I want out

[matilda57]

No not out of life, but out of being a mother to my kids. I'm SERIOUS. I know talking about it often means you're not serious, but I am serious.

I have just been out for a meal with my daughter, and she was so vile - that doesn't even sum it up: there are no words to describe the evilness of her. We were in the restaurant (finally, after she had attacked me with intense viciousness for not finding somewhere sooner; that this was 'her worst nightmare' ie looking for somewhere to eat) and I just started to cry and cry. I went to the loo but couldn't stop. I just can't take it any more.

Ds is doing his exams and doesn't let me know how he is doing. I asked and he said it was none of my business.

In short, my kids are vicious and bullying towards me. I have taken it bcs they are grieving thier father (my ex-husband), but something tells me they are taking the piss, hanging their nastiness on a convenient hook. It is not the first time someone close has decided to pump their shit in my direction bcs they aren't inclined to face it themselves. I have tried to be kind, tough, caring, supportive, sensible, wise. My kids are taking the piss out of me so badly I can't take it any more.

I want to get out. Dd has been through a very bad crisis and I have done my best to support her in it (mainly bcs I was terrified she would kill herself). She seems to be through the worst - thanks to my care it has to be said. Ds is so openly contemptuous - not even aggressively contemptuous iyswim (which would suggest he cares somewhere in there) but genuinely comptemptuous, like I am not worth flicking his eyeballs in my direction.

I'm going to go on in fact...

They are currently going through probate. Ex's (my kids' dad's) vile revolting hideous family are hanging me out to dry, using the kids as a human shield so I can't bite back, or do anything about it. They are fucking my kids over big time, but my kids are too charmed by them, or need them too much - they have made it clear that unless the kids dance to their tune, they'll get nothing of their dad's, and will be cast out from the family. So I've taken this and taken it. And taken it. Been the fucking martyr, the one who stands in the gap and absorbs all the shit so my kids don't get it. And I do wonder if I have been a fool and got it hideously wrong. Because my kids are MONSTERS.

So I want to go. I want to pack up and go. I would actually like to sell this house (the scene of years of misery one way or another). My daughter cut all her hair off the other day (how COULD I think of leaving her? Believe me I COULD) and after all the shock, it looked bloody good, like a load of shit had been cut away. That's how I feel: I want to seriously cut back my life, and drop my kids. I'll always be their mother, but I don't want the job.

oh god matilda

I can't advise really but I wanted to acknowledge your thread.

You need some help, support and guidance. You can approach social services, or try your DCs school who may be able to suggest counsellors for yourself and children, or a parent support line. You could always give the Samaritans a ring as it sounds as if you need to talk this through with someone.

can't help but im sorry

Matilda that is one of the posts I have ever read on MN. I really dont know how to help.
Please dont give up just yet

{{{{{{{}}}}}}}}} to you

It's too bad for counsellors. They're full of shit anyway. I'm sorry, but there is nothing for it but to get out. Somehow, somewhere along the line I got the idea that I'm Jesus. Where did I get that idea from? What was I trying to prove? What was I trying to stop from happening? I feel I deserve it tbh: I've been such a fucking martyr. Perhaps that is what they despise. DON'T BLAME THEM

Matilda, you really need some help. Both practical and emotional. As someone else said, The Samaritans can really, really help if you need to offload to a non-judgmental ear. Have you got any family that can offer you any support. Is there anyone who could help out whilst you go away for a few days to clear your head?

This may be a stupid idea and it may not work but have you tried writing your kids a letter (or sending them an email if they are online a lot). Putting it all down on paper, writing to them to let them know how feel may help you get it off your chest and may help them begin to understand.

COuld they go to your ex husbands family for a while to give you a break and then they may realise what a super mum you are?

Matilda, I don't know anything about your situation but I do know a lot about feeling like a martyr. You have to stop seeing yourself in that light and just think that you did the best that you could in what sounds like a dreadful situation. The more you think of yourself like that the worse you will feel and the bigger advantage your kids will take of you. Nobody deserves to be treated the way you are and to feel the way you do. Feel so for you crying your eyes out in the loo.

You definitely need some space, to get away for a few days and give your kids something to think about.

No, actually, I don't need some HELP. I need some love, and some cherishing, and some kindness, and to be valued. NOT help. I am not a hospital patient - the pressure is immense. Maybe it's got to get immense so someting pops and hits the dust. EG the idea that I've been put on this earth to be nailed to a cross on behalf of my children.
Why do people run to counsellors at the first whiff of problems? I've seen so many counsellors it runs through me like the proverbial stick of rock. Most of them are full of shit, and more fucked up that I ever was. So, hey - I'm a grown up. How about sorting this out myself - or getting through it myself - instead of running to a counsellor and going 'help me! help me!' like I wasn't given a brain and a heart.
Granted, this has been a very very difficult situation to separate the wheat from the chaff. Why do we have to check out with a counsellor anyway? Oh no, she's going off the rails a bit here - she needs HELP bcs there's NO WAY she's going to be able to deal with this herself! Well, life is fucking HARD sometimes. Big deal! It's always been like that, right through the ages!

I wondered about asking if they could go to their father's family too. How old are they? Could you talk to their school? My husband has taught teenagers for 20+ years- they see pretty much everything and would be in touch with councellors.

Is there anything to stop you sellling the house?

They're in the middle of exams. I can't do it now. The house is caught up in probate, part of it was owned by evil ex, so I can't sell it until probate is completed. Ex;s family are EVIL (no other word for it). Still, if my kids think the sun shines out of their (ILs) shitty arses, then maybe it's not my job to protect them from them any more. Maybe they've got to be BIG and find out for themselves.

Okay forget the councellors (one helped me through a vile patch).

It sounds like you are the human shield, not the kids. How old are they?

OK, I am in partial agreement with you on the counselor front but have found The Samaritans to be really helpful, because sometimes talking something through with an impartial individual helps get your thoughts in order, but I understand why you might not want to do that.

Can you get someone it to look after the kids or send them to your ex's whilst you go away, see a friend of something, to get some time out?

Why are you protecting them from it? It sounds like they need to be party to some home truths about their family. Are you worried it might backfire on you and they will resent you even more? Is that why you haven't been open with them?

matilda what about some sort of boot camp for them? Send them off for a couple of weeks to do some good?

BTW I love your name and if this is your real name you will know it means 'high in strength and mighty in battle'!

I dont have teenagers yet - just toddlers

OK, so no counselling then.

On a practical front, if you think your kids are going to be cheated out of their inheritance, get a solicitor for them. As neither of them are working you'll get legal aid.

I know your daughter's going through A levels and son through GCSEs so can imagine the pressure in your house at the moment. Your dd sounds like a bright girl and even if she messes up her A levels now through all this, she can retake them.

You don't have to take this abuse from either of them. All you need to do at the moment, at least till the exams are out of the way is provide them with accomodation and food.

Your dd will hopefully be going off on her gap year soon. That may teach her the value of the home you've given her. If she shows no sign of going, you must, for your own sanity, push her. I know you don't want to, given the trauma she's been through, but ultimately she is now a grown up and cannot treat you like this.

Your ds is obviously going to be around for another couple of years before he goes off to Uni/gap year, but the same treatment applies to him. You're not, ultimately doing either of them any favours if you continue to keep them as useless, infantilised people who act like tantrumming toddlers. Treat them as you would treat other adults. If someone at work swore at you or treated you with disrespect, would you take it?

You say you want some love. Love and respect are, imo, intertwined in family relationships. Start getting and giving respect and love will hopefully follow.

I've just started reading a book called NonViolent Communication which, although American so a bit sugary, does give some excellent tips on communications which I think you may find helpful.

I am being SO badly scapegoated now, it has reached a crescendo. Always was rumbling under the surface mind, but right now it is out in rampant fullness. At least it confirms I am not paranoid LOL.

Maybe the kids have run with the pack. Maybe they are so beleaguered that they can't afford to stand on high moral ground and support the underdog. Fair enough!

But I want out! I've said before on here that it would just be better if I got out of the way. A risk, mind - what if I lose my kids for good? Maybe that's why I have become a spangling Jesus Mary Mother of God so they will see how perfectly perfect I am? Actually, it's only latterly that I have been spanglingly good. I was pretty normal before, good and bad.

No it isn't my real name Hilllary, but I like the description - yes, that's about right LOL.

I'm reminded of the mother monkey proverb thingy: she kept her baby on her back till it grew so big it broke her back. I have tried to protect my kids from THE most evil people you can imagine. I mean it, they are evil people, no exaggeration. Frighteningly toxic and evil. I am in boiling hell that my kids are being seduced by them. Believe me, they are frightening people. If you've met evil people you'll know what I mean; if you haven't you'll think 'maybe they aren't so bad - just be nice to them'.

uh-oh I'm sounding WEIRD

Why do they (the children) need to have anything to do with their dad's family?

Not a fatuous question. My ds speaks to dh's mum on the phone about 4 times a year and sees her every 18months. Sees dh's brother and their family once every 2 years.

Separate them if they're that bad.

Send your dd off on her gap year in 2 months, not to return for one year.

Your ds goes to private school - is it boarding? if poss, make it termly boarding so he has that stability and most importantly, from the sound of it, separation from these relatives who you think are so evil and toxic.

I'm wording this in a deliberately black and white, oversimplified format to try to counteract your apparently tortured posts. You sound like you're just going round and round in circles, becoming demented by the stress of the whole thing.

(btw, my dh's family are not at all unpleasant, they just happen to live a long way away)

Ex's family are paying for ALL our key expenses (including revolting public school. [Long story! Don't judge!] Day pupil - he wouldn't survive boarding, has anyway become a little shit since he's been there, desperately unhappy). Ex's family, when ex died, immediately moved in to 'take' my children. Thankfully, the law was on my side, and they were unsuccessful (for all their great wealth). So, they made it clear to my kids that if they went over to their mother's 'side', they would be ostracised from the family. It's her or us. They kept to it! My kids couldn't bear to be separated from the memory of their dad (I hardly represented a memory of him did I?) as well as all their dad's things, cast out in the cold, so they have made their choice. It wasn't much of a choice.

I am dirt poor c/o wealthy ex. They (and there are lots of them) are very wealthy, individually and collectively. They use it. They are extraordinary devious and spiteful. They want me out of the picture. Banished I think the word is. So why don't I go?????

Piece of advice: don't marry somebody stinking rich from a powerful family. Or, don't leave him. Second thoughts, don't marry him in the first place.

Dd left home (I chucked her out eventually). Then she had a breakdown, threatening left and right to commit suicide. I took her back. I feel SO caught by the balls.

Got to go now. Will keep watching this thread. Do you have good legal advice - sounds like you need it on several fronts.

Got the lawyer (good lawyer) an age ago. Probate is trundling along (as it does). Ex didn't leave a will (die? that doesn't happen to people like him!). Ex's family OUTRAGED that I did something as despicable [spit spit] and plain grubby as apply as benefactors (or I did on my kids' behalf) for the kids' inheritance, and wrote tomes in the legal correspondence (that my kids had to read) generally vilifying me. Lawyer slapped them (other side) on the wrists. To be fair, you can't cause too much fuss, otherwise probate will drag on for ever and EVER. Lawyer knows how to deal with wealthy people, particularly if there is the risk of kids getting mashed up in the middle. If, when all this is finished, I want to make a complaint about the way the other side behaved, then I can do that, but I can't do it now. The kids got the kick-back for me initiating legal proceedings ie they punished the kids, but only in a way the kids couldn't see... which looked like I'd done it. I tell you, these people are evil. And I really do think I need to get out of the way. If my kids are gobbled up by them, then I have stationed signposts along the way, so at least they've got a map.

At the moment, my kids will not TOLERATE one word said against ex's family. Keep your shit to yourself they say. Their dad - and anything to do with their dad - has reached sainthood proportions, as often happens when someone dies. I want to shout 'HE WAS A BASTARD! HE WAS SICK! HE MADE OUR LIVES HELL!' but how can I? Wicked mother to slag off their dead dad (even though it's true). Like I said, I need to get out.

Hope ypu are feeling calmer this morning hun.
How about trying this - it worked for me when my sons kicked off after divorce.
When you feel like crying or screaming or crying LAUGH - totally confuses the little buggers,
Whenever the boys said something rude or nasty to me I laughed at them and told them it reminded me of when they were babies and had no social skills.
It is hard to start with but believe me it actually did start to look funny - cos I did not deserve it.
I also used to walk out on them - they soon learned not to wind me up before meals - I would say 'fine if thats how you feel I am away to a friends/pictures/pub - get on with it'.
They need to start seeing you as a person in your right -and you need to regain your sense of humour or you are gonna end up seriously ill.
Show them this thread,if the are old enough to dish it out,then they are old enough to know there are consequences.