Oh jeez. Their perception of reality is so messed up.

[easterncappy]

Context: Husband and I both come from PD families. Our moms are so different yet so similar. Usually I post about my crazy PD family, but there's an inheritance she's in charge of distributing. A lot of word of mouth stuff so unfortunately nothing legally enforceable. Worth noting that he was much, much closer to this relative than she was in terms of relationship, she was just genetically one degree closer to him.

"I'll give you a percent of your portion up front, but I'll need to see proof that you won't spend it on drugs before you get the other half! I need you to go to a dentist to get it!". My husband has never even been in the same room as an illegal drug and there's nothing wrong with his teeth. This is the same part of the family that thought a pocket pillbox I made for him with all of his allergy medicine and occasional ibuprofen was illegal drugs. Literally, hot pink classic Benadryl that can't be confused for anything else. Yep.

"What do you mean I never did anything for you? I offered to take you clothes shopping!". Food, shelter, and clothing are the bare minimum for CPS to not get called on you.

"We need to talk to a counselor... no, you can't choose the counselor, because they'd put me on psychiatric medicine after learning that I talk to God!"

"I admit to all of my wrongs. *proceeds to admit to nothing and instead go on a looong rant about everything my husband ever did wrong*"

"I know I let my husband beat you, but you jumped on a counter once!". He jumped over a counter to get away from a beating.

Plus she really loves word salads of the words: codependent, boundaries, forgiveness, apology, bulldozing, healing. She's said all sorts of nonsense over the last couple of days where it feels like she put those words in a random sentence generator. Her "counselor" is some quack from her "church" (she doesn't belong to a normal Christian religion, rather definitely an actual cult or cult-adjacent one). "I've talked to professionals and they all think you're in the wrong!"... yet all of those "professionals" contradict everything I've ever read about psychology.

"Your daughter will grow up to do the same to you, just you wait!". Except neither of us plan to let child abusers near our kids, but thanks for the "concern".

Every time he disagrees with her or points out that she let a lot of very terrible, very illegal things happen to him: "You're rebelling! I don't like how you're talking to me! I don't have to give you your share at all! You don't honor your parents!"

The real kicker: "I won't be your punching bag any longer!". Madam, you and your husband used to actually punch him. He's never hit anyone in his entire life.

"I won't talk to your wife because she only knows your side of the story!" when he got so worked up he thought it'd be better that I take over. We just cut the conversation short.

"You rebelled by running away! This dishonors me!". He was legally an adult and tired of getting punched in the mouth on a regular basis.

[treesgrowslowly]

You said it Easterncappy! Their perception of reality is just so messed up!

For me, once I made a similar list, and realized this disordered thinking was never going to end, I felt like some decisions about my future (I was an adult by this point) were just made for me. NC / VLC was really the only 'sane' way for me to keep my own sane perception of reality going for my own life! I know everyone here has their own approach to managing the PDs in their life and there are various factors and context (i.e. like having an inheritance to consider).

I like that in this forum we make space for all the different ways we've approached this PD issue of - their perception of reality is so messed up!

For those of us who grew up with parents with such a messed up sense of reality, this forum is a blessing.

Thanks for sharing this. I am sure that (sadly) many can relate.

Trees

[Cat of the Canals]

"I'll give you a percent of your portion up front, but I'll need to see proof that you won't spend it on drugs before you get the other half!"

I started realizing a few years ago that my pdMIL behaves and treats my husband as if he's an addict or on the brink of homelessness, despite the fact that his life is a thousand times more stable than hers ever has been -- in terms of his marriage, career, finances, mental health, independence, etc. EVERYTHING. The idea that she tries to give him "advice" (more like marching orders) is actually laughable.

There's a line in Pete Walker's CPTSD book that sums her up perfectly: "...the outer critic is skilled at building a case to justify occupying a moral high ground. From this lofty position, the critic then claims the right to micromanage others."

She even uses phrases like, "I felt morally obligated to [insert inappropriately invasive behavior here]."

[Call Me Cordelia]

 

This sounds like a lot of scapegoating and making up shit about the scapegoat to justify their scapegoat status. Drugs, indeed. I agree with Cat, anything to claim that moral high ground. Anything to avoid the obvious fact that they themselves have done horribly, egregiously terrible things.

I too recognize that dynamic from my father, the, "I felt obligated to ____." One memorable time he felt entitled to go through all of my laundry that I had done when I was home on break from college while I was out of the house. And he was RIGHT in acting on that hunch because I had gone and wantonly FOLDED ALL MY SOCKS THE WRONG WAY. They would get stretched out of shape the way I had done them and thank goodness he was there to save me from myself. He clearly raised me better than that and I was rebelling. Maybe I shouldn't drive. Maybe I wasn't ready for adult responsibilities. Here's clear proof of my immaturity, lack of common sense, and utter worthlessness as a human being. 

[easterncappy]

Thank you for the responses.

I don't understand how someone can make their child feel this terrible and not consider, even for a second, that they might be the problem. Or how someone can make their child out to be a homeless drug addicted criminal and not understand how it's offensive. She seems to like to rile him up to get a reaction, a pretty tame one by my standards, so she can go "see, you got mad, you're the bad guy!". Yeah, people tend to get hurt feelings if you accuse them of horrible, untrue things for no reason.

According to an attorney, she's said enough in writing that she could still be liable for giving him his share, and enough people in his extended family heard the deceased relative's spoken intention of her "not getting any of it because she'd spend it on preachers" that it might even hold up. We'll see. I'm done. After this, it's NC. She must really think she's the good guy here because she's extremely comfortable putting all sorts of horrid verbal abuse in text. Thank God she didn't think that through.

Yep, he's being scapegoated. She loves to micromanage him. He told her today that "this is like wanting to give money to a homeless person but demanding they go to a dietitian first". It's so ridiculous. And very, very vague. She has a history of promising to do x if he does y. Then, y turns into z. Because it was so vague in the first place. And when this is pointed out, he's dishonoring and disrespecting her, he's bullying her, he's trying to control her, whatever.

[Cat of the Canals]

Laundry must be another one of those PD things. My MIL once bragged to my husband that she went through his brother's laundry and confiscated a t-shirt with a immature/crude (but harmless) message on it. He was 37 years old! Again, she felt justified because it was "inappropriate."

[easterncappy]

The tl;dr; of a text he got from her this morning:

"You shouldn't have bread and soda in the house because it'll make your baby autistic. All must detox to heal. Sodas, active yeast, and alcohol are terrible for your gut and all diseases come from the gut. You and your wife have different duties and it shouldn't be you at home with the baby after she's born, it should be your wife's mom or some spiritual mom figure. You're very lazy and constantly looking for excuses to get off of work."

Except hers droned on and on about this for a couple of paragraphs.

When his grandma, his mom's mom, lived with us briefly, she'd follow us around and criticize our food choices constantly. Everything had toxins or made people autistic or some other nonsense. My favorite one was "you can't keep buying whole milk, it'll make you fat, please at least get 2%, this is terrible for you". A lot of the texts we get from her are about how stuff she remembers seeing in our house is actually toxic. However, grandma at least has a conscience and apologizes sometimes. And she goes to actual psychiatrists and is on actual medicine.

My husband has taken one sick day in the past year because we thought he'd have to go to the ER. Any days off for religious or family reasons were planned well in advance. When he was younger (and I did this too), he quit jobs he didn't like that much because... duh, no real responsibilities yet, why stick around at a miserable job if you're in high school and not paying a mortgage yet. This might be what she's referencing? Either way, it's easily understandable to 99.9% of people that a new parent is going to want to be around their newborn. My MIL doesn't know that I'm not close with my mom and she'd probably blame me for the issues with my mom if she knew, my husband hardly talks about that kind of stuff with her because it'd just become ammo.

And this is all a couple of text messages after him just asking if he can expect any amount of the money by the time the baby is born. It'd literally be a life saver since his family leave is unpaid and I don't want to be alone with a newborn and I also don't want him to spend the precious first moments of her life at work. I think I'd become depressed if I had a newborn baby at home and instead had to go sit in an office all day while my spouse did all the work with the baby. It's not natural. That's why family leave is almost universal in every country.

Why am I even explaining all of this? It's all so obvious it doesn't need to be typed out.

[moglow]

Her putting conditions on distributing the money speaks volumes, and her "reasons" for delays are pathetic and controlling. Personally I'd stop asking or even acknowledging any of that tripe. Her opinions are what they are and don't change anything. You're adults about to be parents yourselves, and here she is pushing him down and stepping all over him over what most would see as a perfectly reasonable request - that she distribute the bequest as she'd been asked to do. She has absolute power and control over that one situation and she knows the instant she discharges it, all bets are off.

However this might make things easier for you in the big picture, sounds like there are strings and price tags attached regardless. Y'all have to decide if it's worth it. You're right - you don't have to explain ANY of this, not to us and certainly not to other adults whether they're your parents or not. We have to grow past the idea that everything requires a response or explanation [review our toolbox for JADE - it was pretty eye opening for me!] As children, yes, responses were expected if not demanded, but her spouting opinions? Telling you what you have to do, or not? She can share whatever she likes, that doesn't mean it's yours or that you have to do anything about it at all. I wouldn't be responding to anymore of those texts and I'm not so sure I wouldn't block her outright. Like I've said before: You're ADULTS. If she can't talk any better to/about her grown son and his family maybe it's past time to step back for your own well being.

I'm not sure but what I'd keep the birth private and quiet, tell both sets of parents after it's done and y'all have time to settle in at home. And THEN they still need an invitation, they aren't allowed to just barge in and walk all over everyone. Dammit, boundaries are needed here and y'all get to decide what those will be!