Uninvited to family wedding

[R0SEMARY]

Sorry this is long as there’s a lot of background and I don’t want to drip feed. Names/ details changed of course.

I’ve been married for 20 years to John, we have teenage kids together and John has a daughter, Helen, from a previous marriage. Helen is in her 30s and so was a teenager when I married her father. And no, I was not the OW - they were divorced years before we met.

Our marriage has been very difficult for the last 10 years, mostly because of my husband’s many affairs (among other things) . I’ve tried to leave several times but it’s complicated and I’ve stayed for the sake of the children. It’s bearable because he works away a lot and we pretty much lead separate lives.

When Helen was a teenager she lived with us for half the week. This was hard for me, I will admit, because she had a lot of behavioural issues and was very challenging. I tolerated a lot of verbal abuse and inappropriate behaviour as I knew she was troubled and unhappy. She was occasionally physically aggressive towards me, especially when I was pregnant.

After she left home things got better of course and during her 20s and 30s we have got on OK. She lives at the other end of the country with her girlfriend so we only meet up a few times a year but keep in touch by phone, what’s app, zoom etc .

They are getting married this autumn, postponed from last year. We are all involved - my teenagers are bridesmaids / ushers - it’s been years in the planning. Naturally I have my Step MOB outfit and I’ve arranged ( booked and paid for ) a week’s holiday for us all around the event, as it’s a 9 hour drive away.

However my husband has always struggled with Helen’s sexuality. He disliked her last girlfriend and really hates her current fiancée ( says she’s fat and ugly ) but I’ve always tried to smooth things over and persuade him to keep on good terms with them both. He originally didn’t want anything to do with the wedding, partly because he hates her girlfriend and partly because he has an issue with same sex relationships in general. He still thinks it’s a phase that Helen will grow out of ( sorry I know that’s offensive ).

However I talked him round and made all the arrangements so he can’t say it’s too much hassle. He didn’t even want to walk her down the aisle but I persuaded him to suggest instead that she ask her mum as they are closer.

Then tonight, out of the blue, Helen phoned me to say that she doesn’t want me at her wedding any longer but she still wants my husband and children to attend.

I was absolutely gobsmacked. We’ve been talking about this wedding for three years, I’ve helped her choose bridesmaids dresses, flowers, menu etc (at her request). She wouldn’t say why she was doing this.

There’s been no arguments or falling out of any kind - all recent conversions have been about the wedding, her work, her cats etc.

Of course I asked her father what was going on and after a long conversation he admitted that he has been lying to Helen about me for years. Basically all the negative and nasty things he has been saying to me about her, he has told her that I said them, not him.

I am so shocked. Ever since I’ve known him he’s been complaining to me about her. About her refusing to attend school as a teenager, about her self harming ( which he said was just attention seeking ), her lies and stealing, her sexuality, career choices, her dropping out of university, cheating on her previous partner, her character, her lack of religion ( he is from a conservative religious background and raised her in it ).

I’ve spent years listening to him talk about her . So often I’ve defended her and tried to get him to be a little more open minded about her beliefs and lifestyle. Persuaded him to be polite to her partners and talked about their good points. Made the effort to keep in touch, sending gifts and cards etc.

Don’t get me wrong, some of what he complains about is right and I’ve agreed with him . But I’ve never said it to anyone except him and I assumed that what we said was between us. It never crossed my mind that he was telling her anything that we discussed. It’s one of the few things I thought we were united on - that we support each other in dealing with her. Even during her adult life there’s been a lot of drama and I’ve always supported him.

And now I discover he has been undermining me to her for all these years. I’ve worked so hard to try to keep things friendly and to keep open the lines of communication and he’s been working against me behind my back.

It’s not that I thought DH loved me - I’m not under any illusion about that. He only stays because he likes the domestic servicing and he doesn’t have to pay child support or parent his children.

But I just don’t understand why he would tell all these lies for years. Why would anyone do that ? I’m just so shocked I don’t know what to think or what to do.

I can’t imagine hating someone that much because they didn’t beg me hard enough to come and visit them just after they had given birth (difficult birth, C section, baby with health problems ) . That was one of my many crimes apparently.

No hang on wait: Helen has a child/children??? Goodness me I didn't see that coming. Poor kid/s.

No, it's op who had the baby here isn't it? And didn't beg Helen to visit?

@MahMahMahMahCorona no Helen thinks R0SEMARY should have begged and begged and begged her to visit her half sibling. Apparently R0SEMARY didn't beg hard enough which is a major crime.

See even 18 years ago Helen was getting of on the distress she was causing by refusing to visit - that was her reason for not coming in the hope you got majorly distressed and begged so she could enjoy wielding her power over you by deciding to visit or not. Helen didn't understand that her presence wasn't actually that important to you.

Oh thank goodness for that!
So sorry OP - I misunderstood. I was suddenly concerned that Miss Emotionally Sterile Selfish Drama Queen had procreated. Thanks for clearing that up @RandomMess and @MyOtherProfile.

"So I cant really understand how someone enjoys hurting others and watching them be distressed."

That's because you are a "normal" human being without a personality disorder.
Sociopaths, psychopaths and narcissists genuinely enjoy this. They get satisfaction from causing pain to others. That's why they are such hard characters, to the point of being serial murderers - and very often why psychopaths start their lives with hurting animals.

You won't ever understand it - no one who isn't also in this group could! - because it's unnatural to WANT to cause pain and hurt to others.

ThumbWitchesAbroad...that's so true! Unfortunately I found out the hard way too, so OP, I truly sympathise with you and feel your pain but ime nothing I could say or do would ever change the situation so I've had to shut the door, as young children were being emotionally hurt and to my way of thinking, that's just intolerable. Children are precious and should NEVER be used as pawns.

Hugs to you and your DC's you sound like a lovely, caring person and while I am always hesitant to suggest LTB, in your situation I think it's your best alternative. Wish you all the best, it's not an easy decision to have to make.

@R0SEMARY

So I cant really understand how someone enjoys hurting others and watching them be distressed.

Because it makes her feel powerful. She needs to make someone feel awful, in order to feel better herself.

The major narc in my life (well, no contact so not really in my life any longer) also makes everything about her, especially funerals! Funerals are her speciality. Running a close second are christenings, weddings, other people's birthdays... any event which is about someone else - that needs to be rectified immediately and in no uncertain terms made all about her!! Because to have anyone else be the focus of attention... it simply can't be allowed!

It's just hideous to be around, hence why I bailed out years ago, I had to, even though that person is my own mother

[quote WannabemoreWeaver]@FantasticButtocks - you are right, the initials can be confusing, but since there was mention of a mood disorder and BPD it is likely to be Borderline, since Bipolar is a mood disorder. I think a lot of Borderline people end up with or are given the bipolar diagnosis first because their behaviour swings so much that it looks like mood disorder. Whatever the reason, agree with you that they will continue because this is their comfort zone. Horrible for OP and her dc to deal with.[/quote]

Thanks. Yes I understand. I just thought that someone else on here thought she'd been diagnosed with borderline. But I think she was diagnosed with bipolar, but does also have a personality disorder, possibly borderline.

And yes, I agree, just horrible for ROSEMARY and her dcs.

In her mind, she was ousted, first by her parents separation, then bunged off to boarding school, then no longer being precious no 1 to her father was replaced by you, then superseded by a Baby Boy...& not shown she was still important at the birth.
Father lived at home with new happy family, & she was excluded at boarding school.
There's a lot of pain & exclusion. But it seems when she was on school holidays, her resentment & adolescent deranged loco response was to make your life as difficult as possible. Which she appears to never have grown out of.
She is insanely jealous of the life she never had & you are responsable.

Did her mother go on to remarry, have more dc? Is she equally poisonous with her mother?

For anybody wondering how people can people can behave so badly and not feel guilty or ashamed, or how they can enjoy your upset, narcissistic people do not see their behavior as bad behavior! Oh no! (although they'd have an awareness that onlookers might perceive it that way, so they can be very covert) but they definitely do not identify with behaving badly.

These types are ''levellers''. They are envious scapegoaters levelling the playing field. In their eyes, you were the villain because you tried to cut them down/over take them. You did this by expecting a basic minimum level of respect, or by defending a boundary or saying no, or by putting your own needs first or by not begging them for round two of a fight you didn't want.

This alerted them to the fact that you are unaware that your place is beneath them . How dare you correct them/say no to them/put yourself first. It's like you think you are above them! That upsets the natural order in their head. It's pure ''injustice'' and it makes them see red and feel powerless. So their quest is for JUSTICE not petty revenge. They see themselves as your nemesis meting out justice. Your upset shows them that they do have the power to put you back in your place. They have the power to upset you so therefore phew, order restored, they are above you.

A relative of mine gave me the silent treatment for a year and love bombed all of our other relatives and nobody really noticed or said anything. In this woman's head, she was the good guy putting me in my place. She definitely identifies with being the good one. I was a huge bitch to her (by asking her not to misrepresent my views, that was what kicked her off).

The hierarchy that exists in their head is so rigid. If they've cast in a rung beneath them and you don't comply by acknowledging that, then you are hurting them. They are just innocently trying to kick down to feel powerful and you're messing with that by having boundaries or saying no! How dare you hurt them!?

They need to make you understand where your place is. Even though this is all in their head.

They don't identify with being in denial, projecting, bullying, immature selfish, badly behaved, narcissistic, wounded or whatever and they never will. They identify with meting out justice around them. They seized back the 'rank' that you tried to steal from them. They are lady liberty.

The fact that this hierarchy is not real and exists in their head is beyond them. So, trying to appeal to them to behave better will only recommence the cycle. How dare you! Off they go again.

@Mix56

''She is insanely jealous of the life she never had & you are responsable''

This is it. I wonder if she will ever be able to identify that that is her problem and go to psychotherapy and talk about her real wound.

My mother has gone through her whole life relying brilliantly on projection, blame and denial and being the martyr. She hurts people and then when she's called out on it, she is the victim of that. She is 75 and she is happy enough I think. My Dad is her foot soldier.

I think the people who go to psychotherapy with an idea that they have a wound at all are the people who blame themselves when things go wrong. The types who blame somebody or something else for every feeling they have, they're so much less likely to end up going for help.

I wonder if Helen would be prepared to go for family counselling with just John. And just JOhn obviously. This is not Helen's problem.
She might value the attention. Obviously John would have to be prepared to endure the expense, the time, the discomfort...... and he'd need to be honest and steer Helen's attempts to blame Rosemary back on to himself and to Helen which wouldn't be easy for anybody let alone a man who describes himself as a manipulator.

When this thread started, I think you were judging John's and Helen's responses by your own standards, rationale and morality which is clearly far higher than theirs! However it's so difficult to rationalise their behaviour s because their reasoning is based on selfishness, their actions reflect this and therefore they will base the way they resolve these situations by what they can get out of it. I really like this theory called virtue ethics, it's not necessarily what you do, but your motivation for doing it and what you do afterwards that counts.

If like Helen and John they spend their life basing decisions on self interest and their responses after their actions are self interest- they will never change unless their thought processes change. Which after a lifetime of bad decision making it's not going to change anytime soon.

You can't change this, you certainly are not to blame for any of it. That form of processing information and acting is toxic, and they will never be happy and make everyone else around them unhappy in the process. I imagine Helens marriage will end in a few years time because of this, no one will remain in a situation where their partner is basing their decisions on self interest.

You sound like despite all of this your children have a much better decision making process and that is down to your guidance and modelling.

It's not easy and change doesn't happen over night, but I really wish the best for you in your Helen and John free part of your life. Their will be massive hurdles to overcome over the next couple of years.... but the reward of a free life is in sight!

John should be acknowledging that his daughter is a huge fuck up. That is not a very sympathetic label but I wonder @R0SEMARY, would John at this point, in his current confusion, be motivated to go for family mediation with Helen? From what you've described of him, he doesn't sound like he's the type to dig deep and reflect on his own behavior but I take it he wants to protect your three children from this madness later in life. Would he be persuaded to offer Helen psychotherapy & family therapy to avoid your own three children being dragged in to her madness? Has he the emotional intelligence to understand that this is a possibility.

I am in psychotherapy myself, and my therapist just listens to everything I say. Occasionally she re-frames things a little. I think Helen could be in psychotherapy for years and years and years before she could understand that she has to take responsibility for herself. The psychotherapist would probably just hear her.

Family therapy between the two of them would be good because the dynamics and the behavior would be more immediately obvious.

They’re never going to look at therapy! That would been shining a bright light into their darkest corners

I think once all this is over, @R0SEMARY safely out of it and long gone, John will stop bothering with Helen. Probably Kate will stoke the fire somehow and Helen will be cut off from her ex family.

Can’t see anyone chasing after her either, as everyone will see how much better life is when Helen isn’t in it

I too would be interested to know what the situation is/was with Helen’s mum - has she remarried etc?

Would he be persuaded to offer Helen psychotherapy & family therapy to avoid your own three children being dragged in to her madness?

That is now no business of @R0SEMARY’s. Helen won’t want therapy- perhaps if John pays for it, because it’s something she gets off on, spending his money, but I doubt John will because then. He has to account for the fact that his dd is defective. And that would reflect on him.

[quote RandomMess]@MahMahMahMahCorona no Helen thinks R0SEMARY should have begged and begged and begged her to visit her half sibling. Apparently R0SEMARY didn't beg hard enough which is a major crime.

See even 18 years ago Helen was getting of on the distress she was causing by refusing to visit - that was her reason for not coming in the hope you got majorly distressed and begged so she could enjoy wielding her power over you by deciding to visit or not. Helen didn't understand that her presence wasn't actually that important to you.[/quote]
Correct. Except it was my youngest child so nearer 12 years ago.

Helen was by then an independent adult in her 20s living and working a different country. She didn’t come to see our youngest for a long time, maybe a year, I don’t know as I wasn’t really counting and it wasn’t a big deal to me TBH. Young people have social lives and holiday plans and limited annual leave . And babies are kind of boring to anyone except their mums. It’s not as if baby or other kids cared TBH.

Helen revealed last weekend that the reason for all the bad feeling in the last decade or so is because I allegedly banned her from coming to our house and seeing our children.there’s a long email saying how devastated she was and how it has ruined her life for the last decade, rejection, therapy etc

I did no such thing and knew nothing about it until I saw email.

She says that John told her this on the phone. John has now admitted to her ( on zoom in front of me ) that he was making it up because he was pissed off with her.

Helen immediately said that it was terribly brave of him to take the blame but it was still MY FAULT because I should have chased her up and begged her harder to visit. I should have KNOWN there was a big issue and it was UP TO ME ago fix it. And the fact that I didn’t is MORE PROOF that I’m hateful, evil and manipulative.

@FantasticButtocks

The major narc in my life (well, no contact so not really in my life any longer) also makes everything about her, especially funerals! Funerals are her speciality. Running a close second are christenings, weddings, other people's birthdays... any event which is about someone else - that needs to be rectified immediately and in no uncertain terms made all about her!! Because to have anyone else be the focus of attention... it simply can't be allowed!

Ah I didn’t know that this was A Thing. But it’s all making sense now.

Another things Helen does is wear very inappropriate outfits to funerals. Even though she has extremely good fashion sense / style and dresses appropriately the rest of the time.

ROSEMARY
You can't win with batshit so just ignore it.
Don't engage.

Therapy wouldn't work for Helen because she would never admit she needs to change she absolutely believes it is her right to behave however she wants without consequences.

I would be so happy to be skipping away from all the drama because you really can't engage with batshit.

Helen has been plotting for 12 years as to how and when to use this card of "I was banned". Her Dad admitting it was him doesn't suit her narrative or punishment so she's just ignoring that 😂

Honestly no way does Helen have Borderline PD it's way way way beyond that.

@Number3BigCupOfTea

John should be acknowledging that his daughter is a huge fuck up. That is not a very sympathetic label but I wonder *@R0SEMARY*, would John at this point, in his current confusion, be motivated to go for family mediation with Helen? From what you've described of him, he doesn't sound like he's the type to dig deep and reflect on his own behavior but I take it he wants to protect your three children from this madness later in life. Would he be persuaded to offer Helen psychotherapy & family therapy to avoid your own three children being dragged in to her madness? Has he the emotional intelligence to understand that this is a possibility.

I am in psychotherapy myself, and my therapist just listens to everything I say. Occasionally she re-frames things a little. I think Helen could be in psychotherapy for years and years and years before she could understand that she has to take responsibility for herself. The psychotherapist would probably just hear her.

Family therapy between the two of them would be good because the dynamics and the behavior would be more immediately obvious.

We paid for “therapy” for Helen for years - I think it was weekly for several years. It cost a bloody fortune. Although we thought we were paying for therapy, but it turns out she was using the money for singing lessons instead.

I think John agreed that we would pay her therapist direct after that. I can’t remember how long that went on for. This was around the time of my last pregnancy / birth and I was quite unwell (physically) and trying to look after the other kids so it’s all a bit of a blur.

I didn’t really have the emotional and physical energy to care TBH.

And John has supposedly been going for counselling for the last 6 years. I have no idea if he goes or how often, I don’t care.

So I’m a bit skeptical of the value of it. All I can see is that I’ve paid a fortune for people who are mistreating me to have emotional support and help. But I can’t afford it for myself.

Sorry if that sounds bitter or self pitying.

I too would be interested to know what the situation is/was with Helen’s mum - has she remarried etc?

No she has never remarried or even had a live in partner as far as we know. She spend more of the year overseas - in our country of origin and also with other family in North America ( depending on visa rules ). She is very rarely in the country where Helen and Katy live - I think they see her more when they are all “ back home “.

No it doesn't sound bitter at all. It sounds like you've reached the end of the road and it was a long road.

You are doing the right thing giving up. You're not self-pitying at all. You've cared too much. I agree with you, you have cared too much.

I think John agreed that we would pay her therapist direct after that. I can’t remember how long that went on for

And John has supposedly been going for counselling for the last 6 years

So I’m a bit skeptical of the value of it. All I can see is that I’ve paid a fortune for people who are mistreating me to have emotional support and help. But I can’t afford it for myself

Don't write it off. I strongly suspect neither of them have ever stepped foot inside a therapist's office.

@Littlepaws18

That’s interesting what you say about virtue ethics. When this all blew up last week ( I mean when I discovered that John had been misrepresenting me to Helen and causing trouble for our whole marriage ) I was devastated.

I asked John what I had done to deserve it . He said that he could see why I might think like that but it wasn’t really about me, it was nothing personal. He was just focussed on what he wanted and how he could get it. I was just collateral damage. So it’s not as if he hated me and wanted to hurt me, I wasn’t important enough for that.

( This is my summary of what he said and not his actual words , there was a lot of waffle and psychobabble to get to this answer.)

It’s like the washing machine - if it works then you are happy and don’t give it a second thought. You perhaps mistreat it by not using the right kind of soap power and softener, not cleaning it properly or getting it serviced. But you don’t care as long as it works for you.

Then when it stops working you kick it and feel angry “ Bloody useless machine “. You don’t feel guilty or blame yourself . You just work out if it’s cheaper to get it repaired or buy a new one.

How John treated me worked for him. It’s not a moral issue for him. At one point in the last week he actually said “ My conscience is clear “.

Now I understand that he’s telling the truth, because his only morality is “ what works for me “. Apart from that there’s no right or wrong.

Gosh, brown cat brown kitten.

His only morality is ''what works for me''. You have really boiled it right down there.