NC with mother and sibling relationship

[Tiggal]

I have been NC with my mother for a number of years. She was emotionally abusive to me during my childhood, and early adulthood, I tried for a long time to maintain a relationship but for the sake of my mental health I had to stop. She’d also started showing similar behaviour towards my dc.

I’m not sure what she told my siblings, because I have done nothing but set boundaries for myself, but judging from the way they have turned their back on me she has told them things that are not true. In the past my mother has said I am ungrateful after everything she did for me (which was only feeding and clothing me as a child), I’m over sensitive, rewrite history and I cause drama, so I imagine it’s along these lines.

It breaks my heart that I don’t have a mum in my life, and consequently my father. However, my siblings both leapt to her defence, without even asking me what had happened, and now we don’t have much of a relationship. In fact my sister, who is 6 years younger, when I tried to explain my side of things, implied I was lying. She’s of the attitude that as we had the same parents, how can things have been so much worse for me. She just doesn’t get it, and as she lived in Australia for years (I’m in the UK) she hasn’t seen everything my mum has said and done to me in the years since she left.

For a long time I was really gutted about my relationship with my family. I had to have years of therapy to even begin to get over the pain and hurt I feel, not just because of my mum, but because of my wider family so readily turning their backs on me when all I tried to do was stand up for myself.

I got a message from my sister at the beginning of February. She is coming to the Uk on 1st April and said it would be nice to see me. I did texted a friendly reply but she hasn’t texted since. She asked to see me when she last came over, about 5 or 6 years ago, and I was so excited, hoping to attempt to rebuild some sort of relationship, but out of the 3 weeks she was here, she only stayed for a couple of hours. I could tell she didn’t really want to be here and I think she only came to see me out of some sense of duty.

I just don’t know what to say to her about her visit. I have felt completely abandoned by them all. It feels like the whole family thinks they can trample all over me and if I complain I’m the unreasonable one, and actually I don’t want to see her. Im just so torn because I don’t want to cause upset, but at what point do I say enough?

@Tiggal ,
It seems as though they have accepted your disengagement and in the case of your sister trying to offer an olive branch of sorts for her short visit. You know how you experienced your childhood, and they know how they experienced their childhood. The disconnect is that there was not a common experience.

If you want an adult relationship with your siblings, you may all have to accept the fact that your childhood experiences were not similar, but that your adult relationships can be what you intentionally make them. If you or they insist upon affirmation of your childhood experiences , you will remain victims of the past rather than creators of your future relationships.

I couldn't have put it better than that

I don’t really need her to accept my beliefs about my childhood. I fully accept that her feelings are valid, and that her experiences are as real to her as mine are to me.
What I’m struggling with is when my mother continued to be awful to me, and then to my children, and I refused to put up with it anymore,I am treated as being this terrible, unreasonable daughter, who deserves to be shunned.

I thought she was offering an olive branch last time, and I was prepared to do anything to build a relationship with her, but really she only came to see me out of a sense of duty. It broke my heart tbh because I do love her.

If you or they insist upon affirmation of your childhood experiences , you will remain victims of the past rather than creators of your future relationships.

It would be helpful if there was recognition that Mother was a manipulative wagon who ensured diverging childhood experiences to suit her own agenda.

OP I've had similar experiences with crazy family members. Aren't you lucky the trash took itself out? (Another way at looking at 'abandonment') If you don't want to meet your sister, don't. If they are that troublesome steer clear of them and build your own support network.

I'm really sorry you've had such a poor experience - all the kids in your family deserved better.

@Southstand
Why is it necessary that there be any consensus or recognition about the mother at all?
These adult siblings can intentionally create whatever adult relationships that they wish to have between them or not as appears to be what is happening in your family.

However, it is sad when siblings are willing to deprive their children of relationships with their cousins in furtherance of some personal anger and pain. At some point , the willingness to let your experiences serve as validation for separation of the next generation becomes a sad and possibly sick form of a self fulfilling prophesy.

Because @Mari9999 when you have a seriously dysfunctional parent who is scapegoating one of the children, the other kids are used to bolster the dysfunctional system. They will often report back to the abuser.

I appreciate you mean well but unless you have direct experience of a family like this, then you have no idea what you are talking about.

'possibly sick form of a self fulfilling prophesy' - this phrase alone shows your ignorance.

I tried for a long time to maintain a relationship but for the sake of my mental health I had to stop. She’d also started showing similar behaviour towards my dc.

Do you seriously believe the OP is 'depriv[ing] their children of relationships with their cousins in furtherance of some personal anger and pain.'?

This woman is being abused by her Mother and you are effectively telling her to suck it up?

@Southstand thank you so much. It’s such a relief when someone understands because it can sometimes feel a bit like I’m going crazy.

I think Mari9999's comments offer some wisdom. Sometimes things are about choices and not feelings. If OP wants a relationship with her siblings she can offer a framework for one that is not contingent on universal acceptance of her view of their mother. One things to consider OP may be family mediation with your siblings if they would be willing.

It's so difficult to give advice because this is a big family with lots of history and views and only one sliver of information from one person's perspective but generally, if you want a relationship with your siblings it might need a fresh starting spot like - "hey, I know we disagree about this but i love you and I miss you and want to connect more - how would you feel about that?" At least you'd know OP where you stand.

@Southstand
I am not telling the OP to suck anything up. I am suggesting that the establishment of an adult relationship with her siblings is within her control and not that of her mother.

Ouf ability to be intentional as an adult is not something that remains in the control of our parents no matter the relationship that we had with them as children.

Are you suggesting that the OP grew older without having grown up? Neither she nor her siblings are children competing for or craving their parents love and attention. These are people who are adults in their own right and with their own agency. If the OP wants to ride the train of " I am a victim of my childhood", and to take her children as passengers on that train , that is certainly a choice that she is free to make. However, there will be little benefit to her children for having been forced to make that journey. The OP however will have established a close link with her own mother- both will have taken a child or children on a very unpleasant journey.

There’s nothing I would love more, there really isn’t and I’ve spent years try to build a relationship. I have mourned the loss of my family for years, but how can we move forward when even the way she looks at me shows that she thinks I’m a terrible person for just because I acted to protect my mental health, and my children too.

Its incredibly difficult to explain, but I feel like the way I am treated is a continuation of the abuse I received from my mother.

OP, you asked when enough is enough. I would say now. If sister came to the UK and barely spent with you, actions speak louder than words. Next time she can book a hostel for herself.

Only you know how you feel. If you felt abandoned and ganged up on, they don't get to discuss your feelings or your past. You know yourself best.

I found if people live separated, resentment and hatred only grows stronger.

I also don't think Mari meant to be malicious, it's just that sone families are able to heal and others aren't.

I reckon, they already had more than enough of your time, life, and childhood.

They are not your problem anymore.

Sending hugs

Thank you @cassiatwenty. I think you’re right, the time to say enough is now. I’ve tried time and time again to build a relationship with my sister but she is the one who isn’t willing to create a relationship separate from my mother.

I have a fairly similar story to yours. Mum managed to turn my whole family against me. We are NC. My brother kept nagging me to make amends with her.
it wasn’t until he seen her true colours first hand aimed towards him that he stopped, and told me he’d never try to make me talk to her again.
it took a long time for him to see it, and her to break the fakery. He now also lives in Australia away from it.
just hold tight, they will see it eventually.

Thank you @Snowpatrolling , im sorry you have been through similar but it’s lovely to hear things got better between you and your brother. This is what I would love more than anything.

Things are not brilliant, we wernt as close as we were. He still talks to my mum and he’s very easily led. I have accepted I’ll never have the family I so desperately wanted, but like you I had to protect my kids. I’m about 8 years on and when you do accept it it’s like a weight has been lifted. Took me a long time to feel at peace with my decision. I have no other family. But I feel safer and managed to finally come off my antidepressants! My kids are all I need!

Accepting that you’ll never have the family you desperately wanted is a huge thing isn’t it. I had a therapist tell that I had to allow myself to grieve for the mother I desperately wanted, but it’s an incredibly painful and lonely place to be. It takes years to even accept that your not the one at fault, that you’re not bad or unlovable, but rather the victim of abuse.

I’m so glad you’re in a better place x

Absolutely agree with you. I spent years wondering why I wasn’t good enough, or could I have been a better child. But reality was I was good enough, and it wasn’t my fault. My mum had me young and never wanted me. My Nan bought me up.
confused me when mum would act like mum of the year in front of people but behind closed doors was a different story. Just wish she would show her true colours to the rest of the family so I can say hey I told you so, I wasn’t lying. But reality is that may never happen. So instead I changed my anger and rejection into peace and acceptance of the situation. I’m still sad about it, don’t get me wrong, but I doesn’t hurt anymore. X

I have a similar family situation op. And when a sibling would reach out id get excited about building a relationship.

Now i think its more about them being able to say the problems with me and not them. Personally its just a mixture of bullying and gaslighting. And to the outside world they can keep saying I'm the problem.

I know exactly what you mean @Gardenfish I used to get excited. I desperately wanted that connection with my sister. But the way she treats me feels almost a continuation of the bullying I got from my mother.
my sister isn’t a bad person, it’s just that my mother is a manipulative woman who has created this narrative that I am this awful person. In many ways my sister is as much a victim in this as me.

Your sister had a choice when it came to you and she’s chosen to treat you in not too dissimilar ways as to how your mother has done. Your mother has made your sister in turn an extension of her, toeing the family line in making you her scapegoat keeps her own self from receiving any of her mothers abuse as well as being favoured.

People from dysfunctional families end up
playing roles and your assigned one here is that of scapegoat. The other siblings here are the golden children, itself a role not without price. I would not have anything to do with any of them.

And even if you do not call her a bad person she is still not someone you would want to be in contact with.

Im so sorry you had this experience x

I would like to know what your sisters perspective is on all of this. The reason I say this is I am the sister in a similar situation and I hate being caught in the middle of what feels like divorcing parents, but is actually a mother and a sister.

Maybe she took you “mothers side” because she was much younger and living at home? It wasn’t an option for me to take my “sisters side” every day, because quite frankly I just didn’t have the fight in me to live in constant battle. She wouldn’t understand that because fighting and confrontation comes easily to her.

Have you ever thought maybe your sister might have had equal struggles with your mother but just reacted differently? Have you thought that she might feel guilty about how she treated you? Even though nobody would blame her because she was young and not directly at fault, but she might feel very guilty every day for being a bystander or the “lucky one”. She might be processing her own trauma and seeing you might be difficult for her.

I’m not saying you do this but I thought it was worth asking all the same. Do you want to talk about the past all the time? Maybe she doesn’t want to do that? She might not want to say much because she feels her feelings are not as valid as the scapegoated child. She might not have as negative perception of her childhood and she might come away from an interaction with you with more baggage than she arrived with.

Maybe that is why she lives in Australia?

I think all the people that say your sister isn’t trying are being unfair. She is trying but isn’t comfortable, you need to get an understanding of why she is so uncomfortable. Nobody on the internet is going to be able to tell you why your sister feel like this because we do not know her journey. Although I do feel if your childhood was so difficult I think it is unlikely she is unaffected by her own childhood.

I think a professional mediator would really help in this situation.

Please don’t think I don’t have sympathy for your situation OP, I 100% do but I think if you want a relationship with your sister you need to understand her perspective

Are you high? 🤯🤡