Not fully estranged but gaining depth into what it is

Thank you Luminance your unwillingness to answer my questions is an example of the clues would be in how they treat others here, whether they are able to apologise and be accountable and in their answers to questioning.

You are obviously not prepared to be accountable for your post @ 14.03.

I agree with M0nica. People should pull back from attempting to parent, not give any advice or opinions. Let their sons and daughters be functioning adults, not forcing their own expectations upon them.

M0nica I think in this age of mobile phones, email, whatsapp etc, one of the biggest problems is that many parents, especially mothers never really seperate themselves from their children when they grow up.

I have talked on other threads about the physical umbilical cord that is detached at birth and the emotional umbilical cord that is severed in adulthood, usually when a AC enters marriage or a long term relationship.

In the past if conflict arose between parent and child, the child could just move away, only ring or write once every so often. There were plenty of estrangeents or near estrangements in the past.

For most parents the advice is cut the emotional umbilical cord, leave your children alone, aim at quality in your contact not quantity. Do not try to be part of their adult life, you should both have separate lives, still less offer help or advice unbidden.

I answered your questions that were relevant to what I said Smileless2012.

I agree with Norah, I think if we have done our jobs correctly, our daughters should be more than capable of making the right decisions when raising their children.
I think I might have been a bad parent, but my husband’s kind and calm parenting style rubbed off on me, to be honest, even watching his parents, I saw a totally different style of parenting Than I was used to.
Fifty years on he’s still a complete soft touch not only to all the children, but also the grandchildren.

Here's a really interesting blog that heavily pertains to the subject matter at hand.

www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/not-all-estranged-parents-are-abusive.html

This is an excerpt from it

"Non-dysfunctional people don't stay in that environment. They get out, they find forums that address their children's problems and recognize child abusers' justifications when they see them. What's left behind are the people too broken to recognize abuse, too hungry for validation to speak up when they see their friends being abusive, too abusive to pass in a forum of healthy people.

Not all estranged parents are abusive.

Not all estranged parents are abusive.

Not all estranged parents are abusive.

But if they're a member of a estranged parents' forum, they're not one of those parents."

No you didn't Luminance.

There are forums and closed groups for EAC YEEEESH which I think you might find more constructive in enabling you to move on with your life, rather than projecting your anger and bitterness onto the EP's who post here.

Isn't one of the joys of being a GP being a complete soft touch Sara and I bet you are too .

Smileless, yes of course, and they all know it

*What would you like to know Smileless2012? I am unsure.

It's in my post @ 14.03 Luminance.

Smileless2012

It's in my post @ 14.03 Luminance.

I have addressed your comment where it is relevant to what I have said Smileless2012. Is there anything else I can help with at all?

That doesn't make any sense Luminance.

I am sorry I wasted my time reading two adults throwing profanities at each other. It was a bit entertaining and shocking at first but then nothing was resolved, no one was helped and I felt like this was a Trump match with no happy ending.

I wish for peace for all of you. But mainly for the little ones who are learning reactive behavior from their parents and grandparents.

Everyone grows at different rates. Please keep growing !

Norah

I agree with M0nica. People should pull back from attempting to parent, not give any advice or opinions. Let their sons and daughters be functioning adults, not forcing their own expectations upon them.

M0nica I think in this age of mobile phones, email, whatsapp etc, one of the biggest problems is that many parents, especially mothers never really seperate themselves from their children when they grow up.

I have talked on other threads about the physical umbilical cord that is detached at birth and the emotional umbilical cord that is severed in adulthood, usually when a AC enters marriage or a long term relationship.

In the past if conflict arose between parent and child, the child could just move away, only ring or write once every so often. There were plenty of estrangeents or near estrangements in the past.

^For most parents the advice is cut the emotional umbilical cord, leave your children alone, aim at quality in your contact not quantity. Do not try to be part of their adult life, you should both have separate lives, still less offer help or advice unbidden.^

I also agree. I care very much but from now on I am backing off. That is a shame because my daughter is already having issue with her son's behavior at 8. I can literally see and sometimes share his frustration the way she dominates/controls him.

I would, in my heart, talk to her or alert her what I am seeing that I think she has no clue of. But I will not do it.

See, outsiders can sometimes notice what parents do not, whether it is misbehavior issues or just the situation. Mothers love clouds. We feel like our kid is different than others..... is honest, aka we have a trusting and truthful relationship, etc.

My daughter has literally said how honest her son is with her, yet anytime he has let it slip to me something he has done against the rules, the first thing he says is.... don't tell mom! Not don't tell dad, or don't tell anyone. Don't tell mom.

Of course, I tell her. But she thinks I am interferring, so be it. Someday she might look back and wish I had.

I'm hoping not, I want my grandson to have no issues in life.

Smileless2012

No you didn't Luminance.

There are forums and closed groups for EAC YEEEESH which I think you might find more constructive in enabling you to move on with your life, rather than projecting your anger and bitterness onto the EP's who post here.

Isn't one of the joys of being a GP being a complete soft touch Sara and I bet you are too .

You tell 'em Smiles!!!

Sara1954

I agree with Norah, I think if we have done our jobs correctly, our daughters should be more than capable of making the right decisions when raising their children.
I think I might have been a bad parent, but my husband’s kind and calm parenting style rubbed off on me, to be honest, even watching his parents, I saw a totally different style of parenting Than I was used to.
Fifty years on he’s still a complete soft touch not only to all the children, but also the grandchildren.

There is something frequently missed by society in your observations about your husband. His influence isn't by chance I don't think.

I have seen that it is men, not women, who have a bigger hand sometimes in how kids turn out, whether or not they respect their mom, or parents in general. It makes sense....men are usuallly the stoic ones, the leaders, they are looked up to. Kids will mess with mom, but dad??? Not usually, unless they had an alpha mom. I had one of those and despite that, I still turned out more like my dad.

He was also a very soft approach man. My husband is not in the least soft and both my kids tend to be like him. I think if I told them that, they would be in complete denial and be offended. But I am so differnt than the 3 of them, I can not only see it sometimes I feel I can literally taste it. Smell it in the air. It's uncanny.

In my case, I still took after my dad , the soft one and in my kids case, with a verbally abusive man (mainly to me, not them) they still act more like him personality. All three of them are intellectuals. I'm just a homemaker/mom. Certainly they must at times see me of no real value. Well, except my son has expressed a lot of gratitude towards me that I've gotten none from my daughter and only chosen gratitude from my husband, either to make him look better to me or to get me in a good mood because he can do the most amazing 180.....

Anyway, men seem to just have a very big effect on their kids. The good men to their wives tend to sire kids who are the same with their mom. I've literally compared and seen it in many couples I know, family members. There is a pattern.

I think this whole post is a wind up. To say your own daughter is something that rhymes with witch and yet expect to see grandchildren, She would never be near mine with such toxicity, the grandchildren would be affected by it.
My daughter estranged me for her own reasons, that are valid to her. The pain was enormous what everyone estranged knows. I do think to estrange without reason is cowardly and heartbreaking , but sometimes the ones that do it are not thinking straight, they just want out as my d must have.

Allsorts

I think this whole post is a wind up. To say your own daughter is something that rhymes with witch and yet expect to see grandchildren, She would never be near mine with such toxicity, the grandchildren would be affected by it.
My daughter estranged me for her own reasons, that are valid to her. The pain was enormous what everyone estranged knows. I do think to estrange without reason is cowardly and heartbreaking , but sometimes the ones that do it are not thinking straight, they just want out as my d must have.

Since when if the truth toxicity? Truth is truth. Just like others on here who were thrown out for minor issues, their truth stands. They have sons and daughters, daughter in laws that are the textbook definition of TOXIC. Like poor Smileless2012, her son has to estrange to keep his marriage.! That is SICK people!!

My daughter is the toxic one. And to top it all off, she is, I think, somehow jealous of my grandson's favor for me.

Many times "toxic" people will try to use language to turn a child from someone, yes?

My grandson has literally told me she has called me a bad grandma, a bad mom and I had to explain to him that's her opinion, and people have lots of differnt opinins, which is not necessarily always the truth. Kids that age will believe their parents, so I defended myself by explaining the truth. I said nothing bad about her, but the truth is, she's a bad daughter!

She's a controlling, toxic heartless heap of a person since her husband dumped here. I look at her and I do not recognise her, where did that sweet girl I used to know, only a scant few years ago, suddenly dissappear to??

So, isn't a person who projects their own feeliings onto a child considered TOXIC? She has literally done that to me.

I do expect to see my grandkids, as they say, parents should not make their kids give up family they love over squabbles or changed situations, but they do and it's child abuse, elder abuse and the laws are just now starting to see this. I hope someday they take it further and protect grandkids and their grandparents. It took a long time to give fathers more rights, this will be the next step.

I'm not above taking her to court, win or lose if there was total estrangment someday. Not leaving her any money anyway and she can spend hers on it.

I can say with all confidence, my daughter has no valiad reason. The more I complied with her pettiness, the less value it has and more things were just invented off the top of her head. She has jealousy issues and rather than aim that at her husband's new girlfriend, or even him, she's too chicken to do it. She can't control him, even when it comes to the kids, and she knows it. But she will do it the only person she can control.

Now I am seeing her try to control my grandson lately!

Last visit, my granddaughter, who I played with first for almost an hour, had left me to explore some toy baskets. So my grandson was asking me to finally play with him and his toys. Literally in less than 10 minutes, my daughter is in the kitchen crocheting and yelling that we are to include my granddaughter. We did, but she clearly did not want to, got frustrated being interuppted by us asking her. So she proceeded to wreck what my grandson set up, in protest.

This upset him and because of that, immmediately my daughter made him have a time out for nothing! I suspect it was to keep him from playing with me on my only visit that week.

For a full 25 minutes he had to stare at the wall without one sound or she threatened more time. I heard her say something to him (I was in the living room with my granddaughter) and then he yelled "so I can't play with Gma at all today?? "

He was SO upset. She acted like she did not care.

Then when the prolonged time out was over, she ordered him to include my granddaughter yet again, who was busy with some things.

So, he asked her to play and the girl literally said NO THANKYOU.

My daughter either didn't hear it or ignored it. All that frustration over literally nothing.

She is a control freak and I am so tired of it. Now, she messaged me and said her son is testing her limits, so she didn't want me to visit this week, that she had to "parent him" that day, so they would just come on the weekend.

OMG, she's doing it to her son too. Her behavior is textbook toxic to me and to her children, even they are starting to speak up at their very young ages.

So if you actually think I am the problem, you need a new brain lady.

I have had it. I'm done in my life with idiotic critisisms and I will subtly, calmly and non confrontationally fight, only because I want to see my grandkids. It will be more pronounced when they are of age because then I will not care if my daughter is in my life. I will not need her to see the kids nor will I ask permission. That is, unless she succeeds in turning them too. Guess then, evil wins.

Just like they advise the poor little AC's to leave their so called toxic parents, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

I had such love for her, but enough already. Anyone who claims unconditional love means putting up with abuse, and expecting no love back, and still come back for more, is in hard denial.

Honor thy mother and father. Well, that's out the door these days.

You call your own child a bitch while believing her claim that you're a "bad grandma" holds no water...Interesting.

Your daughter may have issues, but your manic, self-absorbed "parenting" style is the last thing she needs.

It's awful the way some parents use their children in these situations.

Children who never know their GP's; children who are suddenly stopped from seeing the GP's they know and love and children who see their GP's but are told they're 'bad people'. How confusing must that be, mum and dad are letting you spend time with people they're telling you are bad!!!

You're handling this with your GC in the right way Eugenia by being willing to talk to your GS about this if he mentions it, in a way he can understand and without criticising his mother to him.

Smileless2012

As I've suggested BlessedArt look into coercive control.

When someone's in a coercively controlling relationship, they lose their agency. They are worked on until they're isolated from those close to them who may alert them to what's happening. Coercive control is a form of abuse and all abusers seek to isolate their victim from anyone who may have any influence.

Nothing we ever did or said was an issue which is why he was never able to say anything was, and by claiming you are merely pointing out a basic truth that people don't fall out because they agree with each other is once again rejecting what I'm saying.

He was aware of her jealousy; it was something that we had talked about.

I get it, you don't believe me so there's no need to keep saying so. It's tiresome and whether you do or not is of no interest to me.

I was friends with her mother. Her father died a few years ago. We're no longer in contact which is perfectly understandable as they were from time to time estranged which is why when they married, we were the only ones at the wedding.

A few years ago while visiting his mother at her care home,
Mr. S. literally bumped into her when he was leaving and she was arriving to visit a friend.

She asked him how we both were and if he would give her a hug which being the lovely man he is, he did. Her request for a hug said far more than words could ever say.

Smileless, I am a clinician with a diverse and extensive background dealing with paediatrics and emergency medicine. My experience dealing with victims of abuse goes far beyond googling and assumptions, so thank you for your direction but I am not sure merely wanting to believe a thing makes it true. I can understand why you feel the way you do, as the devastation caused by parent-child estrangement is something so deep and painful it hurts me to even imagine. But based on what I’ve read in your posts here and there I haven’t read anything that solidifies your son is an abuse victim. I see a mom who didn’t get on with a daughter in law, who spoke frequently to her son separately about issues his wife likely didn’t share your views on, who was also deeply involved in some financial aspect of their life. I read about a daughter in law who had very different plans for her baby i.e childcare, and I read that you weren’t pleased about things like them hiring someone to mind the child. I see snapshots of what seems to be a very tragic and avoidable estrangement for sure. But based on your posts, I don’t see a lack of blame on either side. I am sure there is more to the story than what is shared here, but the reality is that in any conflict this is true when there is only one side told. I am not going to demonize your daughter in law or view your son as a victim of a form of abuse (coercive control) because nothing you’ve posted is enough to confirm those things. Your posts show an imperfect family like the rest of ours. I don’t see abuse confirmed based on your comments. I think 12 of not knowing them as a couple and a family puts you out of the circle of contacts to confirm your son is an abuse victim.

As far as your daughter in law’s parents, I am sure they regret the fall out. All of it seems just heartbreakingly tragic and avoidable. Like a family rift that went way too far. However, nothing you’ve posted gives the impression DIL’s parents view the situation the exact way you—that their daughter is an abuser and is solely to blame for your estrangement. As a mother I am very sorry for things to have gotten to this point in your family, regardless of it all. Nothing is worth the pain you’ve felt, and I am sure your son and DIL likely feel the same. At least I hope they do. We get one mum. Your DIL is now an experienced mum herself, so I hope she has grown as a person.

Eugenia,

That you would refer to your daughter with such vile language solidifies why she doesn’t need you so close to her in her life. I hope she does find distance. Why would anyone want a mother who would speak of them this way? What makes you think this is healthy or mature? Your age doesn’t absolve you of such nastiness. If you are this toxic here I can only imagine what you are like in person. Please create a life of your own and work on yourself. At this point I do not think you are a safe, healthy person for your grandchildren.

GoPhish

You call your own child a bitch while believing her claim that you're a "bad grandma" holds no water...Interesting.

Your daughter may have issues, but your manic, self-absorbed "parenting" style is the last thing she needs.

I think it’s safe to say we see why the daughter has issues.

So does being a clinician with a diverse and extensive background dealing with paediatrics and emergency medicine give you in depth knowledge about coercive control BlessedArt?

My knowledge goes way beyond googling and assumptions. I have a BscHons degree in Sociology so am able to research what interests me in an analytical way.

You either haven't read about my situation as much as you claim, or you're misrepresenting what you have read to suit your own agenda but it's not the first time I've experienced this on GN and as I have already told you, whether or not you believe what I say is of no interest to me, so I'm afraid you've wasted your time.

Allsorts

I think this whole post is a wind up. To say your own daughter is something that rhymes with witch and yet expect to see grandchildren, She would never be near mine with such toxicity, the grandchildren would be affected by it.
My daughter estranged me for her own reasons, that are valid to her. The pain was enormous what everyone estranged knows. I do think to estrange without reason is cowardly and heartbreaking , but sometimes the ones that do it are not thinking straight, they just want out as my d must have.

I really hope you are ok. Reading this was heartbreaking. I can't imagine what you must be going through. I hope you have good support.

GoPhish

You call your own child a bitch while believing her claim that you're a "bad grandma" holds no water...Interesting.

Your daughter may have issues, but your manic, self-absorbed "parenting" style is the last thing she needs.

I don't call her a bitch, sherlock. I describe her as one, and she is. Or at least has become one. Was not before her husband left her. I always blamed him, too, still do, but now I'm not sure how she was treating him.

Self absorbed parenting style?? Haha did you just come up with that or copy it from some article you read. Go back to school . What I have become, is bitter. Being the best mom you can, going the extra miles and then as soon as someone influences or hurts your kid, then you are the bad guy and get to be the one who is blamed, take out all the pain on you because the person who actually caused the pain (her husband) has moved on and does not care.

You are sick and trying so hard to virtue signal right now, supporting an abusive AC isn't a good look..