JanetLG's story

[JanetLG]

I found this forum in May 2007. It has helped me enormously in dealing with how I feel about my Nmother, Nsister and N boyfriend. I hope that, by sharing my story here, some people might make sense of their own experiences better.

I was born in 1962, the second child (but first daughter). Two years later, my sister was born. I was the only ‘planned’ one, apparently. I was born at home (the only one out of the three of us), and my Nmum said for years after that the birth had been ‘difficult’ (the placenta did not separate properly – which was apparently my fault). It had been a ‘difficult’ pregnancy, with me, apparently, scratching her from the inside ‘on purpose’. I didn’t know foetuses could do that…

I think I probably had a milk allergy as a baby – I was often sick. Out of the three of us, I was the quietest, and the most unhappy. (The others called it ‘being miserable’.) Once, my grandmother was describing a pair of twins that she’d met, and she said of them ‘one of them was a sweet, happy little thing, and the other one was just like Janet’.

When I started school, I was terrified to be away from our home environment – we never had anything to do with ‘outsiders’, who my Nmum saw as dangerous, nasty, not to be trusted, etc. So, I wasn’t used to mixing with others, and found it very traumatic. But once I got used to school, I found I was good at academic things, but particularly art. When I was about six, I took home a portfolio of artwork done during the year, and proudly showed my Nmum. But she said ‘Don’t think I’m putting THAT STUFF on the walls!’. And she made me stand by the dustbin, and tear each painting in half, and throw them all away.

I kept creating things both at home and at school (amazingly – probably because the teachers were encouraging).

My Nmum always seemed to relate better to my sister than me. Possibly, this was because the two of them looked similar, and my sister liked copying what my Mum did and said, whereas I wanted to have my own personality. My Nmum found this very threatening (I worked this out years later, though). By the age of 7, though, I had heard many times my Nmum saying ‘Don’t have children, they ruin your health, your life, make you poor, make you bored…’ So, by 7, I would tell people ‘I’m not going to have any children!’ And I was proud of that. I thought it was my idea. It was only when I got to age 43 (too late to do anything about it) that I realised she’d cheated me, by causing me to internalise her ideas about children, and her feelings of being trapped. Also, while I was childless, I had more time to devote to HER.

When I was five, my Dad had a nervous breakdown. He says now that it was brought on by work pressures (staff were cut, and he was expected to do the work of two people, for one low wage, which he couldn’t manage). My Nmum was scathing, saying he was just doing it for attention, and giving HER more to do, along with bringing up three small children. He started drinking then. The following year, he had another nervous breakdown, and was admitted to a Mental Hospital near us with a dreadful reputation. He was made to have Electro Convulsive Treatment there, for 6 weeks, which changed his personality permanently – making him ‘docile’, and forgetful.

I don’t know which came first out of these events, but around this time, my Nmum had her first affair. I wasn’t really aware of this one at the time. But they argued more.

When I was 12, my Nmum started an affair with someone I’ll call M. This affair lasted 18 years. He was introduced to our family by a friend, and although his job was a docker, he did ‘decorating’ in his spare time. Trouble was, my Dad hated decorating, so there was a long list of decorating jobs that needed doing in our house, so he ended up being there a lot. Even though we had little money, my NMum always seemed to have enough to ‘pay’ him for the work he did, funnily enough.

In the school holidays, it was very uncomfortable to be in the house with him there. I could sense something was going on, but couldn’t (or wouldn’t) face it. She used to use me to lie to my Dad about where she’d been when she went out during the afternoons – I hated doing that, as I thought (and I was right) that he would think I did it because I agreed with what she was doing. That ruined the relationship with my Dad for years – even now, we’re quite ‘distant’.

I started my periods at 12, too, and that’s when things really changed. Up till then, my Nmum had tolerated me, except when I really put my foot down about my choices versus hers. But once I reached puberty, she hated the fact that I was ‘in competition’ with her. I only realised that this is what it was, a few months ago. She started really slagging me off about my femininity, started to buy me boys’ clothes (while, at the same time, buying my sister very frilly, girly clothes). My older brother’s cast-offs were ‘suitable’ for me, apparently. By the way, I had NEVER been a tomboy of any description – always delicate, girly and feminine. So, I couldn’t understand her behaviour at all.

Getting sanitary pads from her was difficult (I had no money to buy my own). She was a nurse, and ‘supplied’ me with things she had stolen from work, for me to use. But they were awful – large, very thick pads, that had to be attached to plastic pants that were too big for me. Only in my thirties did it suddenly click that what she had made me use were incontinence pads, usually used by geriatric patients in hospital.

This ‘introduction’ to being a woman made me reject the whole idea, and I still have trouble with my feelings about menstruation.

My NMum also started to say I was a slag and a slut. Strange, really, because I hadn’t even started to have boyfriends yet, and she was the one having affairs.

At 12, too, I started to develop anorexia. Not the textbook type of anorexia, where teenagers apparently are overweight, then start dieting to be like models in magazines and then ‘overdo it’ (actually, I don’t believe it is EVER like this). What happened with me was that I had been a slim person up to the age of 12, and then I just stuck at the same weight exactly, but carried on getting taller. If you’re only 4 feet 9, 70 pounds isn’t too bad. When you’re 5 feet 4 and weigh the same, it becomes dangerous. My weight stuck at 70 pounds till I left home at 22. At around 14, I begged my Nmum to take me to the doctor’s to get it sorted out. The doctor was off-hand (anorexics get treated awfully by ‘medical professionals’, on the whole), and I got blamed for my illness, and labelled again as ‘difficult’. One thing he did was give me a diet sheet for overweight people, and just said ‘do the opposite of that’.

He suggested I should go on the Pill, as one side-effect of that is often putting on about 10 pounds. When I questioned the logic of that, as, when I stopped, it would come off again, he said ‘yes, but at least you’d see what it’s like to have a bit of weight on’. When I told him I was only 14, and I thought I was too young for the Pill, he and my Nmum laughed.

So, my weight stayed the same. When I was almost 16, and in the middle of my O-levels, the doctor and my Nmum decided I should be put on anti-depressants. I took just one tablet, and slept for two days. I had to sit two exams at the end of that week, and did quite badly in them, annoyingly.

When I got my exam results, I was disgusted with myself, and instead of staying on to the Sixth Form, I decided to leave. I got a job in a library, which seemed OK at first, but rapidly became very boring, as, although I loved the books, the routine and the mind-numbingly dull staff got on my nerves.

My brother got married and left home shortly after that, and my sister moved  in with her boyfriend, so it only left me, my Dad and my Nmum at home. I got used to the arguments, the following sulks and  silences, and the way my Nmum used me as ‘substitute husband’ to fill the emotional void – she’d expect me to accompany her on shopping trips, go to the theatre, etc, whenever she decided. But when she had her lover to take her out, I was expected to just start the dinner, and wait for her to come home 10 minutes before my Dad got in, so it’d look like she’d been there all afternoon, doing it herself.

[JanetLG]

When I got to 22, I had still not had a boyfriend. My life was just too restrictive for me to have had the chance to meet anyone. So, my Nmum and sister decided to ‘set me up’ with a boyfriend. This person, P, was a friend of my sister’s boyfriend, who they had met down the pub. He was 3 years younger than me, fat, illiterate, loved motorbikes… not really my kind of person.

But, the meeting was set up at my Nmum’s house without my knowledge. At a pre-determined point, everyone filed out of the living room, leaving me and him alone. He asked me out, I agreed, despite being bemused, and everyone trooped back in, smirking.  It was weird. After that, he really didn’t leave me alone. He’d meet me from work, sometimes accompany me TO work, as well. I didn’t have time to work out what was happening. After just ten days, we got engaged.

My Nmum thought he was wonderful. He had the very strange habit of always buying her the same thing that he bought me – it was like he was going out with twins. After four months, we bought a house together. We moved in, and THEN he changed. I realised what I’d done almost immediately. He’d taken over the controlling role of my Nmum, and I was now tied to him.

Once, we were arranging insurance. We worked out that the cover we would have would be that if one of us died, the other one would immediately inherit the other one’s half of the house. Pretty normal, and responsible. Trouble was, even while the insurance salesman was in the house, P was asking him ‘Can I change who the person is who gets my half, if anything happens to me?’ Turned out, he changed it the next day, so that his mother would have inherited half of the house.

He never, ever, paid his half of even one month’s mortgage, or utility bills. I eventually (after about two years) managed to prise £10 per week out of him for the food he ate, but that was only a dent in the actual cost, as he ate such a lot.

He had a very short temper. I’m still not absolutely sure if he was an N, but he was very N-ish. He was violent towards our two cats, because he couldn’t stand to see me giving them affection. Everything was my fault, like leaving bubbles in the washing-up bowl after rinsing it out, or not having change for the milkman – essential things like that! These issues would lead to an argument, then violence. After a few months, he started raping me. My self-esteem was so low by then, that I didn’t consider leaving. I just tried to pacify him each time. Once, when I asked him why on earth he’d wanted to go out with me, he said, ‘I didn’t, really, but I thought you’d do, and because you were so thin, I thought you wouldn’t care if I ate a lot, because you’re not interested in food’.

Whenever we argued, he used to go back to his mothers for a few days. When he decided to return., he’d bring some stupid ‘peace offering’ like a tin opener, or a dustpan and brush. Once, he brought me the most pathetic-looking pot of pale grey-pink chrysanthemums you have ever seen. They were already dead. Says it all, really.

One good thing about this period of my life was that, having left my parents’ house, and got away from my Nmum, my weight became much more normal. I put on 35 pounds in a year (from 70, to 105). This needs to be considered in the light of the fact that for the previous 12 years, I hadn’t been able to put on AN OUNCE. I had really wanted to, but couldn’t. Once I lived apart from her, and was in control of what I ate, it was no longer a problem, and hasn’t been, ever since. My weight has been around 8 stone (112 pounds) ever since.

After 3 years, and after a very bad night with him, I’d had enough. I drove to my Nmum’s, and explained what he’d done. I asked her if I could stay at her house for a couple of weeks, while I sorted out somewhere permanent to live. But her response amazed me – ‘Don’t think you’re coming back here, after you decided to leave me for him.  And anyway, your cats don’t get on with my cats.’

So, I got back in my car and went back to him for another three years.

After living with him for 6 years altogether, we were still engaged. No wedding had ever been planned. Then suddenly, my sister had this bright idea that me and her and our partners would have a double wedding. Seemed a surprise, but P seemed enthusiastic about it. I thought he was growing up, so I agreed (MAD FOOL!!).

We had a meeting at my sister’s, which was one of those bizarre experiences. It turned out that my sister had already arranged EVERYTHING, and me and P were just ‘add-ons’ to her wonderful day. No input required. My Nmum then turned up, as if planned(!), and proceeded to tell me that she’d decided she just ‘couldn’t face being the centre of attention at TWO weddings, so this was a good solution’ (erm…since when was the MOTHER OF THE BRIDE the centre of attention at a wedding? Never mind…)

We ended up arguing, and me and P walked out. Two weeks later, it was my 26th birthday. As we were pulling up in our car outside my Nmum’s house (where we had been summoned for the present-opening), P suddenly said to me ‘I’ve decided I don’t want to get married, so the engagement’s off, and I don’t want to talk about it, so I never will. That’s that.’

And he was right, he never did.

I was stunned, but still managed to pretend everything was OK for the benefit of my family who expected me to have a ‘nice’ birthday. I didn’t even mention it. Then me and P left, went home, and carried on living together for another 18 months – because he only wanted to be NOT ENGAGED, it wasn’t that he wanted to leave me. I was useful to him totally without strings, so that’s what he did, and that’s what I put up with. Why the hell I did that, I cannot explain. I think it was at that point that he broke my spirit. I just gave up.

One night, in an argument about how the wattage of light bulbs is worked out (honestly!), I said to him, ‘Do you love me?’ And he said ‘No, because you don’t deserve it. But I love my Mum.’

Something changed, then. I left for work the next morning, but on the way I stopped at a phone box and called in sick. Then, I spent the day going to Citizens Advice, a solicitor, and the bank manager – to find out how I could buy him out, and keep the house. The bank manager was brilliant, and sat with me for hours, working out how I could manage it, because on paper it was impossible – I just didn’t earn enough to take on the mortgage single-handed.

I went home at my usual work-finishing time, so he’d suspect nothing, but put it to him later that night that he should go back to his mother’s , and I’d pay him his half of the equity on the house. He sulked, and stormed out. I don’t know who he spoke to, but when he came back, he agreed.

I had two months of living with him still, while the legal stuff was sorted out, which was awful. I’d come home from work to find he’d taken my stuff ‘by mistake’ (only it never came back). But eventually, I had my day at the solicitors, where he had to give back the house keys and sign the house over to me. He walked off up the road with thousands of pounds of my money (well, the bank’s money, actually) sticking out of his pockets. But I’d got shot of him!

My Nmum immediately wanted to lend me money to ‘help out’. But I’d had this before, and it wasn’t worth being beholden to her again, so I refused. She suggested that I moved in with her, and my Dad would have my house, as that would be ‘easier’, but both me and my Dad refused!

My Nmum used to let herself in (yes, I know it was stupid to ever have let her have a key), and used to go through my things, re-arrange my cupboards, then leave me notes telling me how dirty the place was!

After 18 months of living alone, I realised I’d rather have a relationship with someone, if I could find a more ‘normal’ person. I answered a ‘lonely hearts’ ad in the local paper, and met C. We clicked immediately. He was so honest and gentle, and showed me what real love should be like. I never knew men like him existed before that.

My Nmum and Nsister, of course, hated him. He saw through them at once. He heard the insults, and belittlings, and ways they ignored me, and pointed them out to me (and to them, sometimes). When we got engaged, after a year, my Nmum’s response was ‘Ooo..hhh, AGAIN?’

While we were planning the wedding, she kept threatening not to come, and kept ‘forgetting’ things I told her, such as what my dress was like. On the day itself, the only thing she said to me all day was ‘Doesn’t your sister look nice?’

About a year after I got married, things had deteriorated still further between my Nmum and me, and we  were only communicating by letter, because face to face we just screamed at each other. She threatened suicide several times. At one point, I told her ‘don’t make me choose between you and C – because you won’t win!’

She suggested that I had family therapy ‘to make you fit into the family better’. That’s what she thought family therapy was.

So, to be a dutiful daughter, I tried it – obviously, though, at the first session, the therapist pointed out that after a few sessions alone, it was usual to have ‘group sessions’ with my Mum, Dad, brother and sister there. I had to write to each of them, asking them to come, for my benefit. They objected, and sulked, but all turned up for the first session, which was two hours long. We discussed the anorexia, alcoholism, my Mum’s affairs – all very difficult stuff, never discussed openly in my family before. The second night, my Nmum informed me, gloating, just before we went in, that my Dad wasn’t coming 'because it isn’t worth it’. What she meant was, they’d had a blazing row after the first session, and he couldn’t face having her affairs discussed ‘in public’. They divorced a year later (and she blamed me for that).

At the end of the sessions, it was so clear that they’d never change, that the therapist said to me, probably a bit out of his depth, ‘But what are you going to DO?’ I said to him ‘I’m going to have to not have anything to do with them, and only be with people who can support me’.

So, that was quite a public way of starting NO CONTACT. Very traumatic, but absolutely necessary. Over the next few months, my Nmum told all the extended family not to have anything to do with me (‘choose her or me’) – so they did as they were told. I wouldn’t discuss things with others, as I didn’t think it was their business, as the issues went back so far, which made it easy for her to put just her point of view.

I heard, via a friend of my Nmum, that M (the person she’d had an affair with for 18 years) dumped her as soon as he knew we’d all had family therapy – because he now knew the secret was out. My Nmum blamed me for that, too.

My Nmum and Nsister (who has become  a clone of my Nmum), continued to contact me occasionally by letter, phone and recently by email. My Nsister, at one time, took it on herself to ring up every hour, on the hour, during the day (when she must have been at home alone) for over a week. If we picked up the phone, she’d hang up. Very draining.

I’ve had newspaper cuttings sent ‘anonymously’, on themes such as ‘loving mothers and the daughters who desert them’. I’ve had my Nmum’s latest boyfriend write and email me, telling me ‘it’s about time’ I put all this silliness behind me and let ‘bygones be bygones’.

Even when I or my husband tells them to leave it be, they don’t. So, we just bin anything we receive, now, and carry on with our life, without them. If it wasn’t for my fantastic husband, I would never have survived this long. He encouraged me to start studying for my Degree (which took 6 years, but I ended up with First Class Honours ( my Nmum and Nsister had told me not to do it, because ‘no man wants a woman who’s too clever’). He encouraged me to leave my ‘safe’ job in the library and start my own business, doing what I love – designing embroidery kits.

The only person I see now is my Dad, who now has a lovely ‘lady friend’, who has brought out a side of him I never thought I’d see.

 My family would have killed me, I think. And if it wasn’t for the wonderful people on this forum, I would never have joined so many dots, and started to, at last, be at peace.

I’ve still got some way to go, but I know I’ll get there, now, with or without a supportive family. I know now I’ll never have a loving mother, but at least I’ll no longer have to put up with her making it worse in the future. I will never, ever have anything to do with her again. I think, when she eventually dies, if I feel anything, it will be relief.



Janet