Mother Trash-talks Father (FOR 20+ YEARS!)

[Kitty Tantrum]

My parents split up when I was 6. My mother packed us all up one evening (myself and two brothers) while my father was in town, called the sheriff, and had us taken to a domestic violence shelter, citing "emotional abuse." There was a long court battle over custody and child support that was never fully squared away until my baby brother turned 18.

 

I was the first sibling to move back in with our father, less than a year later. Because my mother's boyfriend at the time slapped me across the face. I went to my dad's house for a visit and refused to go back. So my father is the one who raised me. Both of my brothers eventually came to live with us, too.

 

To her credit, my mother ditched the jerk boyfriend and found herself a much better man who has been a wonderful stepfather for many years now. Not so much to her credit, when she moved out of state to be with him, she didn't let anyone know ahead of time when she would be moving. I knew it was going to happen, but didn't realize we wouldn't get a heads-up. My older brother (who was also living with our dad by then) and I were supposed to go to her house for a visit. When we got there, she was gone. Our baby brother was gone. All their things were gone.

 

I didn't see my mother for three years. But that's not even the problem! I think I handled that pretty well and wasn't really traumatized by it. I've always loved my stepfather and I'm glad they're together. We kept in touch by phone and eventually I got to go spend summers with her on their farm, which was really neat.

 

The problem is that ever since my parents split, any time I have a conversation of any substantial length with my mother, she trash-talks my father. I was a little kid when this started, and it's been going on for more than two decades now. Sometimes it's pretty heavy. She'll outright call him "evil" and "fu***d up" and carry on at some length about how horrible it was to be with him.

 

I never used to feel bothered by it. I was just a kid who loved my mother and wanted her to feel better. I didn't really understand it because from what I've seen, my father is a good man. But I didn't mind if she vented to me.

 

It started bothering me after I had children of my own. It REALLY started bothering me when I eventually got divorced and was required to take a parenting class, the focus of which was more or less "NEVER TRASH-TALK YOUR CHILD'S OTHER PARENT IN FRONT OF THEM." I even had to sign a document saying I would not do that. I've gone so far as to tell my stepmother she'd have to apologize or get out of my car when she said something mildly disrespectful about my kids' dad in front of them.

 

And recently I've noticed another thing my mother does, which is to compare me to my father in some negative way whenever I do something she doesn't like. In contrast, my father has never spoken this way about my mother, and he has only ever compared me to her in positive ways.

 

This all came to a head for me in August when my mother and I had a little spat over Facebook messenger. She's been wanting more attention and more frequent communication as I've grown older. I've been trying my best. We'd spoken on the phone just a week before. She sent me a few messages that I didn't reply to for a couple of days.

 

In my defense, I'd been sick on and off for more than a year (no definitive test results, but fell very ill immediately following a tick bite), and she knew about that. She was actually visiting the previous summer and was already here with my brothers when I got home from the trip where I picked up the tick. So she's seen firsthand how bad it can be. There were days and weeks when she was here that I couldn't get out of bed, and things like moving and breathing triggered horrible explosive nerve pain.

 

I've been treated with three separate (and successively longer) courses of antibiotics, and I seem to be solidly on the mend at this point (fingers crossed), but back in August I was still dealing with episodes of nerve pain, fatigue, etc. So when my mother started getting upset that I hadn't replied yet (she sent a sad face), I composed a brief message apologizing for the delay and explaining that I was still sick and stressed and didn't really have energy to keep up with people at the moment, but that I loved her, missed her, etc.

 

She blew up at me. I tried to explain to her gently at first that I really don't have the energy for it. It's not just HER; I haven't been talking to anybody I'm not forced to interact with on the daily. She responds by laying down the guilt-tripping about how "sad and sick" she is that I'm "ignoring" her.

 

I made a straight up plea for understanding, pointing out that I'd honestly and genuinely never held it against her that she moved away when I was a kid and I didn't have her in my life as much as I'd wanted, because she said she needed to do that for her well-being - and could she please try to reciprocate some of that understanding and compassion right now?

 

Well, I guess that was her cue to drag my father into the conversation. And she really kicked it up a notch this time. Couple of direct quotes:

"having committed one of the biggest, most atrocious atrocities against a good mother and her children"

 

"most cunningly dark vampire like snake robbed them all of a chance for happy togetherness."

 

But not before leading with this gem:

 

"I hope you do not waste too much time feeling angry and bitter, unless it is directed at the person from whom you seem to have inherited the less attractive features of your psyche and personality."

 

Yikes.

 

So now I haven't spoken to my mother since August. Both of our birthdays have passed since then. She called me on mine, I didn't answer. I'm not even really MAD at her, I'm just at a loss for how to tell her, after all these years of putting up with it, that she needs to knock it off and that it was never appropriate and that I don't care if everything she's ever said about my father is true (which I HIGHLY DOUBT) - I just don't want to hear it.

 

I'm still a bit surprised by how strongly I feel about it now, when it always kind of rolled off my back before. I do want to have a reasonably close relationship with my mother. But I've HAD IT with this. My father has earned my respect about a thousand times over, and if it had been ANYONE ELSE saying those things about him, I never would have let it stand.

 

I often have trouble speaking up for myself. This isn't really one of those times. If anything I've avoided talking to her because I'm afraid the words will all come too easily and be too harsh or too condemning.

 

How do I tell my mother, gently, that she's been waaaaay out of line for the last... 25 years?

[Wallysbears]

You don’t.

 

That leopard isn’t going to change her spots.

 

All you can do is practice healthy boundaries and get off the phone etc with her when she starts talking like that.

[Normm]

Put your post into a text or email and send it to her.

[preraph]

Tell her straight up it wasn't right to trash talk him to his kids and that as a mother, you now realize it and want her to stop talking about him that way to you. She can vent on some friend of hers.

[carhill]

Second a vote for condensing this post into a letter, and I'd print it out and mail it.

 

If the results are what I've seen many times over the decades, the silence will be a wonderful value for the cost of some paper and a stamp.

 

Sometimes we must eject certain people out of our lives, even family, if they're unhealthy for us. Sucks but that's life.

[Mr. Lucky]

How do I tell my mother, gently, that she's been waaaaay out of line for the last... 25 years?

 

Unfortunately OP, you can't have it both ways. A relationship with your mother comes at a pretty clearly defined cost. Wouldn't be worth it to me, but that's your decision to make.

 

Not sure why it's taken you 25 years to figure this out...

 

Mr. Lucky

[Kitty Tantrum]

Not sure why it's taken you 25 years to figure this out...

 

That feels a little harsh. When it starts when you're 6-7 years old, how do you even know it's not normal? By the time I realized it was inappropriate (didn't take 25 years), it was a well-established pattern.

 

I never really thought about it in terms of having a relationship with her being dependent upon tolerating it, but I guess that's exactly what I'm afraid of, and why I never brought it up before.

 

She suggested family counseling in one of her messages (after she blew up at me), so I'm hopeful that she really does want a closer healthier relationship and wouldn't just stop talking to me for it. Maybe it would be beneficial to gloss over it for now, take her up on her offer, and pursue this issue later in counseling?

 

Replies so far don't seem terribly hopeful.

[Mr. Lucky]

Pardon my bluntness. My point was simply that the pattern has been there for a long time, and yet you still seem hopeful somehow she’ll change. At some point you have to accept - this is her.

 

I’d be concerned counseling is code for “you’ll see I’m right”...

 

Mr. Lucky

[Gaeta]

She suggested family counseling in one of her messages

Tell her yes, her getting counseling is a great idea.

[Kitty Tantrum]

Update: I spoke to my mother on the phone a few days ago. First time in nearly a year! It was two steps forward and one step back, I suppose.

 

The best news is that she did seem to have a lightbulb moment, finally, when I explained to her for the umpteenth time that I was still pretty sick last summer when she got upset with me for not replying to her Facebook messages right away. It went a little bit like this, after going round and round a few times:

 

Mom: but instead of ignoring me you could have, I mean...

 

Me: sent a loving apology for being out of communication and explained that I was sick and going through a rough patch?

 

Mom: yeah!

 

Me: exactly like I did?

 

Mom: ... oh. Well, uh, yeah... I guess you did do that.

 

Then she asked me when I'm getting married. And THEN went on to ask if my father would be at the wedding. I told her I'm not sure if he'll BE THERE (it'll be short notice and informal, and he's more reclusive than I am), but he's invited. Then she tells me that if my father is going to be there, she won't be.

 

This is a pretty substantial deviation/escalation from where things seemed to be heading before, with their few interactions over the past two decades being pretty darned civil - even friendly. They're even friends on Facebook - still! At first I was like "wtf did he do NOW?" I was imagining some recent internet or phone interaction where he insulted or offended her or something. Nope, nothing new.

 

But whatever. I didn't even skip a beat - just told her I respect her choice but that my dad will, of course, be invited to my wedding. I also told her that if she's decided to finally rid herself of him completely, that's fine and dandy - but in any of our future communications, she is banned from speaking ill of him. She agreed to this, though she seemed surprised by it - so we'll see. I intend to hold her to it.

 

But THEN she immediately went on to elaborate that not ONLY will she never again be in the same room with my father - but that if (stepdad) and/or (half-brother) see him, they'll KILL HIM. She emphasized those words. I kinda glossed over that/laughed it off, since it seemed like the sort of overly-dramatic nonsense that warrants a complete and total non-reaction. And quite possibly like something they never actually said. I did mention it to my younger brother (not the half-brother) though, and he thought that was really uncool, so HE might say something to her about it. Fine by me.

 

My take on things at this point:

 

My mother had plenty of good and valid reasons to end her relationship with my father. She did NOT have a single good reason to pack us all up and run away without warning or notice. She did that because it was easier for her. She played herself up as a victim because victims get benefits. Victims get help. She knows that - on some level, anyway - and she feels guilty about it. SHE upended my entire life, and made me vulnerable to ACTUAL abuse - needlessly.

 

She used the system unjustly, for her own benefit, and hurt her children in the process. I like to believe she did this in the mode of ignorance rather than knowingly or maliciously. But she did it regardless. With every passing year of her life it becomes more and more apparent to her that she was wrong.

 

My father was a hundred ways wrong for her, but he was never the villain she painted him as. She did not have to "rescue" us from him. This is more than evident in the way events have unfolded in the years since.

 

I love my mother something fierce. My brothers and I ALL do. When there was a wildfire that threatened her town and cut off communications, we all piled on a plane and into a rental car and booked it over there with work clothes and relief supplies - not even knowing if highway access would be restricted and with a vague plan to circumvent barricades at our own discretion.

 

But somehow it's like she's got it in her head that our love for her and our understanding/forgiveness for how she handled things is dependent on convincing us that our dad is a bad/evil person - which he is really obviously not - when it seems to me like it should be really obvious that it AIN'T.

 

It makes her insecure and neurotic and I'll put up with it forever until she dies I guess because she's my mother (and in fact most of our very long phone call was lovely!), but dear sweet baby Jeeeeeeeeeeesus.

 

I had to get that off my chest.

[schlumpy]

Glad I could help lift that burden from your shoulders if only by listening.

 

Seems your mother is still fighting the last battle so in a way she is still trying to rescue her children and slay the dragon. If she can just turn her children against their father then all of her decisions were justified. Until that day, doubt will linger in her mind.

 

You are older now and you have exceeded your capacity to look the other way while your mother bad-mouths your father especially since she made such a fable of it.

 

Don't feel bad about drawing a line. It's not too much to ask her to stop with the invectives.

 

Best Wishes

[CautiouslyOptimistic]

Sorry you're dealing with this . It's good for me to read to make sure I don't "slip back there" with regard to my ex. In the height of my anger toward him I did say things to the kids and I really regret that. It's been years since I've done that and now will only say, "well you know how your father is..." if they complain to me (which is rare), but I have a lot of regret when I read posts like yours and seeing how much it has affected you .

 

Maybe you should have a code word with your mom so as soon as she starts in you can stop her right in her tracks. Something like "halt!" or "lalalalala!" or "STFU!!!"

[Mr. Lucky]

But somehow it's like she's got it in her head that our love for her and our understanding/forgiveness for how she handled things is dependent on convincing us that our dad is a bad/evil person - which he is really obviously not - when it seems to me like it should be really obvious that it AIN'T.

 

There will always be a cost to interacting with your Mother, even though she may get better at disguising the insults and digs at him - and you. You've spent a lot of time, like many with tough FOO backgrounds, wishing that weren't so.

 

She doesn't seem capable of change or even much introspection, so that just leaves you. It seems unproductive to continue to do something that makes you unhappy...

 

Mr. Lucky