February 2025 Well we took you to Stately Homes

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

A new thread indeed!.

That is worrying about my daughter I share with her father. They say it’s adhd but she has very little empathy and blames everyone for everything. I have worried about what you’ve said but I’ve tried to ignore it. She is so like her father it scares me. She had no content for age 2 to age 5 with him so he wouldn’t have had much impact early years but she is still developing like this. I hope with school support etc it doesn’t end like him.

That's so insightful, thank you. It makes perfect sense. Especially when they create painful situations for what seems to be no reason.

I watched it too, why did it affect you?

The portrayal of the female characters, the excuses made for the angry father, the focus on smartphones as the problem.

I think it felt to me like it was written by someone who understand that those families exist but doesn't really understand what it's like to be in one.

I remember right in the beginning of the relationship I made a silly comment out of frustration, that I apologised for and he knew I was ashamed of. It wasn’t that bad but it was immature. He brought this up for 12 years and each time he knew it would get to me and make me look pathetic. Horrible man.

Sorry, emotional as hell. I bloody hate my mum. My daughter at uni & my mum has manipulated herself into a group chat with the other parents & is acting as mum. I feel so hurt

What a peculiar thing to do 😶

I'm so sorry she's behaving in such an inappropriate manner. You are your daughter's mother though, nothing can change that. x.

Why are they so bloody weird. I guess searching for more people to think she is wonderful. Is she getting an ego boost out of them thinking she may look young enough looking to be the mum. Must be getting some supply from being weird.

Your poor daughter, your mum is bound to embarrass her by inserting herself into everything. These batshit mums just can't help it with their sense of importance, they have zero bloody control over themselves. I bet she is strutting around saying they are her friends! Just something else to gossip about.

What does your daughter think about it? If she is ok to let it ride then it's only a matter of time till it goes wrong. If she isn't comfortable with it then tell your mum to back off and insist she is removed from chat because she is a trouble maker. Is mum financing daughter at uni? Is she buying access?

What on earth..,

She sounds crazy!
How did she get the numbers? Are you in the group chat too?
I hate how entitled and self-important mothers like this are. What gets me is why other people don’t see it as batshit crazy and just go along with it all.
Modern communication styles make it so damned easy for toxic family member to cause endless havoc.

I said no to another group weekend away. Not allowed any input on where or when so we are too busy. Saying no really does get easier. Especially when they don’t take any interest in you as a family outside of these “requests”. Kids have been poorly as have we all, no msgs from them, no visits or sightings since the weekend I agreed to go on for her birthday in feb. I’m probably going to sound like a bitch but if you want access to the best parts of us then you actually have to make an effort. We aren’t a show family or something you call up when you want the fun good stuff. So entitled. I like saying no.

That's just awful beachcity what does your daughter think?

@beachcitygirl That's ridiculous, talk about overstepping.

I haven't heard from my mum for 7 weeks now. I suspect she's either sulking because I had to cut our last phone call short (it's was DD's birthday and we had plans) or she's completely oblivious to how much time has passed. I'm sending a Mother's Day card, if I don't send one it will be used against me and I don't like to give her ammunition.

Anyone else send Mothers Day cards even if you might not really want to? I always look for quite a basic one, no sentimental messages, no "best mum in the world" stuff. I see it as a tick box exercise.

I do. I pick just a basic one with flowers on the front that has no personality. For years I struggled to even write 'love from' inside it. I feel bad about not wanting to do more but at the same time, doing more is painful too.

I haven't heard from my mother in weeks either. Sometimes I wish we could have a frank conversation about it, but I know from experience that we can't. I feel guilty about it. But she's been so unkind to me, and to my son. I remind myself that there are siblings who can pick up the slack and take that job on. It doesn't have to be me. The guilt is so hard though.

I’m not sending a Mother’s Day card this year, first one NC. Tempted to send a RPG and hope it takes out some of the flying monkeys on the way. Blocked 3 more family members this week. Struggling at the moment to not cave in to get a quiet life.

@SockFluffInTheBath the quiet life is coming, it's like the dying throes of a flailing animal. Just keep blocking, no reaction and smother any opposition. If I had realised how calm my life would be from one simple decision I would have done it 40 years earlier instead of eeking out all those years of VLC being unavailable, moving abroad, not answering my phone, it was like a job and caused me anxiety. Once I no longer cared I then had to get used to the quiet, no histrionics and drama! It feels odd to begin with.
Stand firm and smile.xx

Thanks @binkie163 it’s been reasonably quiet for a little while then an aunt used my DCs’ birthdays as an excuse to try to twist my arm. Politely said please don’t get involved and she fake-sobbed/growled something back so I blocked her. And another, and another. It’s as if at the age of 46 I’m not capable of working out who I want to be in touch with. She’s thinking she will need caring for, someone to take her to appointments, shopping etc she should have thought about that when she never put me first as a child, and was miserable to me as an adult.

@SockFluffInTheBath I am not sending dm anything for Mother's Day this year either. She didn't contact me or acknowledge the flowers I had delivered for her at Christmas.

Also with her now living at dsis I am not sending flowers to decorate her house and I doubt a card delivered there would be passed on to dm

I've never thought of VLC as being a job before but you're right, because making all the excuses is work, isn't it?

Slowsloths I always send a text message with the generic "Happy mother's day!" and see it as ticking a box as well. And I do take this as my job, as binkie puts it.

@SockFluffInTheBath

She’s thinking she will need caring for, someone to take her to appointments, shopping etc she should have thought about that when she never put me first as a child.

Bingo. They are wankers aren't they, it's all about what they want, their convenience and comfort! Zero bloody embarrassment knowing they have never put themselves out for anyone in their lives 😂😂 your aunt was hoping you would do the donkey work to save herself, cheeky fucker.

I've been ruminating a bit recently on childhood things and it has got a bit on top of me, I can tell. One thing that I keep mulling over is that I can see now that my mother assumed I was fine because I did well at school and went to uni and I was never any trouble. I never made any fuss (of course I didn't - I learned at an early age that there was no point. No-one was listening, including her. I was on my own and I knew it). And she has carried on believing this for years, that that hideous childhood just bounced off me and everything is fine. I am struggling to understand how she could believe that I came through it unscathed. (FWIW yes I suspect this is partly due to looming mother's day, and the guilt I feel over not phoning/making any effort.)

Definitely saw this with my mother. She kept bleating 'I'm on me own!' and it was obvious that she was flailing around trying to pin one of us in place to be housemaid. Not me. This well is dry.

They have learned how to get their needs met with absolutely minimum effort. They have had to let empathy go by because this gets in the way of getting their needs met. It’s life of death for them. If you start to feel sad for people then the whole shaking stack of cards falls. They have to tell themselves that you are fine. You can convince yourself of whatever you want if it means that you get away with things. I have witnessed it in my child, completely re-writes reality to fit her own narrative. Denying taking stuff from another because they really want it. Pushing down the empathy for the person who she stole it from. “They don’t need it”, “it’s ok they can get another”. When empathy is low you can get off doing many things.