can well imagine any of us saying some of the seemingly trivial things our parents/ siblings did to us to many of our real life acquaintances and them not understanding why we were upset/ angry/ hurt etc. And that is why this thread is here. It's a safe place to vent our true feelings, validate our childhood/ lifetime experiences of being hurt/ angry etc by our parents behaviour and to get support for dealing with family in the here and now.'

Most new posters generally start off their posts by saying; but it wasn't that bad for me or my experience wasn't as awful as x,y or z's.

Some on here have been emotionally abused and/ or physically abused. Some are not sure what category (there doesn't have to be any) they fall into.

NONE of that matters. What matters is how 'YOU' felt growing up, how 'YOU' feel now and a chance to talk about how and why those childhood experiences and/ or current parental contact, has left you feeling damaged, falling apart from the inside out and stumbling around trying to find your sense of self-worth.

You might also find the following links and information useful, if you have come this far and are still not sure whether you belong here or not.

'Toxic Parents' by Susan Forward.

I started with this book and found it really useful.

Here are some excerpts:

"Once you get going, most toxic parents will counterattack. After all, if they had the capacity to listen, to hear, to be reasonable, to respect your feelings, and to promote your independence, they wouldn't be toxic parents. They will probably perceive your words as treacherous personal assaults. They will tend to fall back on the same tactics and defences that they have always used, only more so.

Remember, the important thing is not their reaction but your response. If you can stand fast in the face of your parents' fury, accusations, threats and guilt-peddling, you will experience your finest hour.

Here are some typical parental reactions to confrontation:

"It never happened". Parents who have used denial to avoid their own feelings of inadequacy or anxiety, will undoubtedly use it during confrontation, to promote their version of reality. They'll insist that your allegations never happened, or that you're exaggerating. They won't remember, or they will accuse you of lying.

YOUR RESPONSE: Just because you don't remember, doesn't mean it didn't happen".

"It was your fault." Toxic parents are almost never willing to accept responsibility for their destructive behaviour. Instead, they will blame you. They will say that you were bad, or that you were difficult. They will claim that they did the best that they could but that you always created problems for them. They will say that you drove them crazy. They will offer as proof, the fact that everybody in the family knew what a problem you were. They will offer up a laundry list of your alleged offences against them.

YOUR RESPONSE: "You can keep trying to make this my fault, but I'm not going to accept the responsibility for what you did to me, when I was a child".

"I said I was sorry what more do you want?" Some parents may acknowledge a few of the things that you say but be unwilling to do anything about it.

YOUR RESPONSE: "I appreciate your apology, but that is just a beginning. If you're truly sorry, you'll work through this with me, to make a better relationship."

"We did the best we could." Some parents will remind you of how tough they had it while you were growing up and how hard they struggled. They will say such things as "You'll never understand what I was going through," or "I did the best I could". This particular style of response will often stir up a lot of sympathy and compassion for your parents. This is understandable, but it makes it difficult for you to remain focused on what you need to say in your confrontation. The temptation is for you once again to put their needs ahead of your own. It is important that you be able to acknowledge their difficulties, without invalidating your own.

YOUR RESPONSE: "I understand that you had a hard time, and I'm sure that you didn't hurt me on purpose, but I need you to understand that the way you dealt with your problems really did hurt me"

"Look what we did for you." Many parents will attempt to counter your assertions by recalling the wonderful times you had as a child and the loving moments you and they shared. By focusing on the good things, they can avoid looking at the darker side of their behaviour. Parents will typically remind you of gifts they gave you, places they took you, sacrifices they made for you, and thoughtful things they did. They will say things like, "this is the thanks we get" or "nothing was ever enough for you."

YOUR RESPONSE: "I appreciate those things very much, but they didn't make up for ...."

"How can you do this to me?" Some parents act like martyrs. They'll collapse into tears, wring their hands, and express shock and disbelief at your "cruelty". They will act as if your confrontation has victimized them. They will accuse you of hurting them, or disappointing them. They will complain that they don't need this, they have enough problems. They will tell you that they are not strong enough or healthy enough to take this, that the heartache will kill them. Some of their sadness will, of course, be genuine. It is sad for parents to face their own shortcomings, to realise that they have caused their children significant pain. But their sadness can also be manipulative and controlling. It is their way of using guilt to try to make you back down from the confrontation.

YOUR RESPONSE: "I'm sorry you're upset. I'm sorry you're hurt. But I'm not willing to give up on this. I've been hurting for a long time, too."

Helpful Websites

Alice Miller
Personality Disorders definition
Daughters of narcissistic mothers
Out of the FOG
You carry the cure in your own heart
Help for adult children of child abuse
Pete Walker
The Echo Society
There are also one or two less public offshoots of Stately Homes, PM AttilaTheMeerkat or toomuchtooold for details.

Some books:

Toxic Parents by Susan Forward
Homecoming by John Bradshaw
Will I ever be good enough? by Karyl McBride
If you had controlling parents by Dan Neuharth
When you and your mother can't be friends by Victoria Segunda
Children of the self-absorbed by Nina Brown - check reviews on this, I didn't find it useful myself.
Recovery of your inner child by Lucia Capacchione
Childhood Disrupted by Donna Jackson Nazakawa

This final quote is from smithfield posting as therealsmithfield:

"I'm sure the other posters will be along shortly to add anything they feel I have left out. I personally don't claim to be sorted but I will say my head has become a helluva lot straighter since I started posting here. You will receive a lot of wisdom but above all else the insights and advice given will 'always' be delivered with warmth and support."

@AtillaTheMeercat Your description of your MIL's parents sounds earily like my father's - Edwardian father, mother who was very soft, and my father was an only child. He has said they treated him like a trophy child, and his mother certainly put him on a pedestal. He (my father) was awful to her - she visited every year and stayed for a week, he would be visibly irritated by her from the moment she got there and he would just go to work leaving my DM to entertain her. This resulted in a big row one year when my GM told my DM that she treated her with contempt (not true, but she was never an early riser so coming downstairs at 10 when GM had been up since 7 could seem a little rude I suppose). Clearly she felt my father could do no wrong and the marriage breakdown must all be my DM's fault, and she was the reason I went from very LC when I left home to making some effort at an adult-to-adult relationship with my father because she said I'd upset him. My fault.

@Herocomplex TY for taking the time to read and reply. I know there are others on here who've had it much worse with awful physical as well as emotional abuse and actually for the most part I was a carefree, happy child with a good circle of friends and enjoyed school. It has been since that I've somehow not been able to move on completely. I've been over and over my childhood with different councellors, and yet now I feel like I'm looking at it with new glasses on. Like I always thought we were all victims of circumstances, my DB being like he is and my father not being able to cope with that and reacting badly. But now I'm seeing it differently, that my father wasn't awful because of that but because he's, well, a narcissist. And I felt sorry for him in one way, but now I can't work out whether I feel sorry for him in a different way or not. It is very difficult to feel any sympathy for him when he can be so awful, and yet he will probably die a lonely man whose daughter doesn't want anything to do with him, so I do feel sad for him. At the same time I know that staying NC is absolutely the right thing for me.

yet he will probably die a lonely man whose daughter doesn't want anything to do with him, so I do feel sad for him

It is entirely of his own doing though. It is really hard when these feelings of guilt come along, but I try to turn it around and ask myself if my parents ever felt guilt for their behaviour towards me (when I was a child they were supposed to protect).

Also, remember that narcissists are not capable of genuine love and connection. Your dad won't have those feelings of sadness and loss that you would expect a 'normal' elderly person to have in that situation, he'll just be pissed off that he can't make you dance to his tune. I think we sometimes project our feelings onto them and imagine they would feel the same way we would in a certain situation, but they're not capable of it.

I remember my dad (the enabler) once telling his sister, in front of me, that I'd abandoned them by moving to another part of town. I was a 20 minute drive away and saw them most weekends. I was moving in with then DP who owned a house, so the move made sense. My parents were living in a retirement village and I wondered how on earth they expected me (a then 27 year old) to be able to live with them.

Thanks @Cherrycee that helps. Its just a hard one to get your head round, and he's been very good at the 'poor me' act all his life. Hurtful as well that they can't empathise with how they've made us feel over and over. And then to realise he must have a personality disorder, emotions that didn't develop properly, feels like a bit of a cop out, an excuse for his behaviour, even though its me that's reading up and identifying the traits.

I'm still here, will catch up later but just wanted to say thank you @freshstart01 that made me cry, not often I hear nice words.
And thanks to everyone else for their advice

Good morning @Halloweenmaz, I hope you have a better day.

Good morning, everyone (and thank you, FreshStart, for your kindness).

Just wanted to say that from everything I've read, empathy is a learned behaviour although the capacity for it is inborn. It starts to develop from the age of about four, and we all have parents who never developed it.

Don't excuse them for it though. They are perfectly capable of putting on a show of being warm and lovely to outsiders (think of the expression "street angel, house devil") so even if they don't feel empathy, that doesn't mean they don't know what it is or how important it is to normal human interaction. Remember too that they specifically play on your empathy to get what they want from you. It's an academic exercise for them in getting their own way but they are perfectly willing to cause you hurt and pain - and twist the knife in - till you give in. That goes way beyond a lack of empathy. That's a desire to hurt, in a world viewed in purely black and white terms.

Don't feel sorry for them.

The enabling parent, in the other hand, does have empathy. That's why they were always the ones we ran to as children for comfort and support. The comfort was not guaranteed, of course, but it was there often enough to make it worth a try. That's why we have such complicated feelings about the enabling parent. In the end, though, their desire to placate and please the controlling parent was far far greater than the instinct to protect their own child and that's why they threw us under the bus whenever they were forced to make a choice. They knew what they were doing.

Don't feel sorry for them either.

Although I loved my Dad - there was no point running to M for a hug when I was upset as a child. Might as well have hugged the ironing board - he not only threw me under the bus but acknowledged that he was doing so, with tears in his eyes and a helpless shrug of his shoulders. He knew what he was doing. In the twelve months before I went NC, he shrank back in his chair whenever M indulged in one of her monumental rages at me and never said a word. He rolled his eyes behind her back to let me know he didn't agree with her. He even pleaded with me once to let her scream at me and "just stand there and take it, don't react", because when she was shouting at me, it gave him a respite from her contempt and pure nastiness.

You are not your family's football. You are nobody's football. You are someone with worth and value, someone capable of loving and being loved. Never forget that.

@SingingLily that rings very true, the enabling parent making that choice. It's hard to get your head around though. Do you think it's because they didn't ultimately love us 'enough' or what? I think my enabling mother is pretty selfish in general, something I didn't see till recently. All sweetness and light till things don't go her way and then she will become the poor victim who 'doesn't deserve this after all I have done' crazy making! I'm really trying to understand why the enabler allows the abuse to happen though? I don't understand as it's not what I would do with my kids. So does that not make them 'abnormal' in some way too? Also what's people's theories on the enabler becoming more abusive themselves the longer they are with the narc? People have said to me that my mother has changed; but maybe she was always like that and her mask is just slipping as she gets older? I wish I understood better ☹️

maybe one explanation is that some people just don't introspect?
More specifically never question themselves, take it as a given that they are in the right?

I think enablers are the narcissists secondary abuser. They also act out of self preservation and their own want of a quiet life.

This link is good and explains more:-

parenting.exposed/enabling-partner-of-a-narcissist-parent/

We all use coping strategies to manage behaviour that is damaging to our ‘self’. Our mind subconsciously suggests these strategies to minimise the potential harm. Enablers and co-dependent partners have a fragile sense of self, usually because they were damaged themselves. So they will minimise/explain away the behaviour so it doesn’t damage them too much. SingingLily’s description of her dad asking her to take an abusive attack is an example of an extreme bargain he’s made with himself.

My dad claims to not really know what’s going on, and he’s protecting my mum because she’s vulnerable. The mental gymnastics involved in that are spectacular. The fence he’s sitting on is match-sticks. Olympic level denial.

My dad was an enabler, and he did have a tough childhood. He was domineered and bullied from a young age and it seems like he just continued in that role by marrying my mother. He definitely had more empathy than her, but as a PP said, whenever there was a choice to be made between my wellbeing and placating my mother, he always chose the latter. While he never did the "poor me" act, everyone thought of him as weak and a bit of a victim. This used to upset me as I didn't like people talking about him that way, but I realise now that it's true.

He became very religious and used the church as a crutch, but also as an excuse I think. When I was a child (in Ireland in the 80s), the church still had a major hold on society and divorce was still illegal. Dad couldn't possibly leave his wife and break up the family, then he'd be a bad Catholic and everyone would know it.

@SingingLily TY I'll be reading your post a few more times over to get it through my thick scull, but that does make sense. My father actually didn't like direct confrontation, it was my DM that would shout at him in pure frustration and he would just walk out. He would rage though, slamming doors, kicking furniture, or just silently but you knew it, sat there whiskey in hand. The master of sarcasm. For me it was just the low level constant criticism, never any praise, distant as a father, certainly I didn't feel cherished, and his firm belief that he was sharing his opinions purely for my own good to make me a better person/parent to his GCs. Trouble is, his opinion of what I should be doing has always been the opposite of what I am doing, or if I should do what he so helpfully suggests then just a reason to smuggly say "I told you so, I was right". For example, he was disappointed in my choice of degree (having forced me to re-take my A-levels after disappointing results by saying he wouldn't pay - we're talking the days of grants but we were well over the threshold), made a big fuss about my uni friend getting a first and not so much as a well done for my hard earned 2:1 (always asking after her with a fond look on his face, disappointed when we lost touch?!?), then when I re-trained as an accountant he claims that was what he'd told me I should do back then - but no praise or recognition of the bloody hard work it took either time. In fact fairly recently made a comment about how it was a shame I couldn't apply myself. He would put himself down as well - "I was no better and look where its got me" - as if that softened it, as if to say "You and me are the same, see". NO WE'RE BLOODY WELL NOT. Aaaaahhhh. Sorry, I know I need to stop this remunerating.

The link from Attila says it all. That describes my parents to a T. The pity of it is that while I was stunned and upset when I realised the truth about my own mother (a truth that had been there in plain sight all along if only I had cared to open my eyes and see), the veil obscuring my father's part in it all was ripped away soon after and that absolutely crippled me.

A long time ago, my DBil (my DSis's lovely sensible husband) commented that it was actually my father who made the bullets for M to fire. I remember being quite annoyed and launching into a spirited defence of Dad, giving examples to back up what I was saying. DBiL didn't really respond, just nodded to show he was listening to me. Now I realise that there was a great deal of truth in what he was saying.

If you feel that you must try to maintain some sort of relationship with one of your parents, the supposedly kinder one, I understand why you feel you must try - really I do. Be aware, though, that you might learn some unpalatable truths about them instead and these would be a whole new level of betrayal and pain. Everyone is different and hope I'm wrong. But be prepared just in case.

As said before, I do not view my DM as an enabler. She had a positive childhood overall, fairly sheltered - perhaps not the most confident person with a high achieving brother and slightly dominating parents - but nothing terrible, just normal family dynamics. I don't think she knew what had hit her with my dad, but she knew it was wrong, and actually we have agreed she is a Highly Sensitive Person (as is my DD1) which means she's very empathetic. I'm just adding this as a different way of backing up your theories on an enabler being a damaged individual, in other words she was not damaged and so in the end was able to come out of it relatively unscathed while doing her best to protect her DCs

Are your mother and father still together FreshStart?.

Being with an abusive H as she has done does further damage the non abusive spouse; no two ways about it. Their boundaries, perhaps already weak to begin with, are further weakened within the abusive relationship. She came from a fairly sheltered background too and likely had no real life experience behind her. On a wider level she likely had no support from society. Leaving was frowned upon.

I do not think your mother managed to protect you as well as she might. She may well think she tried her best but really her best was not good enough because you as now her adult children have not escaped her H's wrath and narcissism entirely unscathed. And for that matter nor has your mother.

@FreshStart01 you know your family better than us of course but I would wonder about your mum's childhood experiences - perhaps it was all good, but if someone had developed empathy through hypervigilance, had been trained to codependently take care of other people's feelings, then they would probably appear quite similar to the description you give of your mother and her childhood. There are are dysfunctional families where voices are never raised from one year to the next - mine was one - where the kids are well trained not to rock the boat, and all the conflict is hidden by a veneer of "niceness" that actually is very unhealthy. I don't know of course. I mean it sounds very likely that your mum didn't have the resources (time or money) to manage if she left with you and your brother - with her leaving when your brother reached 18 - would she have felt that she could rely on her parents for help? I do think that among people who stay with batshit partners, it's much more common that women who stay are relatively healthy, the economic arguments against leaving are stronger for women, I think that men who stay tend to be the ones who're more damaged. Of course as a bloke if you leave it's a lot harder to take the kids with you as well.

Sorry I'm jumping all over the thread here, but @Halloweenmaz you asked why you can't stand up to your family. It's because you've been groomed to be the whipping boy from before you could talk. Don't feel like you have to be able to stand up to them. All you need to be able to do is stand far away from them. Where it's nice and quiet

I think they do get worse as they get older - I've seen it called decompensation. It's like, when they're young they have power, they have worth in society - beauty or career or kids they can control - and then as they get older they lose that stuff, and they lack the emotional maturity to do what the rest of us do and take it on the chin, so their behaviour gets worse, as they try and pull everyone else's strings to make themselves feel better.

Don't feel like you have to be able to stand up to them. All you need to be able to do is stand far away from them
I think this is pithy and perfect 😊
It makes me think of the 'softer' martial arts ....knowing when to use force and knowing when stepping away is the most powerful response

I read something on another thread about parenting and I think it has resonance here.

Parents who are strict disciplinarians do not raise obedient children. They raise children who listen for the footsteps and are quick and easy liars.

I listened for the footsteps and learned at a very early age to moderate or hide the truth in my childlike attempts to regulate my mother's moods. I never knew what set her off and so it was often easier to be silent or, even better, invisible.

@AttilaTheMeerkat No they are not together now, I posted a long one yesterday about why she didn’t leave earlier but I would suggest the main reason is because he’d worn her down and an already lacking in confidence person had lost any confidence in her ability to be able to cope (i.e. telling her she was rubbish driver made her believe that she was a rubbish driver and might crash so she became a bad driver through being very hesitant), especially as he’d basically stopped her returning to work as a teacher. I wish she had left while I was a child, but it may not have protected me - in fact if I was staying with my father every other weekend without her there, then who would have protected me there? And what about since I’ve left home? I think we have to be careful not to be completely idealistic about what the other parent is able to do, when they are a victim themselves and life isn’t black and white. I agree that we have to be careful not to paint them as completely innocent, but I don't think just painting them as a baddy is healthy either. Sorry.

@toomuchtooold I do agree that there are elements of my mother’s childhood that aren’t 100% healthy, mainly that her mother was quite cold, lacked empathy and it often had to be all about her (I really struggled with her, as an old lady she hated that my DM couldn’t spend time with her if she had my DB to look after) but her father tried to make up for it by being very loving and he was quite demonstrative. A fun grandfather. He died when I was 7, and I do think that if he’d been around then he would have helped my DM to leave at some point sooner. She confided in her mother a lot, but she apparently told her not to tell anyone else some of the things that my dad did as “no one would believe her”.

Thank goodness they are no longer together.
Abuse is about power and control and such people like your dad want absolute over not just his spouse but the children as well.

I do not think your mother was all bad or even bad. She had no support here, she had a narcissistic sounding grandmother. Your mother’s own mother mother was certainly emotionally unhealthy to be around.

I wish too that she could have left when you were children. Unfortunately that did not happen

Hello, I posted on the last couple of threads but not for a while.. I've spent the last two months keeping as much distance as I can from my parents without rocking the boat. Observing and reflecting.

I'm at my breaking point now, something my mum said yesterday that just sums up her entire attitude. They were complaining about my brother not visiting them enough (he lives 2hrs away since they moved nearer me) in over 2 years they have not been to visit my brother but complaining they don't see him enough. I pointed out they can always go and see them. My mother said 'I'm not going back to that town.' And then something about children should always go round their parents house. I challenged this, apparently it's tradition! I said whose? Is it the law? We're all adults, why can't you make the effort too. She just shut my down said she's not arguing with me about it, she's entitled to opinion. I was firmly put in my place!

The just tons of other minor stuff but it's just all the time. My birthday plans had to change last minute in the day so she said do I want to go to them for lunch or out somewhere. I said I was now planning on going to X forest and then pub lunch if they want to join. Mum said she doesn't like X forest. Dad suggested Y or Z place instead. They did something similar to me two years ago because mum didn't want to go to my first choice and I relented and regretted it. So this time I said it's ok you don't have to come to X forest but we can always meet you for lunch after? Then I got 'we will leave you to do your own thing' and didn't bloody see me at all! I expect all down to mum not wanting to go to the bloody forest and me refusing to change my plans for her.

Anyway I want to say or do something now, I know there is no reasoning with them so do I just try and phase out contact? Do I tell them why I don't want to spend time with them anymore? Every time I see them I just feel my stress levels are raised. Always on edge, it's horrible.

Just to add I wasn't bothered about not seeing them, it was the fact they didn't want to see me if I didn't do what they wanted to do, even though it was my birthday.

A memory just came back of me sticking up for my father to my DM’s M when she made some sarcastic comment about him in front of me. My mum says it was the only time I ever had a teen ‘tantrum’ where I full-on shouted and stomped off, and wouldn’t accept her apology (she then went for a walk and said she “might as well throw herself off the cliff” – as I said, it always had to be all about her!). Funny isn’t it. I think at that point I would still have been desperately trying to please my father, and of course I would have known that my DM would be telling her M how awful he was, but I felt it was wrong of my GM to put him down in front of me.

That’s the sort of stuff my DM did Etty17. It wears you down and makes every interaction exhausting. Mine forced the issue by doing something terrible and gave me an ‘out’ so I went NC. It’s your choice though, I’d do some reading if I were you. Strangely seeing all the nonsense as boring and predictable takes a bit of the sting out of it and puts you more in control. You’re more fuelled by controlled anger than vulnerable panic.
Best of luck.