February 2025 Well we took you to Stately Homes

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

A new thread indeed!.

I am struggling with my mother for that reason. I'm finding it so hard to accept that she did nothing.

No I haven't been through family court. I will quote @AttilaTheMeerkat who repeats regularly that if family are too toxic for you it is the same for your child. You say she is afraid of him and doesn't want to upset him! In the same way she knows she isn't welcome at your in laws. Poor kid. You may not like it but she is your responsibility.
@CheekySnake yes it is a betrayal

Yes and he listened about the MIL. I am ordered with her father until she is of the age to say no. She wants to go regardless even if I say no. £16,000 and barristers and solicitors and he got access. @CheekySnake I have definitely not done nothing. I left him with nothing and we shared a bed for a year in a room. I own our home now and I do the absolute best I can and I make the effort to learn.

Her dad also has a young child with gf and the courts were heavy with then having access.

That's why it's called a personality disorder and considered a form of mental illness happyfarm. Narcissism itself can be just a personality trait and quite ordinary. When it runs deep enough and is big enough to colour everything else in life, and the personality, to the extent it causes significant problems in the person's life and relationships which makes them unhappy, then it becomes a personality disorder.
It's why many of them will never have a diagnosis because they're so convinced they're the victim and everyone else is the problem they'll never see a doctor about it, because that would mean aknowledgeing that they're the common denominator in all these situations and relationships, so having to entertain the possibility that there's something wrong with them and something they could do differently. They're so deep in their own dysfunction that most of them aren't even capable of having that thought.
Which also means that no amount of explaining by the victim how the abuseive narcs behaviour makes them feel, is ever going to make them see the light. They'll only ever see it as a fault in the victim's responses to their abusive behaviour or a problem with the victim's initial behaviour that lead to the abuser's outburst.
That thing about your ex and restaurants by the way, that's deliberate abuse. He saw a weakness in you (inability to cope with busy restaurants) and deliberately decided to exploit it. He didn't suddenly develop a fondness for busy restaurants, that was just something he said so he could have an excuse to rage at you about something. If it wasn't that, he'd have picked something else. Like with the people in the street who he accused of looking at him in a way he disliked.

Same with the father yelling about taking "that look" off cheekysnakes face. It's highly probable there never was any particular "look", it's just an excuse to rage at a person, a calculated way of generating fear and confusion in their victim. How can someone remove "a look" even if they wanted to to keep themselves safe, when they can't know what "look" it is because it doesn't even exist?

With an abuser, there's never any option for not being abused. Nothing you can ever say or do that will make the abuse not happen. They don't abuse because they can't help it, they do it because they want to, because they get something out of it.

Happyfarm* court will promote access at all costs, but not if the child doesn't want it. Maybe she's already of an age to refuse to see him?

I'd keep reminding her that she has choices, you'll back her up where her choices are reasonable, even if you don't like those choices (so teaching her that "reasonable" does not equal "what the other person wants"), and that not wanting to visit someone who scares you is totally reasonable.

Remind her there's a court order stating he has access, but that access is supposed to be for her benefit, not his. Keep her focused on the fact she has choices in life, including who to have in her life and how often to see them. He's filling her head with shit, you need to counteract it with information on healthy relationships.

Get her to do the Women's Aid freedom program as soon as she's old enough to be accepted onto it, do it with her maybe. Explain that your marriage to your ex was an unhealthy one and you don't want her ending up with a toxic boyfriend whenever she starts dating.

She's being trained to accept an unhealthy relationship (by her father) and believe she has to do what others want as a priority over what she wants, but you can offer counter training in recognising what an unhealthy relationship looks like and how she has autonomy over herself and her life. It also shows her she can come to you with problems and you'll be reasonable about it not judgemental.

One day she'll hopefully decide to leave him behind, the more training she has about right versus wrong the sooner that day will come. She must be around 12 now if starting secondary school. I've never once heard of a 14yr old forced to visit a parent they don't want to, unless it's the other parent colluding in forcing them to go (maybe because they like the break that part time parenting affords them).

Keep reassuring her that she can't be forced to go to a school she can't even get to and by a parent she spends 4 nights a month with. Counteract his nonsense with logic. Be visibly on her side, not on the fence, that's how she'll learn to trust that it's possible to stand up to people like him.

If he does persuade his girlfriend to move area that might even work in your favour because will he really be arsed to come collect her for his time with her? Also she'll maybe be too scared to want to be there on a Sunday in fear he'll try to make her change schools on the Monday. Just keep reminding her he's got the right to move wherever he and his girlfriend choose to move to, because that's their business, and she's got the right to her own opinions about it and to decide if she wants to visit them where they live or not.

Abusive people like him will be making her subconsciously think she has no rights, just keep reminding her of the rights she does have, even as a child, whenever a suitable situation crops up in conversation to highlight it and keep telling her you'll back up whatever reasonable decisions she makes. That's a better use of your time and energy than trying to make him see sense. He's a lost cause, she isn't.

It's growing up with no proper idea of right and wrong, no real idea of what is reasonable or not and believing, subconsciously so without questioning it, that you have to do what other people want even when it's to your own detriment - that's what fucks up a person and leads them into abusive romantic relationships and toxic user friendships, as well as being under an abusive parent's thumb. Give her the knowledge of her own power, even if she lacks the confidence to exercise it yet.

If she tests her newfound sense of power out on you (the safe parent), don't stamp her down by saying she can't. eg threatening to go live with him during an argument - either say nothing if she's letting off steam or if she's serious just say ok if that's her choice you'll accept it, because it's reasonable if she wants to try living with her other parent, but you love her and don't want to lose her and she's welcome to come back any time she wants to visit or to live if she changes her mind, including if she changes her mind before she's even gone. It's unlikely she'll ever do that if she's scared of him, but knowing that you'll accept her reasonable choices even though it hurts you to do so, will give her immense confidence to go out into the world and live her own life in future without being cowed by others. Whilst knowing that she always has the security of you to fall back on.

That's my take on it anyway.

@SamAndAnnie she wants to visit him and if I took it back to court she would say I want to see him so it would be pointless currently. She knows that she has to behave a certain way but currently she likes all the gifts etc and all the places they go. She is just getting to the age (almost 9) where she knows something isn’t right and she can’t articulate it but she loves him at the end of the day. Its ridiculous he is talking about secondary school and the only reason he is talking to her about it is because he wants to manipulate her. He wants her to go to a school of his choosing because he wants the best school but he doesn’t want to do the hard day to day slog. He is manipulating her so that she brings it home to me. I’m teaching her to stay strong in what she wants but she is definitely afraid to tell him.

That's understandable at 9, he's a grown man, and she's confused by all the gifts etc.
I agree he's using her to get at you, it's why there's no point trying to discuss it with him. I also don't think you should take anything back to court, it's pointless. He's the unreasonable one, let him take you to court if he feels so strongly about whatever it is he's spouting this time (I've no doubt there'll always be something). Parenting with a toxic ex has to be one of the most soul destroying things on earth. No wonder you're unwell, these people are enough to drain the life out of anybody.
It's good that she's recognising something isn't right though even at her young age.
I know I never had a clue anything was wrong in my family at that age. Even a bit later, when some awful things had occurred that affected me, I still never realised how toxic and neglectful my FOO was.

@SamAndAnnie thank you. I thought getting away was going to fix it all but back then I didn’t know about narcs and it never ever ends. I often feel I’m taking away the innocence of her childhood telling her that the monsters are effectively real. I’ve no idea really how this will pan out. How it must feel to have this life and for her to have these parents. It has made it my mission to heal myself because she can’t have two useless weak parents.

I / we often say that ours foos were insane / nuts. It strikes me that many of us, certainly me included, have had mh issues. However you can have mh issues without being cruel and selfish.

When I, rarely, think about them some episode pops into my head and I think 'wow, so so self serving!'

I think my weak father was worse for being able to see how insane and narcissistic mum was yet constantly clearing the path and enabling her. All for an easier life for himself. Selfish twats.

I used to beg him to leave her and take me away.

My mum certainly wasn’t crazy or nuts and I would never have had any idea that anything was wrong. I certainly never wished my parents to split. BUT I can see the situation and what it subconsciously taught me. My mum was a perpetual victim and we all had to tip toe around her. Yes she had a proper physical illness and did need care. She never talked to us and explained anything. Shs never prepared me for life, it was always about her. She never acknowledged or apologised when she behaved a certain way. I always apologise when I am wrong and talk about my illness and how it affects me. My mums illness was a huge elephant in the room that left me with huge anxiety as when you aren’t talked to you fill the gaps and as a child it’s often filled with scary stuff. I think it’s important to teach your children you aren’t infallible and let them make up their own minds. I’m not perfect and I don’t pretend to be. I think my mum thought that if she hid it from me it would make it better but it had the opposite effect.

Both my parents blamed her behaviour on her multiple sclerosis. Effectively giving her a free pass to loose control of her temper and be extremely controlling. I love my dad but he would just say oh that’s your mum you know what she’s like, she can’t help it. Most of her behaviour was not m.s related but was trauma related but she never could see that. I’m pretty sure my ex worked out that I would just allow shit behaviour because I’d been raised to forgive everything because “they can’t help it”. My ex also couldn’t help it because his back hurt, his childhood was bad, his wife didn’t function properly, his sister was sick, dad sick etc etc. I only realised he plays such a victim after samandannie. I though he was just an angry man but he really is a victim all the time.

@Happyfarm you expend so much energy fretting, obsessing and over analysing everything, to you it is a hundred problems but it is actually only one, the same problem every day. You are allowing unpleasant people to live rent free in your head. The solution is to stay away from them.

I was just adding to the conversation. I’m not fretting at all. Was just reading with my cup of tea. I’m learning. Please stop telling me things that I’m not.

@Dogaredabomb
I think my weak father was worse for being able to see how insane and narcissistic mum was yet constantly clearing the path and enabling her. All for an easier life for himself. Selfish twats.
Spot on, they take the path of least resistance, it's so cowardly. As @AttilaTheMeerkat says they willingly throw their kids under the bus. The adult that goes along with it is every bit as manipulative but plays the good guy.

My mother has said in hindsight that she doesn't know why she stayed. But she did stay, and that's the problem. What we can't talk about is the fact that she only left because there was another man on the horizon. She chose not to see what was happening to us. What I know, deep down, is that my father hated me, and my mother didn't value me enough to do anything about it. And I wonder sometimes why I've got issues with self esteem.

@Happyfarm I am just responding to your posts. Mil is a narc, ex is a narc, husbands family don't do what you want, sil treated better, it's unfair, they don't want my daughter around, it is obsessive. I get it, it's unfair, life's unfair but stop banging your head against the wall.
You have had lots of good advice here, mostly to avoid people who upset you. Madness is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.

Hi everyone, I’m hoping for a bit of a reality check and ideas of how to support my DH’s emotional struggle around being NC with his elderly narc father for the last 3 years.

Last 4 years have seen the death of his beloved but living abroad for 30 years brother and the demise and death of their mother to dementia. His mother was seen by their large extended family as the funny, substitute mother for her many siblings loving lynchpin. DH adored her, she was the comfort from his bullying, scary, shouting, aggressive father.

She was constantly in physical contact in a ‘loving way’. During puberty she began to cross boundaries, groping him ‘in jest’, saying embarrassing things in front of others and making semi sexual advances. DH was mute and in freeze mode at these times plus he still did adore her. Obviously v confusing and damaging. His father seemed to know and would snap at her to stop it or suchlike. He was visibly annoyed. It was never discussed.

Fast forward 40 years and her dementia uncovers all this behaviour again but more uninhibited. Our family of adult children witness this and know it’s weird to say the least but she’s got dementia so this is written off as just that. His father is her carer and says things like ‘that’s enough, not this again’ as he sees these episodes going on. It’s excruciating for my DH. He is devastated when his father won’t listen to his advice for getting help with carers, they live v close by. He doesn’t want to visit, he’s triggered massively and also brother is dying in another country. Can’t visit due to Covid.

On one previous visit brother validates his experiences and says their parents are both narc and don’t understand boundaries and he tries to practice intentional kindness during timed regular phone calls with the father. Brother is also a renowned expert in generational trauma and understands how complicated it all is for DH. However he has barely communicated what happened to him, age gap means he was a child alone when brother left home at 16. DH is not communicative to brother in the next 30 odd years and tells nobody about his mother sexualising him, embarrassing him and groping him. He is almost unable to express himself confidently or have real confidence into adulthood. After his mother died and brother validated his concerns then also died DH coped for a year more with father invading his life, appearing at our home, being emotionally distraught, becoming drunk and abusive. He hit DH and on another occasion pushed him over outside.

The father is mentally stuck in another time and in the preceding years was visiting with piles of photos of his younger self and not letting my DH speak or express anything. There’s so much more to say but this is long enough. My DH is determined to never see his father again. He lives near and so do some of the large extended family who seemingly all think his father is a wonderful old man.

My DH feels abused by his father emotionally, bullied all through growing up and that he did nothing to protect him from his mothers sexualising innuendo and physical touching. He can’t and doesn’t want to speak to him at this about any of it.

Well meaning relatives are now advising my DH they are visiting and is he sure that he’s doing the right thing. They think it’s all a grief reaction. Someone has set up a Facebook page for him and he is requesting us as friends. On the start I offered to take over from DH and visit etc but he didn’t want me to. His father stopped appearing and haven’t seen him in a few years now. I am finding it v hard to cope with the intrusion of family and to know how to move forward. I can’t be in the area his father lives (hometown) in case I bump into him and I can’t cope with the pressure of it all and don’t know how to accept this. Please help if you can. Thanks.

@Happyfarm I think first off you have to accept that narcs gonna narc, for want of a better expression. He's going to be himself and that's not going to change. No point trying to figure out why beyond it just being the way he's made.

I feel for your daughter, I really do. I remember being that age, and the flailing around trying to make the choice that he'd approve of, being constantly terrified of upsetting him. Every decision was made based on whether he would approve or not. what you eat, what you say, what you ask for for Xmas, what book you like, what opinion you have, what colour socks you pick, what subjects you like at school, what subjects you don't like. You end up completely lost because there's no room to work out how you yourself feel about anything. I'm embarrassed by it now but I am trying to understand that these were survival choices that worked at the time. I did the best I could.

I would try and work on a few clear life rules when she's with you:

Breaking down this idea of 'the best' - yes, having the best is very important to daddy, but is it really how we should choose things? is someone who has cheap shoes less valuable than someone with expensive shoes? Of course not, that's just silly. It's just stuff. Anything to boost her self esteem so it's not tied to stuff (I had an epiphany about this this week, as my father was obsessed with this idea of having the best and tying self worth to it, which is hilarious because there was never any money and we had manky old second hand furniture and crappy cars and school uniform with holes in it, and always lived in houses that were falling apart because he would max the mortgage to buy a dump in the 'right' area but there was never any money to fix it).

Gifts aren't love, they're just stuff.

I think it's important to not make it about him but about picking apart his ideas and beliefs, and leaving the door wide open for her to choose not to see him any more.

We are all in different stages of a journey and language I think is very important. We shouldn’t be using language that is dismissive and invalidating as we’ve all had just about enough of it. This is all a revelation for me a fog that is lifting. I’ve been disassociated and numb all my life terrified of my memories and my feelings. This is the first exposure I’ve ever had. I’ve never told anyone. I am ND so I don’t always communicate well but I am so so not fretting and I feel great to know that I am not alone. If someone replies with some layer of onion great. This is the first time I’ve realised I’m surrounded with toxic people.

Good morning, I'm after some collective wisdom 🙏
I need strategies, resources, coping techniques, practical tips... to help me not ruin my family's days with my bad moods.
I know that bad moods happen, are part of a normal emotional landscape and, given the very stressful circumstances we're in, I'm "entitled" to them.
But I feel I become my mother: volatile, negative, short-tempered, snappy (to my DH I can be even really nasty).
I'm in therapy (8 years now): it's helping me live my life, basically. I'm a different person than I was 8 years ago, it helped me be very LC with my FOO. I trust my therapist. She says I'm not like my mother. My DH and best friend agree.
However, I feel I am! I make my family feel bad and down because I'm constantly tense and anxious. This is because very recently we achieved a very important milestone for our family. My therapist says I can't digest my successes so after I get something positive, I "have to" bring it down. It's been my mother's strategy always and I've adopted it. So she tells me this is where I'm at now: I'm paying the price of this great achievement.
That's OK.
BUT I don't want my family to pay for it!! The problem is that I don't know how to feel anger without wanting to run away from it or bottle it up, and then it's worse because it comes out in nasty and poisonous ways.
I also have trouble identifying what it is that I'm feeling (it's just "bad") so I end up very emotionally stressed.
I can't even tell if this post makes any sense to all of you...
I just don't want my family walking on eggshells around me 😔

I hear you. Self awareness is everything and you have that so you are already 100% better than you think you are.

Out of interest, how old are you? What you describe about how you feel sounds like how my perimenopause contributes to my feelings. HRT has helped. Look after yourself and be kind to yourself. X

Thank you @Settodonotdisturb you're very kind 🙏
I had been thinking about perimenopause, I'm late thirties and it wouldn't surprise me! But I have an 8 month old baby (and a preschooler) and we've had a very important change recently, so I guess my life circumstances could well be the cause of my stress...

It's awful not being able to feel sure about anything...

Could it be PND?

@Dogaredabomb I have always been drawn to Phillip Larkin's poem 'they fuck you up' (I am a child of the 1960's) back then I don't think people understood the damage it does to kids. Since the 80's it is common knowledge that poor parents damage their children and yet it still goes on. I didn't want children of my own, I agree with Larkin:
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.