Mum and Dad relationship

Sara1954 - well, I'm a pensioner now, so it would be a bit much to still be fretting over something that happened nearly 60 years ago.

Jeez, I can't hold that grudge that long lol

The best revenge is to live a happy and fulfilled life - which I have.?

DiamondLily
I like your attitude

Thank goodness we are among those who have been talking about and seeking support with estrangement for over 10 years and so would never judge someone else's healing journey or their ability to support another.

Well, we all have to do what works best for us.

I was very close to my dad, until he died, and I got a lot of support from my Nan, and other extended family, as a child.

As an adult, I had lots of friends and they fill the gap really.

It's just life really - some you win, and some you lose.

I've never festered, fretted, or mulled over the past - what you can't change, you just put to one side and jog on with your own life, in my view.

But, I do understand it's not always easy ?

You were a good daughter DiamondLily, I have walked away completely, I want no more contact ever.
I don’t blame everything on her, I wasn’t easy, I know that, mouthy, argumentative, and determined to have my own way.
But there was nothing there, just two people living in the same house, disliking each other.
My brother spent Most of his time outside, and I think my dad was just sick of it all.

move on

We have to do our best to let go and move don't we.

Sara1954

DiamondLily
I know I’ve said it before, but I’m pretty certain that my mother must have had some undiagnosed mental health issues, I’m also pretty sure some of the neighbors realised it, and I think my school also knew. I had absolutely no idea.
I think my oldest daughter was the child she always wanted, she would tell anyone who would listen that her life would have been so different if she’d had my daughter instead of me.
Fine by me, im pretty sure I’d have been happier with a different mother.

Yes, it's odd. She was very different with me to how she was with my brother, but I could never work out why. Perhaps because he was more malleable - and I was the argumentative one.

Who knows?

I think, as she got much older, she did regret some of it, but our relationship was pretty set by then, and I just shut down a bit with her.

I was polite, cordial, courteous, and I fought tooth and nail to get her the best of care when she developed Alzheimer's. Out of duty - that old fashioned word!

Still, as adults we make our choices with how we want to be and what we want to do.

No good keep blaming our parent/s for everything.

I can't keep rehashing and reliving a past I can't change. ?

DiamondLily
I know I’ve said it before, but I’m pretty certain that my mother must have had some undiagnosed mental health issues, I’m also pretty sure some of the neighbors realised it, and I think my school also knew. I had absolutely no idea.
I think my oldest daughter was the child she always wanted, she would tell anyone who would listen that her life would have been so different if she’d had my daughter instead of me.
Fine by me, im pretty sure I’d have been happier with a different mother.

It worked for us, but every situation varies.?

In a nutshell.

Smileless2012

Gosh that must have been a stressful occupation DiamondLily. Before retirement my brother was a family solicitor and for a time, represented children in abuse cases.

He gave it up after many years when he got to the point where it was all too much for him and was affecting his mental health. He said the same, some people are truly evil. They had to be to do what they did.

I wonder if your training and experience enabled you to have confidence that the boundaries etc. you put in place, were sufficient to protect your children whilst enabling that relationship with their GP.

It must be difficult when dealing with such cases as a professional and with your own history, not to allow your past to influence any conclusions you will have reached.

As you say "every set of circumstances is different, because families are complicated".

Yes, it was. To be fair to my mother, she never undermined me to my children.

If I'm honest, I think we reached a sort of unspoken truce - I saw how the children thrived with her and my dad, and loved that they all had a good relationship, and she loved them, and knew, obviously, that I could have stopped her seeing them.

It worked for us, but every situation varies.?

Well, non abusive parents anyway

It's difficult Sara and I'm sure it's easy to regret things but if the balance has come down in the favour of a happy resilient child then that's what you have and you did what you felt was right...which ultimately is what we all try to do.

I see that Violet, I can just hear my mother saying,the trouble with your mother is this, and the trouble with your mother is that.
When my dad was alive he wouldn’t have allowed it.
I hope I haven’t allowed any damage to be done, I don’t think so.

I think honestly, in my situation I was lucky.

The oldest had been favouritised but it was him who came to me and said he didn't like her behaviour.

I would have let them see the children before that point and I did offer.

It was a few years later I went back into education and my perspective changed. Its been over that time that more stories emerged from my children too. When I asked why they didn't tell me sooner, I got different answers from different children. Here are 2.

"I didn't want to upset you"

" I thought she was saying those things because I was bad"

It took me half a lifetime to wake up to abuse. Even years of friends with good relationships being worried and telling me xyz was not normal.

The fact that my children were ever in a position where they thought they should hide something to protect me or they didn't tell me what was going on because they felt they deserved it...

Well that is horrifying to me quite honestly.

What is worse would be if they never saw the truth and just internalised those messages given to them by an abuser.

So my experience does matter in my situation but it was education that helped me understand my experience and that of my children so that I could support then better with theirs.

That's everything we all are at the end of the day, a culmination of education and experience.

I would never advise anyone to leave a child with an abusive person.

But I would also never judge them for having done so if it did go wrong and I would always support them.

Because abusive people make life difficult and complicated and the blame belongs with them.

Icanhandthemback
I can see your point, but by the time when I cut my mother off for good, my eldest daughter was more or less grown up, so I couldn’t have stopped it even if I’d wanted to.
My son, not really very keen on her, would never take anything she said about me seriously, and the youngest has had less of a relationship with her anyway.
Her preference for the oldest is glaringly clear, always has been, she always liked to get her away from me, and have whispered conversations.
But, I still think on balance that it’s the right thing to let them decide for themselves, I can’t dictate who they have a relationship with, and, they’re all grown up now with children of their own.

Icanhandthemback yes exactly, thank you.

Gosh that must have been a stressful occupation DiamondLily. Before retirement my brother was a family solicitor and for a time, represented children in abuse cases.

He gave it up after many years when he got to the point where it was all too much for him and was affecting his mental health. He said the same, some people are truly evil. They had to be to do what they did.

I wonder if your training and experience enabled you to have confidence that the boundaries etc. you put in place, were sufficient to protect your children whilst enabling that relationship with their GP.

It must be difficult when dealing with such cases as a professional and with your own history, not to allow your past to influence any conclusions you will have reached.

As you say "every set of circumstances is different, because families are complicated".

I understand what you are saying, Chewbacca and Sara but there is a mountain of research which shows that manipulative Grandparents do a great deal of harm. For example, Sara mentions that her mother bad mouths her to one of her children. One of the things that happens when a GP does that, is you make a child uncertain about who to trust. Do you trust the parents or the GP? It can have long term damaging effects that extend into your adult relationships.
Showering one GC with love whilst the others get much less can ruin the relationship between siblings and the favoured GC can actually end of suffering more.
I think what Violetsky is trying to say, is that it isn't only her experience of intergenerational trauma that colours her views but is also the mountain of research together with experience which colours her view. That doesn't make your decisions wrong, just different.

That's fine Diamondlily

We are in discussion and I would hope all opinions are welcome.

I have given mine and explained my reasoning

I wouldn't presume to tell others what they do though. ????

I worked in a child protection department for a local council for a lot of years. This also involved works with Women's refuges.

I was involved in working with over 3000 cases of child abuse. I know what every sort of abuse involves, in all its variations.

Seeing what adults can do to each other, and children, appalled me. Some people are truly evil.

I was well aware to be alert to any signs of any abuse aimed towards my children, no matter who it involved.

So, I assume that makes me experienced in my own scenario, and educated, in the wider sense?

I still wouldn't do a thing differently in regards to my children and my mother.

Every set of circumstances is different, because families are complicated.

I wouldn't presume to tell others what they do though.

Chewbacca my comments are in the context of abuse.

It is fine you do not agree but saying that my experience negates my opinion is unreasonable.

I am very good at my job and they know my background.

It is seen as a strength and why I was chosen specifically for extra training to support children.

You are welcome to carry on that rhetoric but I'm not discussing it with you further.

My mother is a manipulative, cold woman.
But I think I am her only victim, my brother had the good sense to know when to shut up, and yes, she most definitely emotionally abused me, but I think I’m the only one.

You're still doing it vs; you're still applying your own experience of abuse and why you're estranged from your family, as being the same experience and reason for everyone else. That's simply not true. Your education seems to have begun, and ended, with the analysis and treatment of physical, sexual, emotional and psychological abuse as being the only reason for estrangement and, from my own, and others on this forum, that obviously isn't the case and so the strategies that you quote wouldn't be applicable. As I've said to you hundreds of times before, there are many reasons for estrangement. They're all difficult, they're all reached from different problems unique to them (not only abuse), they all get resolved in different ways and they're all just as valid as anyone else's. Not all estrangement is caused by abuse; you only have to read this thread to see that; and therefore your blanket therapy for dealing with those is inappropriate. It really, really, isn't that simple. Estrangement never is.