Family event with 9 yrs NC Mom. Help!

[badwolf1518]

Hello everyone,
I used to be an active member here a few years ago as I was processing a lifetime abusive relationship with my mother. After a particularly upsetting event with my Mom, I decided to go NC with her. This was about two years into my marriage and we didn't have children yet.

Flash forward 9 years and I am still married and we have a beautiful 8 year old boy together, and my younger brother (the only child that still speaks to my mother) is getting married. My brother is 8 years younger than me and had a different relationship with our mother than me and my older sister. We got the worst abuse from her. My brother still got plenty, no question about that but he got away with way more than we ever did and has been allowed to maintain some semblance of independence from her that I've never fully understood.

Of course my family is going to my brother's wedding to celebrate him and his future, I'm so happy for him. I'm also experiencing increasing levels of anxiety the closer the wedding gets because I will be forced to be around my mother. I'm experiencing fear, obligation, guilt, shame, you name it. I feel like I need to prepare my son for the interaction, explain in some way why I don't speak with my mother. I think the simplest reason is because I don't trust her. It's just.... ooof. I don't know. My son is also going to be the ringbearer so he will be a public part of the wedding and my mom has never met him.

I guess I'm just looking for some reassurance, and advice on how to handle myself 

[Call Me Cordelia]

Wow that's so hard. I would be all kinds of anxious too. Your brother must be very important to you.

For you to have maintained NC for nine years, I daresay you meant it and had very good reasons. And that your anxiety now is in part reminding you of all those reasons.

Fear, obligation, guilt, and shame... quite a familiar melange of emotions around here. I'm not saying it's possible to logic yourself out of feeling these things. Heaven knows I have tried! But I will say the shame does not belong with you. You separated from your abuser and built a healthy life for yourself and your husband and child! That's wonderful! And what's more, you successfully have maintained a relationship with this brother despite all the stuff you have both been put through. So often (as in my own case) the sibling relationships are lost as collateral damage in separating from the parents. So the two of you have something really special. Well done.

As for the wedding day, the theme is your brother and his new wife and their happiness. I don't know your mother's style, but if she tries to start trouble would it help to have a few canned phrases at the ready, such as, "I'm here to celebrate brother and his wife," to mic drop as you turn away? Would your husband be able to run interference for you? Or could you possibly even have an additional +1 to act as your own personal bouncer/buffer? And am I right in thinking you have other siblings too who are NC? Will they be at the wedding? If so you can definitely stick together. Your brother obviously knows the history, even if his experience was different, and hopefully would be understanding of your position and would want to help you enjoy his wedding and certainly to have the day go smoothly. It's not going to be easy to see her after nine years and that's just a fact. The fact that your son is in the wedding makes escape difficult, but it could also be an easy out for leaving early. Weddings usually aren't that fun for kids.

As for what to say to him, I agree with you on not getting too detailed. It's not his problem. You don't trust Grandma and there are reasons for that that are between you and her. The end.

Best of luck with navigating all this!

[footprint33]

It sounds as if you've forged an amazing path for you and your family, badwolf. Having to interact with your mother in person after 9 years NC with her is stress inducing, but there are some strategies to avoid her at the wedding. I like Call Me Cordelia's idea of getting someone who can act as a buffer while you're at the wedding. My NPD mother is a major bully but she's a coward if I'm not isolated, so having a witness helps. Also, if your brother could seat you as far away from your mother as possible, that would be great.

Have you had any conversation up until now with your son about your mother? When my kids were very little, I initially kept a very VLC relationship with my parents because I thought that maybe the children could at least have grandparents in name. I didn't tell them much. But 10 years ago when they were 4 and 2, I changed course after reading an amazing but very sad blogpost from a woman who was the scapegoat in her family and she deeply regretted letting her NPD mother have any involvement with the children. Her parents were malignant and had always relished smearing her and turning people in her social network against her. Her kids were at that point in their early 20s and the grandmother had been able to turn the kids against their mother. The woman regretted not having told her kids much more when they were little. After I read that, we stopped having any in person interaction with my parents (they live thousands of miles away) and so the kids never saw them again.

When my eldest was 5, I started telling him little things about how I'd been raised. By the time my kids were your son's age, they knew quite a bit and were ok with it. They're both very grounded now and seem fine not to have grandparents on my side. I guess it all depends on what you're comfortable sharing with your son. What worked for me were little things like sitting with the children and telling them that I did not have a loving parent when I was a child and so I wasn't close with my parents, but that I love my own children (them) very much. Other comments that might work are, "Grandma has many problems and so we don't have a close relationship" or "Grandma can get very angry and so we are not close anymore." I think it might relieve some anxiety for you if you've talked a bit with your son before the wedding, though you need to do what's most comfortable for you.

footprint