Not fully estranged but gaining depth into what it is

Allsorts

That's good Smileless but luckily she has started a new one.

Ahhh haaa. And here it is. Glad I did a final check. What luck it is that I posted another thread, huh?? Oh goody goody!! Lets go bash a person in pain somemore!

When I came to this forum awhile back, some of it was kind and insightful, some good ideas and support.

But seems it's been infultrated lately with trolls and old biddies who want to project their pain onto others by trying to look better, smarter, less guilty of estrangement, than they actually are

This isn't a support board anymore, it's a harrassment board and it has no good features like deleting unwanted trolls and old biddies. Yah, I'm old too, but not a biddie.

This is a waste of time. Guess it is that time, to delete my account. Well, I'd say it was fun while it lasted, but it wasn't.

Sorry to disspoint you Allsorts, guess you will have to find your kicks with someone else. I'm gonna stay on until bedtime and then bid the biddies adeu. So long farewell my bitter biddies. May you gossip and harrass for the rest of your days...

Please remember that you are supposed to be the parent and not your daughter.

Luminance

Please remember that you are supposed to be the parent and not your daughter.

I am about to leave, but had to respond to this. You should tell that to my daughter...she thinks she is the parent I suppose. I know she makes decisions for her kids but she actually bosses me when I do anything, no matter how innocent, in my own damn house.

Like at dinner the last visit: granddaughter watching her show on TV and my grandson wanted to watch something else. I pulled out my tablet and started something for him to watch, but my daughter made me turn it off because it was "catering to him".

My granddaughter had her show, so how? My daughter claimed sometimes the granddaughter has to watch grandson's shows too.

Again, we have tablets so when eating, each can watch whatever. I don't get it, it's not the year 1965, where there was one tv and that was that.

Sheeesh, I know what it is, she saw me do something special for my grandson and she didn't like it.

It's my house, but I'm not allowed to use my things for the kids. I am not the parent in the relationship, my daughter is a bully and she is in charge of what I do and use in my house.

This is lack of respect. I always said I'd rather have love than respect but guess I got neither with her.

I’m seeing a clear case of ‘reap what you sow’.

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

MyNeighbor

I can't believe I'm have to explain this to a full-grown adult but

Not letting HER son go on your tablet isn't controlling what you do and use in your house.

No matter how stupid her reason is, you are NOT in charge of her children. She is.

If she told you that you can't use your tablet for yourself, than yes, she would be a controlling bully.

Now go back and play nice please.

Again, I was offering for him not to have to sit through another episode of Gabby's Dollhouse. Some of those shows grind on my nerves and I am an adult, so I cannot imagine the effect on an 8 year old boy.

He was annoyed but his feelings were not important to his mom, apparentely. She clearly favors her daughter over him with many things. I felt bad for him, so sue me.

I suppose since it's my house, NOT hers, I could have just cut off the TV altogether. But, I'm not an asshole.

You're not the kids parent, she is. You don't have the full picture, she does since she's the one in charge of taking care of him. As someone else has mentioned, your role (as a grandparent) is to support the parents.

You even mentioned a valid reason that was given, that the daughter needs to sit through her brothers shows sometimes. If you provide the son an out at your home, it could create an unfair situation later on back at their home (since the daughter may not be offered the same kind of out as her brother got at your house).

Also, in your very first thread, you showed heavy hints of favoring your grandson over your grandaughter. If strangers on a forum could pick up on it, I'm sure your own daughter has already noticed; and perhaps she wants to nip favoritsm in the bud before it becomes a serious problem.

I noticed the mom making kids watch each others shows. In that respect, I think the grandmother is correct, in modern times we all have our phones and tablets, watch what we want when we want.

I can't understand what would be wrong with that or why grandma can't provide that option. Seems petty and worse, probably very controlling behavior on the daughter's part.

Reading other threads it seems the daughter lost control of her marriage and is determined to have extreme control of things that do not really matter in how a child is shaped; forcing either child to watch the others show is akin to me telling my brother to play Barbies with me.

I think the grandma over reacts, but at the same time if she is feeling unloved, controlled and hurt by the daughter then overreaction, anger, etc. seem normal. Although not helping.

I am not sure a place like this is a good outlet, though, as people here do not know all the history or see what goes on, how this person has been treated or how this person treats family in everyday life.

I do know about scapegoating, and it can happen when people's frustrations need to target someone, usually the someone who cares maybe too much and it sounds like you Eugenia.

And now it has become so bad, you don't care anymore and that is a sad thing when people treat you so bad that you can feel you don't love them anymore. You most likely still do, to some degree but it is diminished.

Eugenia, did you find any of this useful? You seem very angry and very wound up by it all, which isn’t good for you. I think you are going to have to let stuff go if you continue to have a relationship with your grandchildren. Lots of people have complicated relationships within their families, it’s not unusual. Lots of lip biting goes on 😏 try to look after yourself 🪴

I x posted with smarter who has posted a much better version of how I felt reading this escalate.

She didn’t set a rule for you she did her son. HER SON. You can watch whatever on your bloody tablet. She said he didn’t need to. End of. Perhaps he can wait his turn for the television. Perhaps he’d already watched enough that day. 😝.

Eugenia I wonder if your daughter would argue that you favour your grandson, it appears that way to myself. Unless you are with the children 24/7 I would assume you don't know she favours the daughter. Perhaps their times for choosing what to watch are different depending on when a show airs.

After my post I tried to contact her privately and it will not let me.

I don't think Eugenia was able to listen to good advice. Rather a shame for all involved.

If I may, I don't think there was really much "advice" given.

I thought there was.

There was real advice, but just how so many on here perceive their children's reason for estrangement to not be real. Instead, they are perceived as an attack or powerplay.

I know my (estranged) mom sadistically abused me throughtout my entire time knowing her since that was the only way for her to enjoy our relationship, to get anything out of it. Because she was too psychologically stunted for anything genuine. Conversation, connection, understanding. She was utterly incapable of any of it.

I imagine those who are incapable of seeing the good-faith advice (that's being clearly laid out) can heavily relate to my ex-parent's stunted psychological profile.

While I sympathize with you, if a child is not targeted with the abuse rather the mother is abused, , then that is a completely different thing from what happened to you. Sorry it did, just sounds awful and it makes me think...why isn't your mother here, trying to say she didn't do anything wrong? Because the real abusers simply do not care. They are not here but rather out enjoying their AC free lives. I believe that. Unfortunately there are people who never wanted kids and it shows. They usually don't pretend they do. It seems unfair to judge all the people on these support boards because of your experience.

She's not on here because she doesn't know about this obscure forum, but believe me, if you ever ran into her, she would spin you tale about how she did nothing wrong and I'm just horrible for abandoning my own mother after everything she has sacrificed for me.

She cares about losing me a whole great deal, to the point that she became unrecognizable physically, no longer leaves the house and cried everyday (and talked about suicide) for at least the first year I cut contact.

On the surface you would think she loved and cared about me a whole lot, but in reality, she would be sitting in jail (if there was any real justice in the world).

It's intellectually lazy to claim that just being on this forum is enough evidence that you weren't abusive/care about your kid.

If you REALLY care about your kid, you would be listening to all this great advice that would lead to healthier relationships; instead of enabling each other's pathologically toxic behavior.

emanuel

She's not on here because she doesn't know about this obscure forum, but believe me, if you ever ran into her, she would spin you tale about how she did nothing wrong and I'm just horrible for abandoning my own mother after everything she has sacrificed for me.

She cares about losing me a whole great deal, to the point that she became unrecognizable physically, no longer leaves the house and cried everyday (and talked about suicide) for at least the first year I cut contact.

On the surface you would think she loved and cared about me a whole lot, but in reality, she would be sitting in jail (if there was any real justice in the world).

It's intellectually lazy to claim that just being on this forum is enough evidence that you weren't abusive/care about your kid.

If you REALLY care about your kid, you would be listening to all this great advice that would lead to healthier relationships; instead of enabling each other's pathologically toxic behavior.

Lots of the parents here have said that the sons or daughters had a good relationship with them in childhood and continuing into adulthood. Then something changes. It seems it's usually a life changing event, like a new spouse, or a divorce, a new baby, etc. Then in these changes, some confllict arises and there is estrangment.

What you are saying is, your mother physically abused you, so you did not have a good childhood, so you left her because of that abuse.

This is a completely different scenario to many of the stories here.

So really, I think you are comparing apples and oranges. It's pretty cruel to make everyone here feel like abusers when they were not.

I think what you may be doing is what they call projecting. I would say, I feel this doesn't help you nor any of the grieving parents here.

This isn't an obscure forum emanuel, it's a place to talk about estrangement for those who have been estranged and those who estranged.

Projecting your pain which I'm sorry you have experienced and your understandable anger on to EP's here isn't going to help you, it doesn't help anyone which is why the EP's who post here don't tar all EAC with the same brush.

As Smarter has said the real abusers simply do not care which is why they're no there.

What we witnessed here on this thread is that sometimes posters find it quite difficult to listen to advice. Sometimes that manifests in rather extreme ways and other times is manifests in a never ending argument against it. To my mind both are the same thing. You really do have to be able to listen to people telling you you may be wrong. That of course doesn't mean they are right but it does show that you value others perspectives and accept that they view life with different values. Inability to do that, such as my sister's case, often seems to lead to estrangement. Often it seems to me that life in estrangement, when your views and your way of doing things affects another and they are mentally impacted by it, the outcome against them is experienced as abuse. Love should never hurt. You can be extraordinarily different characters and still live within each others boundaries. If being unwilling to do so hurts others then the impact may be experienced as abuse. It is power and control, damaging and painful to experience.

What we have also witnessed on this thread Luminance are some rather unpleasant responses to the OP. It's extremely difficult to listen too what's being dressed up as advice when in fact it's anything but.

How something is said is just as important as how it's said and posters should be responded too on what they have actually said, not on what someone else decides they've said because it suits their own agenda.

That should read 'How something is said is just as important as what is said'.

Luminance

What we witnessed here on this thread is that sometimes posters find it quite difficult to listen to advice. Sometimes that manifests in rather extreme ways and other times is manifests in a never ending argument against it. To my mind both are the same thing. You really do have to be able to listen to people telling you you may be wrong. That of course doesn't mean they are right but it does show that you value others perspectives and accept that they view life with different values. Inability to do that, such as my sister's case, often seems to lead to estrangement. Often it seems to me that life in estrangement, when your views and your way of doing things affects another and they are mentally impacted by it, the outcome against them is experienced as abuse. Love should never hurt. You can be extraordinarily different characters and still live within each others boundaries. If being unwilling to do so hurts others then the impact may be experienced as abuse. It is power and control, damaging and painful to experience.

What you say about the lack of ability to listen to advice, at times may be true, but only on assumption of a guilty as charged parent. I think many parents have not done what we might assume due to their either language or sheer frustration coming to this forum.

Some come out of curiousity, what could lead to an estrangment, etc and others come out of perhaps some desperation that maybe someone has the answer.

When they find out nobody has the answer, it can be further frustrating to be attacked or judged on top of that.

None of us here have the answer. How could we? We have no clue, not one insight as to what really happened. We don't have a playback video to look it.

For all the talk of boundries, it occurs to me that one person's boundries might actually cross anothers! Then what?