DAE's parent side with a partner that was abusing you?

[easterncappy]

I think today was the last ever visit to my mom's house. I had to return one of her belongings (and I figured I'd do it before the baby is here so she wouldn't use it as an excuse to come over), and she said she had baby stuff for me. Even the nurse I saw today told me I shouldn't be dealing with my mom.

Anyway, right when I got there, she started talking about how she found some Christmas ornaments belonging to an ex. This same ex is someone who started talking to me when I was 17 years old and he was much older. Any normal parent would be totally horrified by this... except, my mom adored him. Looking back, I was genuinely too young to know any better. If I even speak to teenage girls now I realize just how unequipped they are for anything like this. She wanted him to move in with us, and he did. This lasted a couple of years and everything he ever did to hurt me was met with "well, you chose him!". I was financially and psychologically abused for years. He refused to work and was unfaithful. When I finally made him move out, my parents guilt tripped me about how it'd be my fault if he died (this able-bodied and non-disabled man refused to cook or clean too), how I "put that poor boy through hell", how I "just got tired of him for no reason - are you going to do that to the next one, too?". My mom lied for years to her friends about how we're still together.

Mom: "Can you text him and get his address? I want to send these back to him"

Me: "If it's that important to you, you can contact him, or you can throw them out. You know he'd never send me back any belongings and it's beneath me to negotiate something like this with someone who abused me for years"

Mom: "Oh come on, it's just some ornaments, you really wouldn't be doing a lot..."

I told her that this part of the conversation is over. Quite frankly, I was insulted. If some sleazy middle aged man manipulated my teenage daughter into a relationship, I'd nip it in the bud ASAP and I'd be totally heartbroken if she chose to proceed anyway and there was nothing left for me to do to stop it. Needless to say it'd never progress into "now let's all live together!". There is absolutely zero overlap between how I'd handle the situation and how my mom handled it. I wouldn't care about his stupid Christmas ornaments once it was all over, either.

It's not the first time they've done this. For a long time, it seemed like the sleazier the boyfriend = the better, in their eyes.

Whatever the reason is, it's a really unique kind of pain. I've tried to express it to others and I've been met with "why do you still care about your mother's approval when you're a married adult?". It's not about the approval. It's about the fact that my own mother enabled multiple really bad relationships with really bad people, starting when I was a minor (the one I described wasn't even the first one), not caring what happened to me and pretty much universally siding with the bad guy, every single time. This is still a lot to heal from even if it was years ago and I'm in a better place now. It feels like a kick in the face.

[notrightinthehead]

I agree with you. There is no better way to describe it. A kick in the face. Some, or a lot of distance will do you good for a while. You need to process all that drama and abuse from your childhood. You need space to heal. It's not good for you to get re-traumatized like you were on the last visit. Seems like you feel a lot of resentment, rightfully so, and you have to work through that, especially with a baby on the way. It is time to have only  good, supportive, kind people in your life.

[nanotech]

" If I even speak to teenage girls now I realize just how unequipped they are for anything like this."

  absolutely

Possible trigger warning-

It's a trait of PD families that they will encourage or at least expose you to abusive people, then when you remove yourself from that relationship, blame you for it and continue to favour your abuser.
I've been there with this and I know. I was a minor too, abused for two years by an older guy while my family enabled him. If my BPDmum could have moved him in, she would have. Luckily my UNPDdad 's ego wouldn't allow for that.  Plus we had a full house, lots of siblings-all in competition with one another of course. 
At the time, he was practically living at our house anyway. I'd get home from school (yep you read that right) ) and he'd be there, clearly had been there  a while keeping mum company. She felt so sorry for him because his mother had put him in care at a young age.
Mum told me that she loved him so much  and felt so much sympathy for him, that if I ever split up with him, she would still insist on inviting him round for meals!  When she told me that, ( at the dinner table, with him smiling away at her)  I just felt like I was sinking. I was too young to understand what was going on, but I knew I felt uneasy and sort of lost.

Years later she would continue to try to deny the  ensuing abuse by bringing him up or, as with your experience with the Christmas decorations, finding physical links to the past and trying to make me get involved.
I think it's an effort to self -assure themselves that they did nothing wrong!  And maybe relive what was a time of supply for them. All about them again! I'd have to listen to how she still felt sorry for him!  Nsis would chime in with a hearty agreement! 😳
Thd last time it was truly vocalised, I was having a lovely day at mum's, my kids running around my feet, me laughing at their cuteness, then Pow! - I was suddenly right back to when this guy put me in hospital! And yes, because my kids were there, and this one time I stood up for myself and challenged this awful misplaced sentiment, , I was blamed for 'bringing him home.'  Hmmm mum I was 14 ?
Victim  blaming and shaming at its deadliest.
Shd never said it again,  thoughI knew she  still thought it.
My ex abuser's one time step father, was an optician.  My parents had switched to him after ex abuser groomed them to love  all things him.
After I got away from him, they CONTINUED TO VISIT THIS LINK TO MY ABUSER for eye tests and glasses. They insisted that he was such a brilliant optician that they couldn't possibly go anywhere else!
Years later, when I needed glasses, they  pushed and pushed me to go to him- they just couldn't understand why I wouldn't! 
'But he's the very  best in town!'
I would have to listen to all of his good qualities!  They had no idea how triggering
even just the idea of it was!
His son later went into the profession, and my dad, aged 90, NOW GOES  TO HIM, and still sings his praises to me! 5O years of it!  This step father was a grown -up on the scene, when I was being abused. I was at their house when it first occurred. I'm not blaming them but I was an underage girl and he was someone who'd  had a difficult childhood.
THEY took him in because THEIR daughter was his girlfriend for a while. I wasn't told,  and I used to wonder why she so clearly disliked me. So while they were possibly victims of his grooming too, why would I want to see them ever again?  He didn't tick the box of pillar of the community, not for me.
There's a lot more went on that I could mention with regard to mum and her weird relationship with my abuser.  I think there's a book in me, to be written perhaps one day.
I really relate to these issues. I'm VVLC with FOO now. That helps. My mum has passed. I've two NARC siblings- NC / VVLC with them.
My mum was so disordered, due to her own childhood issues of abandonment. Its put me in harms way a few times.
I'm sending lots of hugs. XxxxX
PS have you noticed how they often use something universally enjoyed  to try to relive a time when they got their own needs met at our expense, and disclaim the actual reality of how it was for us?
I'm sending even more hugs.

[NarcKiddo]

I am, yet again, amazed at how similar stories run through these dysfunctional families.

I, too, was groomed. By a school driver. From the age of 13. I started a relationship with him at 15. I didn't tell my parents but he came to the house to drop me off and pick me up and he chatted to them. I suspect it was fairly obvious something inappropriate was going on. But nothing was questioned or said to me. It all came out at age 17 because I was upset and ended the relationship on finding out he had a wife who'd just had a baby. My parents were not even slightly bothered that this man they had paid to keep me safe had done nothing of the kind. And my mother tried to get me to patch up the relationship. 

@easterncappy - it does feel like a kick in the face. Our parents seem to be the kicks that keep on kicking! I hope you can now relax and just concentrate on the birth and your ongoing relationship with your beautiful baby. And I also hope that you will find time to come back and let us know when your baby has arrived and keep us abreast of how you are doing.

[Leonor]

Oh, me too.

That is sexual abuse, and I think it's really common among female abusers. They choose, they groom, they set up, they present, they coerce, they stay, they silence, they shame. They're not just being bullied or used by the abusive men; they make choices and take actions. In some cases, the female abusers are manipulating the male abusers into abusing younger women and girls.

Eastern, for your own health and the well-being of your darling baby girl, you can limit your mom's toxicity. She's unwell, and you need to surround yourself with wise, compassionate, strong mommies right now.

[feralcat]

Nanotech , you said do we notice how they frame an action designed to further them into one designed to help us ?
Yes, a lot. Especially one that my unPdM is becoming more isolated.
I remember recently , during one of her rewriting history attempts that she 'remembered' asking for the (14 year old  ) me to be 'promoted' from dish washer in a hotel to a waitress. I loved the kitchen, and the staff liked me. I would have hated being in the public eye. That would have had nothing to do then with how the  blokes liked to flirt with me. Lol.
Nb . She also moved my GCsis's boyfriend in to live with us. When Sis was only 15. (He was controlling). Because his parents had thrown him out. And she loved her kids friends seeing her as a proxy mother. Loads of supply. EnD obviously said nothing.

Good luck with your upcoming birth, Eastern. Time to strengthen your own Family of Choice. You've got this !