Unable to forgive parents for historical major lie

[theprincessmittens]

Back in the early 80s, after 5 years of moving around the globe for my father's work, when I was 13 we moved back to my home country of Australia. My father is French/British, my mother Australia. Myself and my younger brother were born in Australia, my oldest brother in the UK.

My father had a poor, almost non-existent relationship with his mother ( his father died 6 months before I was born), and he only had a younger brother with a large age gap between them. My father was a 'ten pound pom'...my parents went to Australia from the UK when my mother was 4 months pregnant with me. My mother had a very large immediate family and was close to them. This was something my father always struggled with, and he managed to convince my mother that my uncles in particular were 'too interfering' in our family lives...this was because one of them used to take myself and my brother out a lot when we were children - to the cinema, zoo, parks etc. What I realise now as a very normal level of interaction. I think my father was just plain jealous.

After we'd been back in Australia for two years, my brothers and I were told that my father had got another job in Hong Kong. We were all moving there, but it was only going to be for a year or so, we'd then go back to Australia. All of my mother's family were told the same. It was only when we arrived at HK and were going through immigration that I discovered - as I was stood next to my mother as she handed over the passports - that we were spending one week in HK and then going on to the UK. It was a one way trip.

I was beyond devastated. One of my mother's relatives had taken our cats in on the understand we'd take them back when we returned. We'd spent one year in the UK before going back to Australia, and I'd been badly bullied at the high school... the one which I would now be returning to. My mother promptly cut off all contact with her whole family, and in the end only got back in touch 9 years later after my worried brother rang my grandmother on his 18th birthday to see if she was still alive! (she'd been very ill and was in hospital when we'd left).

That was a long time ago, but I'm still very upset when I think of how much we were lied to. I read on here about mothers debating about whether to make major life changes - or even just local moves - because they don't want to upset their children. The concept of adults taking into consideration their children's feelings on such things is such a foreign one to me. In that 5 year period we moved 11 times. We gave up so many pets, friends etc. My parents never once asked us what we thought about a move. To this day I struggle when I feel like my feelings are ignored by people close to me. I get told to forgive for my benefit, but I feel like that's just letting my mother (I've had no contact with my father for 30 years after he left my mother for OW) off scot free. This wasn't a one time occurrence where they realised they were causing damage and stopped.

I suppose I'm just venting and saying it's hard to forgive someone who isn't sorry for what they did and still refuses to acknowledge that it did a lot of harm.

That sounds awful, I’m not surprised you can’t forgive.
Do you think your Mum was a victim too? Because it sounds as if she was dragged away from her family

Agree with PP.
Was your mother a victim in this too? Was your dad controlling?

I think a lot of this went on on the past - parents lying, or lying by omission, often thought to be about not worrying the child - but in actual fact because it made life easier for the adults.

I think you're failing to see that your mother was every bit as much a victim as you were. I think your father forced her away from her family. Perhaps it's time to look at this situation from a different perspective.

Did your mother leave your father then and come home with just the children?

My Dad's job meant we moved regularly. There was no discussion, how could there be? The family moved to the new job, end of. But it was mostly in England, we remained within visiting distance of wider family and my parents did try to smooth the transitions.
Your situation sounds much more extreme. Why did you parents have to flee Australia in secrecy and never contact the family again. What on earth had happened?

I'm a 'third culture kid', we moved countries a lot. It was the norm and it was always discussed, there was never an option but it was always discussed.

This sounds extreme, and like your mum was coerced. Almost to the extreme of having to leave for a fairly significant (criminal?) reason.

You are a similar age to me and I think it was fairly standard to expect children to be resilient and to get over things easily. But that doesn’t make it right. My mother labelled any show of emotional distress as a sign of being ‘neurotic’. These things can influence our ‘core beliefs’ about ourselves and our worth and can go very deep.

This is so extreme it sounds like there is still more to the story. Secrets you still don’t know about.

Lots of bad stuff in my childhood too, lies and so on and without a doubt the worst part is that they still refuse to acknowledge any of them or apologise or accept they caused any hurt or trauma.

Even an "I let you down" would have went some way to making amends. My parents are toxic and wouldn't even give me that so i've cut contact with them completely.

We moved a lot as kids, 3 different countries and various places within it. I've lost count of the amount of schools I went to. We were never consulted. It has made me very flexible and as an adult I have also moved a fair bit.

It sounds like you may not know some reasons why it was kept a secret from your Australian family. It seems weird to have to keep it a secret and for your mother to cut her family off especially once your father left her. Maybe ask her?

I wonder if there's more to the storage as well...?

Have you tried, actually talking to your mum?

Agree with PP about there maybe being more to the story.

There was nothing extreme. My father just didn't like my mother being so close to her family, he was jealous of it. My mother happily put her husband above everything, including her own children. We suffered just so she could stay married to a man who cheated on her constantly from when I was age 4. She liked the big money he earned, she didn't want to work herself as she felt he 'owed' her for having three children.

She was already back in touch with her family before my father left her for another woman. My mother is a narcissist and wouldn't think twice of telling me any secrets. I was told so much I shouldn't have been their marriage when my father left - she also emotionally blackmailed myself and my two brothers into having no contact with my father after he left.

Growing up I never lived in the same house longer than 2 years. My Dad also worked in various countries and there was no discussion since he paid the bills and the best paying jobs were temporary expat contracts of 2 years ish. I think it's common not to ask kids but the keeping it secret from extended family is very strange and I'd be asking my mum about it.

It must have been a horrendous shock when 1 year in HK turned into the UK for longer and there was no contact with the relatives in Australia. I think you have every right to be angry about that angle

@AriettyHomily My mother wasn't coerced...there was nothing criminal about it, my father was a diplomat and he was posted abroad to what was then called a third world country. My mother didn't trust him to remain faithful to her so insisted that we all went with him. In the 3 month period where he went out first, he managed to be unfaithful to her. She still made us give up our lives to join him. She ALWAYS put him first, because she didn't want to give up the very wealthy lifestyle his work gave her.

My parents were emotionally abusive and neglectful (my father in particular, but my mother played along, to appease her own abuser). So I can understand why forgiveness doesn't feel like an option.

On some rare occasions I find myself in a more forgiving mood, but spending any amount time with them (I haven't cut ties, and try to be civil... from a safe distance) quickly reminds me they haven't really changed, and seem completely oblivious of the harm they have done to me and my siblings.

It's OK to feel you've been wronged. It's OK to feel angry and/or sad. It's OK to hate them, and/or to love them.
What you need is focus on healing. On building your own future. On making your own choices, and living your own life.
As you do so... Perhaps forgiveness will come as a result. Or perhaps not. Don't make it a condition for your own happiness. Acknowledge to yourself your past was shitty, take the time to grieve what might have been, then try to move on. That doesn’t mean forgetting, or forgiving. Just finding a more healthy focus for the future.
Maybe try to find a way to slowly right all the wrongs you've felt: rebuilding a relationship with your extended family, getting and keeping your own pets, etc. Make these positive acts your revenge.

@netflixismysidehustle It still ranks as the worst shock in my life - and I've been diagnosed with cancer twice. Mainly because of the lies, and the realisation that I was being forced back to a country that quite frankly I loathed at the time. I'd been so happy in Australia, had good friends, was doing well at school etc. All that was taken away without any warning.

@Sakurami I asked my mother why we weren't told the truth - the reason was she didn't trust us not to tell our grandmother or uncles. That was it.

@user1481840227 Exactly. There's no remorse, but at least she doesn't try and blame it all on my father or make out that he forced her to do anything...she acknowledges that she went along with what he wanted because she wanted to, she wanted the money and the lifestyle.

Both my parents are toxic. Neither actually wanted children but my mother is a practising Catholic so they ended up with 3 before my father finally got off his lazy ass and had a vasectomy. I heard too many times from mother about how she blamed us for the fact that she couldn't follow my father on postings once I was 16 (my father made sure after that to only accept ones where families weren't permitted). She doesn't blame my father for being unable to keep it in his pants, she blames her children for stopping her to be able to go with him and stop him having the opportunity. She even blamed his exit affair on the fact that I was getting married and 'made him feel old' (he was 42). It's lovely to hear that you are to blame for your parents splitting up....

If I try to talk to my mother about any of this she either gets incredibly defensive - and says nothing, or completely ignores me. In her eyes she did no wrong and can't understand why I'm upset about any of it.

I'd also like to add that my mother moved back to Australia about 3 years after my father left (their divorce was nasty and took that long). I went back to Australia when I divorced my first husband at 24, lasted a year as she drove me to the brink of suicide with her narcissism and I moved back to the UK to get away from her. That was 26 years ago and I've been in the UK ever since. In that time I've seen my mother twice, for about a total of 2 months. I've not seen her in 11 years at this point, the only contact I have now is a phone call every couple of months or so. For the sake of my mental health it's all I can cope with.

Have you had therapy?

I think most people followed the wage earners job so I’m not sure what discussion there is to have? People were unfaithful especially in expat communities. The men more openly than the women but I think it was fairly common. I’m sorry it’s made you so unhappy. I know there are lots of people with similar histories.

You say you’ve cut ties with your father, I don’t blame you. Why do you still talk to your mother?

@Aquamarine1029 I was diagnosed with severe depression at age 17 after I tried to kill myself by walking in front of a car. I was then diagnosed at age 23 as bipolar. My mother refused to accept both diagnoses, and was angry when I started seeing a psychiatrist as she said I would 'use it as a opportunity to bitch about her'...

Early this year C-PTSD was added to my diagnosis after I finally opened up to a psychologist about my childhood experiences - believe me, I'm not drip feeding but if I went into detail about everything that happened during my childhood this thread would be 30 pages long with just my posts! Of course with Covid 19 the only interaction with mental health services since has been telephone consultations.

@BoomBoomsCousin Good question. I suppose I've bought into the idea that I'm somehow guilty for their marriage splitting up. She was reconciled with her family in Australia but has once again managed to alienate most of them. She's really hard work to be around because she's so damn bitter and angry. Really I stay in touch because I feel sorry for her. She has zero self awareness and zero desire to help herself. She expects far more from people than she's willing to give herself.