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Feathering my nest.
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November 18, 2018 at 5:41 am #238239
AnonymousGuestDear Feathering:
The first part of your recent post reads very reasonable to me.
I will quote and give you my straightforward input on the second part: “My relationship with my parents has its difficulties… my mum is terrible at listening and quite passive-aggressive. I’m trying to gently bring out the problematic behaviors into discussion. I have decided to cut ties with my sister again… she’s abusive and very aggressive. She’s unwilling to take responsibility for her behaviors so change is impossible. My relationships with mum and dad were strained growing up- but my relationship with my sister was the worst.. she held me up at knife point on more than one occasion”.
My input:
1. The easy part, do end contact with your sister because she is and has been “abusive and very aggressive” toward you and is “unwilling to take responsibility for her behavior”.
2. I figure your sister probably suffered like you have from your mother’s aggression (there is aggressive in “passive aggressive”) and expressed it in an active way, so she became aggressive, not passive-aggressive. You suffered from the same and carry on your own version of expressing your anger that was built during your years with your mother’s aggression.
Your mistake, the part of the recent post that is not reasonable, regarding your mother: “I’m trying to gently bring out the problematic behaviors into discussion”, bring those up to your mother, that is. This will bring about waste of time and effort on your part. Your mother remained aggressive for all the years of you and your sister growing up, not changing while witnessing your sister holding you at knife point, not changing while the two of you suffered visibly, so I don’t think she will change now.
Not only will this be a waste of your time and effort, but your time and effort will not go where they should and so your relationships with men and others will continue to suffer from your anger and there will be no healthy, loving relationship for you.
Adult children are very, very.. very resistant to the idea of giving up on their parent, still waiting, still trying forevermore to fix the relationship, to fix the parent, so to finally have the parent that was needed all along. Futile.
anita
November 18, 2018 at 9:53 am #238279
Feathering my nestParticipantHeya Anita,
Yes- I see your point.
Where then, should I direct my energy?
I live with my parents – there is a massive crisis in my city with housing, rent has gone up more than anywhere else in the UK. I was evicted from my rented home when the rent became unaffordable. Living with my parents is uncomfortable as I have to confront the problematic behaviors on a regular basis.
When I was a kid my dad was the scary and imposing one. But my mum did nothing to defend us, even though she disagreed with his actions. We talked a little on Friday (in relation to some problems she was having with my sister) and my mother was totally unaware of the impact that her silence had on us. I said we felt undefended, and that her silence was seen as supporting the actions of our father – we had nobody else left to turn to.
She said: “But that wasn’t what was going on behind closed doors.” (As if we were somehow to know!)
I could not believe that I needed to explain the ‘Why’ of this to a woman in her late 50’s.What is more she enables my sister’s abusive behavior by welcoming her back each time sister returns and tries to press the ‘reset’ button after a bout of abuse. She said “I would rather be on good terms with her than when she is being abusive.” But she cannot understand how she enables the abuse. I find this attitude very frustrating.
Indeed: frustrating is the way I feel about my relationship with my mother overall. We have very different temperaments: I have a zest for life and new experiences. She is insular, afraid of challenges, lacking in confidence, very negative about everything. My sister switches between ardently defending her and bullying her.
I used to wish I could turn to my mum for advice and support in relationships but now I can see that this is not a wise thing to do.
-Feathering
November 19, 2018 at 4:19 am #238377AnonymousGuestDear Feathering:
What about moving away, just you, leaving your family behind… far, far away to a place where rent is affordable and employment is possible?
anita
November 19, 2018 at 10:52 am #238475Feathering my nestParticipantHey Anita,
I’m considering moving away for postgraduate study – to study something that feels important and I truly believe in. (Sustainable textiles engineering, I possibly mentioned that I am a textile artist already.)
It would break my heart to leave this city: its my adopted home after so many years of moving around. I really feel like I belong here; its an interesting city and I’ve got a really solid network of friends here. Some of whom are among my oldest friends, having known them for a decade now. I moved here 5 years ago and my parents 2 years ago.
I juggle two jobs – for an arts charity part-time, and I work as a professional artist the rest of the time. This has come off the back of years of networking. My work life is rewarding and happy. While I don’t earn huge amounts of money but I have enough to get by without existing hand-to-mouth. The hand-to-mouth thing was extremely stressful! More stressful than the problems of living with my parents. Moving out would push me back into the hand-to-mouth existence.
That is why I am considering this MSc, it is something that is important and will improve my career prospects in the long term. If I leave now, I will be back in a cycle of hand-to-mouth.
It would take a long long time to build an equivalent network of friends elsewhere, equally a long time to establish myself as a working artist. I’m excited to do this postgraduate course but would probably return to this city after. I expect I will be lonely once I leave.
So yeah, I am only prepared to leave for something much bigger and better for my long-term happiness and security. Simply getting away from my parents isn’t enough of a reason for me.
-Feathering
November 19, 2018 at 12:37 pm #238509AnonymousGuestDear Feathering:
I understand. I hope that you make your living with them as least damaging to you as possible, for as long as you live with them. One damaging element in living with one’s parents as an adult is repeating the same patterns that existed since childhood, such as still reaching out to a rejecting parent, still trying to be heard, still trying to change a parent and the relationship with a parent, asking for advice and approval of a disqualified parent, walking on eggshells around an angry parent, etc.
Yes, you did mention being a textile artist and you even offered me an art work as a gift, something I still appreciate, the intent, that is.
Will you have to take out loans/ go into debt if you do the post graduate school, which will require you to live elsewhere, away from your parents?
* I will be away from the computer for the next sixteen hours or so.
anita
November 19, 2018 at 1:55 pm #238519Feathering my nestParticipantHello Anita,
Well: living with one’s parents. A time to be mindful and challenge those very behaviors, no? An opportunity for growth.
Despite their ‘hands off’ approach being hard when I was younger: it has given me a strength in my adult years.I will have to take out a loan, but by studying part-time and working alongside my studies I can keep this to a minimum. (And enjoy the studying for longer!)
Today I could not resist texting Mr. I am working on an artistic project based on one of his favourite stories, a theatrical production of an Oscar Wilde story. Happily I am a key artist on the project. 😀 Currently I am about to start work on the principle costume for the main character, I have not read this story so asked him about this character. (Bad that I left it too late to read it!) He takes ages to reply sometimes.
-F
November 20, 2018 at 3:39 am #238625Feathering my nestParticipantIt is his birthday soon. I want to do something nice, something that shows I care but I don’t want to do something that is over-the-top or will make him feel pressured. He likes yoga but doesn’t have the spare cash to pay for a class so I considered booking him a 3 week pass to a yoga studio- he can go as much as he likes for 3 weeks.
Since I was on a peacemaking mission when we met we didn’t really discuss the future or anything (“Shall we be friends/Can we be friends/What do you want from this?” That conversation did not happen.)
So I’m in a place of uncertainty with this right now. Instinctively I beleive it went well- I left the interaction happy and confident. But that anxious/angry/afraid side of me is struggling with the uncertainty and the old patterns of thoughts are arising. So for example he has been online several times but not responded to the message I sent him yesterday- or even opened it. I’ve turned that setting off my phone now – nobody can see when I’ve been online or read messages and I cannot see theirs either. Detaching myself from that whole thought process is possibly what is healthy.
On the one hand I appreciate it will probably take time for him to relax properly in the relationship (I did really hurt him with my words, he was stressed out and lost his voice for 2 weeks! A real blow for him as a singing teacher) so I ought to be patient.
The angry/anxious side is telling me my expectations are not being met so I should bail to avoid getting hurt. Its hard to know which to listen to. It does hurt a bit that he hasn’t written back. 🙁
Maybe it was a bad idea to message him after all.
I just felt like things went well and I wanted to talk to him again.I believe I can cope with the difficult feelings: but not sure how to deal with my interactions with him. I am too conflicted again to be able to act with clarity.
November 20, 2018 at 7:21 am #238641AnonymousGuestDear Feathering:
Look at this, if you will:
1. Regarding Mr: “I did really hurt him with my words, he was stressed out and lost his voice for 2 weeks!”
2. Regarding your mother: “my mum is terrible at listening and quite passive-aggressive. I’m trying to gently bring out the problematic behaviors into discussion”
– lashing out verbally at your sort-of-boyfriend but gentle with your mother.
Mr didn’t open your message to him, most recently, that angers you. Now let’s see what your mother did to you: “my mum did nothing to defend us… my mother was totally unaware of the impact that her silence had on us… that her silence was seen as supporting the actions of our father- we had nobody else left to turn to”.
Your mother is forgiven for years, a couple of decades of silently supporting the man who directly harmed her two girls, her contradictory excuses of being unaware on one hand, and “But that wasn’t what was going on behind closed doors”, on the other (she was aware enough to defend you behind closed doors?) are accepted and you are gentle with her. On the other hand, Mr didn’t answer a message and you are angry at him.
Regarding her first excuse: do you really think that a mother of two girls can possibly be unaware of the distress in the faces and the voices of her two children? Didn’t she see the fear in the eyes, the tears.. didn’t she hear the crying, didn’t she see you looking to her for help?
Regarding her second excuse: if she defended you behind closed doors, then she knew you and your sister were harmed and she did nothing about it.
So you figure that now, when she is in her late fifties and you are maybe around thirty, now you will gently explain to that unaware, innocent little girl-older-woman, your mother, what happened…?
But you hold Mr responsible for not answering your message.
What I am saying is that this is what happens: as we excuse our parents we keep blaming others. It goes hand in hand. Unless and until you hold responsible those who are responsible, you will keep getting angry at those who are not responsible for your early, ongoing hurt, being undefended by your mother.
anita
November 20, 2018 at 10:56 am #238719Feathering my nestParticipantHello Anita,
Hope you are well. 🙂 Thanks once again for your messages, which are always thought-provoking.
I mean sure – I can meditate on all the things my mother does, and did, that made me angry. I’m sure that would be useful. I will admit that I have been slack this last week on the whole self-reflection thing. It is easy to forget the underlying pain sometimes.
(My mother was very rude to my father at dinner tonight and I drew her attention to it. I said it was rude and asked if she was angry, she tried to frame it as a joke. I could tell otherwise from her tone of voice. She tried to turn it on me and ask if I was angry. Shortly after she made a snide comment about me and my recent health scare, chewing on her food like a petulant child. It was muttered beneath her breath.)
So sure, I’ll get making that list or letter about my mother, and see where that takes me.
I might as well do one about my father (although I already talked of him in therapy for a long time…) one for my sister (!!) one for my first ever boyfriend (massive trauma there) and one for my most recent boyfriend. (who as far as I am can tell, was cheating on me with his ex. Again: massive trauma.)Not sure about the holding people account bit though – I think we are probably in agreement that my mother in particular is unlikely to change if I tried to talk to her about these things. Do you think that simply the letter writing itself is an act of holding people account?
And while this activity might take the sting out of the hurt that Mr has basically rejected my bid to connect emotionally with him, now I am not sure how to proceed on that issue.
He does this from time to time: my messages go unopened until I send another. I don’t know why. It isn’t the same as that time he gave me silent treatment- when he did get back to me after that he explained he felt the urge to distance himself because he thought I was being passive-aggressive. (Indeed the same remark that led him to claim my ‘friendship was not very friendly’)
It is his birthday in a few days and I would like to get him something. I considered a yoga course earlier today, but I saw a musical event that he and I would both enjoy, maybe that would be better as we can go together?
It is a month away from now so I would have time to ‘get my head together’ a bit more.-Feathering
November 20, 2018 at 11:32 am #239277AnonymousGuestDear Feathering:
I am well, you are welcome and thank you for the thought provoking comment.
You repeatedly refer to your mother as a child, “like a petulant child” you wrote in your recent post. I think this is part of you… making believe that you are far and above and removed from all this, and this is why you use the term “massive trauma” (in your recent post) to describe your relationship not with your mother (or father, or sister) but with your two boyfriends.
We talked about the exercise of you talking like a five year old before. If you did, you will be the child yourself, not projecting the child into your mother in this role reversal.
Well, the yoga gift read terrific to me when you first mentioned it. But a moment of the next anger will evaporate any peace of mind he may get doing the child pose, or the corpse pose (my favorite oftentimes).
anita
November 20, 2018 at 11:40 am #239281Feathering my nestParticipantHeya,
Forgive me but I’m not clear by what you mean with regards to this:
You repeatedly refer to your mother as a child, “like a petulant child” you wrote in your recent post. I think this is part of you… making believe that you are far and above and removed from all this, and this is why you use the term “massive trauma” (in your recent post) to describe your relationship not with your mother (or father, or sister) but with your two boyfriends.
-F
xx
November 20, 2018 at 11:46 am #239285AnonymousGuestDear Feathering:
You refer to your mother as if she was the child and you were the adult in the relationship with her. This is a role reversal because in reality you were the child and she was the adult during the years of your childhood (those Formative years, when your brain neuropathways were formed).
When you see her as a child you feel as if she doesn’t or didn’t have much power over you, that you are too much of an adult to be affected by a petulant child?
anita
November 20, 2018 at 12:33 pm #239891Feathering my nestParticipantHeya,
She does behave like a child at times. We all do, I do.
Maybe I should write these angry letters like I am 5 years old.You are right Mr would appreciate the yoga classes for his birthday very much.
Meanwhile I’d like to consider if I could gently raise this issue of him sometimes not responding to me at all, as it does hurt me and creates resentment since I don’t know what to expect from him. Of course I don’t expect him to be on hand by his phone constantly- but I don’t understand why I sometimes get missed out. Its probably a simple case of asking kindly at a good moment.
-F xx
November 20, 2018 at 1:25 pm #239911AnonymousGuestDear Feathering:
I think it is very reasonable to expect him to answer a message you send him within a certain amount of time. I would bring it up, definitely and I too would be upset if ignored.
I suppose there are a few rules of engagement to discuss with him and agree upon, one of which is that messages should be returned within a reasonable amount of time.
anita
November 20, 2018 at 2:05 pm #239929Feathering my nestParticipant….. yeah should probably hold off on that one until we can see each other in person again. That isn’t a conversation to have over text message. x
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