To think my enabling mother is just as bad

[BanksysGhostPainter]

I spent my whole life growing up in a dysfunctional household, think lashings of coercive control, verbal abuse and terror, and it all came from my father.

Fast forward to now: I am looking back through my adult eyes and I am appalled at how ineffectual, selfish and cowardly my mother was for letting us stay in that situation. I am FURIOUS, both with her, and with myself for only just realising this. I am sure many people might be able to relate. I just can’t get over this.

BTW she is still with him, is an emotional millstone round my neck, jealous of the fact I am out of that situation, burdens me with every woe, is always the victim, etc.

AIBU to view her this way?

My experience is the opposite of yours, in that my mother was the emotionally abusive bully.

My dad died a few years ago and I'm now no contact with my mother. Now that I am distant from the situation it is clear that my dad enabled my mother through his passiveness.
I distinctly remember when I was late 20s and suffering from depression which my dad new was tied to my relationship with my mother, so i would deliberately phone him when I knew my mother would be out walking the dog so I could avoid talking to her, dad said to me "you need to talk to your mum because I get I in the neck if you don't and I have to put up with her". Sadly there were many other occasion where he chose the easy option for him at my expense.

Having said this, the option of him calling my mother out of her behaviour, when I was a child, were limited, it was the 80s/early 90s he was the sole earner and any threats of leaving our actually doing so would have just made the situation for me a million times worse as it would have been highly unlikely that he would have got any meaningful custody of me. So he was in some ways between a rock and a hard place. Also my mother would always ramp up the abuse when she had need alone, this is something I've realised more as I got older (it was absolutely her Modus operandi once I was an adult) and with dad doing long hours he simply didn't see much of the abuse.

Toxic family dynamics are extremely complex with multiple layers and victims.

My mum put me through a childhood like you describe

She eventually left my father but then had more relationships with horrible men, aloholics etc.

She is like your mum towards me now. Envious, spiteful, always the victim. Constant ly slagging off my life (I work too much, my kids are spoiled, I’m selfish, I don’t put enough make up on, my sister is thinner (because she is a smack head) I do too much for my husband, he doesn’t do enough for me, why don’t I have his tea ready for him?, I emotionally neglect my children, wouldn’t it be nice if I allowed my sister across to my children (when he isn’t allowed access to her own) etc etc etc any critisism she can think of)

I’ve cried to DP about why she is like this and why I let it upset me

I’ve had therapy which didn’t really help. I’ve realised cutting her out as much as possible helps. I feel sorry for her, but her problems are not my problems. She had never been there for me when I have had a problem, I have had to let go of some guilt.

I just wanted to say how sorry I am and that I think I understand.

My anger has lessened as I have accepted the situation more. I just think it’s all a big shame. I have worked really hard to parent my DD differently x

Good luck with it.

I'm in the same situation. On the one hand my DM tells me how horrible my DF was, particularly to me, and in the other she says she doesn't regret anything, she'd do the same thing again. I went through a phase of feeling sorry for her, but like you OP, I now think she had choices when I didn't and she didn't protect me. I didn't really get on with her when younger so there was no attachment there to minimise the effect of my DF. She was the breadwinner too for a lot of my childhood. It's given me lifelong mental, emotional and physical health problems, which I don't talk to her about because it wouldn't help. I look after her now she's older and frail, I can rationalise the reasons for her behaviour, but I will always feel like she failed me.

Fwiw I dont think you are heartless at all.

The comment about her being an emotional millstone is interesting.
I am guessing she is draining and self absorbed in her martyrdom.

Have you considered going low contact and just going for a combo of "i dont want to talk about dad/hear about that", grey rock her and put her on an information diet.

I grew up in a similar situation, and have had the same anger over the years. It's so complex though isn't it. I have sympathy for my mum as a woman living with domestic violence in the80s, and then I have intense anger that she never once asked if I was ok, not once. I've dealt with that anger now but it's taken until my 40s to do that! So I can understand how you feel op

My mum actually left my dad, only when I had children of my own and I refused to take them to their house because of my dad's behaviour and abuse. I was relieved my taking a stand finally precipitated a change and my own children will grow up away from the abuse.

@Cyw2018 I’m sorry, sounds as if you and I have something in common in the dynamic.

Rightly or wrongly, I feel more sorry for those like you who had a mother as the main perpetrator. Somehow seems supremely perverse. But of course, my experiences colour that.

I feel for you and i get it because i feel like this about my father.

He is spineless. He is her footsoldier.

She really hurt me last year (she doesnt believe i have feelings although she tells me i hurt hers when i tell her that she hurt me.... but my father came round to reprimand me for hurting mum.

I must respect her right to be hurtful....

[quote BanksysGhostPainter]@Cyw2018 I’m sorry, sounds as if you and I have something in common in the dynamic.

Rightly or wrongly, I feel more sorry for those like you who had a mother as the main perpetrator. Somehow seems supremely perverse. But of course, my experiences colour that.[/quote]
It is a very odd thing, the concept of an abusive mother.

The final push for me to go no contact was having my own DD. I would just stare at her whilst feeding her to sleep and wonder how it was even possible that my mother could have said and done the things she did to me, her daughter. It also helped me realise how normally kind and empathetic women can be so horrible about me going no contact, as if I, the victim, find it hard to comprehend, then it must be nigh on impossible for a normal loving mother.

I understand completely and I'm sorry that you went through that.

I have actually posted a similar thread in relationships and the replies that I have had on their are so different. Maybe ask MNHQ to move this thread to relationships instead of AIBU

@BruiserWoods

I feel for you and i get it because i feel like this about my father.

He is spineless. He is her footsoldier.

She really hurt me last year (she doesnt believe i have feelings although she tells me i hurt hers when i tell her that she hurt me.... but my father came round to reprimand me for hurting mum.

I must respect her right to be hurtful....

My goodness, your comment is so close to home I got wound up reading about that interaction. I could honestly scream.

I suspect this sort of behaviour happens as a way to compensate for always feeling like they are sacrificing for others. It completely invalidates that others have feelings though!

@BruiserWoods I know it’s different, but it’s all the manipulation and guilt tripping and total ignoring of the person who has actually been wronged.

@Rhioplepog the passive aggression and envy is horrible isn’t it. I am glad for you and heartened that you have found a way through the mess of it to a clearer place.

@MNHQ please may I ask this thread to be moved to relationships? Ta x

@DontKnowWhatToThink7

I understand completely and I'm sorry that you went through that.

I have actually posted a similar thread in relationships and the replies that I have had on their are so different. Maybe ask MNHQ to move this thread to relationships instead of AIBU

Thankyou for saying so, it can feel so lonely sometimes. There’s still a lot of shame I feel about it all, despite it being totally not my fault.

I'm so sorry you had to experience this. It was so unfair.

I'm not going to say that your anger and resentment aren't justified, they are. But does it seem to me that at this point it's doing much more damage to you than it is 'punishing' her. She is living her life as she chooses and your anger is really not affecting her. But although you are also living your life, it IS affected by your anger because carrying resentment is a weight you (and any of us) carry.

You say you're getting help, but is it working to assist you in putting that anger in a place where it's doing you no harm? I had a great deal of anger about an abusive relationship (not parents) and I didn't realize how much it was weighing me down until a counselor helped me pick it apart and put it in it's proper place in my 'head'. The fact that she's still in your life makes this doubly important.

I'm not talking about forgiveness, as far as I'm concerned you don't have to forgive, my counselor helped me realize that an abuser isn't entitled to forgiveness. I will never forgive my abuser and if they were on fire I wouldn't piss on them to put them out. But I have been able to put them in a box way back in my mental closet.

I think at some point you're going to have to go NC for your own sake unless you can find a way to deal with your (justified) resentment.

I’m sure you are a lovely mother :)

Do you remember feelings of shame growing up when you became aware her behaviour was so aberrant?

@AcrossthePond55 Some thought provoking points. I think I agree. It’s still quite recent in the grand scheme of things that these feelings have erupted in me. But a bit further down the line you’re right. I need to live my life and as soon as I find a way to stop seething, I will.

My childhood was similar. My dad was a lovely man but didn't stand up to my mum who was a vicious bully. I think part of his reasoning was that she was our birth mother and he was originally only our stepdad. However he formally adopted us when we were 6 and 7 and so I think he should have stepped up then but he never did. He's been dead many years now and mum is old and frail. I do a lot for her because I feel sorry for her but I haven't forgiven her and I don't think I love her.

Keep up the therapy. I had years and years of it and it has helped me a lot. I understand now that my anger at and dislike of my mum are entirely justified and I no longer feel guilty about them.

@Nomorescreentime You have done what I’m still dragging my feet about. I’m glad it worked. I’m sorry it had to be like this

There's a huge difference between fault and responsibility. We can debate all day about the level of victimhood your mum experienced but at the end of it is the fact that she is responsible for her choice to stay (even if it's not her fault).

She is also responsible for the endless guilt-trips and other bullshit designed to keep you in that orbit.

Not all women in situations where their partner abuses their children are also victims. Some women are complicit and enable the child abuse. This is what OPs mother sounds like. A person who was not only aware of the abuse, but complicit in it and enabled it.

I know of a case like this where the mother would invent things the children had done as misbehaviour and then have the father beat the children for being naughty when he got home. In this same case, the mother had a pedophile brother and she would put the daughter in a pretty dress, her hair in braids and give her to her uncle for days out and even weekends away. The uncle sexually abused the daughter for years. The daughter told her mother what he was doing to her and the mother would slap her and tell her it’s a secret and not to tell.

So looking at this, you have a father physically abusing and an uncle sexually abusing. No abuse from the mother...but she’s not a victim and she’s definitely not only aware of the abuse but complicit and enabling it.

@Dutch1e

There's a huge difference between fault and responsibility. We can debate all day about the level of victimhood your mum experienced but at the end of it is the fact that she is responsible for her choice to stay (even if it's not her fault).

She is also responsible for the endless guilt-trips and other bullshit designed to keep you in that orbit.

So bloody true. It does feel like that; a sick creeping gravity that pulls you back into Silent Hill.

@PlanDeRaccordement she used to threaten us with his anger to do what she wanted! Not even big stuff, just stuff to make her life easier.

I have come from a similar situation. I can't forgive my mother, and the reason I can't is that my father can no longer hurt me. I'm not frightened of him and he has no power over me.

But she continues to hurt me all the time. I have to listen to her complain about how she's mistreated by every person and institution and how she runs around after him and treats him like a prince. She criticises my life and choices but doesn't do anything about her own. She asks for help and then throws it back in my face. I've realised she's as abusive as him, but in a different way, that prevents me from escape.

So I'm maybe not mad that she didn't leave so much as I'm mad she's stopping me from leaving.

@PlanDeRaccordement I just read the second half. That is just…there are no words. I believe in hell, it’s all that I can do when confronted with things like this.