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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

Is this acceptable ppl?

59 replies

lovenotwar149 · 01/12/2025 14:33

I have very little contact with my parents due to their abusive behaviours. They currently reside in a nearby care home. For a few months of being in the care home he wasn't abusive towards me , but he was in Aug. I havent seen him since. When I have visited , I wait in reception and someone brings my mum down to meet me. This is now proving problematic. My mum bangs on and on about making up with him etc and 'forgetting' about it etc etc She didnt show last time I visited and I left. That was 3 wks ago now and I have not made plans to return.
Last Friday , 3 days ago, it was my dad's 91st b-day. I found out y'day that my hubby messaged my mum and said to pass on his wishes to my dad. I am most upset by this. Most upset. What do ppl think?

OP posts:
lovenotwar149 · 02/12/2025 06:50

My father is vilely abusive ,mostly verbally, its vile

OP posts:
lovenotwar149 · 02/12/2025 06:51

I dont think my hubby did this to hurt me ,no. I think he doesn't want them to think badly of him

OP posts:
MushMonster · 02/12/2025 06:51

Then you are 100% to go no contact.
I would forgive your DH. He does not seem to have bad intentions.

lovenotwar149 · 02/12/2025 06:52

But what about what ii think of him? He knows I'll always be there for him I guess , so it doest matter if he violates my boundaries. Well maybe I am not gonna be there now , not in my heart

OP posts:
lovenotwar149 · 02/12/2025 06:53

MushMonster · 02/12/2025 06:51

Then you are 100% to go no contact.
I would forgive your DH. He does not seem to have bad intentions.

no he doest ,but his weakness and need to be approved of by others makes his actions very disloyal

OP posts:
lovenotwar149 · 02/12/2025 06:54

it doesn't really matter if he doesn't have bad intentions , the outcome is still the same. He is befriending ppl who are very abusive to me

OP posts:
lovenotwar149 · 02/12/2025 06:55

thx again people, much appreciated. Time to take my guide dog to the training centre. Now there's a real loving connection growing...me and my dog!!

OP posts:
PrizedPickledPopcorn · 02/12/2025 07:09

I think that we can’t control people. He’s felt the need to wish a very old man happy birthday. Perhaps more, to show your mum he’s still thinking of them by saying happy birthday. It doesn’t actually make any difference at all, it’s not like he spent the day with them leaving you to do chores, or spent family money on them. It’s just a birthday text.

He can be aware of their vulnerability as well as their abusiveness, and respond to both. It doesn’t mean he’s championing them.

My family has weird dynamics. I have more to do with DM than the others, but they don’t judge me for staying in touch.

I think the problem is you wanted to punish your mum and dad by ignoring the birthday, and he’s undermined that.

vincettenoir · 02/12/2025 07:35

lovenotwar149 · 02/12/2025 06:54

it doesn't really matter if he doesn't have bad intentions , the outcome is still the same. He is befriending ppl who are very abusive to me

He’s not befriending them. He has an existing relationship with them. He is just passing on a birthday greeting.

It sounds like your parents never put you first and that still hurts. Perhaps why the message feels like a betrayal. But take a step back and try and view this as the complex matter it is. We can’t control other people’s actions.

lovenotwar149 · 02/12/2025 08:24

vincettenoir · 02/12/2025 07:35

He’s not befriending them. He has an existing relationship with them. He is just passing on a birthday greeting.

It sounds like your parents never put you first and that still hurts. Perhaps why the message feels like a betrayal. But take a step back and try and view this as the complex matter it is. We can’t control other people’s actions.

Good choice of words , noted and thank you!

OP posts:
AttilaTheMeerkat · 02/12/2025 08:55

He wants their approval and probably also thinks that family should be forgiven no matter what they’ve done. He passing on even something as innocuous as a birthday greeting to her abusive parent is not on , it’s not his parents so he should have at least spoken to her about this beforehand. But no his sense of being comfortable or seeking approval had to come first. He is a weak man.

bigboykitty · 02/12/2025 09:04

I think you have every reason to go fully no contact with your parents. It was extremely disloyal of your H and shows he does not have your back. He's simply trying to make himself look like the good guy. What's the rest of your relationship with him like?

lovenotwar149 · 02/12/2025 09:11

AttilaTheMeerkat · 02/12/2025 08:55

He wants their approval and probably also thinks that family should be forgiven no matter what they’ve done. He passing on even something as innocuous as a birthday greeting to her abusive parent is not on , it’s not his parents so he should have at least spoken to her about this beforehand. But no his sense of being comfortable or seeking approval had to come first. He is a weak man.

you are on the money with this. I wish u weren't but you are

OP posts:
lovenotwar149 · 02/12/2025 09:13

bigboykitty · 02/12/2025 09:04

I think you have every reason to go fully no contact with your parents. It was extremely disloyal of your H and shows he does not have your back. He's simply trying to make himself look like the good guy. What's the rest of your relationship with him like?

I agree with this too. He is a kind man in many ways for sure. He needs external validation sadly , and I believe he just feels uncomfortable with NC , thinks it looks rude and appears ungrateful

OP posts:
lovenotwar149 · 02/12/2025 09:14

he thinks if you like the person you have become , parents are responsible for this to a large extent, so to break contact with them is wrong in his mind

OP posts:
bigboykitty · 02/12/2025 09:18

He sounds tediously compliant and inappropriately reverent. Does he also say that what you went through wasn't that bad or that they didn't mean to harm you? I would not live with this level of disregard for being raised by abusive parents by someone who is supposed to have my back

lovenotwar149 · 02/12/2025 09:19

bigboykitty · 02/12/2025 09:18

He sounds tediously compliant and inappropriately reverent. Does he also say that what you went through wasn't that bad or that they didn't mean to harm you? I would not live with this level of disregard for being raised by abusive parents by someone who is supposed to have my back

yes he does say that interestingly

OP posts:
MrsTerryPratchett · 02/12/2025 14:44

Don't answer if you don't want to but do you have C-PTSD or a PD from the abuse? Something about the words you're using makes me wonder.

LouiseMadetheBestBroccoliPasta · 02/12/2025 15:42

lovenotwar149 · 02/12/2025 09:19

yes he does say that interestingly

The "they don't mean it" excuse is often trotted out by outsiders (and worse, many insiders too) who are confronted by parents abusing their (adult) children. It's minimisation. It's disrespectful and hurtful at best, at worst it means that they condone, are complicit to, and encourage the ongoing abuse of the child.

But actually, it doesn't matter whether abusive parents mean to be abusive or not. If they've been told that their behaviour is hurting the adult child, and they choose to not apologise and change their behaviour, it is completely reasonable that the adult child institutes boundaries that protect her/him from further harm. Including low contact or no contact.

The same goes, then, for people who want to minimise the harm that has been done or is still being done to you by an abusive person. Boundaries are needed for these people as well.

Boundaries are not to punish, they are to protect. An example is when I cut my father off, when I was 40. He refused to pay my mother her share of the retirement they had built up together (because he took advantage of a law, which has since been overturned because of this kind of behaviour by men). He left her in scrabbling poverty, compounded by severe ill health. I could not accept this heinous act. It was the last straw in a lifetime of trying to have an relationship with an indecent person who treated other people horrendously. I wrote my father, warning him that this was not and never would be acceptable to me. I gave him a chance to reconsider. He would not.

When he realised that I had cut him off, he sent some Flying Monkey friends and relatives, even one of MY friends, to plead his case:
"He's your father".
"You have to forgive him".
"You never know what goes on in a marriage".
"He looked after you financially growing up, you owe him".
"He misses you and is sad."
"You'll regret it when you're older."

I told each one of them, "My decision was not made lightly. It was forced by my father and made in great sorrow and with deep pain. If you do not respect my decision, I will not see you again either."

None of them ever talked about it again. We have had fine, loving, mutually respectful relationships that continue to this day or until their deaths.

That's a boundary. Protection, not punishment.

OP, determine what you need to protect yourself, and put in that boundary with your H, whatever it looks like.

lovenotwar149 · 02/12/2025 17:00

LouiseMadetheBestBroccoliPasta · 02/12/2025 15:42

The "they don't mean it" excuse is often trotted out by outsiders (and worse, many insiders too) who are confronted by parents abusing their (adult) children. It's minimisation. It's disrespectful and hurtful at best, at worst it means that they condone, are complicit to, and encourage the ongoing abuse of the child.

But actually, it doesn't matter whether abusive parents mean to be abusive or not. If they've been told that their behaviour is hurting the adult child, and they choose to not apologise and change their behaviour, it is completely reasonable that the adult child institutes boundaries that protect her/him from further harm. Including low contact or no contact.

The same goes, then, for people who want to minimise the harm that has been done or is still being done to you by an abusive person. Boundaries are needed for these people as well.

Boundaries are not to punish, they are to protect. An example is when I cut my father off, when I was 40. He refused to pay my mother her share of the retirement they had built up together (because he took advantage of a law, which has since been overturned because of this kind of behaviour by men). He left her in scrabbling poverty, compounded by severe ill health. I could not accept this heinous act. It was the last straw in a lifetime of trying to have an relationship with an indecent person who treated other people horrendously. I wrote my father, warning him that this was not and never would be acceptable to me. I gave him a chance to reconsider. He would not.

When he realised that I had cut him off, he sent some Flying Monkey friends and relatives, even one of MY friends, to plead his case:
"He's your father".
"You have to forgive him".
"You never know what goes on in a marriage".
"He looked after you financially growing up, you owe him".
"He misses you and is sad."
"You'll regret it when you're older."

I told each one of them, "My decision was not made lightly. It was forced by my father and made in great sorrow and with deep pain. If you do not respect my decision, I will not see you again either."

None of them ever talked about it again. We have had fine, loving, mutually respectful relationships that continue to this day or until their deaths.

That's a boundary. Protection, not punishment.

OP, determine what you need to protect yourself, and put in that boundary with your H, whatever it looks like.

Wow, what a message, lot to digest. Well said too. Interestingly you say you told those people 'i will not see you again if you dont respect my boundary' ad it DIDN'T cost you the relationship with them. That is not the case with me. My sisters dot speak to me now, friends have turned their back on me too. These are 'friends' within the Indian community that completely abide by 'family is family , you dont cut ties with family , no matter what.' (Free pass for abuse if you ask me with that mantra).

I am walking this path ALONE most definitely.its coming at quite a cost infact yet still I am pursuing it interestingly. I guess when one has clarity and sees it truthfully , the lies manipulations etc one cant unsee it.

I think it take courage to do this, its a different dynamic when its a parent/child relationship. If , even now, my parents took some kind of accountability for there actions , I would be running to the care home to see them, but instead they continue to tell me and others that what I am doing is wrong/breaking up the family etc.It hurts tremendously.

OP posts:
lovenotwar149 · 02/12/2025 17:02

MrsTerryPratchett · 02/12/2025 14:44

Don't answer if you don't want to but do you have C-PTSD or a PD from the abuse? Something about the words you're using makes me wonder.

I think I have had C-PTSD yes

OP posts:
lovenotwar149 · 02/12/2025 17:03

lovenotwar149 · 02/12/2025 17:02

I think I have had C-PTSD yes

what words?

OP posts:
LouiseMadetheBestBroccoliPasta · 02/12/2025 17:46

lovenotwar149 · 02/12/2025 17:00

Wow, what a message, lot to digest. Well said too. Interestingly you say you told those people 'i will not see you again if you dont respect my boundary' ad it DIDN'T cost you the relationship with them. That is not the case with me. My sisters dot speak to me now, friends have turned their back on me too. These are 'friends' within the Indian community that completely abide by 'family is family , you dont cut ties with family , no matter what.' (Free pass for abuse if you ask me with that mantra).

I am walking this path ALONE most definitely.its coming at quite a cost infact yet still I am pursuing it interestingly. I guess when one has clarity and sees it truthfully , the lies manipulations etc one cant unsee it.

I think it take courage to do this, its a different dynamic when its a parent/child relationship. If , even now, my parents took some kind of accountability for there actions , I would be running to the care home to see them, but instead they continue to tell me and others that what I am doing is wrong/breaking up the family etc.It hurts tremendously.

@lovenotwar149 "Interestingly you say you told those people 'i will not see you again if you dont respect my boundary' ad it DIDN'T cost you the relationship with them."

I did lose some contacts, but not any who were really close to me, because they did care about me and I made it clear that I didn't expect them to take sides. They could keep contact with my father, they just couldn't talk to me about him. (Most of them actually stopped seeing him too eventually, not because of me but because he crossed the Rubicon with them too). I also encountered a lot of disapproval from random people when I said that I am estranged from my father. So I did have some losses and faced opprobrium, but likely not on the scale that you are experiencing.

But as you said, "when one has clarity and sees it truthfully , the lies manipulations etc one cant unsee it". For me, a big motivator was also that I was married and had a young child, and I realised that it wasn't fair on my kid or H to expose them to the toxic antics of my father, and the distressed and preoccupied person that I became because of him.

Ultimately, it was a dreadfully difficult decision, I felt physically ill from it for a year. But after a couple of years, I realised one day I hadn't thought about him for months, and that I was peaceful. After years of being forced to travel this tempestuous path, which was filled with chaos and suffering and dotted with relational cataclysms, I could forge my own path; and it has been gentle, safe, and calm.

In the years since, I sometimes think back to the sad and despairing younger me who made that excruciating decision, and I pat her on the shoulder in gratitude for her courage.

I hope that you will also be able to forge your own path, and that one day you too will feel peace.

MrsTerryPratchett · 02/12/2025 18:44

lovenotwar149 · 02/12/2025 17:03

what words?

You use emotive language and words that are all-or-nothing. Yes DH messed up and yes, it's not what you would have chosen. But in an otherwise good relationship with a good man, it seems like trauma response and that may not be good for you or fair to DH.

NovemberMorn · 02/12/2025 19:07

lovenotwar149 · 02/12/2025 09:19

yes he does say that interestingly

I would find that a lot harder to come to terms with than the fact he wished your dad Happy Birthday.