Inter-generational toxic masculinity and handmaid's role play.

[CreationNat1on]

I m trying to unravel the ridiculously toxic environment that has developed in my family.

Since my father died several years ago, my mother's behaviour has become more and more passive aggressive and downright abusive. She grew up in a very impoverished part of rural Ireland, her family of origin were fundamentalist Catholics and extremely brainwashed by the patriarchal Catholic Church which strictly ruled their lives.

Due to family finances she was sent to work as a teenager and essentially flung out to get work and send money home. She was parentified and felt a very strong duty to support her mother and siblings financially. My maternal grandfather suffered poor mental health and as a result my grandmother carried a heavy burden to do much of the farmwork as well as rearing the children. My mother being the eldest was her ally.

My mother saw her role as provider, and when she met my father she was delighted, as his ability to provide alleviated her burden. She was a handmaid to him. Ironing his shirts, sowing his collars in for him. As a child I used to polish his shoes, he was the good natured king of his castle. She saw her place and all women's place to serve men.

Roll on to the next generation, me and my siblings. My father is now dead, and my mother is a little rudderless, she fawns to my two brothers in law and my brother. Never disagrees with them (to their faces at least). The problem is, one of my BILs suffered mental health problems himself, and while he has received endless familial support from both his own family and ours, he is bitterly competitive and insecure about anyone he sees as a rival. I think he feels threatened by me, as I don't see him as a replacement leader of our family. I challenge his bad behaviour. He passes judgment and tries to manipulate my mother's finances and all family events. He and my sister stir up family dramas at family funerals, weddings, and every other event in between.

As a separated women, I think I intimidate him, independent women are a threat to the patriarchy. He is threatened by a financially independent woman, and this seeps out through nasty remarks aimed at everything and anything that might seem emasculating to him. The problem I m figuring out is my mother, now elderly, just repeats all his insecure sneering remarks, it's like she is brainwashed to support his madness. To support his fragile, insecure ego. It's like she is programmed to repeat her early teenage behaviour of blindly supporting the fragile ego of her mentally unwell father (he had been abandoned as a child, and was traumatised as a result, and then the family were poor too, which brought other stresses).

At any rate my handmaid mother plays up to the jealous insecurities of my fragile BIL, and as a result slags off her other children and plays the game of putting them down, essentially she takes on the toxic persona of my BIL. To help build him up.

It's so sad, she recently passed some heartbreakingly cruel remarks about me and my children, these remarks originated from one person, BIL. Both her and my face fell in shock when she actually voiced such toxic comments (suggesting a car crash). This is the base level that my BIL frequently goes to, he tries to be dominant by pushing his comments too far.

It's heartbreaking, and then she denies her actions. My sister tries to laugh these comments off. I feel so betrayed by all of them. The BIL driving all of this base behaviour has suffered 2 mental breakdowns in the past, and has always been supported and quietly nursed out of it, privately through his family members bailing him out and ones with medical professions medicating him.

It's just so sad it's come to this, and it's mentally draining trying to figure it all out. JUST PUTTING IT ALL DOWN HERE

It’s all psycho babble op

You don’t like her and the things she says about you (and your children FGS!). That is the beginning middle and end of the story

It would only be “relevant” if you were your mother’s therapist.

and you’re not

I actually love her because she is my mother, and I m trying to figure her out and understand why she does the things she does.

I m trying to accept/unpack/ unpick that much of her behaviour is due to her conditioning and created by the (often toxic) environment that she grew up in. She doesn't fully understand the repercussions of her actions, but she refuses to evaluate her behaviour.

Ultimately I have to continue to distance myself from it all, because it's repeated behaviour.

Sorry if you don't like my writing style, this is a chat forum, not a writing competition. I m just laying it out.

Thanks to those who provided helpful comments.

I think you're getting some harsh comments here OP. It seems to me you've really given some time and thought to how your family have become the people they are and how that impacts and influences the way they behave. You've built in more physical space between you and your mother but somehow you haven't 'dropped the rope'. She can still emotionally impact you even though you know the background to it and that she is reacting instinctively (as per the way she was raised) rather than to you personally.

Have you had any therapy at all for this relationship? You might find it helpful to work this through with a professional. Are you still hoping to have a relationship with your Mum, but one that you can manage a bit more, to get the positives and minimise the negatives?

Op she has said awful things about your children?

Surely that is all you need to know to not want anything to do with her

The bottom line is, you won't change her, you won't change your BIL, so what can you do? You can cut them out that's all. I'm pretty low contact with my mother and sister (who live together). I've perfected the 'smile and nod' approach if I spend any time with them. I give them no information (ammunition) about my life. Any scraps of personal info are pounced on like vultures and mocked/critiqued turned against me. I stopped over thinking all of this years ago - it's so much wasted energy. They are sad, toxic people and I pity them. Time you stopped overthinking this too OP, it's really not that complex.

What's your relationship like with your other sister and your brother? Do they see what's happening? Or do they see but choose to side with your BIL? If there is an ally among them it might help your sanity even if they are not in a position to change the dynamic.

Do they still live local and you moved away?

100%, this is exactly the way they are. Grey rock, don't involve them. Thank you.

Thank you, I haven't had therapy, but I think it would help and I need it.

I won't get into too many specifics but suffice to say my 2nd sister mostly stays out of the family drama, is a non threatening, quiet, SAHM, so is not targeted and doesn't see or hear all of the toxicity. She chooses to be blinkered to it and avoids the drama.

Brother is younger, was/is the much cherished, only boy, and is due to inherit a lot from mother. He sees some of it, doesn't necessarily approve, but doesn't challenge, writes it off as mental health blips. Mother is manipulative enough to be wary of her audience and her worst behaviour is usually 1 on 1.He also is married with children and is juggling his own life. He is several years younger and is maturing and becoming more aware as life goes on, but is very, very enmeshed with mother also. BIL also sees himself in competition with my brother, but because there is such an age gap (20 years) and physical and life stage distance between them, BIL doesn't focus on him quite so much.

It’s relevant because it generates generational cycles of poor behaviour.

OP, this was exactly my mother’s childhood and youth, down to the father with significant MH problems, being parentified, and removed from school at 13 and sent out to work (in a domestic service situation in which she was abused). She married my father at 21 (in 1970) and married into a ridiculously John B Keane situation, a houseful of bachelors (my widowed paternal grandfather, the elderly great uncle who owned the house, and my father’s younger brother) and immediately became the collective servant. She tells it as a funny story that when she came home from hospital after having me (difficult birth), my great uncle said ‘Is there not going to be any dinner today again?’ It meant she brought up her daughters to defer to and serve men, and to see children, daughters particularly, as an irritating aspect of her own femaleness who had to be kept out of the way of men in case we annoyed them, and we all had a lot of work to do to unpick those scripts.

It was an appalling way to grow up.

What I’m leading up to, OP, is that my mother, with no education, self-esteem and an automatic deference to men (and a huge suppressed anger she’s completely unaware of), just parrots the latest male opinion she’s been given, whether it’s a priest, ‘someone on the radio’, ‘something in the paper’, or my father. And that has often included unpleasant bigotry, racism etc. she will forward memes without actually thinking ‘Do I think this is funny? Do I think the attitudes it displays are ones with which I agree?’

Is this part of what’s going on with your mother’s repetition of stuff from your awful BIL? Which is not to minimise it.

Plusque : YESSSSSS you understand. Fuck me, that whole generation were so messed up.

Your family seems to be similar to BIL s background, loads of bachelors, being pandered to by the occasional slavish woman, who was also the baby making machine to keep the family going.

They just used women so much, and the older women, expect the next generation of women to happily take on similar (family slave or family punch bag) roles. When you object, you get punished.

Hi OP. I think you’ve done a good job at looking thoughtfully at the whole situation. Your grandfather had an appalling childhood and ended up with mental health issues. Your mum fared slightly better - was not abandoned but didn’t have a carefree childhood and suffered from being without the support of a man. In turn she gave you and your siblings a better childhood - in her mind this was achieved by her finding a good man and doing everything she could to hang on to him. And your childhood sounded pretty ok?
Now that she’s widowed and vulnerable she’s gone back to clinging to the men in her life for protection, regardless of how badly they behave. And as with many traumatised or vulnerable women, anyone who threatens to drive their male protector away is seen as a threat to be brought in line.
Don't take it personally. She gave you a better childhood than she had. You sound thoughtful and strong. Understand how frail she is now and treat her as the child she has returned to being rather than the good enough parent she managed to be. As others have said, make sure she isn’t being abused but look elsewhere for your own adult emotional support.

I understand how you’re feeling OP. I’ve pretty much lost my family due to these religious/patriarchal structures and nobody backing me up especially my parents bowing to my brother and his mrs who both enjoy the privilege, they are all a lost cause. Spent most of my adolescence and adult life feeling humiliated by them until I left home and now very limited contact. Have tried no contact completely but it’s hard for me with people like this. I am close to one of my sisters but the others are playing the game so they are given some privileges too (money, property) but they’re wasting their time.

Yes, indeed. It was very difficult to get out from under it all. My sisters both chose not to have children because they didn’t want to risk passing it on. I had one child when older and well established professionally as a ‘Fuck you, I can do a better job of parenting’. And I’m married to someone great, and we’ve spent much of our lives overseas, though now back at home.

The sad bit is that we’re not a close family at all — my brother has attached himself to his wife’s big, jolly family, and I feel my sisters and I are wary of one another because of various different ways of recovering from a dreadful childhood. But it is what it is.

Have you had therapy? I’ve found it really useful. My therapist is from a not dissimilar background and gets it.

Sometimes you have to cut toxic people out of your life whatever is the reason behind the behaviour
I had to do this many decades ago and it was like losing a millstone around my neck
I have never regretted it for a second even when they later died

Therapy is my next goal. It was VERY much frowned upon by my mother as therapy is evidence of a weakness or problem (in her mind). I m 100% enthusiastic about therapy.

Thank you to everyone who has offered really good advice and support.

The complicit women are usually complicit because they benefit from the patriarchal structures. The non complicit women threaten the structures.

Coughing dodger, your insights are very good. Yes, I had a pretty good childhood, some challenges, but nothing extreme. My dad was very jovial, never jealous of anyone, not into sneering, a bit sexist alright, but not nasty. Mostly a pleasant atmosphere in our home growing up.

WomanHereHere, yes abusive BIL and sister spend most of their time sneering at everyone. Unpleasant senses of humour. I consider BIL to be deeply insecure and has brittle mental health himself, much of his verbal attacks are kneejerk reactions, doesn't consider the repercussions. Mother parrots them, it's sad because she doesn't parrot them when she needs something from me, so she knows what she is doing.

I don't think this is so unusual and I applaud how you have handled it. But having seen this a few times I would guess your family has Irish ancestry? Then it is particularly fierce because of the religious and social aspect.

Your mother may never face this because it is an awful challenge to her to see you as you are: in a way, she just sees you as being critical of her.

Sorry, did not read the whole thread where this link was clear already.

Good luck OP. Your own kids will have it better than you did. Changing these dynamics in a family let alone a country is the work of generations

Agree, honestly, it's really helped me to read the replies. Thank you to all that replied.

Ireland was an incredibly poor country up until the 90’s. Most of the population were poor. The majority of the older population left school well before 15. Both my grandparents were working from a young age as their parents literally couldn’t afford to send them to school. Their younger siblings got more opportunities and were able to become nurses etc as there was less mouths to feed. My grandmother says she wishes she got to stay in school but she also acknowledges in same breath it wasn’t because her parents didn’t want better for her they just didn’t have the means.
So I think you and OP are putting a huge amount of excuses for having shitty mother due to their hard upbringing. The reality is that it sounds like the standard upbringing for many older Irish. One reason why it’s not helpful to find reasons for toxic people is it leaves you open to excusing poor treatment of you because oh they had it tough it’s not their fault.
Some people lack self awareness or lack ability to see things from other people’s perspectives. That is most likely reason why they have never changed over the years.

Oh OP exactly the same background, rural Ireland for both parents, emigrated young to England and met there and supported those at home. As they say "It is just the way things were"! BUT yes it messed them up. And yes it has impacts on the whole next generation of first generation Irish in England - often think it would be a great research project to see affect of emigration from Irish poverty to England on next generation.

My reaction was to be the "people pleaser" and work to excel in education to keep parents happy - another common theme of children of immigrants is to excel in academics I find. But so much dysfunction in the home no doubt. My parents answer was always "sure that's just how thing were/are" and I see in you that while you are so aware of the problems that you seem to be still somewhat caught up in them and trying to understand them and maybe even fix them!!??

I am 10 years on from 2 years of therapy to unpick exactly your situation and mindset. I truly see my life as a "before counselling" and "after counselling" situation with the "after" being so much better. All I can say now is that I am very happily detached from family dynamics. Am low contact with mum - keep it going as she can be at many times a good grandmother so maintain it for their sakes but completely on my terms with practically 0 stress associated. Dad has died unfortunately so had to deal with all that "lack of resolution" but at a place where I can look back and enjoy the good memories and just acknowledge the other mess for what it was and know it is in the past and know I took control enough for the generational rot to stop with me.

And am very proud of myself for that and has made me a fundamentally different and stronger person that is reflected in so many aspects of my life - friends changed, career massively changed - all things I never expected but just happened organically over time once I faced up to it all through therapy.

Please go to therapy but don't expect immediate results - change is slow and gradual and the first step is just sitting in that chair in the counsellor's office not having a clue what to say! But change creeps up on you and it is bloody brilliant!! Good luck

OP i really sympathise, i have this on both sides of the family. There are so many of your mothers generation who are traumatised by poverty on one side and the church on the other. Not helped by having 10 children in a 3 bed house as was so often the case. Unless you are familiar with the culture it is difficult to imagine the hardships for women at that time in Ireland, hence some posters just not getting it.

This comment in particular made me smile, 'You’re creating a rather dramatic story akin to an ITV drama'.

ITV would not make a drama from the previous generations Irish childhoods it would simply be far to dramatic and unbelievable and unbelievably sad and complex.

I recognise the verbal abuseivness and rage. You have to ultimately step off the drama triangle i suppose but it is really hard. My MIL can blurt out some truly awful things but she is so damaged and she is the eldest of 10. I can cope with her and forgive her. My dad is a rage filled alcoholic whose verbal abuse i cant cope with sadly so i only contact via email and cards. Maybe a phone call a couple of times a year but no visits. It is what it is and i am sorry i cant offer any solution. I understand better as i get older, still a shame and a lot of loss though.

OP I totally get how difficult this is for you. You've clearly done some analysing and realise that low contact is probably for the best but I get that cutting off your family is still difficult.
@Ohambassador lay off! Your comments are so black and white with little understanding of a very complex situation. And it's not a drama, for the OP it's real life. Have you any thought as to what it's like to have parents, particularly a mother, who are at best indifferent to you or at worst toxic and horrible? When you are surrounded by the societal expectation that everyone's family is oxo cube perfect and you are wondering why yours isn't but they're the only family you've got. It can be difficult to cut them off completely even when it's the right and sometimes only thing to do.
OP my mother was similar. Brought up to defer to men always. Takes on board everything my brothers say but if I say it it means nothing. Similar to @Plusque would just parrot stuff she'd heard without actually considering the content. My Granny, her mother, was the same, and probably her mother before her.
I was born in a different generation with different opportunities that don't conform to this patriarchal deference so when I do things that are completely normal, it makes my mother feel uncomfortable because it challenges her choices for herself. And yes sometimes I think she's bitter about that.
It's all the little things that add up and piss you off. Even her address book lists my brothers but not their wives and for my entry it's my husband's name that's there, not even mine. That's so engrained in her thinking. It's not her fault it's her back ground. And I know I won't change her now. But I do know that as the cycle breaker, my own kids will know that I have their back in equal measures no matter what their sex is. It makes life harder for me as I've not got a parent to lean on but that's just the way it goes.
I have had counselling, but mostly worked stuff out myself. What I've found most helpful is speaking to pals who have similar toxic mother relationships. It's nice to know there are others out there though sad that there are so many of us.
I found reading Motherwell by Deborah Orr and Running on Empty by Jonice Webb particularly helpful. Best of luck to you OP. And

Some women of that generation will just always listen to what one man says over countless women saying either the same thing and not getting through to her - or different things. They're just conditioned to prefer men, with or without other psychological dynamics at play.