Knew this would happen. Really need advice...

[sKePTiKal]

My therapist hammered into me for years the thought that what matters is what I think about myself, not what anyone else thinks.  I still find it hard, but it's a good thing to aim for.

The above stands out for me, of all the really good feedback you got, Kay.

This won't be your mom's first grandchild. It's not as if you'd be denying her the excitement of the experience of her first one, you know? My MIL told me one time - after the first couple, the novelty wears off -- even though you're always pleased about a new person joining the family and getting to know them. Let's modify that a bit: lets think about it this way -

Your mom-skills are already top-notch. You're a fluent "mommers". You do have the challenge of fitting a newborn into the family and juggling attention for all 3 -- so that they all have their special time with mom. That is MORE than enough to handle - and we know you have other obligations, too. SURELY, as a mother, your mother can understand that you need your space and some time to adjust to being a bigger family. That's simply par for the course - it's not at all part of your relationship issues with mom. Those issues can wait for ultimate decisions and working through, if that's the path you all take. Because she probably doesn't see it that -- it will have to be enforced by everyone in a position to do so, not just you.

I'll even go so far as to suggest that, in mothering this baby -- in peace -- you'll also do a lot healing yourself. Nurturing yourself is no different than nurturing that little one. Those mom-issues will look a lot different to you after a few months of this. Save any decision-making till then - or even after. Just tune everything else out, let someone else handle it, your task is to take care of yourself & the little cherub. Mom can take care of herself - that's certainly not your job. Don't give it a single thought. That stuff isn't going anywhere -- but life allows you a good long "time out" from even thinking about it. It absolutely does NOT matter what anyone else thinks about this. Period. End of discussion. It's your perogative. And it's necessary, too - for the cherub and brothers & sisters. Mama Tiger knows she can defend them - so doesn't have to worry over that - and turns her attention to caring for the kittens/cubs... being there for them.

You are also well within reason to request that you aren't feeling up to the usual preparations and shindig of the holidays - so won't be hosting or travelling. It's normal to want to just stay home with the newborn and nest awhile... pick up those infant rhythms again and integrate them with the older children and the family schedules. It's even fun, we've found, to scale back on all that holiday hoopla... and enjoy the simple traditions of the season: making cookies, decorating the tree, and making simple, fun, secret presents and just enjoying each other - your very own family unit. It's a bonding ritual that will help create a life-long appreciation of the holidays -- without the commercial glitz, pressure/expectations, and stress -- it creates a happy memory. It also keeps the "melt-downs" to a minimum... especially with kids. They're helping to "make" Christmas... and not so focused on "what they'll get".

People who don't get that? Have an opinion? Well, who are THEY to judge someone else?
You know what they say about opinions: they're like buttholes - everyone has one.

It's not your job to take care of other people's happiness: except for your own and your family's. End of job description... no "other duties as assigned" clause that you are required to allow time and energy for.

I'd just love to be able to peek in on you & baby... and feel that transfer of mama-love in the air! What we didn't have -- we sure know how to create ourselves, don't we? We become the mom we didn't have - because we know SO well what it should be like. Or at least, we try!   

Other things just aren't as important.

[Hopalong]

Such great advice to you, KZ, including PR's...I would just differ in two little spots with a couple things that happened to be in PR's post but I could've easily written them and likely others too (hope you'll forgive me for sticking nose into your wording, (((PR)))? Just helps me focus the wordbrain...

SURELY, as a mother, your mother can understand that you need your space and some time

I just found my popup response on this was No, her mother literally cannot. Her mother's boundar-ybashing is compulsive and reflects that she really, genuinely, cannot understand KZ's needs for this (could be in the context of motherhood, military service, medical illness, child crisis, interplanetary galactic alien invasion, whatever...her mother literally will not/cannot understand it on any basis, since that's Nism).

And this one, where my klaxons sounded only at one word:

You are also well within reason to request that you aren't feeling up to the usual preparations and shindig of the holidays -

AahOOOgah! No permission needed. No permission!  Boundary-setting with her Mom requires the opposite.

But I sure understand what you meant in BOTH instances, PR (and I'm sure you see it too, KZ) -- as in, In What World Does a Person Not Relate to the True Needs of Another Person Whom They Ostensibly "Love"?

N world. Broken world. Non-ideal world.

I live there too and have been on both sides of this fence. I feel for your struggle KZ and feel for your exasperation PR...I share them both!

love
Hops

[KayZee]

Oh boy.... So sorry for the delay.  DH, DS and DD all came down with a nasty cold, and I've been running around picking up tissues and dispensing Tylenol for the past two days.

Hops: Thank you so much for kind, compassionate advice.  Yes, I think a mailed letter is probably the best way to go; I don't want to get into another back-and-forth email battle with them.  (As it stands, I keep having dreams that they find someway to contact me and resume the fight. I spend all night, angry, thrashing in the sheets, dreaming some rebuttal.)

 

A crawling smothering anxiety that made me nearly phobic about her. It was a very long time before I became unaffected by her smallest gestures.
I think phobic is really how it felt.

  I can't tell you how much I relate to this.  Especially the "phobic" part!  I've been reading M. Scott Peck's People of the Lie: the Hope for Healing Human Evil and was really affected by one of the case studies in it, about a woman who was deathly afraid of spiders and came to realize her NM was very spider-ish in the way she clung to and smothered her daughter, held her in her web, etc. 

Anyway, I realized years ago that my mouse-phobia was directly related to my mother.  But it was only after this NC fiasco that I realized how.  NM was always very mouse-like in her intrusions when I lived in her house.  Like, I'd always find her eavesdropping on my conversations, barging in on me when I was in my bedroom or the bath, going through my stuff, etc.  The thing that's always freaked me out about mice, is the same thing that freaks me out about NM: both just scuttle out with no notice, catch a person off guard.  That's exactly what NM did with her surprise visit.  And she's been very "mouse-like" in these few weeks of NC too; like a mouse, she seems to tunnel through any barrier, fit through the smallest hole, scale up to places you wouldn't guess she'd be able to.  I guess I've realized, I've always been quite a doormouse in the way I've dealt with her.  For most of my adult life, people have hinted that I'm mousey, not-assertive enough, voice is a squeak, scuttle around hoping to go unnoticed.  I've certainly always tried to just stay out of NM's way rather than standing up to her.

At any rate... such a phobia tangent.  Sorry.  All to say, I can't thank you enough for understanding and relating (as well as the advice!).  It gives me hope to know you got to a place where NM's tricks and meaning didn't work on you.  At the moment, it's hard to imagine ever feeling comfortable around her.  She gives me the willies, makes me fearful.  I just want to run.

Kay x

[KayZee]

Thank you Lighter!

I'm definitely going to take your advice re: those creepy puppets!  It was such a funny choice of gift when you get down to it.  DH was, like, "Are these puppets a metaphor or something?  There are three of them.  It's like, in your NM's mind, they're you, your dad and your sister!"  They also reminded me a little bit of the puppets that feature in Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl.  (Such a good thriller!  I won't spoil it for anyone who might be interested in reading.)

I'm reluctant to have DH do the uninviting, and generally try to keep him out of the family N-sanity as much as possible.  Just because NM scapegoated him quite a bit when we first began dating, and for someone from a relatively normal, loving, empathetic family it really, really hurt and confused him.  I swear, NM was such a vicious hag to DH during our wedding, I was a little bit worried he was going to change his mind completely and leave me hanging at the altar!  For his part, DH is really understanding about my family, but their constant drama is the one thing in my marriage that I always feel truly apologetic about.  I don't want my parents to make a villain of him the way they did with my sister's ex-husband (although there, they had my sis's collusion). 

Mostly, I want to make it very clear that NC is my choice.  I think it's an important step for me, not only the kindest option for DH.  Also, I know how my folks work in these situations, and unless I fight this battle myself, they will convince themselves that DH is "corrupting me" and "turning me against them."  They look for any excuse to self-deceive and insist there's no real problem.

At any rate, thank you so much for talking this through with me!  I swear, I don't know what I'd do without you all.

Kay x

[KayZee]

((((Tup)))))

I'm so sorry your NM spread lies about you.  The triangulation thing is what hurts and enrages me most about Ns!  I feel, like saying to NM: "Fine, be malicious, be devious, cover over your cruelty with expressions of 'love,' but let's just battle one-on-one, okay?  It'll still be gross and soul-crushing, but at least it will be fair."  But they just can't do it...  Powerless as I feel around NM, she must feel weaker, or she wouldn't need to go around enlisting everybody she knows.

It's really hard, I still struggle with worrying about what people think of me.

  This means so much.  I'm so glad to know I'm not alone. 

I think I'm just really sensitive to NM's triangulations because I'm still grieving the way NM managed to effectively ruin my relationship with my sister and father.  But even then, I know deep down that she just took away the illusion of a relationship.  Because dad and sister have always been scared of her, they've never been particularly understanding or compassionate to me, they've always been willing to sell me out to NM as soon as it served their purpose, spared them from her or elevated them in her eyes.  I haven't lost a real give-and-take, emotionally-intimate relationship, I've just lost this "idea" of having a family.  But for whatever reason, it still hurts.

My aunt and uncle are the only real FOO I have.  The only ones who've ever been willing to talk about feelings (mine and theirs), been able to grieve or celebrate with me.  And  our relationship is strong and real enough that I don't think NM could change that.  You're right...the people who truly know us and our Ns, can't be deceived.  But there's always a little inkling of worry.  (Ugh, still remember the time NM lied about me to aunt and uncle on the day of my middle school graduation.  She told them I'd called them stupid or something, and they left mid-ceremony and were angry with me for a while.  I had such Stockholm Syndrome, I convinced myself I must have said it and failed to remember it because what kind of mother would lie about such a thing?) 

Anyway, this period of NC would be a good time to work on not worrying what other people think.  I picture a nice winter hibernation, where I can just work on the things I think need improving: a few home-projects, a few more mommy-toddler play dates, definitely finishing deadlines and lining  up some more work, and, of course, helping the little ones adjust to a new baby (and adjusting myself)!

lots of love to you Tup & thanks for the help,
Kay x

[KayZee]

(((((P.R.)))))

Thank you.  Your post made me cry....

I know exactly what you mean.  I'm so grateful to be able to experience a normal mother-child bond from at least the "mommy" side.  It's incredibly healing.  Not in the way of my NM, mind you, who had kids so they would love and attend to her as though she was the infant!  But rather, knowing the way I feel about my own kids--knowing how much I want to cuddle and protect them and yet how amazing it feels to watch them take tiny steps towards self-growth and independence--it makes me realize just how deeply, profoundly, chemically effed-up my NM was/is.  I guess, in becoming a mom, I see now that the way she treated me and the fact she couldn't love me wasn't my fault.  I see just how vulnerable and dependent I was in the way my kids are so vulnerable and dependent.  I look at them, and I just can't imagine how anyone could do or say half the things NM did to a child who was so small, emotional, eager to learn and connect. 

Save any decision-making till then - or even after. Just tune everything else out, let someone else handle it, your task is to take care of yourself & the little cherub. Mom can take care of herself - that's certainly not your job. Don't give it a single thought. That stuff isn't going anywhere -- but life allows you a good long "time out" from even thinking about it. It absolutely does NOT matter what anyone else thinks about this. Period. End of discussion. It's your perogative. And it's necessary, too - for the cherub and brothers & sisters.

  I don't quite know how to thank you for this.  It's like the doctor's note I'm not strong enough to give myself yet.  I guess I still have so much guilt and shame, I'm too eager to provide a million excuses and reasons against doing the things I badly want to do.  It's really nice to hear someone say, "It's okay.  Take your time-out, trust your gut."

Thank you from the bottom of my heart,
Kay x

[sKePTiKal]

Aw Kay... one thing you need to know about me is that I'll battle against the forces of evil for other people, just as I would battle to save myself. Must've read too much classical lit or something. You're welcome... to any of the tools I've got, in carrying on the battle yourself.

(and Hops: if I ever get around to writing a book, you'll be my editor, right??      Yes, thank you for fixing the words and seeing the meaning. I can't believe I let that one slip about her mom having some understanding - even if it was only social norms or intellectual - about the need for space. DUH, Amber...  ::smacks forehead:: )

[Twoapenny]

Hi Kay,

Definitely focus on you and yours.  I often find it helps to ask myself what I'd tell my son to do in that situation in the future - if someone was lying about him, disrespecting his boundaries, making him feel guilty about things that weren't his fault, would I tell him to keep hanging out with them?  You can guess the answer to that one.

Slowly, slowly, slowly I've worked my family out of my life.  They aren't part of it any more, their tentacles still reach out but the can't grasp me.  I've rebuilt it on my rules.  My home is messy, grubby, none of the furniture matches, there's a defunct dishwasher in the hall that's been there for months waiting for me to organise a refuse collection for it, if friends come round and the house is clean they always assume we must be moving out.  But it's full of love.  My son plays with his toys for as long as he wants, we paint things, make things, there are books everywhere, little pots with seeds he has planted, piles of wood in the corner to make things out of, bulbs to plant for spring.  He goes to bed happy every night, with a kiss and a cuddle.  He's not aware of it, but he's completely safe in his own bed, no-one will be going in his room in the night and stealing his childhood away from him.  Focus on you and your babies (and your hubby!).  They're your family and the more you focus on them, the more your mum and dad, your sister and anyone else who doesn't really know or value you as you are, will fade away and become less and less important over time.  When your kids are older and they look back on their childhood they'll have such good memories of you and the time they spent with you.  That's a really lovely thing to give them xxx