Aibu for turning back into a child with my family?

[Guiltridden12345]

I’m mid 40s, professional, happy marriage, lovely kids. Normal stresses and strains but no real problems. Except one - my childhood. It wasn’t happy. My father was a bully and I grew up frightened and anxious. He didn’t physically abuse my mum but all other elements of abusive control including financial and just being continually really horrible and aggressive and dominating. We were all scared of him and my mum, instead of calling it out, told us to be quiet and good until it blew over. What a lesson. My first romantic relationships were with terrible men as a result of what i saw as normal. He has mellowed for sure but I am unable to forget the past and we have only a very superficial relationship. Mum was and remains downtrodden and tiptoes around him. It infuriates me and I feel all that anger and frustration of my youth so viscerally. As an adult I am a new person, I moved away, got a great job, married a wonderful man, have a lovely family and a new life. I feel incredibly lucky. I cut off everything from my childhood and never go back - that wasn’t conscious, it just happened. I reinvented myself and I just don’t engage with that history if I can help it.

I have kids. We live miles away from parents so hardly see them. My kids love them. My dad has in the main behaved, and is on a constant warning that bad behaviour will result in not seeing his grandchildren. This message is through my mum of course, he’s emotionally stunted and would never have this discussion openly. He uses silence and avoidance as tools, probably why he has got away with behaving like such a child for so long.

There was an incident in recent years where his behaviour put my mum in danger and which was also unspeakably cruel. It was little different from past stuff but extreme and dangerous and just awful to hear about. I was furious. My mum told me like it was amusing, but it simply reminded me of all those days as a child either tiptoeing around an angry man or waiting for things to kick off. It lit a torch paper in me that had clearly been smouldering.

I refused to see them for a while but it caused me so much anxiety that I relented. But seeing them causes me as much anger/pain and resentment as not seeing them. So it’s a total lose lose. I have an older sibling but he has a different relationship -I grew up angry and wanting to protect myself and everyone in my family from this bully, whereas he became forgiving and a bit of a soft touch. I don’t blame him, it’s his way of coping. He has his issues too but is desperate to pretend we are a happy extended family when we are not.

I had some counselling a few years ago but it made things worse as it identified, for the first time, that I’m also furious with my mum, perhaps more than my dad, for not protecting us and herself when we were young and continuing to pander to him. I had genuinely not realised her part in it, or my anger at her, before. So it made things worse really and I stopped the sessions.

When they visit they stay over as they are a 5-6 hour car journey away (I never visit, I just hate being in the family home, it makes me so unhappy so I avoid it). They stayed recently. I hate it. I want them to see the grandchildren, who have no idea and have a really good relationship with them (we see them rarely so it’s a novelty). But the smallest things rip off the giant scab, from the way my dad walks, to the minor panderings of my mum around him. These things turn into unbelievable irritations that literally make me want to scream and/or get up and walk out of the house (extreme but true - it must be fight or flight or something as it feels like a physical need to run away). I turn right back into an unreasonable teenager and become moody and can’t bear to be in the same room. I go to bed early just to escape. It’s awful but more awful because although I can’t stand to be near them, when they go I feel dreadful guilt, especially for my mum, and wish I hadn’t been so moody/cross. I feel awful guilt that I can’t bear her company, that her life is so sad, that she continues to be so bloody downtrodden. Every time they leave, I feel like I owe an apology for my behaviour whilst being bloody furious that no one has really apologised to me for my own childhood. I have no desire to have a showdown discussion - we had a minor one over the recent incident but I was so stressed out by it that I had to let it slide for my own health. In my work i represent people with no voice and have no doubt that this is a psychological way of assuaging my guilt at still having no voice on my own issues as an adult. Rather, I have a voice but the emotional strain of using it is just too much. So I get my kicks by helping others have a voice which is what keeps me going to be honest and makes some sense of my weird childhood because I channel all that negative into something more positive.

Aibu to feel like this? What on earth is the solution other than putting up with infrequent visits and minimising contact which makes me feel guilty too? I feel I’m in a total lose lose scenario and my greatest fear is my mum dying and then feeling terrible guilt that I wasn’t kinder to her in her last years.

Sorry this is so long. Once I started I couldn’t stop typing.

it's so normal. makring to read more fully later.

Tbh

I can’t believe that you are ok with your children within a 5 mile radius of your father.

not a chance I would have my children having any contact with this man, father or not

There was an incident in recent years where his behaviour put my mum in danger and which was also unspeakably cruel. It was little different from past stuff but extreme and dangerous and just awful to hear about

come again?

too late to do anything re your mum I suspect but FGS OP, protect your children from this heinous man

Yep it is fight and flight- albeit a tad bit more complex :) have a look at polyvagal theory.

I am going to pm you as I think I can help. Obviously you are free to ignore x

I think you gave up on counselling too early. It revealed something painful but true it isn't less true because you didn't stay to work through and process it. I say this as someone who also has the desire to promote a grandparent/child relationship whilst finding my own relationship with my parents very difficult and toxic at times. I would strongly recommend you go back and keep working through your feelings around this, they are there anyway as much as you try to suppress them. Finding someone who can help you work through those experiences, set realistic expectations and boundaries for yourself and validate your experiences will be really helpful I think.

I would very much recommend retuning to therapy; sometimes it does feel worse before it gets better but I really think you need to find a way to work through what you’ve experienced to find a solution you can manage. It sounds like you carry so much guilt that you need to forgive yourself for; none of this is your fault and it’s ok to be angry at your mum.
How much reading have you done around this subject as that might help.

I get you OP and can relate to this so hard. I don’t know what the solution is- still working through myself. I know received wisdom on mumsnet is to go “no contact” but I don’t agree with / couldn’t do that. Things that I’m working on:

1. therapy (yes it makes things worse in short term but long term I think it helps)
2. reading a lot of psychology books which have helped me understand my parents and myself/ my childhood better.
3. trying to have empathy- recognising my parents flaws but also their fragility and humanity.
4. boundaries. Working out how to separate myself -the adult - now from myself - the child- then. I have choices and freedom and capacities now to protect myself. I am not dependent and vulnerable the way I was then. its gut wrenchingly hard. Sending hugs 🤗

What do you owe this man, when he has let you down so badly, through out your life? You relive the trauma of your childhood every time you see him - how can that ever be a healthy way to live? And after all of that, why do you think he is owed any kind of relationship with your children? Having “mellowed” is often the code word for let’s just forgive and forget, at least that is my experience of these kind of people, certainly in my family. But it’s not on you to make it better for him.

You’ve gone on to create a wonderful life for yourself, you must protect that at all costs, and protect your own happiness and sanity - I would keep him at a very long distance. You owe him nothing.

Thanks for all these replies. Not read around it to be honest, don’t want to talk myself into conditions I don’t necessarily have and I know I would be susceptible to this. I am avoiding, that I know, but in my current life that seems to be working so I’m reluctant to open Pandora’s box in case I can’t fit stuff back in. Maybe that’s a cop out and part of the problem.

Cost was also relevant to therapy. £80 p/h. And I’m well aware that it’s a pretty unregulated field, I know people who are now counsellors who I really wouldn’t want to take life-changing advice from. What sort of professional would I need (psychologist? Psychiatrist?) and which would be available at an achievable cost?

Just a big thank you and similar love back to everyone who has replied, especially people who share these experiences. It’s awful I’m not alone but interesting to find it’s not uncommon.

You gave up counselling too soon. It's addressed the issue, but you've not given it time to deal with the issue. Give it time so that you can find a way to have the relationship you want to with your Mum. The guilt of not doing that when it becomes too late might eat you up further.

Save money on counselling by just having no further contact with him

I wish it were as simple as that. Sadly it made me feel worse not better for reasons I can’t adequately explain. And my relationship with my mum is also relevant. Cutting ties can seem so simple from the outside but is rarely a decent or practical solution when you’re actually inside the issue.

The therapy often makes you feel worse to begin with. It’s dredging up old wounds you’ve hidden and not healed. Are you expecting to come out of every session skipping and happy? You have massive childhood trauma to unpack. It’s not going to be pretty for a while. But what it should lead to is the ability to see what you want to do with your relationship with both parents. It should give you the ability to address the anger within you and move onto acceptance before you go more low contact/no contact or whatever works for you in the future.

you need the therapy - maybe speak to GPs, local women’s centres etc. there are services out there even if it means waiting.

also. Don’t have them in your home. They will have to stay in an Airbnb or hotel nearby. Tell your mum you love her but find it too hard in your home space.

your kids love them - fantastic. However your children would be equally fine without them when the cost of having them in you life is damaging their mother mentally and emotionally.

Perhaps withdraw slowly

presumably children are never with them overnight alone?

I think not having them stay would be the first step in setting your boundary. It's your safe place and it's reasonable to want to keep it that way
Would you be able to do that @Guiltridden12345 or is that a step too far for you at the moment ?
I can see pp point about counselling but it's not for everyone

It’s tricky because if we don’t have them visit, in order to facilitate grandparent contact we would have to visit them, which is worse. I hate being in the family home. So there’s no easy decision there sadly.

and no they don’t see them alone.

I had a very similar childhood and am 2 years into therapy. My anger at my mum really surprised me. I’d felt sorry for her but the more it got unpacked the more I felt that she was the adult and she should have protected us as children from this. But she would appease him and tell us to not to upset him etc. I’m starting to get through this and beginning to acknowledge what my mums upbringing was like in order for her to take this approach. The relationship with her is never going to be the one that I would have loved to have had. It was only the last few years that I begin to realise that my childhood wasn’t the same as others. One of those was seeing my dad with my child - that brought back a lot of memories about the humiliation and eggshells we walked on (my child rarely seems him now and never unsupervised). Another thing was reading about such things on Mumsnet. It opened to my eyes to things like emotional and financial abuse. My mum never had that and so (despite pushing from me) isn’t ready to deal with why she allowed him to treat her and us like that. Like other posters I’d recommend reading around and going back to therapy.

I recognise this as my own childhood tbh. I understand the whole counselling but I’ve just had to accept what the relationship is. That may sound like giving up or failing to some but it’s not I can’t change what happened, the relationship or the past I see it as it makes me the person I am today for better or worse & it sounds like it has made you an advocate for others.

You’ve applied boundaries & have a great life. YANBU you just need to do what your comfortable with but always remember you get to see them occasionally only & you should see it as superficial time bound periods

We live miles away from parents so hardly see them

How far do you live with them?

If you hardly see them, are your children actually close to them? Sounds to me like if you hardly see them, you could quite slowly reduce from “hardly” to “very rarely” (which is pretty much the same thing!)

Quite the coincidence but someone I follow onTwitter has just posted a whole thread about these kind of relationships. If you’re interested look up Dr Nicole LePera

That’s really interesting, thank you. I’ll look that up.

Could you get counselling through your work?
Is there anyway your mom could visit without your dad so you wouldn't have to witness them both together? Is it part of his control that he always comes along? Maybe having your mum by herself would help you to develop an adult relationship with her and see her as the broken person she is. Leave your dad at home!!

Your post has sent shivers down my spine OP, because I can dimly imagine my own daughter's feeling the same way about me one day as you do about your mum. If it makes you feel any better, it has spurred me on to change the situation I am in and the way I am attempting to "manage" it.