Parents - unbelievable

[DataColour]

My childhood was marred with having to witness extreme domestic violence. My father hit my mum all through their marriage and punched her, hit her etc etc....several times I thought my mother was going to die. I was an only child. I had to physically put my self between my parents to avoid my father inflicting blows on my mother. I remember so many times sitting by her bedside comforting her and debating whether she needs to be taken to hospital or not. He was never violent towards me.

My mother never left him. Now they are old, 85 and 78. He still shouts at her, calls her names etc. He is physically unable to do a lot of things. Now my mother is complaining of having to look after him. I told her that she wouldn't have been in this position if she'd left him years ago, when I was young. But she won't accept any blame, saying she didn't want me to lose a father's loving relationship. She is something else.
She now wants sympathy for her situation.
AIBU not to have any?? Sorry I know it's not in AIBU. But she completely denies she did anything wrong by failing to remove me from that situation and now she wants help and support! I need some perspective on this.

Did you talk to her about it, then, @DataColour ? And she just rebuffed you by defending herself?

Yes and this is what saddens me.

I used to think it was normal (well not quite normal but acceptable perhaps) as a child and when I was younger. Since I had DCs, eldest is 14, I realise how wrong my childhood was. So i think it came as a shock to my mum to realise I blamed her for mot leaving him as I never raised it with her before.

People who are in a co dependent relationship only see how it affects them personally. They are self centred and constantly inward looking. In my experience.

My mother is the very definition of self-centered sadly - and not just related to this issue.

Can you encourage her to get a care assessment? Say to social services that she is struggling to care for him. Mention the history of abuse. None of you can change the past, you can change the future.

Watchkeys - yes, defended herself and tried to justify her actions. She thinks I should forget the past, sad as it may have been. It came to a head this morning as she was complaining that my father, who had to be seen at hospital yesterday due to a hand injury, was shouting at her in hospital, and that she was sick of looking after him. I told her basically that she'd made her bed - I know that it was heartless of me, but it just came out.

Yes mine too, I wonder if they put up binkers to survive. ⁸

It’s the truth, though

I sympathise OP, similar with my mum. But before posters get the violins out about how hard it was for women to leave in those days, my mum actually left my perfectly lovely dad for an abusive alcoholic, but now loves to play the victim.

He is in a home now (drunk himself into dementia) but before that it was maddening that in order to support my mum I had to run around facilitating this nasty fuckwit, because everything had to be about him. She would never take our side against his unpleasantness, and then when it suited her wanted us to play happily families with him.

Presumably she got something out of the relationship but it was terrible for me and my sister. Mothers are not all saints, they can be very selfish and consistently put their own wants and needs before the well being of their child.

Aye, they can. And do.

You are right though even if she felt she couldn't leave you are right. I've recently gone through a similar thing with illness and hospitals and I get it.

What kind of a first post is this on a thread where someone has been impacted by domestic violence? ‘You sound awful’? You may not like it, but when there is a child involved, that child is a victim of domestic violence.

I'm sorry to hear of all your experiences of navigating this type of situation too.
I've never talked about this and it's really helping, thanks for your insights.

My mother wanted her and my father to move in with us a couple of years ago as they moved across the country to be closer to us. Over my dead body would I live with them again. But my mother didn't understand of course, thought I was being mean.

No you are not unreasonable. They are adults, they made their choices they have to live with them. Your mother didn't protect you as a child, why would she expect you as an adult to have sympathy for a situation of her own making.
As a child you comforted her, she still expects you to do the role she trained you for.
She needs to take responsibility for her own life. It is difficult to break hard wired family roles.
My mother was a conniving, alcoholic narcissist. She is now 90 and in poor health, she is still a nasty, demanding, compulsive liar and had the temerity to expect me to look after her, I went no communication. Just talking to my mother is triggering for me, despite years of counseling I still have feelings of absolute rage towards her.
The old adage of be careful how you treat your children for they will be the ones chosing your care home is very appropriate.
My mother has made my dad's life a misery at 90nyears old he is actually considering divorce just to get some peace in his final years. No one is obligated to stay in an abusive relationship, they choose to. Yeah your dad sounds like a loving father! She wasn't thinking of you by staying.
Sending you hugs xx

Your mother is abusive - just in another way. Failing to protect you as a child and now gaslighting and manipulating you as a adult. You don’t owe it to either of them to look after or feel sorry for them in their old age.

They have helped and supported me financially - loads of money towards houses, expensive education etc etc, so I do feel a sense of obligation. But they still have money to change their situation. For example, my mother complains about having to cook for him everyday - but she could easily afford to outsource this, pay for a takeaway ocassionally etc. But they won't pay out for such things to make their lives easier.

I fully support what you said to your mother and she was absolutely wrong to allow you to remain in that situation as a child. I dont deny the psychological effects of domestic abuse and what it does to a woman but she was an adult and she had the financial means to leave if she had wanted to. She wasnt trapped. Children dont have the agency to make those decisions and are therefore far more vulnerable and helpless than adults in these situations as they are entirely at the mercy of adult choices/decisions. She should have protected you and for most women in abuse situations its seeing their children get hurt that is the last straw for them to leave. I am so sorry you were let down both both parents and its appalling that your mother thinks you should just forget the past as if its nothing. Childhood scars are the worst kind because children have no other options to seek help or support as adults do. You are not unreasonable at all- she made her bed, she can lie in it.

I'm with you OP. The 'victim blaming' argument is hard to swallow when it means that a child has been traumatised by primary actions of an abusive father, and the secondary action of your mother choosing to stay and make excuses. I wouldn't feel sorry for her either.

@DataColour it’s hard being the child of parents who make those choices. I think it’s even harder becoming an adult, and particularly becoming a mother, when you’ve had the sort of childhood you had.

Mine was not completely dissimilar, although the abuse was towards me and initiated by my mum, who used to hit me herself and also force my dad to beat me. (There’s much more, but that’s one thing that’s really stood out to me since becoming mum to a daughter myself.) Dad would cry while he did it. Like you, I assumed it was quite normal. It really wasn’t.

In the last decade, when I’ve tried to raise the subject with Mum to see if she would do anything differently if she had her time again, she would always get angry and defensive. Me being upset as an adult, about being beaten and emotionally abused as a child, was my own fault, you see - I should simply not think about it and then everything would be fine. But of course you can’t not think about it. The way we’re raised affects how we relate to others, whether we’re conscious of that or not. Mum refuses to acknowledge the harm she caused or accept responsibility for it.

I look at my young daughter and just can’t imagine ever hitting her (even though she is, you know, a gigantic pain and endless test of my patience!) - never mind coercing an adult man to hit her. My mum and I have very different standards.

I’ve had therapy, on and off for the best part of a decade now, and will continue to do so. My parents are still together. I’m no-contact with my mum, but have a pretty decent, loving, and trusting relationship with my dad. The most important difference between them as far as I’m concerned is that Dad has admitted that everything they did was wrong, that he wishes he had done things differently, and he can’t understand how he ever thought it was normal himself. He’s genuinely sorry. Not angry and defensive. He knows it was all indefensible. (I don’t know how he reconciles his perspective with hers - it’s not my place to probe on that; I know he carries an enormous burden of guilt and I don’t want to make it worse for him.)

Neither of your parents sound likely to acknowledge the inherent wrongness of putting you through all they did. In your situation it’s probably sensible to keep very low contact, and to have therapy (I recommend it to everyone!), to help you keep your emotional distance and make some sort of peace with your parents’ current situation. You can’t fix them, and they don’t want to fix themselves. Your mum’s situation is very sad, but nobody can change it except her.

They might not be able to physically hurt you any more, but you should probably work out how best to protect yourself and your own family from any further emotional damage. At least it sounds like you haven’t carried on the generational cycle of abuse, which is something to be proud of.

Wishing you all the very best OP. This stuff is so complex to process, and I think being a parent yourself adds an extra dimension of complexity.

Is she still wealthy?

Could she leave him now?

If she won’t leave him now, but could, then it becomes about the here and now.
If she starts moaning about looking after him in the present, then you have a right to ask her to stop if she won’t do anything about it. Thus avoiding any argument about not leaving him in the past.

I can see both sides of the story as I am currently divorcing a bully. His bullying has ramped up because of the divorce. I have sought support from my DD, but I know I have started veering into feeling sorry for myself, so I need to stop that.

Although I have never been physically abused, my go to reaction even now, is to never do anything that will irritate or annoy my husband, although everything I have to do to make this divorce happen does exactly that.

On the other hand my mothers behaviour when I was a child bordered on neglect and I also know what it’s like to carry that anger over from childhood.

Im not sure what to suggest. Your mother has been conditioned to be a victim, and you have suffered at both their hands.

If it were me and I had the means I’d put your father into a care home, and tell your mum to go out and have fun.

ODFOD, OP was as much a victim as her mum - who had the financial means to leave but didn't, leading to more abuse to herself and indirectly to OP. This is neglect at the most basic.

OP I fully understand where you are coming from. My parents (only slightly younger) did separate and my mum overcame all the other bollocks that pps have suggested might be barriers to leaving. Man beats woman, child is LITERALLY in the middle and witness, there is very little that wouldn't, eventually, lead to the mother leaving the father.

A really shitty situation. You don't need our permission to step back. Make suggestion for support services. You don't owe either of them anything.

@DataColour You'll get a lot of posts on here, telling you what a terrible daughter you are not to have any sympathy for your mother...not from me, though.

My father wasn't physically abusive to my mother, but he cheated continuously throughout their marriage, and also made my and my two brothers childhood miserable. There was no love and affection shown between them...and none to us, either. My father hadn't wanted children in the first place, only married my mother - less than 6 months after they met - because my mother got pregnant. My mother valued her marriage and religion (Catholic) above her children, our safety and happiness was never put first by her. Like your mother, she was also wealthy, well educated and there was zero reason why she couldn't have left him at any point. By following him around the world like a love sick puppy, she sacrificed our childhood, education, and in the case of my younger brother, health because she valued my father more than us...even when he tried to dump us all on the other side of the world when I was 11 (his little plan failed literally on the day we were due to fly). Even after that she still stayed with him. He eventually left her for another woman (who became his second wife) when I was 21. That was 32 years ago. He's still married to the other woman.

I did have sympathy for her, for a long time, until I saw the relationships friends, partners etc have with their parents...the 'normal' family relationships. As I got older I realised just what terrible parents they had both been. I've been low contact with my mother for 25 years, no contact with my father since he left.

@TemporaryAlternativeName In the last decade, when I’ve tried to raise the subject with Mum to see if she would do anything differently if she had her time again, she would always get angry and defensive. Me being upset as an adult, about being beaten and emotionally abused as a child, was my own fault, you see - I should simply not think about it and then everything would be fine. But of course you can’t not think about it. The way we’re raised affects how we relate to others, whether we’re conscious of that or not. Mum refuses to acknowledge the harm she caused or accept responsibility for it.

Apart from being beaten, I could have written this paragraph word for word...it's exactly my experience with my mother as an adult. Not only does she get angry and defensive, she also tries to blame myself for my father's cheating, his final affair when he left her - that was my fault because I made him 'feel old' for getting married. Imagine blaming your only daughter for your husband cheating...you couldn't make it up, could you? Fucking horrible thing to do.

Most of the women on here who bleat about how horrible you are have no idea what it's like to be in our shoes. Your mother failed in her primary duty to you. You are 'allowed' as an adult to feel angry about it and not have much sympathy for her.

Your parents both abused you. In different ways but you were raised in a Chaotic violent home, and that is something they are both responsible for.

I think your mothers words to you this morning are ugly.

sometimes it’s only when we can look at our parents and fully see their faults, that we truly become adults

I hope you have a loving home now, you are not your parents and you’ve every right to feel any way you want. The complexity is hard to fathom unless you’ve lived something close to it. Please don’t let anyone , on here, or elsewhere tell you how to feel . Neither of your parents prioritised you and for that and what you had to endure, you can feel any way you wish

How dare you come on line and attack a woman who lived through this as a child; how utterly dare you

Your poor DM, god knows what hold he had over her and why she couldn’t leave.