Survivors of family estrangement…

[Darker]

Thread here for anyone who is in want of support. A quiet, nonjudgmental space to talk about the difficult aftermath of going no contact or being cut off by family.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/off_the_beaten_track/5030150-stately-homes-annex-for-survivors-of-family-estrangement?page=2&reply=134130333

Another one who'd like to join. I had the phone call this week to say an estranged parent has died. It has been incredibly difficult to process. I'll read the full thread when things have settled down.

I’m sorry for your loss. However troubling your relationship was, this is an ending that will be bringing up all sorts of stuff for you. Take care of yourself.

Hello @katebushh . Jump in when you feel ready.

Good morning… how is everyone?

Bright and sunny morning today. Hoping it can get me past the terrible nights sleep… lots going round in my head.

Hello, sorry you had a crap night Darker. And hugs to everyone on here. Thanks socks and darker for your kind words earlier. I haven’t been keeping up with the thread as I’m finding it a lot to take in.
DH also had a crap night, I’m worried about him. We are rowing a lot. He is convinced our daughter will have been encouraged to go to the local tavistock type clinic . We don’t know how to even begin to get in touch. We feel so powerless, and friends don’t understand, or they think I’m not woke enough.

@Darker hi, all OK here, sorry you didn't sleep well, I think in these situations it's always difficult to not keep going through all.the scenarios and overtime things.

I've been doing some thinking and I'm going to ask DH not to invite SD to our home again. I do understand its his home too, but if he is going to allow her to come here and be disrespectful towards me then that is just not ok. I have a right to feel happy and secure in my home and I just don't if she is allowed to come here.

Can i join?

Been trying to maintain NC with my dad and brother for 3 years and some form of relationship with my mum (still in both of their lives).

Long old tale but im expecting no2 and suddenly feel very alone and like im waiting for it to all blow up with my mum... x

Just wanted to say I have this with my dh's now adult children. Their dad's done well financially since I married him and myself and my children have benefited (as of course have they) but they just can't bear it.

One of them will only say hello when his dad's there, the other cut him off for 3 years, has never been able to tell him why and demanded before she saw him again £7k, a car, computer and new wardrobe.

Thank goodness I don't have to see much of her as I can hardly bear to look at her. She's engaged and I've told dh I'm not going..

Like your dh, mine always has an excuse for them and it's caused some nasty rows and bad feeling.

@ohthejoys21 our story is so similar! SD is engaged to married, DH has told her he doesn't want to attend as obviously older SD will attend and he has been estranged from her for 10 years. He also does not wish to go unless I do, and i definitely do not want to go. Of course as with elder DD I am sure that he will be expected to contribute a large sum for the wedding (was never thanked for first wedding he paid for).

We have since we moved in together and married made sure we are financially secure, DH was renting after his divorce and we now own our own home (I also own a property separate to DH). Some of the comments made about our relationship are insulting to be honest.

I am younger then DH (by 10 years) so therefore must be after his money etc. Firstly I was more financially secure than him when we met, I have my own home (owned outright), savings and a decent salary so not sure where or why they came to that conclusion. I was also accused of being married and having an affair with DH (was married and had been separated for 4 years and mid divorce when we met) I have literally had every crappy accusation and insult you can think of thrown at me!

DH has come up with constant excuses for the awful behaviour I've had to put up with including blaming me for it! Apparently I should not disagree with anything that is said by SD including when she said that my relationship with my DD is "weird" because we choose to spend time together more that I was interfering when she saw lots of ready meals I had bought my DD that I was going to drop to her at uni while she was strapped for cash that month

Tara are you me?! Something tells me we could have a good chat. Your dh may have made excuses for her, but when push comes to shove he's supporting you by not going to the wedding. My dh has a morbid fear of being cut off by sd so would simply not do this.

You don't have to justify to anybody how much either of you brought to the marriage as it is simply none of anyone's business. I don't see my parents' money as my own but this doesn't seem to be the case with dh's entitled kids.
We just gave his son a large sum for his wedding present. He thanked dh but refused to thank me.

I just wish mine would grow a backbone. It's so frustrating and tiring.

@ohthejoys21 I think I am you! DH isn't supporting me by not going to the wedding its is because he genuinely doesn't want to go. The combination of his ex wife, her family and his elder DD and her DH is enough in itself but he's a shy man in a lot of ways and does not relish the idea of giving SD away.

I shouldn't have to justify anything I agree, but after so many years of people questioning our relationship its become a sad habit. DH is not a millionaire (I wish he was) but the comments that have been made you would think he was and that I'm some money grabbing scheming woman. But as you say his DD seem to think that what's his is actually theirs, I'm.sure they would have been much happier if he remained single and just sat at home quietly waiting for them to grace him with their presence and sadly I think he got used to this dynamic and has tried to buy affection from them in the past. Which is why I've always said I cant be bought and I don't want anything from him.

At least you don’t have to go!! So many similarities, apart from my dh being an extrovert. They have always equated money with love because he’s always bought them. I’d probably have an even harder time than you proving myself as dh had nothing when I met and married him after his divorce, and made his money after our marriage. Unfortunately his ex despite being given their large home made some poor decisions and now works as a cleaner to make ends meet, a very different life to the one she had before her affair. It is what it is though- and I’d love to be challenged by one of his dcs about money as they’d get an answer they wouldn’t like!

I tried so hard with them for so many years to be met with coldness and rudeness. I couldn’t care less what they think of me now, as long as dh is happy with their relationship that’s fine.

@ohthejoys21 DH started his own business a couple years before we met, eventually I agreed to work in the business as I have a skillset he needed, I took a huge pay drop to do that and we have built the business up together to what it is today. He wasn't on the breadline when we met but he wasn't comfortably off either. I was then painted as this awful woman who came along wanting money and stirring up bad feelings when it couldn't be further from the truth.

I quietly and politely ignored the little jibes made at me thinking that they would get over it. There was also a lot of fighting between his DDs and the ex it was a bit of a shock tbh.

I'm very happy for DH to have a good relationship with DD but I'm done with it, I want a quiet life and the constant drama is too much. There is no date for a wedding yet there's time for DH to change his mind, he will ask me to go as moral support as he won't want to go into the lions den alone.

Tara336 I'm not surprised you're done with it then and want a quiet life. My dh's relationship with his dd is only as good as how much he gives her. I can see her in future telling him "If you want to see your grandchildren pay my credit card bill"... It is what it is.

Good morning. How is everyone?

Sorry been hectic here (which because I'm weird I like).
Still staying with DHs family but should be gone by next week as new places current renter has agreed to an offer made by the agents to move somewhere else.
I'm chuffed as I'm about a week off from letting rip to the passive aggressive bollocks DHs family gives out, masked as "helpful suggestions". Ugh.

I usually put my anxiety/dick spotting down to not really fathoming how families work and usually DH pulls me up on anything I've over thought on. But even he has had enough at this point and actually agreed that for once he does think he is treated differently to others in the family. What he does with that is up to him, I'd never expect him to ditch but I've made it clear that after we move on I will need an extended down time from them all.

Families eh.

As for news of mine, according to rumour locally back in my home town (small town, everyone knows everyone's business) my sister apparently hung herself and was found by my Mother. Her dCs were thankfully away staying at their Dad's. However they keep appearing on my people you may know on Facebook. We have no one in common, no similar names and it's generally considered it means they've been looking you up. I've never met them, they're similar ages to my two so mid/late teens. I wonder if they may get in touch, they're my main worry because they didn't live with their (frankly useless feckless who has multiple kids with different women) father and the idea the could end up with my mother horrifies me. One has also turned up on my DDs Facebook people you may know so I wonder if they may see her as an option.

@WillimNot thats horrific about your sister. Her poor kids. How are you feeling? Even if you are estranged it’s big news.

It is

I don't feel that it's acceptable to be devastated but I am. I'm keeping busy and getting on with everything else because it helps.
I actually dreamt about her. She used to sleep walk when we were kids, and she used to sit on my bed. I dreamed she did that and I was getting angry because I wanted her to tell me what was wrong but she looked like she wanted to speak but couldn't.
It's all a shock, she was far more self assured than me, Ive attempted suicide before (not for many years) and was known for being the one with issues. So this has been something I never saw coming. I found out when a mutual friend sent condolences cos she had just heard, of course I had no idea and assumed accident or illness.

Of course you are devastated. Being set apart from everything that is happening at a time of deep crisis must be incredibly difficult.

Remember that you are not in contact for your own safety and that these events do not change anything with regard to that. Your dream about your sister says much about your feelings towards her. You can still acknowledge your grief, in what ever way you need to, when you are ready.

But above all, stay safe.

Room for one more? I've been NC with my entire family since New Year (coincidence rather than New Year's resolution!) and am struggling with guilt over what it must be doing to my DM. I think/know NC is the right thing for me but it's alien territory as we've always been a close family, on the surface at least.

It's happened because my stepfather is one of those sleazy men who makes sexually inappropriate comments to/about teenage girls and, having tolerated it (and more) for myself throughout my teens, he made such a comment about my teenage daughter and I couldn't stay quiet anymore. I tried to raise it with DM when I was teenage myself and was completely dismissed and she clearly hasn't changed because she leapt straight to his defence and once again minimised and excused what he said, I haven't spoken to her since.

She messages sporadically, I replied once in the hope she would see my POV but of course she didn't and I won't be replying again. But I know she will have taken this hard and I feel guilty for blowing apart the facade she's built over the years that we are/were a close, happy family. I have contributed to that, to my shame, pretending (as best I could although I'm sure my hatred of SF must have shown at times) everything was ok when it wasn't so it feels cruel to have pulled the plug now, when she's in her 70's and not in the best of health.

It makes me angry though that she doesn't appear to blame SF for any of it, in fact he is the victim for having such awful things said about him when he 'didn't mean it like that' (he fucking well did!!!) and all the blame is on me for 'overreacting'. She doesn't seem to get that I have a duty to protect my DD, or that none of this would have happened if he'd just kept his sleazy comments to himself and doesn't seem angry with him at all, just me.

I am slowly coming to terms with that, and the loss of my family but it all feels very strange, like my childhood wasn't real somehow because I see it all through a completely different lens now. My DM wasn't who I thought she was because I now understand how cowardly she was for not standing up for me when he was saying that shit to me. It was literally a reflex for me to protect my DD when he started on her so where the fuck was her protective instinct when he was doing it to me?!! So yeah, it's hard, and I still feel guilt for hurting DM by going NC despite everything else I've said, which is confusing to say the least.

Welcome, @Sayingnothing . Sorry you are going through this.

It is astonishing to me that any mother would not listen to their own child and at least try to address their concerns.

Have you ever confronted him directly? I am not saying it is your responsibility to do so but I’m curious.

Guilt comes with the territory but you are not to blame here and you are doing the right thing by protecting your daughter.

Thanks Darker, no I haven't ever confronted him, he was/still is prone to explosive temper tantrums when his behaviour is questioned so I was well trained as a child to keep my mouth closed. I swing between the guilt and anger when it comes to DM tbh, with an added helping of rejection/hurt just to keep things interesting 😊Nothing I can do though, she refuses to see SF's part, or even her own in the damage that's been done, she just thinks I'm making a big fuss over nothing.

What does he say?

Hope everyone posting and lurking here is ok on this wet bank holiday…

Not wet here.