AIBU? Family relationship

[cherrytrees96]

Sorry long one!

I’m 25 and I’ve always had a bit of a funny relationship with my family. Two older sisters who I’ve grown up feeling belittled by and ganged up on. I feel like I get on with them sometimes and they’re completely off with me the next. There’s a lot of underlying tension which turns into claiming I don’t care about them and drunk arguments usually fuelled by them. They’ve called me an attention seeker before (because I said I felt depressed in lockdown), they leave me out of cousin events and when I went travelling for two months they didn’t even ask about it. I wouldn’t say I’m close with them.

I live with them and my parents who I know for a fact care about me. They step up when they need to eg picking me up from places, helping me move things to uni etc etc. I’m really grateful for them. But things aren’t always rosey with them either - they laughed at me last year when I struggled in lockdown and said I felt hopeless. Dad said mental health issues aren’t real. I’ve also been so close to moving out 2 or 3 times. I also know everyone constantly talks about me behind my back as mum says so.

Here’s the latest problem - I’ve been with my DP about 6months now. I’m extremely happy and it’s a calm, refreshing relationship. We see each other one evening a week, and the weekend (one or two days depending on plans with friends). We both have our own space and lives. He’s met my family, come to some events (not all) and really fits in. I asked if he could come for Christmas evening and they said it was okay. When I bring DP round they greet him with warmth and my sisters really like him.
The other day I bought him round on our usual evening. My DP is a really chilled person but he asked if he’d done something wrong as everyone seemed really off with him. I reassured him that everyone’s probably tired and he’s done nothing.

Fast forward to today and I ask my family if DP can come to the family meal we have booked. Instantly it kicked off. My parents said that them and my sister feel that I’m “self absorbed”, “too needy” and “obsessed”. They said they’ve all been talking about how I am messing up relationship single handedly and I am toxic (bearing in mind my last one was 5 years and ended amicably and maturely). Im being too intense seeing him twice a week.
They said “why do you have to bring me and everyone here into your dramas” - this translates to me bringing my DP round one evening a week and eating dinner with them because I thought it was nice. Apparently that’s abnormal. My DP said he feels really welcome and loves spending time with them which I thought was lovely.

I mentioned me being invited to his family meal and mum said “I bet his parents are fed up of you”. She tried to tell me how my DP and his parents feel constantly. Said DP probably doesn’t even want to come for Christmas and I made him (he is so excited about it!).
She then said i was immature because, in a mimicky voice, “ooooh I’m all over Facebook and we’re staying in a little log cabin oooh” (I posted one picture of the trip).

I’m just completely baffled. I feel like I’m constantly walking on eggshells everyone talking about me 24/7. I now don’t feel like I can bring my DP round (he lives 45 mins away). They said it’s nothing to do with him as they like him - just me.

I want to move out but I’ll be devastated as I’m about a year away from having a house deposit and this will really really stunt my progress if I rent and it’ll take me probably a year longer at least. Plus there’s the hassle of finding a house share. I’m not sure it’s an option but it’s ridiculous.

I just am so baffled, upset and don’t know what to do.

What an unpleasant bunch your family are! Definitely time to move out and escape from their toxicity.

Your parents, like many other parents, are sick, sadistic, evil bastards whose own lives are so sick and pathetic that they need a human punchbag to feel a sense of power and control in their lives.
You have been chosen to be the punchbag!

In the same way that 6 year old Arthur was tortured and physically murdered by his sick parents so too you will be tortured and murdered psychologically by your parents.
Don't go back, get your friend to collect your stuff.
Find a decent psychotherapist (not CBT).
Read some of the books by Alice Miller which will enable you to see through the fog and recognise what your family is really like.
It is very difficult to view our parents clearly because when we were infants our lives depended on them. If they abused or neglected you as a child, as they probably did, you would have blamed yourself because the consequence of seeing them as sick, flawed monsters would mean you were helpless in this world and that would lead to death.
Instead your brain decides to idealise the parent and blame yourself.
Get professional help and reduce or cut all contact.
Good luck.

God I'm with you but only one awful sister. All my life I felt that it was me. If I wasn't like I am they'd treat me differently, be nicer, less picky, more inclusive and show me love. Well after going to a great counsellor I now realise it's not me. I'm a nice person, don't treat people like they do, am kind, supportive and encouraging of others, I can also sustain relationships and friendships. The counsellor made me see that I am perfectly nice and normal. It's them who aren't! I mean who the fuck treats anyone like your family does? That's not normal life, normal family dynamics. Families are supposed to love you, pick you up when you're down, be supportive of your choices and not bitch about you between themselves.

ITS NOT YOU, ITS THEM.

Go on with your life, stay with your lovely DP until you find somewhere with your friend and have as little to do with them as you can. You owe them nothing, they chose to have you, you don't have to pay them back in any shape or form for deciding to be parents, that's just not how it works. And they may have done the basics, food, warmth, shelter but FFS, exactly what else are they bringing to the party, grief, nastiness, bullying and after last night violence and threats? .

Take his offer up, pack your bags and go stay with him temporarily.

Christmas is one day, that's all.

Don't be distracted by it.

Focus on finding a flat.

Your family have spent your whole life putting you down, resenting that you might do well.

You are their emotional punching bag.

They don't want you moving out, who will they bully and ridicule.

You think they have done so much for you?

They have emotionally abused you your whole childhood, are most likely the cause of your anxiety.

No parent who genuinely loved their child treats them the way you describe.

You desperately need counselling, to tell you exactly how poorly you have been treated.

Call Womens aid and tell them how you're treated.

Your parents are a disgrace.

Get out.

They did assault you. And they're not good parents. Doing things for you as you're growing up is normal parent behaviour. The abuse they give you now isn't.

As pp have said. Find somewhere with your friend but go to your boyfriend's for now. Get your friend to fetch your stuff - don't go yourself, they'll try to get at you and bully you. And then block them on Facebook as they'll try to get at you that way.

Just wanted to add as well OP, that there doesn't seem to be anything remotely 'car crash' about your life so far. Your story is near identical to mine in terms of undiagnosed mental health problems in school impacting in friendships, a rough time at uni, ending long term relationships and career challenges. With the exception of the mental health stuff, all of this is completely normal!! Your twenties are exactly the time when you are figuring things out, making changes, taking risks and making big decisions. Sometimes it works out and other times it doesn't. That's how you get to know yourself and what you really want out of life.

I'm ten years older than you and I promise you I don't regret that horrendous break up or the terrifying career change. I don't care at all about people from uni all that time ago. I understand where my mental health issues come from and I know how to manage them.

Please dont judge yourself negatively for just being a normal human.

They're clearly very abusive to you. Your life story sounds pretty normal. Get your own life from now on, maybe get some therapy to deal with how you were treated but I'm guessing that you'r mental health will clear up when you haven't heard from them in a while.

That's painful to read as it reminds me of my family dynamic. One important thing: there's no point trying to make them see your point, understand you, respect you. They probably never will. Once you understand it, you'll feel free.

Your parents may have provided for you materially but emotionally no, they failed you in that important respect.

When I read about what happened to you earlier re your toxic parents I thought of another poster on the Stately Homes thread whose parents behaved similarly towards her. It’s a well worn path types like your parents follow. Your parents are abusive and your dad takes the lead from your mother and further enables her in the abuse. What he did to you is assault you, you absolutely need to be away from them all.

@cherrytrees96

They took away my car key and wouldn’t let me leave. Dad threw me to the floor, gripping my coat tight so that I couldn’t move and by this point I was a state and was trying to leave (I didn’t feel unsafe, I just wanted to leave and clear my head).

Mum threatened to call the police and they were both looking down on me saying “look at her, she’s an animal, shall we call a doctor, she’s not right in the head”.

This is verbal and physical assault. Get yourself away from these people as quickly and thoroughly as possible!

You may think your parents did a lot for you but, weren't they just accepting the responsibility of bringing you into the world? Aren't they supposed to love and cherish you?

Do you think that their behaviour towards you, especially being physically prevented from leaving an abusive situation, is in any way justified? The answer is "No" by the way. If anyone should say they'll call the police it should be you, as the person being victimised.

Please do move in with your DP and collect your stuff - including your car from their premises. If they refuse, please consider asking for the police for help. I know this I'll be hard for you and hopefully won't be necessary, but something to consider.

I hope things work out for you OP. Do, please, consider giving them a very wide berth for some time. They are not healthy people to be around. 🌹

Your family have really done a number on you. You don’t need to be grateful to them for bringing you up, they chose to have you, bringing you up as well as they could is the minimum requirement.

It sounds to me like they want you at home so they can control you and keep you in your place. Move in with your friend and think about whether some counselling might help you.

Thank you so much everyone I’m so grateful for all your inputs ❤️ You’ve all made me feel so much better.
Going to collect majority of my stuff in a bit, pretty nervous (I wanna do it myself as I know where everything is)

Take your friend or your partner with you OP. I understand why you want to go yourself, but there's a better chance of your family not bullying you again if someone else is there with you.

I think you should bring someone with you also, perhaps your partner.

A witness might keep them in check.

You need space from them.

A lot of space.

I agree with @AttilaTheMeerkat that the Stately homes thread could be helpful.

Everything you noted as a disaster in your younger days was normal stuff, absolutely no big deal.

In a normal family, your parents would rally round and prop you up and tell you that shit happens.
Yours have used it to beat you with.

I consider myself extremely successful in life and I was fired in my early 20's from a job where I wouldn't take tge shit my boss was dishing out.
I fell out with a flatmate.
This stuff happens.

It would never have occurred to me that it defined me as a person.

These are all experiences we learn from and are a part of life.

Decent family help us learn and cope and prop us up.

You sound like a lovely young woman.

Get away from this family and feel safe.

Get some therapy to understand that this is not on you.

You are vulnerable to being badly treated by a man because of the awful treatment of you by your family.

This is not your fault.

You deserve better.

Keep posting.
We are here for you.

@Skiptheheartsandflowers

Take your friend or your partner with you OP. I understand why you want to go yourself, but there's a better chance of your family not bullying you again if someone else is there with you.

Please do this, I think it's really important.

I don't think you should go alone either OP, you've already been assaulted once and they're not going to like you moving away from their control. They will be expecting you to be begging to come back by now and I think it has the potential to be a volatile situation when they realise you're really going. Please look after yourself, they've hurt you enough.

This is awful, people end relationships, they fall out with people, they leave jobs, they lose jobs, they move on, they get excited about new relationships and trips away. This is all normal human behaviour. We change, we evolve, we learn and we progress. Your family somehow seem threatened that you are grown up. Did they all end up with the first person they had a relationship with? Are they all in the first job the got? It all sounds very repressed and stifling.

How are you OP?

A positive update - me and my friend have secured a flat!! We’re not sure when it’ll be available yet but we have put a holding fee and references in.

It’s been a funny few days, boyfriend has been amazing. I’m feeling a bit sad about how much money I’ll now spend when I really wanted a deposit. I’m also feeling a bit sad about the whole situation esp as Christmas and parents birthday is coming up in the next few weeks and I’m unsure what’s going on!

Appreciate all your support through this

Oh that's great news OP. I understand your disappointment about it delaying having a deposit, but honestly, your quality of life will be so much better living with someone you can trust who actually likes and supports you. That will be more beneficial than getting on the property ladder more quickly.

Do think about seeking counselling and using the Stately Homes threads to unload. It's not surprising you're feeling sad, having had to face up to your family letting you down like this.

@cherrytrees96

It’s just tricky as they’ve done so much for me growing up and I am grateful and I feel I’ve thrown it back in their face by leaving when they begged me not to :( mum said the stress is killing her as she’s not that young anymore

Your father laid hands on you.

He assaulted you

OP,

You are adapting to circumstances, that often happens.

Believe me that the way your mental health was going because of the stress of your family, I doubt you would have bought.

The best chance for you is to move out and have a healthy distance that will make you stronger.

Keep posting.

I am delighted about the flat.
Change is scary but this will bring you much peace.

Stuck at the moment :(

Staying at home sorting my stuff out until I can move into the flat sometime next week. I walk in and say hi to my mum, who then says “have you got anything to say”. I asked what she meant and she said “the awkwardness”. She then said I’m making no effort to smooth things over. I explained that we all did wrong and it can’t be just down to me to smooth things over? She asked what she said wrong and I said “you all laughed at me on the floor and said call her a doctor she’s mental”. She said “yes because you were hysterical”. I then said you surely can’t think that’s okay and she said it is?!

At that point I just left the room. I feel so upset and gutted because they’re my parents at the end of the day and I feel like it’s down to me to make things better for my mums upcoming birthday and for Christmas - I’m honestly so lost at the moment. I asked if I was invited to the birthday thing and she said “I knew you’d put it on me”.

I just feel so so overwhelmed

Any help please anyone? I’m so so lost on what to do :(

I understand they are your family but they don’t have the same loyalty for you as you have for them. They are 100 percent in the wrong here and your mother is gaslighting you (“yes because you were hysterical” - wtf!!?).
You don’t need or deserve any of this treatment. Why are you back there, can you not continue to stay with your boyfriend until ur flat is ready?
Your mother (& family) is vile. It’s really awful but in time your head will adjust and you’ll learn to accept the reality that is your family.

So what if it’s her birthday, she’s ruining that all by herself - it is not your job to make things better for her birthday or Christmas. Stop giving it so much importance! If she wants the whole family swooning around her for her birthday she’d want to start showing a bit of respect. Cut them loose, it’ll be the best thing to do 🌷