Our 6th visit to the Stately Home.....

[oneplusone]

Hi all, took the liberty of starting a new thread. Keep on posting!

Absolutely Smithfield. I am much calmer and natural with DD, but then I don't have PND this time. I am very aware that it is different, however my love for them is not different.

I think bonding and love are seperate emotions. I loved my DS dearly from the moment he was born but because of my anxiety and depression I couldn't work him out as well, when he was a baby. Then of course he didn't respond as well to me, picking up on my tension. It is a vicious cycle and ultimately this is the bonding part. Mother and baby being as one, like an extension of pregnancy and the time when you were actually as one. Anything that interferes with this intense time when mother and baby need to be completely absorbed in one another and work each other out so that they work and flow together will affect bonding. Distracting mother's attention from the more important task in hand. It is no suprise that mothers who had difficult childhoods are more likely to suffer PND

However even if this 'bonding' doesn't happen immediately, the love is there. I have bonded with DD immediately and shut out my family emotionally. All my love and focus is on my family. However, although I couldn't do this with DS I don't/didn't love him any less than DD. That is the important part. I will never tell him he was a difficult baby compared to DD. It was my shit to deal with and I dealt with it. He is not responsible for the PND I experienced when he was born. Everyone on this thread had been made to feel responsible for their parents hang ups, for stuff that happened before they were even born. Wrong, wrong and wrong

Bad mothering pure and simple

My children are/will be different and individual but equally lovable and adorable for their differences.

rose Thank you for that post. You know I have struggled with that differentiation for so long now. I just feel soothed by what you wrote because I believe it applies to me 100%. Yes I felt immediate love for ds BUT I found it hard to bond with him. I feel sure since dd that I didnt.
This was down to my mother. Not only did she stand between me and my son emotionally (because she neglected me as a baby) but physically too. Demanding I not pick ds up or feed him on demand. Then picking her up herself. It makes me so just thinking about it.
As usual that special time was all about her. Why would I think it would be any different.
You have so done the right thing blocking your GM this time Rose. I am so happy for you and your little ones.

sorry should say picking 'him' up herself.

sounds like my GM's desire to literally grab DD from my arms at any given opportunity. Yet only the other day she was suggesting I should leave her to cry to sleep. These people are f***d up make no mistake!

They want to fulfil some desire to be loved/to love and to make up for motherhood lost I think. They know instinctively we are better mothers and feel threatened by us.

Jealousy drives them to try and undermine our ability to mother our own children

How awful! Should my DD be wonderfully natural and calm with her firstborn and not experience anxiety in her ,I will cry with joy and praise her to the hilt. If she does experience the difficulties I did, I will share my experinces and praise her even more. I will not paint myself as the perfect mother to undermine her.

Have just had a quick skim through recent posts. THANK YOU to everyone, to those you have responded directly to me and to those who have posted their own thoughts and experiences, there is something of value for me in everything that has been written.

I will have to come back later tonight to respond, it's school holidays now and getting time to myself is going to be hard for the net few weeks.

But just reading what you all have written is already making me feel better, so thank you again.

I really have got to that place where I don't care what my family think about me. But then I think maybe it is easier because my parents are not actually biologically my parents.

The birth of my daughter has allowed me to let go of some of the guilt I have about the early days with DS. I can be a loving and patient mother. I can settle a newborn. I can bond with my baby.

The difficulties with DS were down to family issues, I am convinced of that. I was so worried I would end up like my birth mother. Mentally unstable and unable to care for him. My GM breathing down my neck, pressuring me. Always, always trying to conrol and undermine me.

Not once has she praised me or my mothering skills. We pass these things on from generation to generation. Love, wisdom and mothering. She didn't teach me to mother, so I had to learn and make mistakes through my son. Hopefully now I have created a happy, stable family environment. Maybe my children will pass this onto their children.

roseability ans Smithfield

"Demanding I not pick ds up or feed him on demand. Then picking her up herself. It makes me so angry just thinking about it."

I can so relate to this.

DD1 I was in recovery for 5 hours after she was delivered, and when I finally got onto the ward my mother fell onto my wound in her deseperation to grab my baby from my arms. She would insist on holding my baby even if he/she were hungry and I wanted to feed him/her to sleep. SHe has major hangups about breastfeeding, and would have quite open discussions with my sister, with them saying how 'weird' it is, with me in the room with them! I have a bouncy chair in my DD1's room for DD2 to sit in whilst I settle DD1 to sleep,anmd mother told me to "get that chair out of the room" as if it was a ridiculous thing to do. I think she really was at the point where she thought this was her house too, and she could tell me what to do- it wasn't just unhelpful suggestions, it was "do it my way or else".

I have lots more to say as I had a really helpful session today, but will have to come back later.

Rose well done on setting the boudaries where you want them!

Thank you Pinky, Smithfield, AN and OPO for your responses to my last post, meant a lot. Will try and say more some other time, especially wrt your post AN and all the questions/points you raised! For now, just wanted to respond to a couple of other things people have said -

Smithfield, a bit late in the day, but I just wanted to echo AN's comment that of course you didn't say anything bad or wrong in your recent post. I can see how you would feel worried - it is very scary sometimes posting this kind of very sensitive stuff, especially if you don't get an immediate affirmative response - but on the contrary, far from thinking you said anything bad, I thought it was very brave of you to say what you did. Hope it helps to know there are those who read with respect for what you've been through and without judgement.

Rose and Pinky, just shocked and appalled at your GM's/mother's behaviour round your newborns. Awful, awful, awful. It is this need to control, to be number one, isn't it? I suppose it comes from never having been made to feel they mattered when they were children themselves; but that doesn't excuse it in the least. I think my mother has the same controlling and utterly selfish thing going on which is maybe why the stories get me, even though my mother tends to be much more covert in the way she operates. It's a kind of ruthlessness, isn't it - "bugger everybody else, as long as I get what I want" - they don't care about their own children's welfare or well being, that of their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren, everyone and everything can be sacrificed to make THEM feel better.

I have been feeling so much better for having written that big long post. Lots of ramifications, but again, will have to come back to that subject later, with more time and energy to go into it.

bop thankyou for what you wrote. It 'is' very sensitive and part of me feels as though I am betraying myself in some way by posting it on an open forum (as well as betraying dh).
Writing it has brought it to the surface again as if it was lurking there anyway demanding to be noticed.
I think somehow my subconcious wants me to take note. Even I am shocked by my ability then and now to totally bury my needs in oder to keep others happy.
As much as I wanted that baby I completely denied myself the right to excercise any kind of control over what happened to me/the baby my body.
As for him he left me to it, went on holiday (because after all how could he cancel and lose all that money?). But I told myself I would be the selfish one for destroying his life.
My parents did a great job on me. I am still paying the price now. Sitting on my own needs in order to keep others happy.

AN Thanks for both of your posts. I have been meaning to reply but had no time. I gained a lot from what you wrote, especially noting the changes in you to help note what is driving you at the time.
I think it might help to try and focus on that. To try and notice my feelings. How I feel when I think about staying at work and progressing at work in comparison to how I feel about staying at home (more) with the children.
All I can think at the moment is that I felt extremely happy and content when I was off for two weeks with them and feel very low now I am back at work.
You would think the deduction from that would be simple, but also tied up in it all is a whole mixture of need for approval, need not to be percieved as selfish and to do the right thing for everybody.

Smithfield I can so relate to that 'not enough'feeling. I also really don't know how to follow my own feelings- because any desire to do or have I was told was selfish I don't know where the balance really lies, as it all seems sinful ands excessive.

When I was younger I would have periods of feeling 'happy', or soI thought. They were usually times when I was controlling my eating/making myself sick to keep myself underweight. I think the sense of being in control in this way made me feel safer, and also there was an element of punishing myself, denial, which made me feel 'better'. God that sounds so mjessed up when I write it.

BOP my mother really is a bit of a shocker. She had to gradually worm her way in this last time. I overdid it after my last section and she got her toe in the door, and gradually got to the stage where she was holding my baby in the evening when I should have been feeding her and settling her. She clearly loved it, the feeling of being in control, looking like the expert. The more control she takes the more inadequate I feel. And then she decides she doesn't want the hassle and gets bored and I don't see her for weeks. She would only do the bits that made her look good- playing with the DC etc. Never the practical stuff- washing up, folding laundry, tidying etc. Aside from the one day when her friend came too. That was a superb performance.

I have begun to realise how much of my life has been subsumed by worrying about my sister. My life has always been lived around her needs. WHen I was a child, it was obvious- if she didn't want me there, I would be left at home, along with general nastiness to make her feel better. SHe was the beautiful, clever one and I was not allowed any of that, for fear of her not feelng 'special'. I was not taught any of the many craft skills my mother had, despite my obvious talent and interest in these things, but my sister was- sewing, knitting, crochet etc. etc.
SHe was taught how to drive, do crosswords. RRGH it goe on and on. I had to be in awe pf her- how marvelllous, how talented, how beautiful she was. I had to watch my mother and my sister get make up done, haircuts, clothes shopping. I f I waked ffor anythbign I was read the riot act, told how I always spoiled everything becuase I was a green-eyed monster. I was made to sit in the car on my own or just left behind.

When we were older, my sis would have personal dramas and I woulod have to worry about her feelings all the time, worrying about my sister. SHe would invite me so visit her and then go out without me, leaving me at home on my own just like the old days. SOmetimes she would be pleased to see me but it would only last for a few hours, then I knew I had to go or else I would start getting raged at by her.

My sister had feeligns that matter, I do not. MY sister had talents worth celebrating, I did not. I hate the fact that we were set against each other in this way.

I would make my sister little love tokens- home made rings etc with 'I love you' written on etc. She loved them, but she just lapped it upas more approval for her- she never saw it as the cry for a loving sister relationship that it was. I craved her love and approval. I was always so desperate to make her happy, feel better, and to accept me as her sister. But I knwo now that this was another black hole. Another 'gap' that would never be filled, no matter how much love I poured into it. ANd now I have stepped away from this gap and my sister really resents me for it, but she will not do anything to mend the gap. I think we will just become estranged. She rings me but I cannot bear her drunken 'drama' calls. ANd I can never ring her, as I always ring at the wrong time.

I am so sorry for my terrible typing. I should have waited until the children were in bed.

I can't help feeling like a spoilt child stomping her foot and saying 'me me me'.

Is this because I am feeling better? Or is it because I am close to caving in with my mother. I am getting the feeling that I am making more of things than is there, that things were not so bad.

After my session on tuesday I am feeling a lot better about my relationships with my children. I have been getting in a bit of a state worrying that DD1 is being excluded from things. She won't come out into the garden but prefers to watch telly. Now she is only 2 and lots of 2 year olds go through this telly phase but I had worked it all into that I was subcconsciously scapegoating her and she was feeling excluded. I have been having terrible dreams about these things.

But as my guy said to me,I am having nightmares. She is exercising her choices, chosing what to do, she is not being excluded on purpose, no-one teases or bullies her into stayiing on her own. In fact DS and DD1 have been getting on really well these last few days. I think they just had to get used to being around each other all day again.

It is my biggest fear- that I think I am the victim but it is actually me who is the narcissicist and I am going to label my children to meet my own dysfunctional needs.

Am I stil trying to take the blame for my parent's and my siblings?

People I know in RL who have family issues, most of them have good relationships with their siblings- they can talk to each other about the problems in their families, but I cannot discuss this with mine- as they all treat me as the 'scapegoat' and will do what my parents ask.
As result I am often left thinking that it is me that is the problem. I had a very different childhood to my siblings and yets ther are only 3.5 years between me and my eldest sibling.

I have no-one in my family to back me up on my story, so how will I ever be convinced I am right?

PM I know exactly what you mean. I feel my situation is very similar to yours. I cant talk to my siblings either. I am the eldest and yet they treat me with complete disregard and as if I am the problem.
They complain to me (or did in the past) about my parents especially my mum. BUT, if I was to complain or stand up for myself they all begin to isolate me, make me feel bad for my actions.
Moving forward is difficult pm, but you are making so much progress and I hopr you can see that. Just as your therapist has done for you (the example with dd1) you need to start collecting evidence to the contrary. You are so used to doing the opposite, looking for evidence that you are wrong or bad because you have been brainwashed by your family to think this way. You have been bombarded by lists of negatives.
When I am feeling doubtful I start looking for positive evidence. Building my own self defence camp. A big one for me is how I interact with others outside of my family. There arent any (or many) problems there. Others dont think the same way as my family about me. People like me and get on well with me.
Its like re-training yourself, re-programming your brain and seeing yourself in a positive light. But it wont come easily or naturally. Like moving to a foreign country, it takes time...like learning to exist in a new culture.
You are doing brilliantly.

Sorry in advance but have to just vent - MIL is arriving this evening, for the weekend, and all I want to do is hide in a hole till she's gone. She was supposed to be coming tomorrow daytime but no trains then so it has to be tonight, which we only found out last night, so I feel (and am) completely unprepared, both emotionally and practically. oh god. I'm exhausted already, just thinking about it. Feel like I'm back to constantly trying to contain this rage - it's such a horrible, painful way to be. I'm still trying to get my head round the way my own mother has broken my heart so often. Although I know it and I understand it on many levels, I still just can't quite "get it" on an emotional level, that she doesn't care about me enough. It's weird, like I say, I get it in my mind - there are so many examples on here and on other MN threads of truly appalling mothers, but I still can't quite stomach it, that there is this breed of mother that is fundamentally horrible; mothers who will gladly sacrifice their children for their own convenience, who basically just don't want to be mothers to the children they have. My therapist told me a story ages ago about an experiment done with chimpanzees, I think - really horrible experiment, dreamt up by some pretty sick people I think, but the results seem to have some bearing on what I'm struggling with at the moment. They put mother chimps in special cages with their babies, and then heated the floors so they became unbearably hot to stand on or sit on; there was no way of climbing off the floor - and so the chimp mothers, or at least some of them, put their babies underneath them and stood on them to protect themselves. Isn't that horrific? I feel guilty just typing it out, it's such a horrible thing to share. But - that's the only explanation I can find for my own mother's behaviour. I was the thing that came to hand that she could put between her and the red-hot pain of her own past. Very convenient. My mother is one of those women who is absolutely determined never to feel any pain, or as little as she can possibly get away with, no matter how painful the things are that actually happen to her. So she's always looking for a way to numb it - keeps herself manically busy the whole time, when I was a child she just never stopped, literally - not because they were all things she had to do, but because she wanted the distraction so she wouldn't have to dwell on anything uncomfortable for her. Obviously she's terrified that if she ever does start feeling stuff on any real level, she'll fall apart completely. But she was happy for me to be so damaged by her behaviour and the behaviour of my father and brother that I've spent a great deal of my life falling apart completely. Because she kept treading on me to make herself feel better. Treading on me and making me take the pain that was meant for her, nice double whammy. This analogy has suddenly fallen into place for me.

Have to go, DS awake.

bop The other night I had a vivid dream that I was trying to explain to my mum how I felt, the injustice of her beaviour toward me, how her behaviour had affected me.
In that dream I still needed her to get it. Take back the crap from me, set me free by doing just that.
However much I think I've dealt with it, it's still there eating away at me. Deep in my subconcious.
Yes it is getting better but I know after that dream that I still have not come to terms with it all...not really.
I have two years under my belt, my mother has 39. Sometimes I feel like I will never feel emotionally reconciled with my own rational self (if that makes sense).
Dont know if it helps but (as sad at it is) you are not alone. x

Smithfield thank you for responding to me, I knwo what you are saying. Every week my therapsit tells me how well I am doing and I know I am getting better. I just really struggle with the self-esteem thing.

Bop that really isd a horrid experiment. But dare I say I think I have some sympathy with the chimps- becuase they are put in a truly dificult position- they have no way out. Our mothers on the other hand did/do have another way- they could have done what we are doing and try to confront their demons. Instead they chose the path of least resistance.

My moher loves telling me her 'story', and how hard things were for her - but all she wants me to do is feel her pain- she does not want it to stop- she does not want the generational line to be drawn. As far as I'm concerned the family 'curse', if you will, stops here. She can throw whatever she wants at me there is no way I'm passing it on to my children.

AN I feel you are being too hard on yourself. It sounds like you are imitating your brother (as he was then) when you say;

I think about doing it in a defiant 'I can take it' way and a 'this is what you should do for your children and my family didn't do it for me but I'll 'show them' by doing it properly for my children' way.

I honestly dont feel by reading your post that you are taking your pain out on your children. If that were true you would be screaming at them to get away, or physically pushing them away from you.

Your background is part of who you are and I dont think you should feel you have to micromanage yourself in such a way, because in many respects your behaviour falls into a very normal set of responses.

It would be different if your children were crying out for you in the morning because they were hungry or afraid or hurt and you were to say in response to that... no I cant bare it, it reminds me of past pain. They will have to scream/cry. I need to be left alone and not reminded.

Sorry if I am sounding too direct or bossy?- I find it hard sometimes to find the right words. I just feel strongly that you sound like a lovely normal sensitive mum who loves her children. The reactions you describe aren't going to damage them.
There is a world of difference between what you describe and abusive beahviour.
Ok - Lecture over

AN Of course it is, and I totally understand because I feel exactly the same. I feel I am constantly monitoring my children's beahviour. Checking for 'damage' I may have caused them. It is very difficult to distinguish at times, I struggle with it too.
I seem to find it easier to re-assure others than I do myself
I think I am getting better at it. The less I think of myself as a bad mother the more I want to interact with my dc's because I think when I feel bad about something I am doing that's when I want to withdraw from it. That comes from a fear of failure I guess and getting things wrong. Makes me want to hide away.

Hi all.

Hope you are okay.

I read some of my own threads today when I was really in a mess about my first love.

In 1987 me and him started going out together and I really wanted to send him a message. Every time I tried I couldn't get my email to work or else I would lose the message.

I was getting really fed up but it was really important to me that I sent it, even if it was crazy.

I did eventually send it and I feel better.

I knew today would be difficult but I kept things in order and know I will get there in time.

Social services have received my claim for damages so things have been hard and he was so great with all this so has been hard not to think of him at times.

ActingNormal

I'm sorry I have been sleeping like a hibernating thing at the moment. I had been thinking about your last message and I had come to the same conclusion as Smithfield.My DH in the morning is the absolute best at playing dead. He dozes on whilst I read a variety of books etc. the DC bring in to me, sometimes I get up and get them dressed. More often than not I keep them occupied for an hour then I wake DH and he takes over whilst I slink back under the covers or catch a bit of snuggle time with just me and the baby. I think it is a natural thing to want those few extra minutes of sleep. Enjoying a few moments to yourself is quite normal and healthy.

When I have been really down I have had times when I have really needed to drag myself out of bed, and for that I do feel guilty. But what you and I are not doing is going off to bed to leave our chidren to fend for themselves, or leaving them with anyone who'll have them all day any day, or telling them to go away and stop being a pest when they are bleeding or in pain. I still feel guilty for not joining them for breafast every day, but as my therapist pointed out, I am leaving them with their Dad, not on their own or with some random stranger.

As Smithfield says, I think most people would think it ok to ignore their children from time to time, but because I was ignored all the time aS a child, I can't bring myself to ignore my children at all.

I have three DC, the eldest is 4 - I cannot physically 'come and see' and do everything they ask of me, but I can listen to them and discuss with them what I can do and that I will give them my time as soon as I've finished what I'm doing etc.

I think you need to be a bit kinder to yuorself, but I can sympathise. If youy look at some of my recent posts, you'll see I've been worrying about all kinds of things in this way. It is very hard to sift through what is 'normal' and what is not when you have no decent benchmarks from your own childhood. I am so scared of damaging them emotionally.

Hi all. I can completely relate to not knowing what is normal and what is not. Since the holidays started although I feel ok now, i think i went through some sort of crisis during the first few days. I felt like I simply could not cope with the DC's, like I just wanted to simply walk out the door and run away. I have realised now i was feeling overwhelmed at the thought of coping on my own for nearly 5 weeks of the holidays. I also had this feeling of being a child at boarding school, who is fine during term time, but then it comes to the holidays and all the other children have parents and families to go home to and I have nobody who wants me and nowhere to go. Many of the other mums i know will be going to stay at their mums for part of the holidays or will have their mum over at theirs and I felt so sad and lonely that i had nobody, no mother i could go to for some rest and respite, i just had to keep on going when i was already feeling drained and exhausted from the relentlessness of the school term. I had a terrible few days and I still haven't worked out whether i was in fact triggering some long repressed emotions from childhood. I suppose the feeling of not having a mother to go to, to be looked after was always with me as a child so perhaps it is that feeling which was triggered by the start of the school holidays. The feeling of being alone and isolated, to the outside world it all looked normal, like i did have a mother, but really she was never there for me. I did not ever feel like i had a mother, no matter how real she appeared to be to other people.

Anyway, I am getting off track. I meant to say that I was beginning to think all my hard work on myself had been for nothing as recently i had been feeling like i really disliked DD and simply did not want her around. ie the exact feelings i feel my mother had about me. I felt very despondent. But it did not seem right as our relationship had been improving so much recently and i could really feel a growing bond between us. After a lot of thinking and help from MN on another thread, i finally realised that what i was feeling was nothing to do with my childhood and my issues. It was simply a case that DD is a highly extrovert child, who demands and needs a LOT of attention. Whereas I am an introvert and I exist in my head, i do not need attention, i need space to think. So the start of the holidays meant a huge clash between our different needs and this is what was making me feel so miserable. I simply needed some regular space from DD, i was normal, she was normal, our relationship was good, but our personality types meant it was not good for us to spend long periods together without a break which is what we did for the first few days of the holiday. This week is much better as i have booked DD in for a drama workshop and so i am getting 2 hours a day to myself which is sufficient and acts as a pressure valve so i don't have to try and keep it all in and eventually 'explode' as i did last week.

So in my long winded way i was trying to say that every incident is not necessarily a sign of damage or problems in your relationshiup with your DC, but a normal problem that loads of other mums also have, as i found out once i had started a thread about it all.

On a completely different note, I have finally come to a decision about what to do about my sisters. I will be meeting one of them this weekend which has been in the diary for ages. But after that, i will be writing to both of them to say i need a break from our relationship. I will try and leave it open ended as i do not want to close the door on them completely but i definately, for the time being, think i would be far better off without any form of contact with them. It has taken me a long time to finally make this decision. I did think a while ago that i could just distance myself from them in my head and maintain some sort of relationship with them. But the truth is that any sort of contact with them leaves me feeling hurt and upset. They seem to inadvertently or carelessly always say something that hurts me in the place i am most vulnerable and i simply cannot take it anymore. And i honestly wonder if they are truly completely unaware of how their remarks and comments make me feel or if they do have some idea they are hurting me and secretly get some pleasure out of it.

Or if they truly do have no idea how they are constantly upsetting me, then it means they have no idea how i have felt excluded and isolated by them over the years which means they have never given even one second's thought to me or my feelings. They have never seen me as a person who is worth thinking about, i am just a non-entity who they can verbally kick and punch without any resistance and at the same time they can and do use me when it suits them and then cast me aside when i am no longer needed.

Ultimately i have allowed them to treat me like this over all these years. But it's not my fault. I was so weakened and damaged by my dad's vile abuse and so neglected and uncared for by my mother, that i felt i was completely worthless and undeserving of being treated with respect or consideration.

I have this idea that my sisters are only united because of me and not independently of me. I think they are united in their hatred and dislike of me. But without me as a common enemy, i think, or perhaps i am just hoping, that their relationship will implode or crumble as i am certain there is nothing to it below the surface.

I suppose if i am honest i am hoping their relationship will crumble and that one of them will come back to me and then she and I will be close and we will exclude the other one. If i am honest, i would love for that to happen. I would love to be close to my youngest sister and exclude middle sister as she is definately the one who has been nastiest to me. But i know i have to prepare myself to be completely on my own. And that my stepping out of the picture may actually bring my sisters closer in a way they were never close before and then there will never be a possibility for me to be close to one or both of them.

I need to give up any hope whatsoever of any closeness or relationship with them but it is very hard.

opo I am sorry for you, for the difficult decison you have had to make wrt your sisters. I have lived all my life with the knowledge that my brother has never given me any significance in his life - I have always been either and irrelenvance or nuisance- I don't think he ever took the timne to get to know me at all. My sister is I think a narcissicst of some description.

I know what you mean about other people arranging trips/visits with GPs. I know some people do not haver family and that is tragic and sad, but it is hard knowing my parents are not far away and could be enjoying a lovely time with my DC if only they were not so manipulative and quite frankly crazy. I have been trying to arrange a short meet up with them but it is really like playing a game of battleships as mother will not agree to anything- she has to keep changing things so she feels in control- net result no visit. I have been getting increasingly weepy phone messages from her, but TBH it all sounds very fake. My children have stopped talking about her and do not respond at all when her nbame is mentioned. It is so sad. I feel like it is my fault. I wish I could shift this weight of guilt, it hampers everything I do or want/need to do.

I want to see them- but what I want to see are the parents I have never had. I don't want to engage with what I am going to get, which is a load of emotional blackmail/abuse, being ignored or physically pushed around/pinched/shoved, glared at through crocodile tears. I was trying to invite them to the house but I don't think it will work- I don't want her snooping around my home and I don't fancy having to make them leave if they lose it again like the last time we saw them. So I don't know if she will go for the offer I have made. Part of me wishes she would just give up and leave me alone.