April 2023 -"Well we took you to Stately Homes"

Thank you for the reply’s.

i think the main thing I struggle with is I don’t really have any friends - I find it hard to make and maintain relationships. My mother would invite herself out with me and my friends when I was a young adult, has no boundaries at all. I have no safe space to discuss how I feel aside from therapy. Even in therapy I feel terribly guilty for speaking bad of my mother and felt angry when my therapist pointed out that I had been neglected as a child.

My mother will see my children once in a blue moon but then plaster it all over social media making out like she’s the best grandparent ever.

she told me she didn’t know how to
be a mother because her mother was terrible but where does that leave me?

She will play the victim if I go NC I may loose relationships with my siblings, I’m scared about that.

from reading this forum I know NC is the right thing I just don’t know how to do it or if I’m
brave enough.

That's hard, @Cn1. I also have issues with friendships. It's a perfect storm to feel isolated.

It is possible that when you feel able to distance yourself from your mother you may find you feel clearer in yourself and this may have a positive effect on your other relationships.

Do your siblings have any awareness of your mother's effect on you, and presumably them? Or are they in denial?

@BluebellsForest my DB is well aware and has is LC and DS is he same but they don’t have children so I don’t know what they would think about me going NC. I think at this point I’m going to stop being the one to reach out and see what happens. She rang me the other week saying that she hasn’t heard from any of us (her adult children) in weeks “but no news is good news” I’m not quite sure how to interpret that comment.

It doesn't sound like your DB would judge you then. Access to GC is not a right for a grandparent.

It sounds like you've got swamped in FOG. Have you read some of the resources in the OP?

Starting off with not contacting her sounds a good idea, but she may object of course. Which is your confirmation to stand firm.

(I hope you get some more replies. It seems rather quiet on here atm.)

Just to clarify, what you have written almost sounds like the GC are an asset which you cannot refuse her enjoyment of without being judged. Take a moment to realise how fucked up that is.

From all of your posts, you and your DC owe her nothing. Absolutely nothing, @Cn1.

@cn1 I'm sorry your mum had absolutly no boundaries and didn't allow you the freedom to have friends without her interfering. I think that's their need of control and also purely feeling you are an extension of her. I know this very well unfortunately.
But keep in mind this is what SHE wanted. You don't need to follow and meet any of her crazy expectations. I do keep in touch with my NM, it's LC. One call once a week. It's a call, it's a "duty" call. I already expect the usual shit. She is not interested in me, my children etc. , and only talks about how amazing she reckons she is. I do give her very little info about the kids. It's all bland conversation. She goes on rants. I look at the watch. I don't allow more than 20 or 30 minutes. And then it's over. Don't let her in your life focus in your family and making friends. People that ads value to your life.
She will never add anything good to your life, she just can't. Good you are going through therapy. Whatever you decide to do, don't let your mother be part of you, your life, your own decisions. You only have one life.
All the best xx

Thank you all for you advice.

@girlswillbegirls you sound like you have had a similar experience to me. You are right that I need to focus on relationships that add value to
my life. My mother has treat me so badly for so long and normalised everything for example introducing me to drugs as a teenager, some really messed up stuff I didn’t realise was so bad until I went to therapy and my mental health was/sometimes still is a mess. My mother loves to hear that I’m suffering with mental
health “your just like me” when in reality she made me like this.

NC is the best thing, I need to protect my children from this and myself because when I have horrible interactions with her it impacts on my mental health.

Hello. I've not been on this thread before. Just wanted a vent as my mental health is really poor at the moment. I've got early menopause, I'm recovering from a virus, separated last year, stressed about money and generally feel on the brink. I feel really alone but can't rely on my family for anything as I am the 'coper', the one who can just be left to get on with it while my sister (in particular) is the 'problem child' who needs constant help and support. My mum never even rings me unless I ring her. I was kicked out of home at 18 and left to fend for myself. Yet like all families, there's a tissue of lies to sustain some sort of bullshit that we're a close family, and one of the lies is that I am a career woman who's always absolutely fine and never needs any support, financially, emotionally or whatever. In reality, I've had severe anxiety for years, am just about to take the plunge and go back on antidepressants, am trying to get a diagnosis for adult ADHD (probably impossible without forking out ££££ which I don't have right now) and I feel like I am just about holding my head above water.

I often think maybe I should tell my mum this but what's the point? It suits everyone else in the family, including my siblings, to keep up the charade that I am doing brilliantly and can therefore be ignored.

Just feeling really low about it all tbh.

I have been NC with my father for 15 years apart from seeing him at the occasional funeral. My parents are divorced and he is also estranged from all siblings and friends. He really wasn't pleasant.

He died last week and the police came to the door to inform me. I'm an only child so it falls to me to sort it all out. I get the impression a funeral is expected by but I really don't know what a minister/celebrant would say given he never worked, was a bully and alienated all family and friends.

If you've been in a similar situation can you tell me what you did for funeral. Thank you

I'm sorry, that's hard. But you don't need to hold any sort of service. You can arrange a direct cremation and you don't even need to attend that. Increasing numbers of people are choosing that.

In fact you don't have to do anything. Did he leave provision for his funeral?

Welcome, @horseyhorsey17. One phrase that jumped out of your post was

It suits everyone else in the family

Sure, but if it doesn't suit you then there is no need to go along with the lies and whole narrative. Would there may be be benefit to you in being honest and clear about your real situation?

I don't know really - I think the family just wants an excuse not to have to think or worry about my wellbeing. So me emailing or writing saying 'actually I'm not coping that well, I am really struggling' would probably be ignored. Also my stepdad is currently being treated for stage two cancer so it's just not good timing, my mum is busy with that and tbh I don't blame her or want to dump my problems onto her. Even though she and my stepdad are the root cause of a lot of those problems!

Anyway, hi! I'll have a good read through the thread and get to know some of the people on here.

@horseyhorsey17 welcomr. Lots of support here for you. Can you talk to friends? Not all friends get it, but shit abusive families are more common than we’re led to believe.

@MrsPerfect12 you can hand it over to the local authority. You don't have to take any responsibility for this.

So, Mr Monkey had to take The Hag (his toxic, abusive mother) to the hospital for an appointment on Friday with regard to her mild skin cancer.

Much moaning at the hospital. Embarrassing.

He walks home from her lair after dropping her off. 10 minutes walk in DAYLIGHT.

He had three phone calls - one after another - in quick succession from her to check if he was ok. No, this was control.

He was busy so he didn't pick up.

Fourth call is Stockholm syndrome slave son who just does what he's told by the Hag checking in to see where MM is
“at home, I'm busy”
“Hag wants you to ring her now”
“I'm busy. I will ring her when I'm not busy”

Hangs up.

10 minutes later, he rings, Hag doesn't pick up.

Game playing.

Phone rings.It's you know who.

Tons of ranting recriminations about him not calling her, not answering. MM doesn't rise to the bait and is calm and assertive.

Hag is furious. She delivers one of her best lines ever.

“You've taken the joy out of it now”

AS IF.

WTAf. I laughed for 10 minutes.

Stayed up late drinking wine and more and more comes out about his disgusting childhood and adolescence.

Ah yes @MonkeyfromManchester - Mr Monkey "took all the joy out of it" by refusing to take the bait. How can she triangulate when one corner of the triangle is defective?

Mr M deserves a medal and a big mexican wave from the crowd.

@MrsPerfect12 - You do not have to take on any funeral "duties". It can be left in the hands of the local authority. Tell them you have been estranged for years and you want nothing to do with any of it. And do take extra care of yourself - this is a difficult time for you, now that it is finally over. It can dredge up all kinds of feelings.

Sending solidarity to all.

@Sicario im going to get the cardboard out and make him a medal a la Blue Peter.

Her comment around joy (she couldn’t even spell it) ranks up with “I was a good mother, you know” (screamed).

She didn’t dare ring all weekend or she was waiting for his apology.

News yesterday is that her next hospital appointment is 22 December. We had a laugh about that.

and so far she’s not brought up Christmas cards, her desire to have no presents in martyr mode, and where she’s going. Usually, this starts 7 September. So far, Quiet On The Western Front.

I don’t doubt it will start soon. We won’t respond.

Hi everyone,

I've been directed to this thread after posting one of my own. Over the last couple of years I've been thinking A LOT about my childhood and my family dynamic. I strongly suspect my mother may have some sort of personality disorder. I've written down just some of my experiences but there is so much more. Do people think this sounds toxic?

I can't remember a lot of specifics about my childhood, but I do remember an overriding feeling of walking on eggshells around my mum. She would flip out, sometimes over the smallest things and her way of 'winning' an argument would be to say something really hurtful and then tell the person they were being too sensitive.
An example of this is when we were really young and her sisters husband had passed away a few years previously. There was some sort of family argument about my grandmother providing childcare to my aunt's children, and I very specifically remember my mum screaming at my granny something like "oh X's little orphans getting priority again. If I had killed him myself I'd be out of jail by now" I just remember at my very young age knowing that it was a really horrible thing for her to say. I remember always feeling tense, and I remember wishing my aunty was my mum instead.

Fast forward to now, and as adults if myself or my brother make any life decisions that she doesn't fully agree with, her response is to go in a huff, make comments that range from negative to downright hurtful and if we call her up on anything she goes into full on victim mode.

Once I asked her to please not give my 2 year old so many sweet things to eat. This turned into her shouting about how I must hate her and think she's the worst grandparent ever, and how can I hate her so much after all she's done for me, and then she very unnecessarily threw in 'and who was the first person you called when the baby died??' (I had lost a daughter midway trough pregnancy 6 months earlier). This was completely unrelated to what we were talking about and like she just threw it in to hurt me.

When I got engaged she apparently told my extended family that it wasn't a real engagement, it was just a 'Facebook status update' (I didn't even post it on Facebook!). When my brother and his wife bought a house close to his wife's job (as a teacher) rather than buy one near her like she wanted them to, she said she doesn't know why they would need to live close to her work because "she only works half the year". Just little snide negative comments like that, when we don't do things exactly the way she has planned out in her head.

She talks about how her children have abandoned her because we both moved away (I'm a 1 hour flight away but visit home 3 times a year, and she and my dad visit me 2-3 times a year) and my brother is a 1 hour drive away. I know so many people who live similar distances or more from their parents but who still have brilliant supportive two-way relationships, but she just jumps straight to 'my children don't live very near me so therefore they have abandoned me'

These are just a few examples that stick out but there are so many more.

I booked my wedding recently and she's not happy with how we're doing it for various reasons, so keeps making snide comments. My bother, SIL and fiancé have all noticed this too - every time I try to mention a detail about the wedding she just snaps back with a negative comment and then sits there with a face on refusing to engage in conversation. This eventually resulted in myself and my brother both calling her up on it in a family group chat, and telling her how upsetting it was to me and that I would really like to have a better relationship with her but she's causing resentment to build up by being unsupportive. She again replied with how it's obvious that we all hate her but she's willing to wipe the slate clean and never mention it again. That's her solution every time there's an argument - she's never ever once apologised or taken accountability for her nasty comments or for being unsupportive, she just tells us we're remembering things wrong and we should all forget it and move on. She wants to have a phone call tomorrow to go over everything I said in the texts - I know that's just going to be mentally draining and will probably not get us anywhere.

She has a special skill for making me doubt myself and making me feel like all the tension in our family is caused entirely by me. It's only been since I've moved away, met my fiancé and his very lovely family and had my own children, that I've started to realise that maybe I'm not the problem. I'm not saying I'm not with fault, but I'm starting to think that a lot these faults are the result of growing up with her.

Sorry this has been so long and rambling.

Your mum sounds completely toxic. I remember wishing my aunt was my mum, in later years I was much closer to my aunt. My mum and her sister were polar opposites, my aunt was quiet, welcoming, warm and wonderful. My mum was bitchy, spiteful, jealous and violent. The first man I caught my mum with was my uncle, she wanted to ruin everything for everyone.
My mum is now 90 and frail, she is every bit as vile and nasty as she always was, I always hoped we would eventually become friends but I went no contact January this year. It is exhausting trying to placate this type of person, they never apologise or say thank you. My mum lies all the time and in her mind was the perfect loving mother! she denies everything, I just couldnt deal with her or my anger any more.

I eloped as I knew my mum would have interfered and made my wedding all about her and spoil the day. She was openly horrible and belittling to my husband, we have kept low contact for 27 years but something in me snapped 9 months ago. This type of mother is exhausting, there is no point going over everything today with her, in her mind it is all your fault.

@pengyquinnn If nothing else, she sounds completely toxic as binkie163 says. I'm sure many contributors to the thread will read what you've written and recognise some of their own mother's behaviour in it, I know I do.

I now have a close relationship with one of my mum's sisters. I always used to wish any one if my aunts was my mum, rather than my own mum.

Don't take that call, @binkie163.

It's for her benefit not yours, and she will swing it so that she once again can see herself as the rejected and hard done by one.

She sounds utterly toxic. I don't know how you do approx six visits per year!

I think you need a family plan of how to limit her negative influence on your wedding planning and the event itself. I have no idea how though.

Sorry, I meant to tag @pengyquinnn.

Posting the new thread link so no one gets lost...

September 2023 - well we took you to Stately Homes www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/4902615-september-2023-well-we-took-you-to-stately-homes