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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Pain of relationship with DParents

8 replies

Cesspit · 13/04/2024 15:14

In (as my name suggests) a cesspit of a situation. I’m estranged from both parents and limited contact with siblings.
DM has significant mental health problems (lies in bed most of the day and doesn’t socialise, is racist and angry and critical)

since turning 10 or so I have remembered her bad humour and low level of care (emotionally) she was a great mother in terms of meals and clean clothing - for balance

anyway over the past 30 years she has been quite mean, plays the doting granny and then gives me dirty looks and sabotages things (catastrophising things and put downs) e.g at my hen party she faked an illness so dad had to ring me in a state and suddenly she burst making a miracle recovery (having gone to a&e a few hours before )

she tells me not to visit that my dad is sleeping and when I don’t then I get a nasty call what have they done to me???

anyway since Christmas I am done. I quietly pulled away. Dh mother died a few weeks ago and they came to the funeral and gave me dirty looks and ignored me. My father and I used to be very close which my mother hated. She used to keep me off school as a child but once I started secondary I realised this was wrong (I think she cannot be alone but is alway alone because of her personality. Even my father worked abroad for some time but he backs her up completely)

but I cannot live with myself. I feel it’s all petty - no abuse or incident would counselling help me here? Dh is drained so I don’t want to burden him. My parents ring dh time to time but he tells them I’m supporting my wife (they ring him to say how bad I am)

to summarise I was a quiet teenage daughter. No drugs. Studied and cleaned. Never did anything wrong I think but I used To come home from school to be told I smell of vodka and maybe needed a shrink when I was a normal teenager and they still tell me I must be mentally ill to treat my parents so badly … as I say a cesspit situation!!!!

OP posts:
Cesspit · 13/04/2024 15:17

I don’t know why I am going back to my teenage years but prior to Christmas she started telling my son ‘granny is so worried about you, there is something wrong with you’
he’s 11 and a good boy

it’s churning my stomach to see it repeat again but I don’t want to estranged from them either. But when we patch things up I have to listen to hours of criticism and I end up crying and apologising

OP posts:
Seaoftroubles · 13/04/2024 16:15

So sorry you struggling OP. Your mother sounds a typical narcissist, not sure about your Dad, he probably enables her for a quiet life. You are wise to go N.C. for your own sanity. Please seek counselling to help you gain clarity and also so you can have some advice and support going forward. You definitely don't wan't her upsetting and manipulating your son and it sounds like she's already starting.

AttilaTheMeerkat · 13/04/2024 16:36

What the previous respondent wrote. You all need to be in a no contact position re your parents. Your Dh should block their calls and you need to keep your child well away from them. Your parents have never apologised nor have accepted any responsibility for their actions. They have not changed fundamentally since your childhood and now unsurprisingly they are starting on your son.

It’s not your fault they are like this and you did not make them this way. There has never been any patching up either, it’s their way or no way as far as they are concerned.

Therapy from say someone like a BACP registered therapist could help you no end. I would also suggest you look at and post in the current Well we took you to Stately Homes thread on these Relationships pages.

goody2shooz · 13/04/2024 16:39

@Cesspit the fact that she/they make you so miserable, and are now starting on your son would be enough for me to say stop now. They’ll never be the parents you want, and I’m quite sure you would never treat your dc like they treated you, so you would be doing the right thing to go no contact. At the very least, keep your dc well away from her poison. If she was a friend - you’d get rid immediately. Because she is your mother doesn’t give her carte blanche to abuse you for years - and then to start on your son?! Stop it now.

AGodawfulsmallaffair · 13/04/2024 16:40

I’m a firm believer that blood relations, however close, are not entitled to any kind of relationship if they aren’t even vaguely decent. It negates anything you may think you owe her.

Cesspit · 13/04/2024 20:44

Thank you all so much. I feel stronger now this evening and especially reading this. We are all no contact. Part of me feels it’s the only way forward. For many years I kept a boundary up and only visited once a week and didn’t tell mum my personal business as it would backfire. So it was false or light chat. It was in the three months before Christmas things got bitter again with her and I came away from every visit in tears (I am not a soft touch usually)

OP posts:
Cesspit · 13/04/2024 20:48

Even silly things like when I make her tea she says it’s too cold, dislikes tea bag?, says ‘bleugh’ at whatever biscuit I give her. Asks me what am I doing with my hair as it’s a mess. she’ll come back from the bathroom and says it is looking like it needs a paint. Sits back down and spots a cobweb.
Says I am doing xyz wrong with the children. I don’t recall her ever saying something nice.

OP posts:
goody2shooz · 13/04/2024 20:58

Cesspit · 13/04/2024 20:48

Even silly things like when I make her tea she says it’s too cold, dislikes tea bag?, says ‘bleugh’ at whatever biscuit I give her. Asks me what am I doing with my hair as it’s a mess. she’ll come back from the bathroom and says it is looking like it needs a paint. Sits back down and spots a cobweb.
Says I am doing xyz wrong with the children. I don’t recall her ever saying something nice.

These are not ‘silly things’, these are poison darts. Said to hurt. There should be no room, or time, in your life for someone who behaves like this. She is not a proper mother, she’s not even a nice or kind person. There is no excuse for this. You don’t deserve it and never have. 💐

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