August 2026 - Well we took you to Stately Homes

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

I have started a new thread as the other one is now full.

This is a little more insight into my mum. Im a regular name changer but a long time mner.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/relationships/5514616-difficult-relationship-with-mum-finding-it-hard

Wellies

I have always advised you from the start to walk away from both your mother and gb2 because they are really both as bad as one another. It is imperative you walk away now and leave them to it!.

Unfortunateevents

Inform her you have plans tomorrow so will be unavailable. Then block. She is really not worth bothering about. She was not a good parent to you when you were growing up and she’s still the same now. Her mother treated her similarly; toxic dysfunction often goes down the generations but it’s stopped at you.

I'm not sure if I can block and go no contact.

We have very low contact which generally works but I'd say the last year has been trickier and she's been affecting me more. :-/

Maybe I need to re-read my copy of toxic parents. I read it decades ago thinking about my dad but i don't think I've ever viewed it while looking at my mums behaviour.

I have just replied to let her know I have plans.

One new eagle

Would you both consider getting married abroad?. The wedding would be legally recognised in the U.K. and you would not need to re-register it. I consider me getting married abroad to be one of my better decisions!. I did not personally know the two witnesses who signed our papers: one of them was the wedding fixer and the other was the photographer who we met on the day!.

A number of reasons led to this decision- did not fancy being exhibit a in a meringue type dress, shite in-laws, comments from my dad to the effect that if I got married on a Thursday then no one would come, my mum looking either stony faced or upset, not wanting a Catholic church wedding at all.

Ask yourself if you would tolerate this from a friend?. If not why not?. Your mother is no different and low contact often leads to no contact. It’s doing you and your family no good to have her in your life currently if at all. Do re read Toxic parents.

Say you’ve already made plans. Arrange to see her at a time and place that you are ok with.

Definitely DO NOT see her on your birthday.

I find birthdays very hard too so I would wish you a happy birthday but I aim for calm and quiet myself rather than happy nowadays. So just have a peaceful day and look after yourself x

At least it’s not just me. I was stupid to think the toxicity would end just for one day so we could feel special.

We were hoping for a civil partnership rather than wedding vows so other countries don’t offer that. We will just wait for a while. We just wanted a mid week register office ceremony, no white dress, tea and cake after so very simple and everyone went completely nuts about all of it. My partner wishes that we never got engaged as it caused the most awful couple of years for us, we’ve never properly recovered.

@Anendlessseriesofunfortunateevents I just read through your posts on the thread you linked and I definitely saw a lot of traits that were discussed in the emotionally immature parents book that was recommended on a similar thread last year and really helped me (adult children of emotionally immature parents by Lindsay Gibson). I bought it thinking of my dad and was surprised how much was in there that related to my mum (and your mum sounds quite similar). In terms of what you can do about it though, you’re still left with NC or be driven mad.

Like others have said, you could say you have plans. Arrange another time somewhere you think it will be easier and don’t spend too long with her? Then consider phasing it out/going NC.

I’d not heard of that book that’s both of my parents to a tee.
I was emotionally neglected as a child.

@OneNewEagle My family weren’t happy about my small wedding either. They were passive aggressive about the whole thing, and threatened to interfere in lots of ways - including but not limited to showing up to the register office uninvited and throwing us a “surprise wedding party” because they couldn’t accept we didn’t want anything like that. In the end though, they dropped their plans and just made their comments, and we were married, and life moved on.

I really got a lot out of reading the book
and would recommend it. I was emotionally neglected more than anything physical. They obviously didn’t (and still don’t) have the tools for any of that.

What would you do? How would you respond? At the moment im considering saying Im out for the day/have plans.

Exactly this. And if she shows up don't answer your door, draw the living room curtains if you have to, so you don't feel pressured to answer the door because you know she's seen you. Switch your phone off as well if you can so you're not jumping at every notification in case it's her. I used to dread those texts too. Before I went NC I used to reply just saying I'm unavailable that day, with no further details. There's enough days in the year, they don't need to be ruining the one day that's important to you.

Emotionally immature sounds very on brand. I will definitely check that book out.

One new eagle

I hope you do not end up waiting too long. Time is passing us all by and life does not wait for you my friend (in the words of the late great Ozzy Osborne).

So the census is don’t tell them about any special occasions. My H asked his mum last year to watch the 2 kids so he could take me out to dinner for my birthday, they agreed. They were 2.5hrs late and we couldn’t go and I ended up with a frozen pizza. He was too hesitant to even call and ask where they were. They said they thought Id want to go out at 8pm for dinner after kids were asleep despite H saying 5:30. I wasn’t sure if this was just communication which is what they claimed, H wasn’t upset….I was. I’d got all the kids fed and myself ready and they ruined half my day.

@Anendlessseriesofunfortunateevents Wishing you a calm and peaceful birthday today.
@AttilaTheMeerkat I remember that this has been your advice from the start. And I think the time has come for me to finally walk away. If I don't I will just keep getting more of the same. Plus GB2s plans to care for Mum categorically WILL go wrong and if I am around I will definitely be expected to deal with whatever the situation is when he decides it's all too much.

Shortly after my last post there was another call from Mum to tell me that something she and GB2 were doing had gone wrong, with GB2 in the background aggressively ranting that it was all my fault. I was accused of having refused to do it and that's why they had to, having said I was doing it but he'd discovered I hadn't, having tried to do it but left it in a mess for him to sort and (quite bizarrely) having colluded with someone else to prevent him doing it properly. He is, apparently, going to have to ask an extended family member (and frequent flying monkey) to help him sort it all out and let everyone know how badly I've messed it all up. I realised as I put the phone down that this has to be the last straw. This will be one of those situations where 'everyone' claims that I cut off my sick mother and lovely brother just because of an argument over something quite mundane.
I think for far too long I have felt that really things are not so bad because what I have been through is nothing like as bad as some people endure, my parents were good to me if there was no clash with the boys and I saw them as victims too. I've also cared far too much about what people around my Mum would think of me, especially as my FOO did such a good job of creating the 'lovely family' image. In short I recognise that I have been trained to be afraid of over-reacting, to protect the family image and to want to be seen as a 'good girl' (which in my FOO means putting everyone else before myself and now by extension my own family).
I have also been talking to my DH about this, especially my feeling that Mum is now vulnerable and I am picking a terrible time to 'abandon' her. He's pointed out that what's happening now is not new. It's just the latest version of the story where I say no to unreasonable demands and am treated as the problem. Mum may have lost some of her cognitive abilities now but the response was always the same even when she was fit and well.

I think attila has given us all the same advice 😂 it’s just taking it is really difficult. I feel like in my life it’s impossible without chucking myself out with the bath water. I love my H, I don’t want his mother’s toddler attitude to ruin what we have. I need to work on my anger an the frustration of knowing something no one else does and really wanting justice but knowing there won’t be any.

Yes it feels so final and extreme to go nc doesn't it.

Ive been NC with my dad for over 20 years since he was prosecuted for csa, and as that was such a cut and dry situation it was easy to cut him completely out of my life.

Going NC with my mum seems much harder, messier and less clear cut.

Her chaos has ramped up recently. Doing things like ripping out a corner of her kitchen units for a bigger fridge then buying a huge expensive one that's too big still even for the space she had cleared. All the while she's still got a house in disarray including her bedroom, has been sleeping in a chair for years, and is making lots of expensive home improvement plans that aren't needed, Will need a loan for, and she is in her 60s, working part time with failing mobility.

One of my sisters is scared she will end up losing the house "and then what?!" With my nanna no longer around to enable her/bail her out it's quite worrying.

If you try to ask her something about it not being realistic or sensible she either pretends she hasn't heard you, or doesn't answer and changes the subject. 🙄🤨🤦‍♀️

I’ve cut emotional contact with a chaos monster friend recently (I posted about her a while back) At first I thought ADHD maybe as she functions only in a crisis. I also realised that some people just love the attention that chaos brings them. I guess that’s why some kids when they ignored act out because any attention is better than nothing. Still puts you in the centre of attention even if you being told off. Some people don’t want to be fixed because they’ve thrived off being broken. I realised with this friend, you can try and help them level out, help them through one chaos but they then straight onto another.

Yes it feels so final and extreme to go nc doesn't it.

It absolutely does. Not to mention the fact that many (if not most) people growing up in dysfunctional families have quite a high threshold for poor behaviour before we really see it as a problem and tend to downplay what we have been put through. How many posts on here include something along the lines of 'It wasn't as bad as many of you have been through' or 'but there wasn't any physical abuse' etc. I think it's very rare for anyone to NC without years of doubt and excusing awful behaviour, and having tried talking, appeasing, giving 'just one more chance' etc. It's why people who have been there like AtillaTheMeerkat repeatedly advise us that we need to go NC but we don't feel we can do it. It makes me so angry when people on other threads and in real life/other social media make comments about 'all these people going NC for minor mistakes'. Very few people see the years of shitty treatment that went before it and the huge amounts of effort put in to trying to persuade people to accept something approximate to normal boundaries etc before even considering NC.

Yes we don’t tell DPs side of the family anything now since his last milestone birthday.

We had plans but his mum wanted to go for a meal that birthday weekend which is fair enough. It was arranged on the exact day at the exact time I had told her I had plans, the only but organised for the whole bank holiday. She took him out for a meal with his sister, I was not invited or included, and she ended up being rude and racist it seems. He came home really upset. oh and I’d told her the homemade meal I had planned which I rearranged and took him for the same sort of food think Chinese for example. I’ve not had any contact with her since thankfully.

She wrecked one of my birthdays too with atrocious behaviour which I’m not getting into. these sorts of people all work in the same way.

Someone explain projection to me because I don’t understand it. I think this is what my ex is doing with our daughter. He does not have any involvement with her current school, never been interested, has EOWeekend. It’s time for secondary school. He has been banging on about private schools (he and I are not private school people, couldn’t fund it). For a while he’s been bombarding me with nonsense about how he can swindle it, it’s all bollocks. Me and daughter have visited all our locals (she is ND and refused to look at any that needs a bus). She has set herself on one she likes and tbh it great all round for us a family also in terms of logistics with other child. Also half her friends will be going she she’s happy. He had said to her I bet your mum wants this because she can’t be bothered to drive you anywhere. It’s not a lie that it isn’t more convenient but he doesn’t do the school runs despite asking so he can sod off. I’m literally trying to do what is best. Why does he behave like this? What good does it to say this to her?

@MustIgo If it's projection, my understanding is it's a sort of defence mechanism. At some level he knows he's a lazy arse and can't be bothered to actually put any effort in to getting involved with his child's schooling or doing the school run etc. He doesn't want to accept this about himself or deal with it so subconsciously he sees the same characteristic in other people and projects his displeasure at them instead.
I think what you describe could be projection, or it could just be that he's simply doing things that he knows will upset you and he thinks will make him look good. So instead of telling people 'I haven't been involved in choosing DD's next school, I just leave it all to MustIgo' he can say 'I want the best for DD and wanted to look at private schools but MustIgo won't listen and has just signed her up for wherever is closest'. Instead of telling DD 'I'm really pleased that you and your Mum have found a school where you have friends and will be happy, I'm sure you'll love it' (which would be most supportive to DD but puts you in a good light) he says 'Hmph. I bet she's just sending you there cos she can't be bothered driving.' which is clearly going to upset DD but presumably makes him feel better about himself.