Toxic mother and WWYD

[runt]

I am 41. From my earliest memories relationship with my mother has been very difficult. She has a very cruel temprament. I am for the first point in my life at the point where I think I will break contact off.

Latest incident was very unpleasant and left me feeling as if I had been physically assaulted. She wrote to me, recorded delivery, cancelling an agreed visit and returning various paraphernalia

For the last two months we have not been in touch.

Cons
I don't want to prevent her seeing my dc's, but I recoil at the prospect of contacting or seeing her but do not want to involve the c's. They are still very young.

Pros
The latest incident is just one in a long line of incidents that were appalling for me.

Anyone cut off contact with a prent, btw I am one of 4 c's and I doubt they will follow xsuit - too much money at stake.

allsweetness, you are bonkers and rude

runt the above demonstrates so nicely why we find it hard to go no contact with family members, especially mothers. Mothers are still taboo and many people are fixated on the idea that you should love and worship your mother regardless of what she has done.

My Mum was an erratic, irrational and cruel alcoholic. She's not a bad person and can be charming, funny and passionate. But my relationship with her was toxic and very detrimental to me. The important thing is that you make the right decision for you, not society at large.

Have you looked at the Stately Homes thread? I'm due another visit myself.

Hope you are all ok?

Feeling better. I am just not going to initiate contact and when I respond keep her at arms legnth. Corresponding is great, she started the ball rolling with her letter so I might send a postcard later in the summer. I am not taking her calls or listening to any voicemails and I may well set up a tea date for my c's with her later in the year which my lovely dh will host.

All she can do to me now, and I expect her parting blow to be some nasties when she dies in her will, but I am preparing myself for this. Her legacy will not be misery for me. I have a very distant relationship with my sibs, so I am not going to lose out there.

She once said to me 'keep out of my family', that sums it up really.

I didn't make any dramatic gestures when I cut off contact. I just did it.

I got a rash of phone calls, which I didn't pick up and simply got BT to block the number.

I was going to say sorry for the way this thread went last night, but actually, it was an illuminating insight into the mind of someone who is caught up in defining others....the cornerstone of abuse...if you don't fit the definition...you are bad/wrong etc. That's where the abuse starts.

It is so hard to ignore it. The instinct is to defend yourself. I am told that people who are locked into this are so disconnected from their own senses that they really cannot hear you, see you etc.

Maybe, just maybe, Sweetness will now realise that there is something VERY wrong with the way she views the world and the people in it. Conected from the outside in and not the inside out.

The only way to deal with it is to disconnect from it, otherwise they have permission to continue, even by arguing with them validates their abuse.

That's why NC is the right route for many of us, as tough as it is.

Maybe I'll see you in a stately home or two?

Yes thisishowifeel I am coming over to stately homes. Interesting that one can block the BT number. It makes my heart beat faster just thinking about never speaking again before one of us dies - if that makes sense , I think the sorrow will go on forever

Personally runt i wouldnt allow contact with your dcs , in my experience abusers just move on to the next target and find new ways to abuse. The fact shes already made comments re your daughters body would worry me.
If she is an abuser , keep her away from your dcs, she is highly likeley to abuse them too, instead teach your dcs that its not ok to treat people badly and thats why your not seeing grandma anymore.

And as for other relatives , it might be a good thing if you lose contact with them too, you dont see them much and your mother will probably employ them to abuse you further using guilt and other horrible tactics.

It might be tough for a while , i had to ring the police on my relatives many times as they would not accept i didnt want to see them , screaming in the street ect, the whole lot , the guilt i felt was horrendous. But it seems like a lifetime ago now, i never think about them, and theyve never seen my dcs.

I am reluctant to mess things up for my children. My life has been very difficult in many ways and I don't want to drag my c's into too much of it.

I would like to keep a veneer for them that all is well and for them never to know how cruel my mother was to me. I don't want them to know that you can find such sorrow at the heart of a family that mothers can hate their children.

My mother used to say to me when I was little 'you should have been drowned at birth', this was said to me most days. I am cutting her out of my life but I am not going to go the whole hog. I cannot do that, but it may be a consequence of my withdrawl.

Be careful runt, as you take control of her impact on you she may actually starting manipulating your children which is very unfair on them.

She is not really interested in them, she will never have access to them alone and always at my home with my dh there. She never physically abused me it was mental cruelty, odd slap and pinch. She will not be able to do it to my c's, but tbh can't see her coming over to see the c's, it is me she wants and the power to hurt me when it suits. I am not playing ball though anymore.

I'm impressed. It's wonderful that your DH is supportive and understands the limits that must be placed on her undermining of your kids. You're starting to sound as if you've worked out a strategy that will be helpful to you while leaving some flexible boundaries; you'll doubtless redefine those as life goes on & things change.

I'm sorry that she put you down so badly as a child. I can feel sorry for her, too, but am relieved she's not getting her claws into you and yours any more!

runt I can really empathise with you

I was raised by abusive adoptive parents (my grandmother and my step grandfather). He has cut me out of his life after I challenged him about the abuse in a letter. My grandmother is narcissistic, cruel, cold and manipulative

After much therapy, posting on here and surrounding myself with normal and loving people I am starting to heal. Her impact is now minimal and I have accepted she won't change and that she doesn't love me (or certainly not in the way I love my kids). However like you I still feel she should be allowed access to my kids. Why?

Like Attila said it is partly fear, obligation and guilt. Not so much because of what she would think of me (don't really care anymore) but because of society's reaction to this taboo subject. We are still clouded by the 'all mothers are angels' dream. Indeed a lot of mothers are loving and wonderful, but a hell of a lot aren't and I wish society would be more accepting of that fact. Remember disney films where all the evil mothers were step mothers? It was just too unpalatable to think a birth mother could be so cruel - but we know and boy have we suffered

I also worry I would be cutting a biological relative and thus part of my children's heritage from their life. What if they resented me for it later? My grandmother cut my grnadfather and great grandparents from my life and I do resent that. She effectively stole me from my birth mother who was left to rot in mental institutions with no chance of a relationship with me

I also worry that she could abuse my kids mentally or use them to get at me. I am trying to negotiate a once a year visit strictly in the company of others (and never leave my kids alone with her) but it is hard isn't it?

I get nothing from the relationship and really just wish she would end a lot of people's suffering and cease to be. It sound harsh but it is truly how I feel. Sorry not any good advice but just wanted you to know you are not alone

its interesting Grace that you said you can feel sorry ofr the abuser too

There was a time when this would have made me angry. I was clinging on to old survival tactics like 'you're either for me or against me'

But you know just recently the anger towards them is less. Yes part of me wishes they would just go out of my life, sometimes I even wish they were dead. But that is to make my decisions about contact easier and not pure hatred and anger of them anymore.

I have the odd moment of true pity for them. I used to push that feeling away but now I let it run. It is truly sad that someone can be so damaged that they cannot feel true love and empathy and therefore cannot have meaningful relationships. I am not condoning what they did or even forgiving them but I can understand that they are products of abusive childhoods and I can feel sorry for their inner child which is so supressed and buried beneath layers of denial. It is maybe this that also prompts me to allow some contact, I don't know

Runt , you may want to think about things and get some support to help you through this. You commented earlier that you consider it your dcs decision whether to have contact with her, not yours.

At their very young ages they are unable to make a choice like this because they do not know the facts nor the consequences of those choices.

It absoluteley IS your decision. Presumably from being a young adult its also been your decision whether to have contact or not, and youve continued to do so , probably out of guilt, fear, and the hope that one day she might change.
What if another adult , ie your dad had made the decision on your behalf and stopped contact for you ? How many years of misery would that have saved you.

I do feel ashamed to have such a c* mum and unlike my friends. I feel there must be something wrong with me so one does not want to advertise this.

She will not damage my c's and I doubt she will see much of them anyway. They are oblvious and inocent of this and they will probably never know of it, which is what I want for them.

I think contact is the right of a child and even where a child has been removed from a parent or a parent is viiolent the courts are loathe to stop some sort of contact.

My mother and I have a terrible relationship, but she is not a paedophile or violent, she has damaged me and it has got the point now where I am not going back for more and I am prepared for her last act against me which will probably be to cut me out of her will - she probably will do this whether I have contact with her or not.

But if she wants to see my c's that is fine. I just will not be there when she does, but not going to make a big doo da of it as too much agro, roseabiliyt your post resonated with me too.

Dignified thanks for your comments they are helpful, it is just that I am more an understated type of person. Want to get on with mylife just slowly removing her from my life and to a large extent that means the children.

The damage my mother did to me was because she was my mother. She is not my c's mother and by virtue of that she cannot damage them because she is not their mother. Iam and I am a loving albeit bad tempered somtimes, mother, who loves them and they know that.

Roseability, I know what you mean about the cease to be issue, as it is just over then. No more, no more pain. I look forward to that and for closure.

I have forgiven my mother but I do not want to be hurt ever again.

I am sorry about what your grandmother did to you - hugs to all on this post -

The longing for a mother it never goes away. I find myself forming friendships iwth women who could be my mother, but they have their own children, and wishing they were my mother. Stay with the feeling was the matra of a therapist of mine - twenty years ago now - but it is such a c* feeling.

runt I am in a similar place re my mother.

I am also likely to decide on a similar course as you describe in your 2 posts above,for similar reasons - and to be honest,because I can't deal with my feelings if I go totally NC at this time...

I don't have anyone who can host contact,however, so it will be more a case of not answering the phone,not responding,sending cards and thank you letters and then occasionaly offering to visit them with dc's for a very short drop in.....

Only trouble is that ,for now,I am still not able to drive (post-natal,new baby) and they have got into the habit of phoning to say the y are on their way over,knowing that I am in because I can't yet go out.

I will need a temporary strategy that is more effective than avoidance....

Well done and good luck to you...
I ,too,have that longing for a mother...it is easily worse than any other feeling I have had...and although hopefully manageable at some point,I guess is never truly resolvable...

As a student nurse years ago,I remember a very old woman , in the very late stages of a dementia, who used to wake all through the night crying out "mummy,mummy" and sobbing like a baby....I found it absolutely unbearable and the memory haunts me

Pinemartin, could you write to them and ask them not to come unless it has been agreed in advance. New baby means you need to rest and you are tyring to sleep when the baby does or perhaps you do not need to justify it. Just write and tell them not to do this and that you will be in touch when you are ready to agree a visit.

Riven, if my mother was alone I would feel under obligation to assist her. My sibs are around, near ish and see her a bit, lets me off hook. Like you I have sense of responsibility and would be concerned. However, whenever I have done things out of such sense of duty when she hurts me it is all the worse because I did not really want to see her in the first place - if that makes sense. I do not know what the answer is though I know the sentiment.

Just a note of caution re the duty in old age thing ...

If your sibs have distanced themselves, there's a reason and you know what it is. You have not been fated to care for your selfish, inconsiderate parents in their dotage. Your sibs can, quite reasonably say you are an equal adult and make your own choices. They may not actually be reasonable people, but that statement would be reasonable.

No child owes their parent. If the parent failed in their duty towards you (which they do owe), it goes double. There is a serviceable welfare system - it's not ideal, but it does provide the necessities.

My mother went to extraordinary lengths to get me away from my own life. I'm pretty sure she intended to have me in place (the eldest; unmarried: how 19th century!) for her dotage.

Even if she fails and I'm still only 5 miles away, I shan't visit her more than once a week. My intention is to keep moving further. She's fond of that uforgiving rule, "You made your bed, now you must lie in it."
Live by the sword, die by the sword.

sorry, that should have been in Stately Homes

I feel so down about it all. The situation is always on my mind. It leaves me feeling desolate.

runt,

re your comment:-

"I do feel ashamed to have such a c* mum and unlike my friends. I feel there must be something wrong with me so one does not want to advertise this".

There is nothing wrong with you. The fault here lies with your Mother, not you. You did NOT make her this way; she is transferring and has transferred all her crap onto you. You became the scapegoat for all her ills, ills that she never could or even wanted to address properly as an adult. All those that come from dysfunctional families play roles. Why is she like this, well its probably because her own parents treated her abusively as well.

I would not let her anywhere near your children even with your H present. I would not have her in your home.

You write that your Mother is not violent; I would argue that she has been emotionally violent and would continue to be so given half the chance.

Toxic people like your Mother never apologise and never take responsibility for their own actions. She will start on your children given half the chance; beware indeed.

Do not let the FOG get a grip again. Sod feeling guilty as well (easier said than done but it can be done). Do read the Stately Homes thread and also read Toxic Parents written by Susan Forward if you have not already done so. Counselling for your own self may also be beneficial.

Do consider calling yourself another name as well. "Runt" is just awful and you're certainly no runt. You truly deserve a better pen name.

Like many of you I am dealing with the fallout of a nasty row with my mother.

Whilst I am in a lot of ways relieved that it has blown up it is constantly on my mind and I can't get a rest from it.

In this case I haven't done anything wrong, but what I am doing in my mothers eyes is wrong.

She has accused me of cruelty and abuse to my son which is impossible.

The cruelty and abuse has been her, for the whole of my life.

I don't know how I feel about all this apart from serious and severe anger.

I am stuck and don't know what to do.