Estrangement / Cut off Mum

Araabra Yes I can read and comprehend the word possible!! So what? I was simply making a statement ..its allowed!

I am puzzled by your apparent need to pick up every minutiae in just about every post, pick out and highlight specific posts and then comment on them ...what is the purpose of this, over and over again? I didn't bother to pick out and high light your comment ...but you reply as if I did, about the word possible that you used ...you keep telling others to look at themselves etc etc ...take your own advice maybe about how and what you read into just about every comment ?
I don't want to get into an endless argument but so many have now commented on your posts in a variety of ways and you appear to have not listened or even thought about whether there is any validity in any comments atall ...unless I have missed that somewhere?

What is your motivation I wonder? Are you trying to be helpful? Make people think? Make people question themselves? Make them re-evaluate? Are you angry? Trying to prove your cleverness? Linking things to your own experiences? All conjecture on my part of course ...so perhaps I should have pit possibly as part of each of those sentences....

I see a difference in the way my boomer AC think and act compared to my millennials. My under 40's are completely dissimilar to my over 40's AC in ways that are generational. I was a different mum at 16 than at 35 too.

Just an observation.

Abuse, I have just caught up with some posts on here.

Smilelss as always you put it so well, I did smack my children never spamkned them but occasional smack on hand or leg but I don't think it was hardly ever certainly not regular, and I certainly wouldn't call it abuse. I too think of horrendous cruelty when I think of abuse,

My estranged daughter was very highly strung and quick tempered, I also am quick tempered probably less so now, and we clashed quite often. It didn't mean I didn't work myself ragged caring for her and I know I did my utmost for both my children.
It's sad to call something abuse in fact it is wicked to do so when abuse is just that soemntung horrific and totally unjustified.

It is not considered good nowadays to physically chastise a child.
My father never laid finger on me, my mum would give me Odd smack, usually I deserved it, she was a Wonderful mum and I certainly wasn't abused. My dad would thrash my brother,which made me cry and I don't think that was good.
However if he had lived I would t have stopped him seeing his grandchildren because of it, it wouldn't have occurred to me to be that cruel.

Granmaryn18 U are just saying very well in an articulate manner what most of us think about a certain poster.

Smileless*Thank you for trying to explain what I was saying as you were spot on. Unfortunately not everyone on here gets it.
We don't know why my ESS is not speaking to us but my guess is that it's not about the few spanks on his bottom thirty five years ago . I was just trying to explain about my generation doing it and not thinking it was abuse but this generation does consider it abuse and may be judging us on it. My guess is that ESS and his wife had expectations of us and when we could no longer babysit things changed. My DH is a very gentle man who is extremely kind and nice but sometimes it's the smart person who seeks out advice when they have a child who is out of control. Such as what happened. When his son questioned him about it years ago they both had a discussion and all was good.
Happy families? Well who is happy all the time? Every family has something . There are some children who exhaust their parents and then the parents become frustrated. When my ESS got into his early teens he was going around hitting mailboxes with his friends. At fourteen he broke into the school computer system to change grades. He has been in rehab for alcohol abuse twice. So clearly he has had problems and his estrangement is just another example of that.
On the other hand my son estranged himself from us for over a year and then one day I got an email from him saying it was all his fault. He was figuring out his life and didn't want any interference from us or my mother. He took full responsibility and said he was the only one to blame. Sometimes our children need time to figure themselves out. We have had no problems since and he calls us all the time now.

Norah I hadn't picked up that you have children of such different ages-sorry! Thanks for explaining. Interesting point about the differences between those generations.

celebgran Thankyou! It seems a shame when a thread gets pulled away into something else when the OP clearly was looking for advice...that doesn't mean they wont hear hard messages ofcourse but even so!

Granmary18 Yes it's interesting to have AC with GC and GGC and my second set of children with GC in nappies. The generational differences in my children are fascinating.

How wonderful that you're a ggm, Norah!

But wow - boomer kids and millennials? That's a whole generation apart! You must have been very young when you had the first set.

Enjoy them all - ac, gc and ggc!

Rhinestone, it looks like there has been a long history of trouble in ess's life and of tensions between him and dh. I agree the co is part of all that. It isn't that surprising, actually, now that you have given us more of a context. Painful, I'm certain, but not surprising.

It is interesting to see the contrast with ds. How marvelous that that turned out ok! I'm sorry he didn't let you know beforehand that he needed some "space." But I am glad it's all good now.

Is it possible that ess is also "figuring out his life" and wants to do it w/o "interference?" Maybe it is just taking him longer than ds. Maybe he will reconcile with you and dh someday, too.

Bibbity this is it, of course it's the horrible dil, not the GPs or ds. "How dare he tell them to stop abusing his wife." "He'd have never blamed them before." "It must be that woman he's with."

Reading these threads has really flagged up for me the fact that its more than likely that toxic mothers-in-law were toxic daughters/daughters-in-law. Toxicity isn't an illness you develop over the years. This goes some way to understanding why families want to stamp it out where possible, and also to see that, certainly in situations like mine, you can sometimes be on a hiding to nothing. It's too late, it is what it is.

Arabraa why are you so bloody determined to cause dissension? Over the last few days, posters have really tried to see the others points of view, and I for one have learned much. But that's not really what you want is it? So, back you come with your dogmatic opinions, dragging posts from a different thread, picking just the inflammatory bits. You really need to ask yourself why you are doing this.

Toxicity can develop over the years in a formerly 'normal' person. Life experiences can make people bitter, drugs and alcohol ditto. It can also be a sign of mental illness.

It's not dissension to express an unpopular view. The idea that blaming the dil is just an easy way out is common. As it's not dissension to think that spanking is abuse even if some spanked their children years ago. Wrong behaviour is wrong. Introspection is jolly good.

"It's not dissension to express an unpopular view."

It is when it's been expressed hundreds of times!

Anya, yes there are many MH conditions that can develop as a result of circumstances/trauma, but that takes us into the age old nature/ nurture argument. Going from the examples given here, it seems that the toxic mothers-in-law have been a toxic mothers.

Introspection - " the examination or observation of one's own mental and emotional processes" (dictionary definition) ......Quite!!!!!!

Looking for clues is a bit like lorry spotting, one never knows when Eddie Stobart will overtake.

Norah ....?? Am I missing something again? grin

I doubt you missed anything. Looking for clues in an estrangement does seem like looking for Eddie Stobart lorries, in my opinion. It's quite fascinating. But then I have children and GC who loved to look at lorries.

Norah ....thanks!

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

Rosieposie, remembering celeb's dramatic posts seems to be something celeb can't manage. Unfortunately, for celeb, most readers can recall her absurd posts about raging at Tor. And celeb wonders why the relationship ended?

I dont think its appropriate to be discussing someone who is no longer taking part in the threads.

Good post Miss Adventure