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.

Sorry. Ignore my last. I’ve must have loaded this page before your post explaining you don’t really have contact with your mother.

Your parents did not give you the consideration or support you deserved. I can see why forgiveness seems impossible if she doesn’t Even acknowledge the harm she did. But it doesn’t do you much good to keep going over it - there’s no route to a resolution for you. If you want to stop having it eat you up you need to find a way to accept that it happened and there’s nothing you can do to change the past. That’s what forgiveness is normally about, but you can also look instead at how well you’ve built your life since and make that - your own hard work - the foundation of your life.

It sounds like staying in touch with her feeds into your feelings of guilt, though.

Drop her. Start focusing on being kind to yourself as much as others. Phone counselling can be very effective, so if you have found a good therapist over the years then use them if you’re able. Bipolar disorder is hard enough to deal with, you don’t need to be coping with your mum’s insecurities as well.

[quote theprincessmittens]@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.[/quote]
You keep saying she wanted the money and lifestyle, yet she clearly didn't when the flew half way round the world to get away from him.

theprincessmittens, are you looking back at this as a way to explain other events in your life? I would hate to think (even though I don't know you) that you are dwelling on this and it's consuming you somewhat.

Initially, I wondered if your Dad had been moved around by the Government so he didn't become an embarrassment to them in one location. I also wondered if he was the narcissist of the relationship, and your mum felt she didn't have any other choice but to go along while the children were young etc. Did she have access to her own funds to be able to make choices?

By chance have you ever watched Ladies In Black? I think it depicts the times and thinking well for the working class. In the least, it might help explain why your Mum followed your Father's wishes.

I wonder by allowing you to have pets etc, your Mum was trying to establish a normal, routine life and then your Dad's work meant you had to up sticks again. Perhaps Mum couldn't accept the changes either, so was unable to extend any sort of explanation to you children and now feels bitter and regretful, adding to that she doesn't see you (regardless of the rights and wrongs) so she feels she wasted her life.

Whatever the situation was, I truly hope you find some peace for yourself and can move on. Big cyber hug.

I think the lives of diplomat's wives were pretty shit, actually, and you might do well to try and understand your mother's choices from a position of compassion. It sounds like there was a lot going on in that marriage that you possibly aren't able to understand completely as you are their child. But adults make poor choices all the time and the only thing you can do as an adult, now, yourself, is forgive them for their humanness. And move on.

What strikes me about your story, OP, is the vast generation gap. I'm about your age, and most of my Generation X friends have strange family tales of secrets, warped values and outrageous parental behaviour, tho nowhere near as extreme as yours.

My DPs were good people who did their best under pressure, but some of their values and decisions caused a lot of problems for my DB and me. (Fortunately, they didn't tell us how to run our adult lives, and in fact were supportive of our "bohemian ways" and became more like us as they aged!) I can look back from middle age and understand why my generation is so radically different. We said no to early marriage and unwanted kids, yes to women's financial independence, to serial monogamy rather than affairs, to having DC because we want them, and to making choices to suit ourselves and our families, not because of tradition. It's a cycle of pain and rebellion and change.

OP, you said you could write a 30-page post about your family. I can't help feeling there's a novel in this, and yes, I admit it -- I'm already enthralled. What do you think? If you wrote your story as "fiction", could that help you to make sense of it? If you write in the third person, with different names, you might feel some distance from events.

BTW, I've met quite a few senior women who were dutiful, submissive wives back in the day and regret it now. It makes them resentful and envious of younger people. Your mother might be one.

Peace and and I hope you make a meaningful story from your experiences.

It sounds as if you had a really hard time, theprincessmittens. Just the number of moves alone would have been very disrupting for any child, let alone the impact of your parents behaviour.

I can see why some posters wondered if there were other things you weren't told about because that is an awfully high number of postings in such a short period.

It must be so distressing to feel that your mother always put your father first. There is a thread on here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/3902065-But-we-took-you-to-Stately-Homes-May-2020-onwards-thread for people in your position where families do not accept that they made mistakes in the way they treated their children. It may help you to look at that.

I really hope the counselling helps, even if it is only online at the moment.

I started writing my reply and then came back to it so did not see Groovergirl's response until after I posted. The suggestion of writing about it cold be really helpful. Reading your posts made me think of the novels of Mary Wesley so that might be a starting point If you want to think about writing, although others might say it is better to start from your own feelings, not influenced by what others have written.

@WiltedWillows I don't know where you get that from. We moved to the UK in 1983, my father then left my mother in 1990. She then went back to Australia in 1993. She never left him at any point.

@expat101 Both my parents are/were narcissists. My mother wasn't working class - her family was (still is) incredibly wealthy and if anything she married 'beneath' her. Her family offered to support her (and myself and my brothers) financially numerous times when we were being dragged around the world so we could stay in one place and have stability. My mother didn't want that, and she didn't want employment of her own - she just wanted to be with my father to stop him cheating on her (didn't work). Our needs as children came a distinct second (or even third). She finally accepted her families financial help when my father left her, so she alone could move back to Australia.

@Guineapigbridge If my mother's life as a diplomat's wife was so shit, why does she still miss it to this day? And no, I can't forgive repeated and numerous 'poor choices'. My mother wasn't some downtrodden woman being forced to do these things by her husband. She did them all willingly. It's about the only thing she admits.

@nettie434 Thank you - I do know why my father had so many postings but I don't want to go into too many details, but it wasn't because he was ill thought of - quite the opposite. It's a job that nowadays is done by mainly single men/women as the places they go to are not really not geared for family life.

Mention of the Stately Homes thread is apt, as my mother's version of that saying is 'But you got to see so many countries!' To be honest, it's only since I became an adult, and my friends have had families of their own, and I look at my ex husband and my now partner's childhoods, and see how most decent parents willingly put their children first and try to make sure they have a happy and settled upbringing. That they actually try to take their children's feelings into consideration. They take an active interest in their children's lives...

Neither myself or my two brothers have had children of our own. My mother can't understand why not. I have talked quite extensively with my younger brother about what we went through as children - and he is as amused as I am that she honestly doesn't get why none of us saw parenthood as an attractive proposition.

@groovergirl I have had non-fiction work published, and was once asked to write about my upbringing by my editor. The only thing that stops me is that I know my mother would be extremely angry if I did so - as a narcissist she cannot bear any suggestion that she was anything less than a perfect mother. She knows what we went through wouldn't be regarded favourably nowadays - it's why she won't discuss any of it with me now. I know I shouldn't care about her reaction, but it would invoke drama that I really can do without.

It sounds like you have a lot of stuff to process. However, I think you're being unfair to your mum. Trying to keep the family together is something that many people do. Moving countries for jobs is normal and not consulting the kids about it is also normal. Most kids would be reluctant to move (I know I wouldn't have liked to have left my friends each time and I also had to learn new languages to boot). I think if I were to complain to my parents about it as an adult they would also not see it as wrong nor something they had to defend.

She comes from a wealthy family so she wasn't with your father for money. She may have liked the lifestyle but so what? It seems like she tried to hold the family together or her love for her husband.

I moved 21 times in 23 years. Another 'third culture kid" here and one that was also in HK.
I just don't think things were spoken about in those days. I do remember my dad leaving us in Africa and not coming home again for 6 months. I don't think we ever questioned it.