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June 2017 Moms
neludelu
member
Momma Drama
neludelu
member
I noticed on another post that a few of us were blessed with momma drama. I've had a pretty rocky relationship with my mother for 2/3 of my life and I am struggling to find a way to move on from the issues while becoming a mother myself. I was wondering if anyone wanted to talk about their issues and how you came to cope with them.
Re: Momma Drama
What was acceptable for me to tolerate as a child, not really having any choice in the matter, is vastly different from what I will subject my children to as a parent and grandparent.
My mom isn't an addict, but she's a pretty crappy mom. She was abusive to me and my siblings. She's manipulative. She's been pretty absent in my life. I didn't worry too much about it until she started showing zero interest in my kids. That hurt. I reached out to her once and said "hey, me and the boys will be home all week, we'd love to see you". Her response "well, I have to go grocery shopping this week".
DH's mother was a decent mother growing but is just a bi-polar (un-medicated) mean-spirited person. She creates drama and problems for no reason and always has to fight with one of her kids. The last we saw her was last May and that was after no contact for several years after our wedding. We are also very close with his Dad and step mom.
we joke that the dad's finally got it right the second time around
BFP Oct 2011 - DD born July 2012
TTC again since July 2014
First IUI 9/26/16: BFP!
EDD 6/19/2017
It's a girl!
Born 6/26/17, 9lb 5oz
There really is way too much to even get into about my mom, but the thing is none of it ever got under my skin until this major event happened last summer. I always let her get away with her "ways" because she was my mom and I didn't know anything else. My mom and I were close and we talked on the phone all the time.
Last summer she she flew to Texas from Florida for a week long trip for my daughters first birthday , the last time we saw each other was the year before when my DD was born. The whole trip she took advantage of the amenities I had taken time to set up for her, a special tv in the guest room, a way for her to watch movies on a tablet if she wanted, access to the internet... you know cushy things normal people would appreciate but rather spend time with their family. My mom spent her entire trip in that stupid guest room, unless she was attending one of the fun day trip things we had planned. When it came time for my daughters birthday party, she spent the morning in the room while I busted my ass trying to clean/decorate/ bake and clean again before guests arrived. I brushed it all off like I always do, she was just being who she is. In all the pictures I have of her at the birthday party you can see her in the background not interacting and having a grumpy attitude. On the last night she was there she agreed to "watch" our kids for us while we went out to a dinner theatre (would have been our first date night in 6 months) I say "watch" in quotation marks because really we would have already put them all in bed and all she would have to do is sit in her room and not leave the house. Anyways my husband made her a special dinner that night and it went completely unappreciated and back to her room she went, my kids wanting to spend time with their nana who they almost never see went in her room and started playing. My mom freaked out because they were getting into her things and she told them to get out, and then locked the door on them. This was my breaking point, how dare you come all the way out here to see your family and spend almost no time with them. She was always in the room on the phone with her husband or watching a movie or online shopping. I freaked becaue my entire childhood she was always locked away in her room too, but I knew nothing else so it was whatever. Now her doing it to my kids I took personally and I told her it wouldn't be allowed, if she was gonna be here she needed to actually be here. Somehow our conversation flipped to how my oldest doesn't listen when she asks him to stay out of her stuff, which I will give it to her he does very much like to test his limits. Well in the middle of the fight she says "I love (sons name) but I don't like him!" And that was the end of it for me, or so I thought. I walk out into our living room and my son goes "is nana mad at me?" He heard the whole thing! I've never been so mad in my entire life. My husband and I had to call off our date night, because how could I leave my son with her after that! She got on a plane the next morning without even saying goodbye to my kids, they woke up and she was gone. Who can be that heartless to children?! We haven't talked since. She tries, I'm just not interested. She doesn't even have a clue that I'm pregnant, she'll find out on Facebook like the rest of my distant relatives.
My dad is another story. He has always had issues with addiction. When I was younger, it was alcohol. In 2011, a tree limb fell on him when he was cutting wood and he is a paraplegic. He coped with taking excessive amounts of pain pills, smoking cigarettes, and a heavy marijuana dependence. His doctors have just recently caught on to his narcotic pain medicine abuse and kicked him off of all pain pills. They also did a drug screen and threatened to stop treating him if he didn't stop smoking marijuana (illegal in Indiana). His insurance company knows that he smokes and they are refusing to pay for two different surgeries until he has stopped smoking for three months. He has been to my house 4 times since I got married, has not relationship with my son or my husband, and I barely have a relationship with him. He was verbally and emotionally abusive to my brother and I growing up and high a majority of my life after graduating high school. He doesn't work due to being disabled and keeps telling me he will babysit my son once he is 3 or 4 so I don't have to send him to daycare, but that will never be happening.
My mom and I have had a difficult relationship since my parents divorced when I was 16. It is like at that moment, she snapped. She became very abusive, physically and emotionally. She started abusing prescription drugs and alcohol. She has been diagnosed with bi-polar and is unmedicated. I believe (as well as my past therapist, and present therapist that she also has undiagnosed personality disorder.) She cycles so much, that it is difficult to maintain a healthy relationship with her. At several times in my life, I have had to cut her off and not let her participate (before and after children). I have severe anxiety and depression, so my therapist has taught me to prioritize things in my life. I always kind of have a "top 3" in my mind of things in my life. If those 3 things are extreme stresses, my mom has no business in my life because I can't find the energy to be a good wife and mom, and employee. At times, I can let her in when things are calm in my life... but I don't always do that because I don't like to disturb the calm if that makes sense. My mom is horrible at accepting boundaries, and because of that right now, she is cut out of my life. I do not answer her calls or texts because a couple weeks ago she just showed up at my home unannounced, walked in. I have told her several times this is unacceptable behavior, but she continues.
I really could go on and on about our relationship... but really... if anyone needs to talk... or wants to compare notes about how therapists have helped... I am an open book!
I have issues with my mother as well. I'm adopted (she's my maternal grandmother) and that was something she liked to hold over my head growing up when I did something she didn't like. For the most part, as long as I did what she wanted, our relationship was fine...the minute I started thinking for myself it deteriorated. My therapist thinks, based on my descriptions of life with her, that she has borderline personality disorder, but she would never get help for it.
Were it up to me, our relationship would be practically non-existent. Unfortunately, my father is in late states of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, so I maintain the relationship to have access to him. Once he's gone...I don't really know.
Thankfully, she's excited about the adoption, but I have a feeling the minute the baby is here it will be a litany of all the things I'm doing wrong and how I'm a horrible parent. She doesn't think any of my siblings can parent their children, so I doubt I'll be any different.
My coping: I only talk to her on the phone once a week, and I pick a time where our conversations will HAVE to end after 10 minutes or so (I'm on my way to work, driving to an appointment, etc.). I never have conversations with her where they could go on for hours, because they will. I also have a therapist that I see semi-regularly (at this point, only when things go tits up), but she helps a lot.
When I was a baby my mom let my seriously deranged aunt have constant access to me which resulted in her coaching me to say my dad molested me and was in a cult. The lie detectors and therapists all said the claims were false but by then my parents relationship was beyond repair and they divorced when I was two. By the time I was 4 she was married to her second husband, MJ. He was violent to her and me and my sister. Emotionally and physically abusive to the point where my sister was so afraid to leave our room she would poop in the closet. She would leave him for a week and go back, but she always brought us back too despite my grandma telling her we (including the newest third child) always had a place with her. She only left him for good after he stopped the car in the road and bit down on my arm as hard as he could, which left all of his teeth marked in my skin and bruised for a month at least. Before she left though, she sent me to school and made it very clear that I'd be in trouble if anyone saw, which let me tell you will mess with a 6 yr olds head.
Anyway after that she became an addict and alcoholic and sent me and my sister to live with our paternal grandparents. I hadn't seen my dad's family in so long I didn't know who they were. After a few years she couldn't leave well enough alone when we were finally in a stable home and snatched us back up after marrying her third husband, BD. He was in the Navy and told her he was gay when she was 8 months pregnant with my brother. As soon as he was born we moved across the country and she (still married to gay sailor) went on a two year long binge from the time I was 11-13 so I had to grow up and help raise the kids because BD was always on base two hours away. During this time he fessed up to bestiality and pedophilia, but she stayed with him and made her young daughters and son stay with him. Being the oldest I was the one she told this to, and it became my responsibility to protect them. Anyway by the time we were taken out of her custody I had snuck out to call police several times, holed my siblings up in my room for countless nights and kicked my mom's teeth out for my sister. After we kids were taken were separated and my second sister was forced to live with her dad, MJ. She stayed with BD for 3 more years and had another of his kids, and didn't leave when she suspected he was molesting my brother but when it got so bad he tried to kill her. Now my brother and sister live with him because she's still so unfit.
I cut her off when I was 15 but still had to see her at family things. So I was civil but didn't talk anymore than I had to or give her my number or email. When I got pregnant my dad told my my maternal grandma who told her. She freaked out a lot. (I'm only 18 and still in school and unmarried) I saw her over Christmas and she was very worried about the baby and everything.
She tries to say she's doing what she can but the fact is that she hasn't had a job in 15 years and refuses to take anything for her many mental illnesses and will not change, last I heard my grandma (who now has custody of my second sister after MJ died of diabetes related gangrene) kicked her out of the yard where she'd been living in a tent until she gets help for her bipolar and a job. I told her the baby is going to be adopted by a nice couple who have been trying to have a baby for years and she acted like I was wrong for my decision. She even tried guilt me for it but she has no room to talk. (she told me even if I "give it away" it's always going to be mine and I'll never get away from it/never forget /regret it, etc.) It would be possible to keep the baby but I'm not ready to be a parent for a lot of reasons and I'm more worried about the baby's quality of life than my family's feelings. Anyway she's visiting tonight so I thought I should get this out of my system.
K born 8/31/12
C born 1/11/14
BFP #3 Nov 2014: D&C January 2015
BFP #4 Sept 2016: Due May 31 2017
She told me " Tell DH I will be in the delivery room with you..." I don't know if I want that. We were much closer 5 years ago when my son was born and she was in the room, plus I was much younger. I think this time around I just want me and DH. This is his first child. Ugh... I know it will be a huge fight.
Me: 36; DH: 38
DD: 7; DS1: 4; DS2 due 6-21-17!
**TW**
MMC & D&C Aug 2016