Am I being unreasonable

[Hilltop]

I am considering going NC with my updmother.  For a brief history, my sister stopped talking to me 20 years ago.  I have no idea why.  There was never a fight, nothing said, my sister just stopped having anything to do with me.  This has been extremely hurtful and although I have now distanced myself I still wonder why.

My mother and I have had a difficult relationship.  I feel I am the SG and my sister is the GC.  My mother gives money to my sister, goes on holidays with her every now and again, won't say a bad word about her etc.  I am aware of numerous conversations that my mother and my sister have had about me - basically negative, gossiping sessions about me.  In one case my mother lied about me saying I had done something which I hadn't.  This is the only time I have heard from my sister in 20 years. I got a hate filled text message about how horrible I was.  After this I went NC with my mother for two years.  On resuming contact she has been better although more passive-aggressive.

I feel like I have been excluded for eg. after the funeral of my grandfather and grandmother the family all went out for dinner.  My husband and I were not told about it.  I found out later by accident.

I asked my mother a few months ago to stop talking about my sister when I visit.  I go to my parents house see all the photographs of my sister and her children, see one photograph of myself as a child and I leave feeling horrible.  Since telling my mother I don't want to discuss my sister (just everyday conversation) my mother has mentioned my sister every visit I have gone for.

I left the other day feeling upset, angry and I can't explain why.  It takes me days to come back down to normal.  After a couple of days of being upset I sent a message to my mother asking her what my sister has said, why won't she talk to me.  My mother said they have never talked about me (a lie) but then contradicted herself when she mentioned something about talking about my marriage and husband.  She told me to take it up with my sister.  I responded that I know of conversations between  my mother and my sister and I want to know what this is all about.

I am at the point where I don't want to resume contact with the sister, I don't have a choice anyway, I just want to know why.  If my mother can't tell me why then I am seriously considering a NC.  I just don't know if I am being unreasonable.  The whole situation eats away at me, I'll be feeling good so organize to visit my parents and then leave feeling awful.  I understand that my mother might not want to betray my sisters confidences but she definitely knows what my sister thinks.  I've tried to move past this and can't, I get hurt over and over.

I want to go NC to protect myself and give myself time to heal.  How do I know if this is ok or I am dealing with fleas?

[Serendipity12]

Just speaking from my own experience, I had very poor and erratic contact with my sisters for years and only since going and maintaining no contact with my uNPD mother have I come to realise that this was largely due to triangulation by my mother. She passes on gossip mixed with calculated lies and deliberately undermines any family relationships that do not have her as the hub and the centre. Their inability to address the problem honestly is due to the fact that it would involve admitting to and recounting all these lies and slanders.
It is still almost physically painful to think about, especially as one sister has since passed away and I was not invited to the funeral.  My mother derived, I believe, real pleasure from my (and possibly my sisters') confusion over all the misinformation and confusion.  Going no contact was not an easy gift to give myself but it turned out to be just that - a gift.  It came with more peace, clarity and real love than I thought I was able to feel. As for my remaining sister, I offered a relationship but she was not capable of honest communication after all the years of gaslighting. I was, though, able to finally see this and walk away again  without confusion.

[coyote]

Hilltop welcome to Out of the FOG,
Just my take on things but seems to me a parent's job is to bring the family together. Seems your mom is doing just the opposite. My vote is to do what feels best for you and your FOC. Seems you have enough history here to predict the future. Meaning your mom and sis have shown you enough of their truths to let you know what to expect down the road. So no I don't think you are being unreasonable. Just my 2 cents.

[scapegoatnumerouno]

wow...this is my story as well.  I have a TERRIBLE younger sister who also sent me a terrible hate filled text message about two years ago.  My mother, who I thought was a good person, did absolutely nothing to assist.  My other four siblings also did nothing.  In these two years of no contact with any of then I have come to realize that for our entire lives my mother has been very passively aggressively triangulating between all 6 of her children.  Keeping us away or at odds with each other without us having a clue of whats going on.  We all just blame each other and go to my mother for answers about the others.  Serendipity12 is correct about our mothers inability to address the situation honestly....they would have to admit their part in all of this.  My mother actually took my husband and I out to dinner just hours before my sister sent me the horrible text.  My mother knew this text was coming!!!!!!!  I have realized in this last two years, my sister is a horrible person, there is ZERO doubt about that but my mother is also a nasty person.  My mother is just quiet about it and plays the victim waif every chance she gets.  My mother has also always favored her three sons over her three daughters.  Its like when she had "her boys" she saw them as her father figures.  Its so strange.  Yet, who takes very good care of my mother....her three daughters!!!  Not "the boys". 

I feel for you.  When you go to your mothers house you leave feeling crappy, confused and hurt.  That isn't by accident.  Please try to keep that in mind, this is by design.  Why your mother has chosen you to abuse?  I tell myself, "I guess she had to choose someone."  But what I also have realized, my mother has abused all of her children.  I am the most aware of it due to my little sister singling me out to be jealous of and nasty to.  It would be my guess that at a young age your mother felt both you and your sister out to see who was  most like her and who would play these games with her.  I would say that it turns out that had too good of a head and heart. 

I have been struggling for a few days now about my no contact and feeling "hate" for my FOO.  Last night I cried like a baby wondering what I would do if my mother ever gets old and ill and asks to see me before she dies.  Reading your post this morning helps me remember what I already know about my mother.  She isn't and never was the good loving mother that for 40 years I thought she was.  Was she the WOSRT mother in the world, no but all the same.  I need to remember who and what she was her whole life if the time ever comes that she asks for me to be by her side on her death bed.  My goal is to never become aware of any request to see me if it should happen.  My entire FOO is blocked in every way from contacting me, short of driving to my home. 

I feel for you and your pain.  Good luck in your journey.  I have my doubts that you will find any honest answers from your mother about anything.  I never did.

[TwentyTwenty]

Hello, I'm very, very sorry you are going through this. It has to be traumatic and so painful.

I lost my entire FOO, which was an extremely hard decision to get to, but in the last year+ I've had more peace, joy and both my family and myself are thousands of times happier & better for the decision. My opinion:

I learned over time to understand something that became very core to my character - Liars and deceivers never have your bet interest in mind; only theirs: that is why they lie.

They are selfish, self-serving and will invent any reality that fits their lie in order to advance their position, and diminish yours.  You should only expect more deception and lies from these folks, as it is center to who they have become by sustaining their lie. In a rare case, they may change - but it is almost unseen to see a a reversal of such effort for a hardened liar to come to the truth.

Feeling awful when interacting with ANY person is not good for your health, nor the well being of your own family. I came to the point that in order to protect my family and our best interests, total NC with my FOO was the only solution. No one has the right to make any of us feel awful, especially when these folks should be giving us guidance, encouragement and build us up, never tear us down.

You mentioned "If my mother can't tell me why then I am seriously considering a NC"

My question would be, Why would you believe anything that a known liar tells you anyway?

[Hilltop]

Thank you to everyone for replying.  I found the replies so helpful.  I do agree that if my mother did give me an answer I would question the truth of it.  The other thing is, would things change.  They haven't changed in 40 years.  I am at the point where I need to either accept it and see them or walk away and that's the whole point I think for me.  I haven't been able to accept it.  I get hurt over and over and over again.  Even if it's just little comments or seeing my mothers house full of pictures of my sister and her kids, hearing about how my parents are going to see them, hearing my mother talk about the emails and funny conversations she has had with my nieces and nephews.  It hurts that they seem to have this close loving family relationship and I am on the outer, cut off from all that.

That's why I told my mother I didn't want to discuss my sister.  I was able to visit and just talk about us or other things but after watching my mother talk even more about my sister after I said this, it just exhausts me.  It does seem to be a pattern with my mother, throwing in little digs to hurt me.  But then she can be warm and loving.  I guess it's this up and down that over time wears you out.

I feel at the moment I need no contact.  I just need to get away from all the games and see how I feel.  Down the track I'll reassess but if I find that I am more at peace and happier I don't think I'll go back this time. 

[LifeIsWorthLiving]

Wow, so much of this rings true for me. I'm sorry your mother treated you that way. I'm sorry your sister treated you that way.

My parents are both narcissists. They are also getting old and probably won't live many more years. I went NC over a year ago. The past few months have been the best of my life. It's like I'm finally leaving that I'm loveable just the way I am. I thought at first that I was being cruel to them, after all, they are just sad old people now.... Not the scary monsters of my childhood. But they continue to lie and manipulate. They love the drama. Getting away from them was the best thing I ever did. I wish I'd done it sooner. If I could give you one piece of advice it would be to go NC and don't look back. You are worthy of love and respect. They will NEVER give that to you. They aren't capable of it.

[Groundhog Day]

I can relate to your situation. My husband has been the SG since childhood but never acknowledged the facts until he confronted his M about something that happened to him in the past when he was a child. She knew he was on a depression at the time and I told my husband he needed to get things off his chest in order to heal. We travelled 11 hours to see her so he could come to term about his past and she never gave him the opportunity to open up. She dismissed him, stating he only came to get money off her. Like you, my MIL has family pictures, her favorites are at the very front of her mantel and we are shoved at the very back.

So, we went back home and slowly detached from her. To LC to VVLC. My H calls her once or twice a year and might visit on a 3 year basis now for the past 20 years. Her GC son passed away 7 years ago and she then voiced her wishes for H to have a closer relationship with her. He will never open that door again, she had her chance and she closed that door in his face 20 years ago. It broke his heart and he's not willing to get close to her again. Our children were old enough at that time (teenagers) and saw the emotional effect it made on their F and opted to have NC with their GM till this day.  I tell my children that GM is not a bad person but made a bad choices. The lesson we got from this is support, love,  cherish your children.

So to answer your question. It's ok to go NC to protect yourself. If your can't do it then go LC and set bounderies. You have a choice, and the choice is yours whatever your choose it will be fine.

[moglow]

I don't ever think doing what we feel is best for us, is ever unreasonable. Your mother may take a different view, as you know.  That's not really yours to fix - sometimes we all have to agree to disagree and continue on as best we can.
That said, you my want to look at how you respond/react to her when she persists in talking about your sister.  Telling someone "please stop telling me all her business!" isn't nearly as effective as shutting it down. Lead by example - Don't comment or ask about your sister or whatever your mother is insisting on telling you.  Change the subject and keep on changing it. Leave the room. End the conversation or go home.  But keep shutting it down - show her that you're not going to engage at all where your sister is involved.

My point is, we can't have it both ways - we can't expect mom to explain "them" and be a mediator of sorts, and at the same time stop her from dumping all their stuff in our laps. She doesn't have those kind of boundaries or discretion so it's up to us to demonstrate it. We have to do it with ours, and as part of it I realized mother just doesn't have filters, if it's in her head it comes out her mouth.  She picks and chooses her "favorite" based on who's pandering to her at the moment. She's told me things and said specifically "But don't tell X that this came from me!" then later inevitably someone passed it along to x - and mother blasted ME for supposedly telling it??  She has no idea she's repeating it to everyone who will stand still long enough to listen, and isn't about to accept responsibility for her own crap!  There have been some nasty confrontations after someone repeated to me what mother told them, and mother dropped me back off into scapegoat position. 

It was so hurtful for many years but as I've withdrawn from her drama and self-imposed chaos, I realize it really is just who mother is - who she's CHOSEN to be.  Not my circus, not my monkeys!  [And of course, it's forced me to accept that I can't trust her as far as I can throw her.  Guess I needed that lesson as well.]
Anyhoo, you do what's best for YOU - she'll survive, as we all do every day.

[treesgrowslowly]

Hello Hilltop,

Ok, your experiences in your first post are so familiar to me .... this is why I am here on this forum. Only other people who have these sorts of families understand!! It is sad and eery how similar these dynamics are.

When I went NC over 10 years ago, I did not have a time stamp on it. I had had it, and I was not dealing with the phone calls or visits anymore. 1 month turned into 2, turned into 6, turned into 12, and so on. I remained open to hearing from any FOO members if they could be HONEST with me. Well that hasn't happened yet. I'm sharing this because it might help you to know you are not alone at all in your situation. As you can see from the many posts here already.

You're already sick of the half-truths, omissions and manipulations. You're noticing how much of a toll this all takes on you to go into a visit with them, feeling good, and leave feeling like a rung out dishrag for days. When you wrote about that cycle I was like, yep, I remember those years. Vividly. And yes I cried and cried after going NC, and it took time to see things and come Out of the FOG. But I needed NC to get Out of the FOG.

I can tell you, without a doubt, the life I have today, is impossible to have while in contact with the FOO. The way I live today, is impossible to do with them in my life. Impossible. I know this. Beyond a shadow of a doubt. The life I have, can only be lived if I am NC. The toll it took on me to keep them in my life, to keep those visits going, was debilitating. This forum and website can help you a lot with your next steps that you want to take for yourself. You're not being unreasonable at all in my opinion.

To me, I look at your initial post, and you said you asked your mother not to talk about your sister at your visits, and she mentions your sister every time. In the next sentence you said you feel awful after the visits and you are not sure why.

My 2 cents is that the reason why, is right in the previous sentence. You feel awful because you asked her not to talk about your sister and she makes a point of not respecting your feelings. It hurts in a way only others with uNPD mothers might be able to understand. I did this exact thing back in the day. I begged my mother, multiple times, not to talk about a certain person and she talked about that person every phone call. At the time, I felt so awful I did not know what to do and forums like this helped me to finally understand that I cannot fix this, and she will just keep doing this to my life, and I have to do something to save myself from her manipulation and gaslighting and triangulating.

[Hilltop]

Thanks for all your replies.

Moglow I have tried to shut it down.  I use to change the subject.  This went on a while before I decided to be honest and just let my mother know I don't want to talk about my sister.  I have tried the get up and walk out and that only led to being told I was crazy.  After saying I didn't want to talk about my sister my mother really amped up the conversations.  If I change the subject, she brings it back to my sister again.  More photo's have gone up in my parents house.  They are everywhere now.

I lessened my visits, I stopped talking over the phone by saying we got rid of our landline and are just using mobile phones (all true). Phone calls would bring out the passion aggressive comments even worse.  I am down to visiting every couple of months and my mother just continues.  I then tried to act like I didn't care and just let her talk about what she wanted figuring the gray rock would bore her.  At this point I give up.

I had a miscarriage last year and my mother told everyone she came across about it including the lady at the check out when she was buying groceries, all her neighbors etc.  How do I know, she told me.  I felt like my miscarriage was energizing for her, she was alive with all the gossip.

My mother told me how my brother in law (sisters husband) was upset with me for not saying hello to him at my grandmothers funeral, we were in a group, I said a group hello.  Of course it didn't bother anyone that it didn't occur to him to pass on his condolences, no it was all about him and how I didn't say a personal hello to him.  I was rude apparently.  This was the same funeral they all went out on their family dinner after the funeral and we weren't invited.   The next funeral we left early and were told we were rude for not attending the luncheon after.  Of course they went for a family dinner again and didn't invite us again. 

In the recent text my mother wrote that she "always stands up for my husband".  Ok, my husband hasn't been mentioned so what is she standing up for him over.  What has been said.  If I haven't spoken to my sister since I was married then what does she say that my mother has to stand up for him over.  The only information my sister would have on my husband comes from my mother.  Recently my mother asked if my husband was having an affair because he was going to the gym to lose weight - I still don't know how I feel about this comment.

And that's my point.  If my mother can have all these conversations about me to my sister, then she can have ONE conversation about my sister with me.  If she doesn't want to, that's fine.  But I'm done.  I am done with being bad mouthed.

My sister decided last year for the first time in 20 years to travel down to have Christmas with my parents. My husband and I have had every Christmas with my parents.  My husband and I were invited.  We initially accepted, my parents responded "oh you are coming are you'.  We already felt weird,  We ended up saying we were working and had Christmas alone.  Every time we have been present with all of them, we have felt like lepers.

I don't feel like I am being unreasonable anymore.  I just feel done. If it was just conversations about my sister that would be ok but it's so much more. Your stories have helped me realize that, so thank you.

[moglow]

Ya know what though - it doesn't matter if she likes your choices or gets mad or makes her comments. You need to do what you need for yourself. It's not about her and its probably pissing her off. She has no control and is bucking your changes - you stepped outside the mold they put you in and she thinks she can put you back in. Nope!! You keep doing your best for YOU.

It's entirely possible that all these things she's saying others say/said, never happened at all. She cpuld be playing a massive game of divide and conquer and people are buying into it. Mine has and it worked for far too long.

[Hilltop]

True Moglow.  I don't know if what she is saying is truthful and I hadn't thought of divide and conquer.  So for now I might take some time to think about things and at least i feel a lot better about that .

[scapegoatnumerouno]

Like so many of us here you are in a huge catch 22!  YUCK.  When I get down about having ZERO family the one thing that helps is reminding myself how I done HAVE to do those games anymore!!!!!!!!!!!!!  If I am anything....Im DONE being pushed and pulled around!  What they say about me now.....well I will never know!  That feels good!  It is nice to be out.  something to consider.

[daughter]

I don't think your being unreasonable in your decision whether to stop engaging with your mother, or to "give up" on your sister.  I think by disengaging, you are attending to your long-neglected own emotional hurt, your own personal need to be respected and treated with kindness, and finally ending your tolerance of an appallingly dysfunctional family dynamic that is harmful to YOU only, that is disrespectful to YOU only.   It seems like the prudent thing to do.  I was in a similar role, designated as FOO Family SG, for no reason whatsoever other than my NBM and nsis felt empowered and entitled to do so, with my enNF's tacit cooperation, me told "it is what it is", that I "had no right to have issues", and that I "was emotionally-strong enough to endure (their) cruelty".   Here and now, I can't believe they'd say such disdainful stuff to me, the self-effacing Dutiful Daughter.  Likewise, there's probably no rational or legitimate reason for their mean girls mistreatment of you, nor their rude and malevolent behavior towards you.  Likely, they've learned to "get away with it", you've learned to expect to "just take it".  You can only change your own expectations, your own boundaries, and actively choose to no longer participate in this dysfunctional dynamic.  The Truth will set you free; best wishes to you!