Hello everyone.
I would love your opinions.
Back story: Been with my partner for 15 years and we have a few children together. I had a tough childhood in terms of DV and drug abuse in my family which I believe has influenced me to be protective of whom I trust with my children to date. I am very selective and avoid having them looked after unless needed.
Despite my childhood, I’ve had a good relationship with my mum my whole adult life. But I guess I have noticed some toxic traits between her and our extended family but it has never creeped into ours.
My mum had been looking after my child 1 day a week while I work from home. But she recently met someone and he moved in a few weeks after meeting him which made me uncomfortable, he doesn’t work so was there during the day when she was looking after my child. I messaged her and asked if this was a continuous thing and she said probably… so I let her know I was deciding to keep my child home with me and I offered instead, that I go for coffee on that day each week as a way to get to know her new boyfriend. As I felt I just needed time to get to know him and trust him. I explained (although she knows me very well) that I don’t trust people easily, and I’m protective of who is around my child.
She took this really well over message and said that the plan was he’d be there those days and it was fine if I kept my child home with me, that she was sorry I’d felt uncomfortable.
The next time I saw her, she brought up that she hadn’t seen the boyfriend since I’d sent that message (insinuating I broke them up).
I back tracked and explained to her, I felt hurt, considering how well she knows me and that I am sure she knew me well enough to know that I would feel uncomfortable and that I assumed she’d have let me know before he just started being there… to which she had nothing to say back to that.
It got a little deeper, and she said that I mustn’t trust her. To which I said “I’ve obviously trusted you with my children but when it comes to your choice in men, I don’t trust that which is why I need time”. She asked why and that’s when I dived into childhood trauma stuff.
It ended in her saying the same lines she’d told me during my childhood with a past boyfriend. That I have issues with men and that she doesn’t – She’s healed. And that I just don’t want to see her happy. I’d rather her be lonely her whole life.
Upon hearing this, It triggered those same childhood feelings when I’d have gone mute and let her just at me. But for some reason, I blew up. I started hitting my fist on the table shouting at her that I will not be held responsible for their breakup, that I will not accept her putting that on me and that I’m sick of her accusing me of that.
She got up and walked out and that’s the last I’ve heard since.
I know my “blow up” was totally unacceptable and to be honest, out of character for me. I’ve NEVER stood up like that to my mother, and if I’ve ever had any issues, its via a very thought out written letter. So I know that part is on me.
But I guess what I’m wanting opinions on and struggling with the most is… Is she shifting the blame on me for the break-down of her relationship? Am I in the wrong for holding a boundary like this, given my/her past? Or am I being unreasonable for not trusting her?
4 Replies
Ok, so we might have the same mother lol.
Look, jokes aside I'm a little further along the process of dealing with my mother. What you'll probably come to realise is that your mother is most likely quite unstable and is a master manipulator with very little self awareness. You'll probably also come to realise that she has never respected your boundaries.
Also, your "blow up" wasn't completely unacceptable. It was real!
Granted, under normal circumstances fist slamming and yelling isnt great for conflict resolution but this isn't a normal circumstance - this is a culmination of decades of trauma and stifled emotion, even the most level headed person has their breaking point and you have found yours.
You should actually be really proud of yourself for standing up to her in a real way.
Do NOT at any point let her make you feel bad for not wanting to give men you don't know easy access to your children. You are right not to trust her judgement regarding men, you know it and so does she deep down.
You are also definitely not responsible for her relationship ending, in fact if your very reasonable boundary was the cause of the break up that really just reinforces that your boundary was 100% warranted and necessary. Normal people don't get this upset when their girlfriend's daughter has expressed a desire to get to know them better before allowing her children to spend unsupervised time with them. Normal grandmas don't behave like this either!
Thank you so much for the reply and validating my feelings because it’s been hard. Obviously I don’t want to upset my Mum but honestly, I’m just protecting my children from things I couldn’t protect myself from as a child.
I do agree that I’ll probably start realising how unstable etc she is, because I’m already seeing that now. I keep wondering if maybe it was because I didn’t communicate boundaries from the beginning, but honestly, I think I just thought she knew me better. She’s always said she knows me better then anyone else…
Hard to know. It's probably a little from column A and a little from column B. If I was a man and my girlfriend's access to her grandchildren was restricted just because I was in the house while she was baby sitting them even though I wasn't alone with them and wouldn't do anything sinister even if I was I would absolutely walk away. I wouldn't want to be responsible for that breakdown and I absolutely wouldn't want to feel like a criminal for no reason.
I also think that your mum is correct. If you trust her to baby sit them, that means you trust her to be actively supervising them. Even if her judgement of him was off, if she's trustworthy, the kids wouldn't be alone with him.
Given your trauma I also understand your discomfort and how you handled it.
Perhaps you need trauma therapy and your mum needs to ensure that if she meets someone she introduces you early and takes it slow around you and the kids?
I can totally understand why he would walk away in that given situation. But considering they are so newly together, don’t you think she should have even been so truthful? I’m not even sure if he was the one who walked away or if she ended it because of this.
I definitely think some therapy is needed on my part to deal with my childhood, just thought it was a bit rich to say to deal with men. My issue isn’t men, it’s trusting people I don’t know with my children because I am worried they’ll see the same abuse I saw as a child.
And honestly, that’s all I expected… for her to take it slow around my kids for me. I thought she knew me well enough… in fact she did because she said she knew I’d be uncomfortable and was protecting my feelings but did it anyway.