Toxic ageing parents & sibling favouritism

[wonderingwonderingwondering]

Hi all.

Please bear with me. I'm struggling a lot at the moment and feel I'd benefit massively from an outsider view of things. This is also quite a complex situation. Sorry it's so long.

38f, middle child of three daughters. I grew up in a "well to do" home with a mother obsessed with academic achievement and outward success; a father who was emotionally absent and the less dominant parent. Older sibling fell down a well of deep mental illness in my teens and that caused major trauma to the family, to this day she has never recovered and has spent 20+ years in/out psychiatric facilities, she's now in part-time residential care. Mother minds her for half of the week.

I left home at 18. Parents took the view I was the "quiet", "capable", "independent" one and I basically was more or less forgotten about then; I can count on one hand the amount of times I was visited by parents in these 20 years. I got my degree, worked hard in different jobs in a very competitive industry, moved abroad several times, changed industry, worked up a corporate ladder. It all looked "great", but in recent years therapy has taught me that this was a time of extreme loneliness, depression, anxiety, undiagnosed ADHD, eating disorders, toxic romantic relationships...there was a lot of pain. I'd see my family once or twice a year.

My younger sister became my mother's focus in my absence. She lived at home til mid 20s, was funded through 2 college degrees, including one expensive medical degree that parents remortgaged the house to fund. My mother has lived vicariously through her for decades now. Every time I go to visit, or receive a phone call from my mother, it's a one-way monologue about sibling's escapades, her latest partner, the latest house she's bought, etc. She knows minute detail about her life day-to-day. Sibling bought a home recently. I visited that home at the weekend and she talked about how our father was doing a garden makeover and all of the light fixtures, mother came every week to clean the house, cook her meals, do her laundry. My parents have visited my new home in a different city just once. Never helped in any way like that.

I got married recently. When I got engaged I knew, thanks to therapy, that any expectations of my mother would just hurt me. I asked nothing of her, shared little info, went dress shopping alone, planned without her involvement and let her come along and have her "Mother of the Bride" moments on the day. She offered no compliments, no words of support, she criticised my speech and I heard from guests afterwards that she complained that we weren't having a religious ceremony. Neither of us are religious, but she is devout.

The final straw came for me at the weekend. After my wedding, I had a surgery for endometriosis and the recovery has been more difficult than anticipated. I've developed further health issues that have wiped me out recently. I also recently quit my corporate leadership job, as it wasn't helping the health issues and alongside wedding planning, dealing with ongoing infertility, myself and DH decided I needed a break and financially we'd be fine for a while. I yielded to pressure to visit my parents this weekend, thought they might want to see our official wedding photos, ask about surgery...but the experience became entirely about my younger sibling and her new boyfriend, who joined us for dinner and breakfast the next morning. They talked new house, mortgage rates, gossiped about sibling's friends and patients...No questions about us, the wedding aftermath, my surgery, my post job life, etc. I sat at their kitchen dinner table and felt like a ghost, like the three hour drive by my husband was a total waste of time, like we may as well not be there. I felt like a neglected child all over again.

I'm 38 years old and I can no longer tolerate being treated like this. I actually feel like the chronic stress of their neglect and favouritism has contributed to my health issues. My husband can't tell me enough that my mother is "not a mother to me", is "more interested in how things look than how you are". The recent hardship in my life have made their lack of interest in me and over-investment in younger sibling more intolerable than ever.

I just don't know how to proceed with these people, that are supposed to be family but who treat me worst than a stranger. It's also important to note that they are ageing, in their 70s and cognitive decline has set in. There will also be much to consider with care for my complex needs sibling in the next few years.

Can anyone relate? Does anyone have parents or a family dynamic like this? Can anyone provide insight, or examples of how you dealt with your own family dysfunction? Is No Contact the only way to have a happy, healthy life now?

TLDR: I am the middle neglected child in a toxic family system that includes sibling favouritism, a sibling with special needs and parents that are ageing rapidly. I don't know how to proceed in this dynamic while protecting my peace.

Thanks to everyone for the insightful, supportive and compassionate responses. Some of you have me in tears here with your kind and thoughtful words. Kindness is so healing to me, and I never expect it or believe I deserve it. I really do appreciate it, and I'm sorry for those of you that can relate to my family experience.

@SlothOnARope yes my sister is super similar to my mother, and I guess it explains how things have progressed, especially considering how absent I've been all these years. I moved out 20 years ago, lived abroad for almost 12 years, and it's only on moving back to the same country as them about 5 years ago now that the exposure increased and the dynamic began to really become visible to me. I get how you'd become close to the child that most resembles you and the one that is most present, and I'm not convinced my mother doesn't have some sort of Cluster B personality disorder where she gets a huge amount of supply from my sister. The successful doctor, with the big house in the right part of town, who gives my mother unfettered access to her personal life, including intimate details about her relationships.

I guess where I'm at is that I understand it, but I can't accept it, and I'm caught up in anger, grief and pain especially now that I've had a big life event / wedding without any kind of support from this "brilliant" mother, and am now dealing with a lot of hardship around my health, fertility and career. I have this aching longing for a parent figure that could just SHOW UP FOR ME, just once, without judgement, an agenda, or turning my hardship into a gossip opportunity, and the pain of not having that, now or ever, is especially great. I don't accept that you get to choose which kid to support, and choose which one to ignore, based on "this one likes me more / likes the things I like", and never be accountable for the damage that causes someone. Asserting myself in the past has resulted in being called jealous of said sibling, dismissal ("we're just making conversation") and further alienation. These people don't respond like well-adjusted humans to me. I just don't matter as much.

@DrArchieMorrisIsVeryFunnyInSeason12 thanks for sharing your story. Ouch. I'm so sorry for what you went through. I hope you have the right support and the right environment now to heal from it all.
I also totally understand how that "golden child" role is certainly not a "better" position for any child to be in. We all suffer, we all lose, as you say. My sister just gets more perks and privileges and gets her own denial as protection from the grief of not being loved unconditionally.
While reflecting on my childhood, I actually think I was the GC as a kid, when things were going well AKA I was quiet, obedient, loved and honoured my mother and got the A grades, excelled at sports and other hobbies. She used to tell me I was "just like her". It all went to hell in a handbasket when I became a more autonomous and independent-minded teenager, which was also when we went through major family trauma with my older sister. She threw her attention for me out the window, I got yelled at, shamed and blamed a lot during those years. Looking back I was displaying v obvious signs of trauma - social withdrawal, gained weight, gave up all my hobbies, but to my mother I just became "bad", "just like your father" and she decided to leave me to my own devices.
Like your mother, she loves to cover herself in glory over her children's accomplishments. I'd never hear directly from her that she was proud of me, but distant cousins and aunts would tell me how proud she was because I did X, Y, Z over the years. Image over everything to her.

@coldcallerbaiter no grandchildren yet. My older sibling is incapacitated by mental health, didn't even finish school and needs carers to get her out of bed in the morning. It took me years and a lot of therapy in my early 30s to meet a healthy romantic partner, and we've been TTC unsuccessfully for a while now. It's a real heartbreak for us, and we'll progress to IVF within the next few months. My youngest sibling definitely wants kids, but has had dumpster fire after dumpster fire of relationships, hopping from one to the next and learning nothing over many years. The latest guy seems 'normal', and I'm 90% they are already trying. My full assumption is if she has a child, I will become even less important and visible to my mother. I really want to get ahead of that pain, I've had enough of it all now.

@scrapedandfuriousviper
Thank you for your post, and also for asking me some lovely questions about myself! Due to not working, I have a lot of time to heal now, and also to start to build a better life for myself. Getting married really sparked something in me, it helped me to see that I've got other priorities now than my family of origin, and I can focus instead on my new little family instead. I'm really hopeful about all of this, I so crave being happy, at peace, and proud of myself now.
Hobbies...I'm not sure. I've been doing some fitness classes and I love yoga and barre, so I do that every week. I also cook a lot, and have gotten into baking too. And writing - mostly journalling these days, but it's something that has always grounded me. I fancied myself as a writer when I was a kid, and always felt like it was something I had a gift at.
Food-wise - I'm somewhat strict with that atm due to my endometriosis, and tend to be super unadventurous and eat the same things. Chicken, stirfries, omelettes, sushi. Food is complicated to me, as someone who once had an eating disorder and body image issues.
Thank you for helping me to think about myself expansively for a few minutes! x

I'm so sorry for what you've gone through with your family. I relate so strongly to a lot of what you wrote here.

The post Covid meeting story sounds so deeply familiar. To not have seen your parents for a significant period of time, and some part of you is even looking forward to it, only to be treated as though you don't even exist when it happens.

I've had a lot of repetition with this particular experience, it happened again to me at the weekend when we can to visit my parents for the first time in 3+ months. I didn't want to, I felt I still needed more space and with my health being fragile I was happy enough to keep a distance for a while yet. But my Dad kept asking, kept guilting me and I said we'd go up for the night, arrive late, leave midday, that's enough time to keep it civil, to keep it safe. But my sister arrived with her new boyfriend and I probably uttered 3 words during a 2-hour dinner with them. I totally shut down, the part of me that is totally capable of inserting myself into conversations elsewhere just disappeared, there was no interest in me, no acknowledgement of me. My mother sat right beside me and directed all of her energy and attention across the table to my sister. It's just...not right, is it? Like I'm this woman's daughter, she gave birth to me, why can't she treat me at least with the respect you'd give to a stranger? It's unsettling, re-traumatizing, it leaves me drained and confused for days after.

I understand what you say about not a lot of time left with them. My parents are approaching their mid 70s, it's just a fact at this stage. But the mistreatment is damaging my mental health. I can't see healing for myself, or an improvement in my physical health to be able to endure IVF and hopefully conceive, or to have the strength to navigate a career change, if I keep suffering like this. It leaves me in too dark a place to compromise myself like this, again and again, without repair, without accountability, with one sibling getting everything while the other needs to just get on with it and say nothing, be grateful, not rock the boat.

Where I land is, what kind of life am I going to have if they remain in it? If I keep on having to make this trip to this place that is supposed to be called "home" but where I have to minimise myself, and watch the favouritism and let them gaslight me about it if I attempt to repair with them?

For whatever reason, at this juncture in my life, this is presenting as a decision that feels life threatening for me. I just can't live with and be OK with the dysfunction anymore.

Sorry for the multi-posting and emotional dumping.

I did have another question though. I was wondering if anyone with family dysfunction in any way similar to this, has ever attempted to set clear boundaries with their parents in order to enable some form of contact?

It's just another line of thought I've had recently. Is there a way to make this dynamic less harmful by changing the environment, removing certain people or factors, etc. Things like, what if I told them that I will not be visiting their home again, but they are welcome to visit MY home, if planned in advance. They have only visited my current home once, and it's a sticking point to me. My hometown traumatises me, the family home is full of painful memories. What if I took back some power and said they had to come here, to see me?

Or what if I told them I wouldn't meet them if my sister was going to be present? It has to be just the two of them, otherwise it becomes a situation that actively harms me.

And my final general thoughts at the moment are around if it is possible to maintain some kind of contact / relationship with my father, while going NC with my mother. She is/was definitely the more toxic and harmful parent. My father was useless, he was really a non-entity when I was a child and happy enough to sit back and let my mother do all of the parenting. I know that he is full of his own trauma and sometimes I think of him as another victim of my mother's, lord knows how he's stayed married to her for 30+ years. But I have felt loved my him, I've felt like he loves us all equally. He's been consistent with phone calls over the years and will call every week or two. We'll talk about absolutely nothing meaningful and the calls last literally 2 minutes, but it has made me feel loved or at least cared about. He got very emotional on my wedding day, he was very generous and I could see how much he loved me. It's much more than I've ever felt from my mother, whose actions are a lot less loving and feel a lot more actively harmful. For some reason (and it might just be that my brain is protecting me from seeing BOTH of my parents as the failures that they are), but I seem to see him as "a good man but emotionally stunted and with a lot of his own trauma", whereas I see my mother as a dangerous, uncaring narcissist.

When you say they might not have much time left, your mum might have another twenty years in her and live till 95. Many women live a very long time now. So you might realistically have another two decades of this.

Mine is 85 and in fabulous health and I fear she will live another ten years.

I read a good quote recently that by trying to understand the bad behaviour and how to manage it you are seeking how to better tolerate their abuse

And your mum is abusive, it is abuse

I'm so sorry that she is that way but I'd recommend low low contact. Good luck

@wonderingwonderingwondering there is a thing called golden rock communication that might work well for you. It is a very pleasant superficial form of contact where you behave as you would normally but with absolutely no expectations and very surface level communications. It is probably ideal for what you want.

Thank you Lexy. I know you're right. And it's funny what you say about them living longer than I might realise. My mother put the fear of god in me as a kid about "Dying young like her own mother", but I feel as though she'll live longer than most people if only out of spite.

I really struggle to see my mother as abusive, even though I know her actions / favouritism / inaction / disapproval silences / judgements and boundary crossing are just so fcuked up. I was conditioned to feel sorry for her as a kid, I remember thinking about how stressful her life was and how it was my job to not cause her more stress. It's so hard to see her as actively abusive, and not just full of generational trauma and unaware of how she hurts people. Maybe that's a symptom of the trauma, I dunno. It's been a tough one to get straight on.

I really struggle to see my mother as abusive, even though I know her actions / favouritism / inaction / disapproval silences / judgements and boundary crossing are just so fcuked up. I was conditioned to feel sorry for her as a kid, I remember thinking about how stressful her life was and how it was my job to not cause her more stress. It's so hard to see her as actively abusive, and not just full of generational trauma and unaware of how she hurts people. Maybe that's a symptom of the trauma, I dunno. It's been a tough one to get straight on.

Both things can be true, the behaviour usually is as a result of generational trauma but if you are describing abusive behaviour the behaviours you describe are a feature particularly from females where males often do different forms of abusive behaviours.

Hi wonderingwonderingwondering

re your comments in quote marks
"It's just another line of thought I've had recently. Is there a way to make this dynamic less harmful by changing the environment, removing certain people or factors, etc. Things like, what if I told them that I will not be visiting their home again, but they are welcome to visit MY home, if planned in advance. They have only visited my current home once, and it's a sticking point to me. My hometown traumatises me, the family home is full of painful memories. What if I took back some power and said they had to come here, to see me?"

Your home is your sanctuary; keep it that way. Do not ever invite them into your home. There is no real way of making this dynamic any less harmful to you other than completely withdrawing from it. With you out of the picture, they could well further turn against each other. Like so so many adult children of narcissists, you have received the Special Training i.e to put their needs and wants first with your own dead last.

"Or what if I told them I wouldn't meet them if my sister was going to be present? It has to be just the two of them, otherwise it becomes a situation that actively harms me."

Why would you want to see either of them at all?. Your dad has failed to protect you from the excesses of his wife's behaviours; he is her enabler and secondary abuser. Women like your mother cannot do relationships at all and always but always need a willing enabler to help them, in this case that is your dad who has also acted out of self preservation and want of a quiet life. He cannot be at all relied upon either and could well say something like, "how dare you criticise my choice of wife" or some such. He has thrown you and your siblings under the bus repeatedly to save his own skin.

And my final general thoughts at the moment are around if it is possible to maintain some kind of contact / relationship with my father, while going NC with my mother.

No and that is also because in a straight fight he could well choose her over you. He is weak and a bystander to you being abused by his wife. You need to go no contact with all of them, you owe these people nothing let alone a relationship. These people have and will continue to let you down abjectly.

"I was conditioned to feel sorry for her as a kid, I remember thinking about how stressful her life was and how it was my job to not cause her more stress.

Again this is all part and parcel of the Special Training many now adult children of narcissistic parents (themselves abusive) receive from childhood onwards. Its extremely damaging and the effects of this last into adulthood too.

She made you the scapegoat for all her inherent ills and you were but a child at the time. It was not your fault but she chose to blame you for all her inherent ills. Do you think she feels guilt for how you've been treated, no not a bit of it. She had a choice when it came to you but chose to do the same old that was done to her. She was a crap parent to you when you were growing up and she will be a crap example of a grandparent to any children you go onto have. It goes without saying that you will need to keep them well away from this serial abuser.

You also have two qualities that she lacks completely; empathy and insight. These serve you well.

Yes, mine is living on spite too and getting worse with age.

It is very hard and will take a long time for you to see your mother as abusive. Whatever she went through as a child she actively chooses to act the way she does. Every single time she opens her mouth she is choosing to be kind or vile.

I don't care what parenting my mother had she still made the choice to abuse me. I made the decision despite my parenting to love and nurture my children and not to verbally and physically abuse them.

Sadly I think @AttilaTheMeerkat is right your dad is the co abuser, he is complicit in all of it and has allowed your mother to abuse you. I think he is the weak enabler and didn't protect you as a child to save his own skin.

All really really difficult and painful I know. Only deal with what you can in small bits. Be it boundaries, contact etc start small or you will feel like you are drowning.

It sounds like you have a fab and supportive husband, lean on him, spent time with and open up to a relationship with your mil. It might be very healing.

Sometimes OP looking back and unpicking the actions of others actually stops us from moving forward.
You have a loving husband, friends and a MIL who sounds like she really wants to be supportive . You already have a supporting circle of people who really care about you.
Your family are incapable of being what you need . Realising that will set you free.
Just stop
Stop letting their behaviour dictate your ability to enjoy your life. You are giving them more power than they deserve.
If they ring , it’s up to you to decide if and when you answer.
You have the power OP not them x

Hi OP,

I am going slightly against the grain here and I am not meaning to diminish your pain and hurt.

But there is a part of me that feels that you are consistently looking for what your parents can do for you, rather than in any way thinking of what you can do for them.

Your sister is closer to them but she has been living at home, perhaps fulfils a lot of their emotional needs and perhaps physical also - she is the one that is there for them and maybe they respond in kind?

You have been physically distant from your parents for years and may come across as very self-sufficient which (while they are obviously at fault in this) they may take as you not needing them. While they are needed and therefore feel closer to your sister?

You speak a lot about them not asking you things about yourself but do you ask them about themselves? Having to care for and have the worry of your sister who has mental health problems must be so tough. Have you tried at all to help with this worry?

The religious ceremony comment - quite run of the mill for parents who go to Church - not something that would personally bother me.

I really am not trying to be insensitive - maybe I am influenced by a friend who is constantly down on her parents but who can be self absorbed and never ever seems to be concerned about them, more about how her needs are not met.

I saw a TikTok once that explained how every sibling has a different experience of their parents and that it's not possible
To bring them up the same. So your sister doesn't se what your experience has been, she probably thinks you had the same at one point.

vm.tiktok.com/ZGeK5g1uL/

I'm going to think about all this. It's true that I'm not doing much for them, haven't done for years.

During my 20s and early 30s I would call regularly, I found myself in a role of emotional trash can for my mother who would monologue for hours in a way that was really alienating and made me feel so small and unimportant. I think decades of this removed the possibility of having a healthy, reciprocal relationship. As a teen I worried so much about my mother when my sister got more and more mentally ill, my way of caretaking for her was being even "better" and less of a worry for her with things like school work, learning to drive so she wouldn't have to drop me places, being financially independent as soon as I could be, not asking for help re college etc and ultimately moving away because it was easier for everyone (me included). They got to forget about me and not worry about me, I was always "living my best life abroad."

My parents never really confided in me about my sister, I know they intentionally tried to protect us both from that. I will admit I spent many years angry about the whole situation, partly due to the trauma of it as I witnessed brutal stuff with her psychosis, was physically attacked by her once, we had the ambulance to the house a few times and neighbours asking qurstions i was warned not to answer by my mother, my parents decided to send her back to school at one stage and into the same class as me, which I found excruciating as a teenager.

I do know they went through hell with it all, and for a good 10 years my mother was in denial and then grief when she realised her daughter was never getting better. I think my coping strategy at the time was to move on, not process any of it, it was just too hard. I subsequently did in therapy, but I found at that stage my whole family had decided we'd all moved on and were ready to be "happy" again, there wasn't any opportunity to discuss things with my parents that didn't turn into "count your blessings" and "you're the lucky one."

I'm rambling now again. I guess all of this is to say, you can't really pour from an empty cup. That's probably how I feel about things. It's hard to feel goodwill towards them when I've not been given much parental support or care from them in the first place. I really really wish I had the ability to be a loving daughter. That's why I'm here. That's why I'm still stuck in guilt and shame. I believe I'm a loving person at heart, my relationship with my husband is very caring and reciprocal. I just feel as though that's been possible due to a strong foundation of trust. The trust has been completely eroded with my parents now.

@pumpkinpie oh yes. 100% agree. I so want to move on and live MY life now. I want that more than anything. I am so lucky and grateful to be where I am, with a loving husband in a warm home with a good career track record and the financial security to move forwards from an empowered place. I am honestly mind and soul so tired of ruminating, of constantly feeling so hurt, of feeling this need to "solve" what happened to me. It's such a compulsion it feels as though it is beyond me sometimes, there are mornings recently where I wake up in full-bodied rage, and other days where the depression disables me. It's like a heavy brick on my chest sometimes, and I feel as though the emotional stress of it all has contributed to the recent health issues.

I'm trying so hard to do all the things. Trauma therapy, yoga, journalling, reading, yoga, meditation. I'm trying so hard. What am I missing? Is this just a process of waiting the feelings out? Trust me, the shame of dwelling in the past is so great for me at times. I wish I could just feel like a capable, empowered 38 year old adult. Someone suggested a mental click for when the thoughts creep in. Maybe being more boundaried with myself is key. Not allow myself to indulge the thoughts.

Back to Jess' post again. How do I Foster positive feelings towards my parents to be able to help them, support them? It's hard, any contact I have with them stresses me out. I feel like to be open to meeting their needs, I need to feel psychologically safe around them. And that means I need to know that I can safely discuss things with them and have my feelings considered. That's a major hurdle with them.

Don't yield to pressure to see them.. they are guilt tripping you. It's good that you have an excellent husband, he is your family now. I have a similar dynamic in my family and I managed to find a therapist who helped me to distance from my mother (who is similar to yours) and to stop caring about her games and her behaviour. My brother is still enmeshed with her and suffers greatly. I had to cut contact for a few years which resulted in her not daring to mistreat me. They appear strong but are incredibly weak underneath. They call you independent because they are afraid that you are too strong to submit to them. And you are.

I can relate, though my experience was not this bad. My entitled twat younger brother was always the favourite and none of my brothers received any criticism as adults, but I did, even though by any objective measure I was doing pretty much everything right and they weren't.
I was told that I was the stable one so they didn't have to worry about me.
When (through no fault of my own) my life fell completely apart, my father had already passed, but my mom was still around and was not supportive. She was actually quite unkind to me at the lowest point of my life. It opened my eyes to the reality that I just wasn't loved very much.
I've accepted that now, but it's a betrayal I don't think I will ever be able to forgive.
You don't have to forgive your parents for their favouritism if you don't want to either. You can see even less of them without guilt. It's none of your doing.
Beware of this for the future, though; as the designated stable, responsible child you will be expected to do elder care for them and your sister will not be.
I did that and was happy to do it, as I felt it was the right thing to do, but you may feel otherwise. So at some point you will need to have a conversation about their expectations for their old age.

You're doing all the right things to recover from the mistreatment, but bear in mind that you never have to feel okay about it. So don't put too much pressure on yourself. Some wounds are impossible to heal completely.

@wonderingwonderingwondering i can very much relate to this!! middle sister very much ousted from family in favour of older golden sister! eventually went no contact and mental health improved within a week!! younger sister also went no contact with mother! please note my user name!! 😄

Your DH is your family now. Your old family is stuck in the dynamic and pecking order from when you left home at 18 and is unlikely to change whatever you say to them. They have comfort in that arrangement. Reframe your focus to what positive supportive relationships you do have, grieve for the relationship with your DPs and sibs you didn't have, but look forwards with positivity as there will come peace and a positive future.

Also be clear that as your DPs age and become frailer the golden child will need to step up and provide the care that you never received from them.

I keep reading your posts OP and it really does strike me how hard you are on yourself.
You are striving for solutions , looking at the past constantly wondering what you did / can do to make things better.
I had/have a complicated relationship with my dad . It wasn’t until I stopped jumped of the merry go round and had a relationship on my terms I mentally started to feel better

We can go months without talking but it’s my choice not his.
Yes it makes me sad sometimes but it doesn’t hurt me anymore and I no longer tear my self in bits living in memories past.
We stay in touch on my terms because to go NC would hurt me more than speaking occasionally.

Please stop this constant self analysis it sounds exhausting. Focus on the positive people in your life , and find things you love
The answers will come to you , but put your self first and start healing

OP, one method I used to gauge whether I could continue to see someone in the family or would be better off going NC was this...

Interacting with the person was causing me pain, so I imagined what circumstances would enable me to see that person WITHOUT pain. Things would come up such as they would have to be respectful of me, not insult me, not tell lies about me, not ring me x times a day just because they were bored & didn't care about the effect on me, not try to browbeat me into doing what they wanted & I did not, etc.

And then I would look at my list & think, basically, they'd have to be a completely different person! And then I'd laugh & realise that there was no way they'd ever change so NC it would have to be.

The thing about going NC with someone is you don't know in advance what it will feel like. But when you do it, the results are very quick & it gets better every day. There may be guilt or concern about what others will think, but in my experience that's nothing compared to the freeing & blossoming which happens in your own life.

Everyone has to reach that point, & make that decision, for themselves. You will know if & when the time is right.

Of course, if you (general you) go NC, you've lost that part of your family & you have to accept that loss along with accepting that what you thought or hoped was there for you, never really was. But I've found that the best thing is having good people in your life, the worst is having bad people in your life & it's better to get rid of the bad people even if it leaves a hole there where good people should be.

Thank you guys, for sitting with me in the mad ramblings and helping me to see things more clearly.

I feel as though a grief is happening for me now. I sat in the car park of the gym earlier and wept, I just feel devastated, lost, terrified and maybe accepting of how things actually are now. How they have always been. I never had what I thought I had and I have to let go now. I know that I won't function, I won't give my husband a happy marriage if I keep holding onto hope and giving these people all of the power.

@pumpkinpie yeah that's a good observation. My mother used to always tell me I was too hard on myself. Without any acknowledgement of her own role in that. She thinks kids are either good or bad and mental health is a moral failing. Ive learned that being hard on myself has sort of been my operating system for getting things done in my life. Shame has been a powerful motivator for me.

Can I ask how you managed to redefine your relationship with your father? I think me doing that would help a lot. Setting a boundary of no phone calls, I will contact you if I'm available. The hardest thing has been feeling so powerless, like I just have to accept their breadcrumbs and be grateful for them.

I really appreciate your advice on moving forwards too. I'm so tired of it all.

@ifiwerenotanandroid incredibly helpful post. I was just working through a mental list of how my mother would need to be, to not hurt me in my interactions with her. I was getting to "yeah, so she'd have to be the opposite of what she is LOL" when I read that same comment from you. She'd have to make space for me, prioritise me, not be distracted by my sibling or literally anything, show effort to make me believe I was her priority in that moment, be compassionate instead of judgemental, not constantly interrupt. Not talk about the successes of literally anyone and everyone she can think of, which has always felt like a covert put-down of me. All of these things are exactly who she is. It made me realise, I can't think of a single positive interaction with my mother. A moment where we laughed or experienced joy together. Not one. I guess I've answered my own question there.

So if I'm sitting here reeling after another distressing visit to them, and just waiting/ dreading my mother's text to me, or call in a few weeks, or GC sibling calling asking me what's up because my mother is upset... How do I take control of that? How do I take power back and make sure I'm not a sitting duck tormenting myself as I wait for the guilt to pour in?

So if I'm sitting here reeling after another distressing visit to them, and just waiting/ dreading my mother's text to me, or call in a few weeks, or GC sibling calling asking me what's up because my mother is upset... How do I take control of that? How do I take power back and make sure I'm not a sitting duck tormenting myself as I wait for the guilt to pour in?

I'd suggest maybe working out what YOU want (& knowing that you have the right to do that & to have things the way that works for you, not just for them), & then coming up with some responses in advance so that you have a position you can stick to if you get a call or an invitation. At this point you can probably predict what they'll say & how they'll react to whatever you say or do - although sometimes my family still took me by surprise with some extra bit of crapulence or insanity!

There's another thing I learned that I'd like to share with you: that when I cut down the amount of contact with my family & worked on healing myself & being around normal people, then when I WAS in contact with my family, their weirdness & unacceptability was all the more apparent to me. That in itself makes it easier to know who you are & what you want, & to be less accepting of the role your family has assigned to you. In effect you gradually ease yourself out of their world & into the real world.

I think you're doing all the right things & moving through stuff. It's just that there's further to go. Someone once said to me that when you're in this sort of situation it's as though you're walking through a fog. You might be only halfway through, or you might be right near the edge of the fog & about to step into brilliant sunshine, but at this point you just don't know. So keep on keeping on.

Edited because typo

When you stay away and work on yourself honestly when you have contact like the previous poster just said it will be like oh no I don’t like this, these people are weird. You’ll naturally not be bothered and you’ll naturally just drift away. It’s a journey and it’s not a particularly pleasant one but it needs to be done unfortunately. Just keep going. I was in a dire mess until quite recently when it just one day made sense. It’s a tangled mess to unpick but it will straighten out. Keep picking one small bit at a time.