I can no longer reach out to anyone because my family and my husband's family want nothing to do with my mother and sister as they watch them hurt me more and more. I love my mother and sister and have done things I regret but they were in the past and I have tried over and over to make up for my mistakes. I have said I am sorry so many times and have been living on their continually punishment for years now. It seems I can not do anything right and my mother and sister have now become a pact trying to twist everything I say to the point that they are calling me a liar and telling my husband they need to talk to him about my lies. My mother forgets what she has said and than hears what she wants to hear and immediately calls my sister and than my sister accuses me of lying when in reality it is my mother that is not giving the correct information. Presently it has gotten so bad that they are now yelling at me about things I never even realized they were angry about. My parents were immigrants and as a teenager, my life at home was bitterness, being disciplined by being hit often, etc. I would take on challenging jobs supervising teenagers during the summer for 6 weeks and than went away to college. I did this to get away from the strictness, beatings, screaming and yelling. I loved my parents but the life they were leading was not the life I wanted to lead. My sister chose to stay at home and than get married. I am finding out now that they resent me for that and my sister throws in my face that she was the one doing the laundry , etc......Yet, I was always there for holidays, etc and when they needed me. My family never really knew how to communicate their feelings so that never happened and now years later as the anger starts coming out they are throwing everything at me. Things I don't even remember. I am starting to hate them and am starting to get incredibly depressed. I have tried to talk to both of them but my sister states it is not her problem and my mother states it is my problem and talk to my sister. Bother my mother and sister have accused my husband and I of things we have never done. My mother asked my husband to be the executor of her will and turned around and told my sister we handed her the papers and told her to make my husband the executor. Of course my sister believes my mother and this has caused much strife between my sister and I. I do not want to listen to the name calling, etc anymore and have indicated to my sister that if she wants to fix this I am all for it and have tried and tried but if she does not want to fix this than I wish her well. She continues with the negative emails. My mother has chosen to continue with her bitterness, etc. and continues to be mean to me and my family. My sister I can say goodbye to but my mother , I just don't know what to do. She and my sister feed off each other and want to live in the past. My mother has forgotten everything I and my family have done for her. When my sister's mother and father in law were alive they wanted nothing to do with me, my mother and my father and hence I picked up the pieces for many year while 40 minutes away. I was calling my mother every day and now I hardly call due to the verbal abuse. I just don't know what to do. They are now accusing me of keeping my kids away from them. Three years ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to have surgery and 6 weeks of radiation. My mother told my son I id not have cancer and was lying. To this day she still indicates I did not have cancer. She states "how could I if I was working, traveling with the family, etc......" My kids have a difficult time connecting with her though I continue reminding them it is their grandmother. My dad passed away about 20 years ago. I wait for your words of wisdom and thank you in advance
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Thanks for that.
I agree. Do what you can and then move on to the people who appreciate you.
I am having the same problem with my daughter. She controls me because I love her and my grandchildren so much.
Just this past week she completely ignored all of my calls and texts. She knew that I wanted to see my grandchildren. So, I stopped. I let it go. And I immediately felt much, much better. There is loss and pain BUT letting go gives you self-respect and freedom. At t his stage of the game, I want self-respect and freedom.
When I was a kid I read a story, presumably true: in India they have a monkey trap, a gourd with a tiny hole attached to a chain. the monkey can slide his hand in and grab a fist full of rice but cannot get his balled-up fist out. So, unless he is willing to give up the rice, he is trapped.
There you have it. Let go or be trapped.
I have said it before: you are all grown up with a husband, home and children of your own. Focus on them, love them, let go, and get over it.
These are the games narcissists play. They behave badly then blame others for what happens.
Personally I would not call her. I think it sends her the message that her behaviour is OK, which it isn't. Why not enjoy the break from the dysfunction?They need you more than you need them. They will not let you get away that easily. I expect one of them will contact you eventually, then you can respond on your terms not theirs and set some boundaries. Whatever you did in the past is in the past and is not the cause of your mother and sister's behaviour. They will never be the family you want and need. Lean on those who love and value you. Learn to detach from them and their hurtfulness. (((((((hugs)))))))
The Serenity Prayer
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.
--Reinhold Niebuhr
Take care!
I'm likely the preachiest and possibly the bluntest person here. When, I catch myself, I tone it down some Sometimes the situation is so openly raw that I just jump in with both feet like I'm in the ER room doing triage for someone severely hurt.
My grandmother told my mother that it was time for her to leave her husband, my step-dad, and come take care of her and she was not kidding.
I agree that it is terrible how the Bible is used so gracelessly to clobber children. My SIL remains in bondage to that despite being in therapy which she had quit. I almost hate to ask this question, but I do wonder if Bible clobbering does not happened in more fundamentalist homes or is it just dependent on how sick the parent's personality is. Many of them seem to be very deep into a very narrow family power structure that seems to be based in more fear than grace, love and faith. Likely the more fundamentalist the group if they are even in a church, the more narrow the structure might be while other boundaries might get blurred.
Now, I've gotten preachy. This is sort of my hobby horse around here. Sometimes, I have to back off from the site as as whole.
Thankfully, not all of the elderly at this way, but we do hear mainly about the ones who are on this site. Often these are generational things like now my MIL is talking very openly about her mother without realizing she's telling us that she did the same thing to her daughters that her mom did to her. Someone has to risk breaking the chain. I have an idea where my mom's issues came from for her sister is exactly the same way and she's a whole story full of dysfunctional drama herself.
I was one guilty of neglecting my own marriage and children in order to make my parents first. It is my life's biggest REGRET. Yes, I owe a lot to my parents, but having been under their thumb for 50 years is just too stinking long. I am luckier than most. I still have a husband, a rickety marriage, a home and some of my marbles. BALANCE should be the goal. Why can't we have it all and do both with out making ourselves crazy doormats.????? Why can't our elders just be EASY going and find ways to entertain themselves without creating all the DRAMA? Why not be satisfied with some attention and not all the attention. Why shame, cuss and bad mouth the very people that are taking care of them.
I must have been very very unobservant as a child, because I never remember any senior citizens that are this mean....must be the all junk food!! haha
I meant to edit our the word, sorry, I does not belong with the rest of the sentence.
Like many others, I wish we could edit online.
Sorry, I notice these verses say nothing about such having to be done in your own home or directly yourself.
There is scripture about leaving one's parents and cleaving to one's spouse. We have seen marriage break up here or be terribly weakened when honoring the parent or parents becomes primary above the marriage, their children if they have any and themselves. Your right, caregiving of a parent should not put one's marriage and nuclear family at risk.
There needs to be a balance between these biblical principles that does not thrown anyone under the bus. Too often these verses are used as cobbler verses to emotionally blackmail a person to basically be enslaved by their parents who in such cases are narcissistic or borderline.
There is a situation in my own extended family where the wife is enmeshed with her narcissistic mom. Despite her therapist's support about boundaries, she's stuck emotionally on this honor theme and basically has abandoned her husband. She's stopped going to the therapist. She has told us and her mom that she wants to stop being Johnny on the spot for her mother in assisted living, but the guilt plus the verse about honoring as her tied up. I'm sorry to have to say this but honoring does not mean being a doormat or leaving your spouse at some point to cleave to your parent until death do you part.
There is a point of view that adult children who were abused by their parents don't need to be or should not be the hands on caregiver. My wife has been told that plus how far away she should always live.
Part of this view is that as the parent weakens that the adult child's anger might take over into a rage and lead them to do things they would be sorry for and go to prison for.
I've heard of some selfish parents who use the verses about children obey your parents which comes from a view that a child is eternally the parent's little kid. That's called infantallsm and it is sick. It happens to both girls and boys.
Another sick thing is when a parent emotionally grooms a child to feel like they have a parental like responsibility to care for there parents. That's called parentification and can happen to either girls or boys.
The last thing that some parents do to their children which I consider the sickest of all is when they groom the child into a substitute partner in place of a spouse who is no longer there or a spouse who is not helping them have a good marriage. These are the ultra enmeshed ones. They absolutely have the hardest time getting away emotionally. Because there is not a sexual dynamic to this emotional incest, it takes place between opposite sexes and same sexes. Often these are relationships where frankly the partnering parent shares with the child things they should never need to know.
I've personally met all four types and some of them are in my own larger family.
A big part of the problem is not so much translation or interpretation but how it is applied in light of other biblical statements. Clearly, the father mentioned in the above post is way off on his application and in his knowledge of what the Bible says about marriage and one's own family.
I would venture to say and some wouldn't agree with me but when you stop putting your marriage first, that is an emotional form of unfaithfulness that harms the intimacy of the marital relationship.
My mother had been investing in a long term care insurance policy for years that basically paid for her being in the nursing home. However, her mind had become such that she refused to use at home what care opportunities she had paid extra premiums for in the policy premiums.
Her needs required where she went. Given the nature of our past and my childhood, it would have not worked for me to have had her here and given my wife's background with her mom, we could not have her here either, plus practically we don't have space. My dad has alzheimer's and his long term care policy is basically paying for him to have round the clock care at home which is where he wants to be although earlier he had spoken that once his wife died, he would like to go to an assisted living place that he had already picked out. He lives an 8 hour drive away and my step-sister who is right nearby manages everything as his durable and medical POA. Also, both of my parents had build up some funds over the years to help them in their old age.
Sometimes here I feel like the pro-marriage and pro-children person. I'm always asking if you have a spouse what is their input? and was this a unilateral decision on your own to bring them home?
I think that I've written enough.
My interpretation is that someone who does not put the care of his own spouse and children first is worse than a non believer. Some translations mention providing care for close relatives. Making sure they are cared for should not put the children and nuclear family in peril.
Detach, detach, detach with love--but detach already!
That shows that while you got geographical distance and some intellectual distance through two masters (congratulations!), and made a life of your own, the grooming place inside of your head and emotions is still there and that's what a therapist can help you turn off.
Here's the link to the article.
https://www.agingcare.com/questions/parents-manipulate-you-as-a-caregiver-176024.htm?cpage=1
Basically, in a dysfunctional family system, this Bible truth, gets spun into a life of its own that actually serves the selfish, narcissistic purposes of the parents and other relatives who groom us for such emotional blackmail behind a religious teaching.
You just might want to read the thread about emotional blackmail. It describes what it is, why it is so powerful, why some are completely defeated by it, and how to over come it. Yet, it strongly suggests getting a therapists.
https://www.agingcare.com/discussions/power-of-emotional-blackmailers-176430.htm
As much as we might want to rescue other family members like your sister or more so her children, that's not something we can do. There are family members that I would like to rescue from what my wife got out of which was a lot to deal with in itself, but we can't. For one thing, they are not helping themselves with the therapy input they gained which is the same things we have been saying for we've been there. Yet, this one relative who is looking for someone to rescue them instead of using the tools she has and going back to the therapist, has tried her best to make me an emotional substitute object for both her weak deceased dad and her weak husband. Sorry, I'm not anyone's emotional substitute and refused to be objectified as one.
Another financial suggestion is that there are still some therapists who will charge you on a sliding sale of what you can pay. Ask if you need this. Make sure in finding a therapist, that you ask that the person has experience, not just training, in dealing with dysfunctional family dynamics. You don't need to be someone's first time of applying this stuff to a real situation. You need someone with some experience.
Your husband and his family is tired of seeing you beat up. Lean of them for support, but believe me it is your war. There is only so much they can do. I've been there and know. Your children really don't need to be exposed to this which my children went through too, but I pulled them out of that.
There is one dynamic that has not come up, but it is important for I've been there too. Your husband likely feels caught between wanting to fix the problem and feeling fed up with it all and wishing you would get this dealt with. He also possibly feels not totally married to you with how much your mom evidently lives in your head. Unless you reach out to him to become a team together in dealing with this, he may feel less and less connected with you. This could all end up in a very bad situation. I'm not saying this will happen or is currently happening. I'm saying it can happen.
A man in this situation if nothing changes will eventually want some peace of mind so bad and want to protect the children from further abuse from extended family members that they might just move on and take the children with them.
You need your husband and his family's support more than ever before. Don't loose it by not dealing with things.
As much as it hurts now to even talk about this; knowing your dad would turn over in his grave, and to labor toward a truly new life for yourself which believe me will help immensely with your marriage and children, the pain you'll experience by not dealing with this will be enormous beyond description.
Believe me, you don't want to go there. I hope you don't end up there.
I don't mean to scare you and hope that I haven't. I am just laying out more of the whole dynamic from what I see from what you have shared.
Save yourself and in saving yourself a deeper intimacy will develop in your marriage, you will be a wonderful role model of healthy boundaries for your children and they will most likely feel closer to you for you having dealt with all of this with professional help for this is not one of those self-help things of read a book and go do it. When a parent's voice is in your head with all of this dysfunction, you need advice and support from a trained and experienced professional who is objective, will be patient with your progress and will give you ideas of what to do, how to do it and how to say things.
Know this, however, dysfunctional family members do like anyone in the family getting healthy and having their own life.
They will react with a vengeance that will feel stronger than a hoover vacuum cleaner to suck you back in. You will stumble at times, but everyone does. Just get back up and keep moving forward.
That's where you need your therapist plus your immediate family, the other side of the family and this site to help you resist the increased output of Fear, Obligation and Guilt which will seek to blind you as is sucks you back in with emotional blackmail.
Some people with unhealthy personalities are very strong in the power of the F.O.G. Loosing oneself there leads only to more and more pain and suffering.
Please look up articles online about emotional blackmail as well as F.O.G.
We are cheering for your progress and freedom!!!!!!!!!!!
You're truly in a war for your life in which a passion for freedom needs an outlook of take nor prisoner in such a pursuit and dam the torpedoes sent against you like one Navy Admiral years ago did and actually won the battle for those ancient torpedoes failed to explode!
Please keep in touch with us. We are hoping for the very best for you and your family.
Prayers, love and hugs!!!
When I came on Aging Care, I was so surprised to find many, many good people who have had to take breaks to learn how to manage the situation with toxic parents. It has been a blessing to be here. These people above have very good advice to you. I'd like to add a book suggestion which you can buy cheap online. Boundaries by Cloud and Townsend was my first assignment, and I saw myself in the stories there.
It took a lot of courage to speak up and post here. Do come back and let us know how you are doing!
In the words of Captain Jean-Luc Picard on the Start Ship Enterprise The Next Generation, "Make it so!"
Prayers, love and hugs!!
Please sit down in a quiet place. Think back to your past, your mistake, your repeated forgiveness, etc... Think back to all your mom and sister did to you since then. You need to decide what is important in your life NOW. You have tried repeatedly to correct the past. You cannot - because they will Not let it go. I'm asking you quietly, "Cheserasera, what is it YOU want in this life, Today? Are you happy with your marriage? Are you happy being a mother? Is this life of yours worth hanging on to, protecting it from the viciousness of family?"
From what I'm reading, my guts tell me that you need therapy for You. You need to forgive yourself. What's done is done. And by forgiving yourself, you will come to accept the You of today. Accept that you have done your best but it is Your mother and Your sister who rejected your apologies (verbal and physical). And this will give you the strength to look at your mom and sister, and detach emotionally from them - because you did your best and they rejected it. With continual therapy, it will help you to handle the situation with your mom. I feel so sad for you.... {{{{HUGS}}}}
I have absolutely nothing really to add to the very good advice that you have from all of the above.
I would only emphasize a point that was made earlier but bears repeating. We can realistically only help you so far with moral support, cheerleading, validation, and lstening.
However, yoiu really do need a face to face therapist to get through what I call the hard labor of this detachement with love for you are fighting to give birth to a new life, your own new life. Like in actualy labor, one gets a baby doctor involved as well as others for support but the main professional help comes from the baby doctor.
What I'm trying to say is using the analogy of labor, your need a counselor version of a baby doctor to help you give birth to your own new life. This will be a powerful role model lesson for your family, a blessing to your husband and very liberating for you and in discovering that new life of your own, the pains of getting their will start to fade in the background.
Do keep in touch with us, but please on Tuesday, call around to find yourself a face to face therapist for Monday is Labor Day.
Good luck!
Love, prayers and hugs. Take care and do sometihng good for you for your life matters very much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!