Family Issues

I have sought the Lord many a times for this, but I guess what I'm looking for isn't necessarily advice ( although its welcomed, as well as opinions ) but more like, empathy or sharing if you all are going through/have gone through similar stuff and to just converse over shared experiences. First, you guys need some history...

I grew up in a family that went to church every sunday and claims Christianity, but our family dynamic is just... wack. My Dad has a superiority/enabling issue, my mom has a manipulative/control issue. There is no doubt in my mind that I am the black sheep of the family (for various reasons). When it comes to scripture, any insight is disregarded because my dad was a "teacher for over 30 years!" and when it comes to personal life, my mother is never wrong, I'm always wrong and I'm always supposed to just forgive her despite my mother not giving me an apology for her behavior because, "she's your mother".

My mom's history of control has been a lot, from wanting me as a 39 year old married woman, to install an app on my phone so she can see exactly where I'm going at all times, to giving me orders that are supposed to be carried out regardless of how it affects myself or my husband. When I finally drew boundaries with my mom, it blew up into a few month tirade of phone call harassment. When I blocked her, my dad would call and when I blocked him, they showed up at my door (for various reasons) where my mom tried to manipulate my husband while I locked myself in another room.

For a while my mom did good. She would call once, allow me time to get back to her without it leading to a barrage of a dozen phone calls and 30+ text messages in the span of 2 hours. Or she would text me once and I would respond at my earliest convenience. But yesterday... and why I feel like I just need to vent, is like she's going back to her old ways. And the thing is, nothing she wants to get into contact with me for is important OR an emergency.

So yesterday, I put my phone on silent because she had been calling me everyday for the last 4 days just to talk about work. She had asked me to help her with some of her work, which I agreed to do because she's behind after dealing with a pulled muscle in my dads hip and her fracturing her foot. After I did what she requested, I turned off my ringer to just have a nice relaxing day with my husband playing video games with him and eating home made stew. I did not see that she had tried to call me 3 times. But because I didn't answer, she then called my husband, in her worried and panicked tone "is everyone okay?!?! I've been trying to call her but she isn't answering!" Now because my husband answered, I had to call her back... was it important? No... she asked me if I did something work related for her and I told her no because she never asked me to do that. She said she did and even sent me a file that I needed to do it. I said, no you did not. She then checked her email and found that she didn't send me anything and says, "well, I meant for you to do it." Which makes NO sense because literally the day before I gave her advice on what program to use TO do that very job.... I tell her I would do it. We hang up, she calls me back asking when she can expect me to do it, I tell her I'll work on it tomorrow because its already 6:30 in the afternoon. She says okay, we hang up. She then calls AGAIN at 8:30 at night and I don't answer and put my phone back on silent. I then wake up this morning to a text message to call her that was sent at 6:45 in the morning.

I am just so incredibly tired dealing with this... my husband said no more favors. Clearly, I can't even do something for her without harassment or it being an issue and I completely agree. But I am just so tired and frustrated and it just makes me want to move to the moon, shut off my phone and just... exist for a while.

PloverWing said:

Yikes! I'm so sorry. When I was a young adult, cell phones weren't in use yet, and long-distance calling was expensive, and I'm realizing what a blessing that was. My mom was pretty controlling too, but we agreed on a phone call once a week on Sunday afternoons, and that was it. I can't imagine what it's like to have a controlling parent who is able to text you 24/7 and expects you to respond to all those texts.

Are you an only child (I was), or do you have some siblings to help share the load of parental caretaking?

Click to expand...

Thank you <3 . I have an older brother but he doesn't get the treatment that I do. I mean, my mom wanted him to put the app on his phone to track him too (he did which is insane...) but if he doesn't answer his phone or texts (which he has a tendency to go long gaps of time not doing) he doesn't get the panic/harassment like I do. My parents say, "oh he must be busy" but they don't afford me that same logic... He lives about a 4 hour drive, so my parents can't just show up at his place but my mother still doesn't panic call/text him like she does me and nor does she give these random orders to him like she does me. My brother has called them senile, questing if they have dementia and my x-sister in law blames them for their failed marriage but if I said any of that, the world would explode. Them? they just go "okay", give him some space and then send him flowers as an apology... I get zilch.

Personally, I don't think its dementia, I think its selective memory which is done on purpose out of manipulation. The pair of them do it just to try and get what they want.

RamiC said:

I am sorry you are facing this experience in your life, and thank Jesus for your faith to give you strength.

I have living relatives that I am not talking to because of advice from the police that it would be dangerous to communicate with them. It was impossible to explain this to any of my family, because it would also be dangerous to let on that the police said that.

I was raised in church, always liked it, missed some years as an adult, but never lost my own faith. Everyone who knew my family when we were together found us to be kind and helpful people. The internal dynamics were constant extreme stress. All it took was a secret, a lie, and one very bad influence on one person (a toxic friend) and the whole thing was a nightmare. If one person's needs start always, consistantly coming before another, family life has gone in real terms. If the attitude to one or more members is biased, in favour of or against, family life has gone. If everyone listens to whoever is shouting loudest, or crying hardest, instead of whoever is making the smartest suggestion family life has gone. It was a source of a kind of shame for me, especially regarding church, because I did not want to accuse other members of the church of doing very wrong things without proof.

I pray constantly for a restoration of healthy family dynamics in the western world, I look out for every way I might be able to help others learn from the disaster that I survived which called itself my family. I also ask Jesus to restore my contact with any willing relatives I still have, but there is a safety standard that they would have to recognise before that can be done.

Click to expand...

I'm sorry you've had to deal with what you described too. That sounds really rough. I also pray for restoration, change and that God brings people into my life for my benefit. We may not have a good earthly family unit, but at least we have our spiritual family!

ChubbyCherub said:

I'm sorry you're going through this. I must say, your experience is very like the one I have with my mother and my mother-in-law and the issue is in their lack of control in their own lives so trying to control children, who they forget outgrew their control many years ago.

I have put my mom and mother-in-law on block and silent and I have explained to them that I will come back to them in my time and not theirs.

My mother in law hardly ever messages me now and my mom knows not to text me asking me where I am just because she woke up neurotic or looked up from her phone long enough to not be bored and use me as entertainment!

It's okay to have boundaries and be really explicit with those!

I love my mom and mother-in-law but I am not theirs to control and they are not entitled to my time in the way they are trying to command it i.e. via dysfunction.

I think you're doing okay but you have to give yourself permission to be okay with your tactics which provide you peace inside your home.

It's not mean or disrespectful to not invite chaos. It's hard to be okay with saying 'no' when you're a nice person but you can be the captain of your own ship and still be nice.

Note, you're not trying to steer their ship! You're doing ok!

Click to expand...

You are so right! And good for you on your boundaries! I eventually muted my mother yesterday and told her. I then spent the rest of the day in peace and quiet and it was wonderful. I've done this in the past, I'm just tired going through the same thing like a hamster wheel. You know what I mean?

RamiC said:

I realise that this will not help you with the terrible way that you are being treated, but I have never accepted that Christians must forgive people who deny that they are doing anything wrong. We can know that Jesus does love them too, and we should. We can avoid taking justice into our own hands, and know that God is a just judge. We can be sorry for our part in any problems. We do not have to accept one-way demands from bullies that we forgive them, when there is nothing there but a requirement they carry on the same way.

In my own case, I was deemed guilty of sometimes really bad wrongs, the guilt was established by gossip, roumers and theories. Then, in the name of "Christianity" I was genourously forgiven for my dreadful sins. All of that without me ever knowing that I was meant to have committed those sins in the first place!

Click to expand...

That's terrible that you went through that I don't doubt that angered you, goodness gracious... I'm sorry you seriously had to deal with that.

When it comes to forgiveness, I've forgiven my parents when it comes to internally between me and God for my own peace (and letting him deal with judgement), but I'm not extending that forgiveness and acting like everything is fine. My parents definition of "forgiveness" is not the biblical definition and I've realized that eventually. Their definition is pretending they've done nothing wrong and I go back to how I used to be, but thats never gonna happen. At the moment I feel like God is saying "boundaries" with them and not completely cutting them off, so I'm learning to manage where my cut off point is and where boundary enforcement is and I'm thinking I may need to re-draw my lines.

tturt said:

Sorry that you are going through this.

Wonder how your Mom's relationship with her Mom was/is? Did she stay in constant contact or seldom reached out? Seems there's a hole in her heart. What is her love language? How is your parents' relationship?

Not really expecting a response - jusr noting.

Click to expand...

My mother and grandmother were extremely close. When my mother went off to college, she would write to my grandmother daily. My mom hasn't completely gotten over her parents death as she was extremely close to both of them and its been about 30+ years since they died. My mom has kept a broken chair of my grandfathers that she finally got rid of a few years back and she still has letters her mother wrote that she can't part with.

As far as her love language, I can only guess. For giving I think its acts of service, for receiving I think its quality time. But because of her manipulation it's honestly extremely hard to tell because she weaponizes acts of service where people then owe her in return. So truly, I have no idea.

Their relationship is better. There were a few times my dad almost walked out and didn't come back, he's walked out plenty of times to just go for a walk but I think now the only reason their relationship is more peaceful is because he complies with whatever she wants. Sometimes he'll lose it and say "WHY CANT I JUST... (fill in the blank)!" but it takes a bit. My dads health isn't the greatest now (triple heart by-pass, damaged lungs), so I think he now fulfills the concept of "happy wife, happy life" and just keeps his mouth shut.

turkle said:

I had the same mother. It took me years to learn how to set firm boundaries with her, and gently but firmly enforce them. I realized that she was walking all over me because I allowed it... it was time to change myself, not her. Once I grew a strong back bone, she backed off and I had much more peace. Remember, honoring a parent does not mean indulging them. If she is being unreasonable or a pest, let her know with kindness. No arguments. I gained a lot of strength and respect from my mother when she finally realized that she could no longer control how I felt, since she loved getting a rise out of me. Firm self control helped me keep my sanity.

Click to expand...

Thank you and you're right!