fake apology: "I'm sorry you're such a failure in life"

[frogjumpsout]

Hi everyone,

Got one of these from my PDM last night....seems especially cruel that it was sent the night before the work week starts. I often can't sleep on Sunday nights because of anxiety about that.

Also, a big part of the "apology" was for believing I could do anything and be a real star. I spent my childhood/adolescence/early-mid adulthood being constantly put down. When I did have academic or career success, I was put down for being unpopular and/or not having a boyfriend and/or not being married  (starting around age 18!?!) or not having children ("the greatest joy and a sign of true maturity -- PDM got pregnant by accident and vocally regretted not aborting me.)

In last night's message, PDM "congratulated" me on finding a partner who was also sort of a failure and didn't judge me for my own.

I'd love to hear about any similar experiences, others have had -- or, to be honest, messages about how I'm not such a failure.

Thanks for reading. I'm grateful for this community.

[all4peace]

This is a really rotten thing for any human to say to another, much less a parent. I'm so sorry. I would completely ignore it. This is a shaming message and not acceptable.

[Thru the Rain]

Wow - So passive-aggressive and mean!

How was this message delivered? Text, on the phone, in person? Whatever that method was, block it on Sunday nights if that's a difficult time for you. (And I soooooo understand the anxiety of Sunday night before the work week!)

You CAN refuse to interact with her on Sundays. You CAN limit how much you interact with her at all.

My own uPDM is also mean, and this is the exact sort of stuff she pulls. I'm left in outraged silence at the open hostility. In the long run I put my M on an information diet. She can't be mean about my life choices if she doesn't know about them.

[Andeza]

Non-pd people don't say that kind of crap. I'm sorry you're dealing with that. Nothing can justify her saying that to you.

[frogjumpsout]

Thank you, All4, Thru, and Andeza! I appreciate what you wrote. To be fairer and clearer than I was in the original post, she didn't say the words "failure in life" -- just heavily implied them by talking about how she'd expected me to be a success, to help her prove that "we were better than everyone" and had been disappointed by my not living up to that.

Thru, the message was via email. I didn't want the unread thing hanging over my head, so I asked my partner to read it -- and then to paraphrase it for me. (He thought it was funny, in a horrible way.) For the first few minutes after hearing it, I also found it funny and had no emotional response at all. But then... So, I think that next time I won't ask him to paraphrase, just to tell me whether it requires/deserves a response.

Thank you all again!

[moglow]

Just for the record - her expectations are all on her, not yours to gratify or fulfill. She gets to choose what she does with that, there's NO mandate on your part whatsoever.
I'd be real tempted to set up an autoresponder for her emails, to please text or call in future should she need to reach you. Set up a filter so everything with her email addy goes to a folder that you look at when/if you want to and not one minute before. Yes, she may later say she sent/told you xyz and that's just fine. Maybe she did and maybe she didn't. Fact is every one of us has limits and perhaps it's time you looked at yours.

You deserve better than this. Read that again and every time you feel yourself wavering - you do. It doesn't matter what she thinks or how she feels about your choices, and you don't have to listen or read ANY of her bs.

[Maxtrem]

I also spent my teenage years being denigrated (I was never enough). Just like in my early adulthood, my mother claimed that I spent too much time studying for the grades I got in college. But at one point I told my mother in a very neutral tone: I ended up in the top 5 in my department and many professors are interested in having me participate in their research, for me it's the only thing that matters. She also claimed that the reason I spent so much time on my work was because I was slow. I mentioned in a very neutral tone that my boss gives me perfect evaluations, the VP likes me and I have the respect of my peers and that's the only thing that matters to me.

[nanotech]

Been there with this. My mum told me in an apologetic  tone that She felt like she had failed with me and my older sister.
I had to console her and absolve her of any blame for my being such a ' failure.' I had to do it for both of us older sisters.
I had to reassure her that she had been a good parent to us two, and any problems were of our making entirely.
Mum wanted absolution from me.

They want you to take on the shame that belongs to them.
So I did. Because it got me some rare approval from her.
I felt very sad and hurt when I came off that phone call. It's an awful thing to say to your child.
Mum idolised her two younger children.
There was a big gap between us two and those two.
It wasn't the first time I felt that she had sort of wanted to 'start again' in terms of her own parenting.
As time went on and we got older, we both began to feel our roles to be more like aunties to our two younger  siblings.
We sort of lost our sibling status. That is how it felt.
I was a long time in denial.No one wants to accept it, and they take full advantage of that.

Also had it all my life from older NPDsister, who learned the habits of denigration.
She said a similar thing  to me that your PD mum said about your partner- .

I had met my husband and we were all loved up, We were engaged within a year.
She told me how 'nice' he was, but still she was 'concerned'
because 'of the way we both were' ( she thought we were ditsy and not very capable of anything apparently!)
she  told me our marriage would be like....

'The blind leading the blind.'

What do you say to these awful insults, dressed up as apologies or concern?

Well yes, the least amount of information the better.

And time is on our side.

She doesn't want to talk about our marriage any more, 41 years on and we are still together. She can't say a lot of negative things now. So she chooses to say nothing of course. Where's the fun in being loving and caring? Lol.
I'd have preferred her to be a close, supportive sister, but I didn't get one of those.

I tried to do the work of two in terms of support, for all my siblings, for a lot of years. I don't do that any more.
Just choose your tribe from other folk who are not PDs.

[Thru the Rain]

Reading nanotech's story I'm reminded of all the ugly things my uPDM had to say about my husband prior to my wedding all cloaked as "concern".

Around my 25th anniversary, my M said "Well maybe he's OK".

I was so surprised I just laughed in her face. As if I had been waiting for her approval all those years? When I had actually dismissed her ugly, mean comments the minute they came out of her mouth. (So much easier to see the untruths when she's aiming her meanness at another person!)

[nanotech]

Reading nanotech's story I'm reminded of all the ugly things my uPDM had to say about my husband prior to my wedding all cloaked as "concern".

Around my 25th anniversary, my M said "Well maybe he's OK".

I was so surprised I just laughed in her face. As if I had been waiting for her approval all those years? When I had actually dismissed her ugly, mean comments the minute they came out of her mouth. (So much easier to see the untruths when she's aiming her meanness at another person!)

Thru the rain, yes.
I think once we reach a socially significant anniversary, they concede a little, but as you say, we are not looking for it. We were not influenced then, and so it certainly had no bearing now.

I must admit I just laughed at the 'blind leading the blind' comment from sister. It was clear they had all discussed it.
                   


   Where I think the meanness about our partners comes from;

They see us being loved unconditionally, being loved as we are, being respected and being treated as an equal by someone outside the family. It's an outsider who wants to come in,and who threatens the skewed dynamics, by raising us up.
They find this so difficult to deal with. Unacceptable really.
This someone then loves us the most, and will always love us more, than anyone else in the FOO(of course!). And any children we might have, will also be loved unconditionally by this person for being just as they are.

Warning, possible abuse trigger-

This is born out by the fact that my UBPDmum adored my first boyfriend (who was an abuser). He learned and played the family system, putting my mum first and just fawning all over her. He was sweetness and light to my mum,  quite flirty really I think, though I didn't see it at the time. In contrast,  I had two years of hell.

Years later, she still made excuses for his behaviour, and expressed sympathy for him. My UNPD sister chimed in. My children were playing in the room at the time,

When I quietly objected to her inexplicable sympathy for him, citing my two years of hell, I was blamed for even meeting him and bringing him home. (I met him at youth club. He was too old to be at youth club. He was scouting for innocents, and he found me).

I think she blamed me, for his abuse of me. She seemed to feel that I'd pushed him into it somehow.

When I met him he was SO lovely at first. He made me feel so VISIBLE, and valued for the first time in my life.
But that wasn't to last.
I feel my parents should have protected me better. He was a lot older than me.
He just fawned all over mum.
At first I liked that mum liked him. It gave me some reflected approval.
Then it got ridiculous.
Mum told me she liked him so much and felt so sorry for him (he was brought up in care) that even if I finished with him, she would still invite him to our house for Sunday lunch. 
After a time he began to criticise me in in the same ways that my mum did. He would dress it up as teasing at first. He saw that this was of approved of by my mum.
He'd chosen his side. Physical abuse started soon after that. Grooming too ( I was 15).
My parents were clueless. I felt powerless. I couldn't keep him out of my own house. Plus I had trauma bonded. He was invited on holiday and treated like my sibling.
He became in the end, another bullying sibling.
See how he began to be valued over me, and all the time he was abusing me.

Yet my lovely hubby, who wouldn't hurt a hair on my head, never has, never will, and who has always looked after me, had to put up with with their disdain and dislike.  He was also lovely with my mum, but he always put me first.
I guess if they dislike our partners and call both them and us failures, then the exact opposite is where the truth lies! X

[frogjumpsout]

Thanks so much, everyone! Am currently having an EF (it's a fun week) so can't respond individually, as I'd hoped, but please know that I really appreciate everything that's been written here.

[nanotech]

Hope you're okay, take care. xx

[frogjumpsout]

Thanks, nano! Doing a bit better today.

[Psuedonym]

Hey frogjumpsout,

I hope you're realizing that this is a PD trait and has nothing to do with you. Here's a couple of mine.

One day we were driving along and PD M just casually says, whilst talking about my now H, 'when (previous bf) and you broke up I just figured you'd be alone forever."
Thaaaaaaaanks.
Also, this might have even been the same conversation, "i just figured you were like (her sister, who was mentally ill, an alcoholic and died from taking the wrong combination of pills in her 40s) but that wasn't my fault and there was nothing I could do about it.'

She also told my H many times after I went NC that there 'had always been something wrong with me' and that 'I wasn't anywhere near normal until I was about 30'.

...and then she'd ask when I was going to call her. 

[Adrianna]

Interesting about the husbands.

My grandmother had threatened me, when my husband and I were dating, that I had better drop "Bozo" because it was disrespectful to my father and I shouldn't upset him or her by dating him. First of all Bozo, really? Second, in spectacular npd fashion, they wanted me to marry a doctor or a lawyer. Bozo didn't shape up. Marrying someone like that would make them look good. Same reason they wanted me at the prestigious college where I started my schooling. I left for a less prestigious school second year in and got a three month silent treatment over it. They wanted me to stay and graduate from that prestigious school as bragging rights to reflect well on them. Again, in pure npd form.

My grandmother later softened towards my husband, in fact sometimes on rare occasion I'd bring him with me for visits so she might behave that day, and keep her abuse in check. She once told me " you can't ever divorce him because then he won't do things for me." He hardly did anything for her anyway. But the thought of losing another possible servant was the overriding factor in her mind.

[Mathilda]

You're definitely not a failure!
My mother did this too, but in a more covered way. When I was a teen, she always showed me how much she liked other peoples daughters, while completey ignoring me. When I was reading a book or doing my homework for school (and therefore did not give her my attention) she told me I must not like people, only books.
When I was 11, there was a 21 year old guy that she liked, and she told me he would be a fantastic boyfriend (yes, I was 11!  )
When I became an adult,  the few friends she had were women my age, she invited them and their families over to Christmas, even putting pictures of their children on her dresser, pretending them to be her grandchildren. Sigh ...

I'm 54 now, I never got married and I don't have children. I don't regret that, although I do think part of the reasons is I always had a very low self esteem. But I know being single and having no children makes me a failure in her eyes.
Brother also never got married. And besides that, he never finished high school, never worked a day in his life and has been on benefits for as long as I recall.
He's not a failure in her eyes, btw 

[SparkStillLit]

Mathilda my brother is quite similar to yours, though he does work from time to time and isn't on benefits (though always on what I call "mom's benefits", always getting money and help off her). She doesn't view him as a failure, either, and when he has one of his fly by night jobs supposedly making a gazillion dollars, he's held up to us as a shining example of success.
Which is just barfsome.

[Mathilda]

SparkStillLit, my brother isn't a failure because she believes he can't help himself because as a child he's been ill  Second, she believes he is a victim of society, just like she is.

Brother joined the army for 14 months, had a job afterwards for a very short time, got fired, mummy told him he probably had PTST (for joining the army), he went to a psychiatrist who diagnosed him as a borderline with narcissisic traits 
Just like your brother he's not only on benefits, but also on mommy's benefits.

[frogjumpsout]

Hi everyone,  Thank you so much for the supportive messages and for sharing your own stories. I see a lot of parallels, especially around the treatment of the partners! (We've been together 15 years, she's often been "worried" about his financial stability although he's always been stable and my parents are overspenders; my grandmother, who's more open in her NPD, used to flat-out ask him to divulge what was most important to us so she could use it to hurt us.) I've been reading and re-reading your messages, and they are a big part of the reason I am occasionally (but increasingly, I hope) able to see her email for the jealous horse!@#$% it was. THANK YOU!

[Seven]

Pseudonym,
I think we have the same mother.
Makes me feel like everything that has gone wrong is always my fault.
In front of DH, she says to me "I don't know what happened between you and ex".  (Because yeah, you say that in front of a man who doesn't abuse your daughter)
A simple  (not getting into the video game addiction, emotional abuse of myself and the kids), "well Mom he hit me". 
Her reply...."well, why?" 
I turned to DH and mouthed out loud "WTf did she just say?" 
Well, when she heard me say that, she then asked "well how many times?" 
My reply "more than once".
Her reply "well I would've left after the first time".

So not only was I in the wrong for leaving ex2 because it was obviously my fault he hit me to begging with, but I was also wrong because I didn't leave after the first time he hit me.

This woman also had the gall to invite him and his new girlfriend to her place for dinner.