December 2024 - but we took you to Stately Homes

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

New thread

@binkie163
This was my in-laws too

My dad loved the attention he got because we all felt sorry for him, the worse my mums drunken behavior the more we worried about him. They both served each other.

lol there’s hope! It’s been so hard recovering from my marriage. The shit that I went through, physical, mental, financial abuse. What I don’t need is judgmental wankers in my life. They make me dislike myself and the choices I’ve made. It’s extremely hindering when what I need to do is accept my mistakes and love myself through this. Only people who support my family are welcome. I’m trying to grow and learn not be dragged back.

Until I have the strength to just shrug it off I’ll stay well away.

@CeCeciledeVolangesdeNouveau - I remember you and it's very good to hear your update. Well done! Wishing you all good things in 2025.

How would you deal with this? MIL is asking about going away for the weekend with us and the other Brother and family. The same like last time where they ignored me and made little snidely comments when they did talk to me. I said back then that I won’t go again. It felt awful going without my other daughter anyway. So they asking again to go. My daughter is away every other weekend with her dad. The weekends remain the same all year long. So they know that she is with her dad this weekend so it’s not hard to know when I have her or not. All the proposed weekends are when she is with her dad. It is not hard to work out and I’m pretty sure it’s intentional. Anyway I’ve said no thank you, I would consider if we could all go as a family. (I don’t want to go but will for the sake of the kids to see the cousins). Now my partner is upset with me. Ive said he is free to go with our joint child without me but I won’t be going if we are split again.

Hi all! - I've NC to join Stately Homes, am a long-time MN user. Was going to start a separate thread but thought i'd get better advice and be speaking to the experts here :) Sorry, this will probably be long.

Background: overbearing 'D'M who cannot control her emotions or understand boundaries; passive DF who sits back silently and enables it all. You all know the dynamic. I have taken a lot of it in hand over the past decade with the help of loads of therapy; firm boundaries; grey rock; etc. For reasons, going NC isn't possible; I only really see her + DF when I see my sibling & sibling's partner & DN. This is all made more difficult in that I have a very public facing job so lots of my work, etc, is online.

The question: does anyone have scripts for when DM will not recognise grey rock or even a blunt 'no'?

Eg. DM asks what I have done over holidays. Me - "I was with friends" (I don't want to give any further details as I want her to have minimal knowledge of my life beyond what is publicly available). DM - "Which friends". Me - "Friends". DM (furious) "Well there's no need to be so bloody rude about it".

or:

On leaving. DM. "So when are we going to see you again?" Me - "I don't know, I'm very busy". DM: "But when?? Can we get a date now?". Me - "No". DM (furious) "But if we leave it to you I'll never bloody see you".

I appreciate there may be no script apart from saying "no" but hearing anyone's experiences would be great. I am used to being called 'heartless', 'cruef', etc etc by her, usually when I enforce boundaries :(

@threeheadeddog this is my experience too, just won’t take no, or anything they don’t like as an answer.
Listening with interest.

I think recognising that you are not responsible for their angry replies helps.
Sometimes I find humour can help "well if I told you I'd have to kill you". or "My bosses at GCHQ wouldn't like it if I said any more" but basically they are angry because you don't want to give them details. You are not required to give them details. You can't stop them getting angry about it but you can remind yourself you are not doing anything wrong!

This is why I'm NC. I'm sick of being treated like shit when all I'm doing is living my own life and deciding not to share details with those who want to make negative comments. They can't accept it, they feel entitled to the information and see it as rudeness if I won't comply. Then they treat me accordingly, which I don't deserve. Neither do you.

Likewise low contact/grey rock didn't work for me, it ends in frustration. They will not accept being ignored. The less you give the more they push, it's exhausting. NC frees you from it all.

You need to be really direct, you are letting her treat you like a child, she doesn't get to demand or interrogate you. As soon as she starts with the bullshit leave, don't just sit there trying to grey rock, she wants an argument.

• "Which friends". Me - "Friends". DM (furious)

None of your business you don't know them.

"But if we leave it to you I'll never bloody see you" yes that is a real possibility if you continue to be so rude.

@Happyfarm there isn't anything you need to deal with just say no, you and your daughter are not welcome at husbands family, stop trying to force it. You are back to obsessing.

@binkie163 Ive said no, not trying to force anything. But my partner is now upset with me because I’m causing something apparently because I’ve said I won’t go without both my daughters. Do I just let him be upset and work around now ignoring me? He has said I’m making him choose (which I’m not as said he can go just without me)

Yes ignore him, let him deal with his feelings.

Well he’s still flapping this morning asking why I have a problem with his mum. I just said my priority is the feelings of both my children and I’m not trying to upset you or your mum.

This man's inertia when it comes to his family hurts him as much as you. He just wants everyone to get along really because he cannot and equally will not deal with his toxic mother.

What is his role; in his family his brother seems far more favoured with he being the scapegoat. As a result you are all scapegoated and or otherwise treated less favourably. He still wants her approval even now and she has led him to believe the sky will fall in on him if he does not comply with her demands. I'd be pushing him in the direction of a therapist because he needs therapy like yesterday frankly.

Indeed ignore him and let him deal with his feelings. Something he has not done for a long time.

Thethreeheadeddog

Your best option here is to really go NC but you've already stated for reasons you do not want to do that. May I ask why that is?. Is it to do with wanting to see siblings family and your niece?. Do you have any residual hope that they will change?.

Grey rock works up to a point but is simply not sustainable in the long run. It can be exhausting to do emotionally and the only people who bother with people like your mother are those who have received the Special Training ie the now adult children of same. Both of them are really not worth bothering about and your father is indeed her enabler and secondary abuser. He's thrown you under the bus for her many times now and has failed abjectly to protect you from the excesses of his wife's behaviours.

I can only speak from the time of being with him. His brother is massively favoured and my partner fits his life around fitting in. He does not see an issue in this and is happy to fit in. As we’ve already discussed at length lol I do not. He just wants me to go along. Go along on holiday and be ignored, go without my family complete because we don’t matter that much. I’m not doing this anymore. I can honestly see this causing such damage because he is so so wet. His granddad and wife has been given this punishment but they both backed off together but it meant they never saw their grandchildren for many years when they were born. I know full well my partner will never be able to do this, he is way too enmeshed. No way does he need therapy!!

@Happyfarm how has your eldest child behaved when she's been with them? Not to excuse their behaviour in any way, but it's quite common for extended families to quietly (or not so quietly) exclude a child considered difficult, blood related or step.

I think a big issue here is how you deal with that going forward. You are going to have to make peace with the fact that she's your family but she's not theirs. Blended families are hard work. I know, I'm part of one. We've been treated differently. It is what it is. And if you think it's bad now, wait until inheritances start to kick in and there are arguments about how the money is split.

Your husband has to accept your choice not to go and figure out how to deal with it.

He needs therapy re both his inertia when it comes to you people and this enmeshment to his birth family but you cannot control what he does.

You can only control what you do and I would keep on repeating no to his mother. She cannot make you go and she does not have the power to do that.

My eldest is absolutely fine when she is with them, just a normal playful child. I don’t expect them to treat them the same (although many other family members have no issues putting children’s needs first). What I take issue with is that they don’t treat my family as a whole like the other. It doesn’t matter if we can’t make it or we can’t come together. That’s a sticking point for me. My partner met me with a child, he accepted this type of relationship. We are together in our desire to make our family strong and work or we are not. My issue really is him.

@threeheadeddog I had the opposite, narc father and enabler mother. Parents did divorce and I was NC with father from then on, but my relationship with mother is v difficult. We are low contact.

I have found 'i don't want to talk about it' useful. I know she's upset/angry that I'm so closed off and private, but the bottom line is that I just don't trust her. I don't want her to know private, personal things because she has a tendency to make everything about her and then expect me to rescue her from it or accept what she's decided is the appropriate help, even when it's something I don't find helpful.

Can you not see your siblings without your parents?

She has the power to pull our family apart via him and she knows it. I wish I knew this before. When they go away without him they will as usual send him daily photos of what he is missing.

@Happyfarm you've said previously that they've made comments about her behaviour and blamed you for her difficulties - how do they know there are issues if they've not seen any difficult behaviour?

She has ADHD so wriggling and busy. I don’t think this matters really. She would be accepted if not for her mum not being “their kind of person”. I know it’s all about control.