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I need some MN no-nonsense perspectives please [quake]

47 replies

Greensneeze · 16/05/2009 20:36

OK the background is that 3 years ago I cut off contact with my mother and stepfather. It was very nasty and acrimonious, it actually made me quite ill at the time and we ended up getting the police involved and my mother/stepfather had to sign the harassment act etc

I have an older sister whom I haven't seen since just after my wedding 8 years ago. She and I have always had a bad relationship, she is very similar to my mother - cruel, deceitful, has no behavioural boundaries etc. But she can be very charming and reasonable too when she wants to be. My feeling about both her and my mother is that the "good things" simply are not worth it, because they will ALWAYS hurt me in the end, they always have and it wouldn't ever change.

My sister knew I was in hospital for weeks on end and in a wheelchair when I had ds1, and that he was in intensive care and I nearly died during the birth etc. She was in phone contact with my dad (relationships in my family are few and far between, virtually nobody will speak to anyone else). She didn't give a shit, didn't wish us well or want to see us, no card, nothing. She told me dad she was sick of hearing about me.

The whole time I was the only one supporting and talking to my mum, she and my sister didn't communicate at all, they had a huge row after my wedding (well during it really) and I gave my sister my house keys so she could stay at mine (she had just come bck from Japan and was meant to be staying at my mum's, but my sister was crying saying mum had thrown her out)

My mother kicked off the most almighty row over my disloyalty in giving my sister somewhere to stay, endless phone calls and abusive messages and letters, waking us up repeatedly in themiddle of the night, screaming and ranting and making wild and bizarre accusations.

A few years later when my older brother got in touch I invited him to come and see ds1. I spent weeks preparing my mother for this and had her promise that she would not phone or come over during that few days and cause a scene. Previously she had made it a condition of our relationship that I not have any contact with my brother, bvecause he didn't want to see her, and it would therefore be disloyal of me. But I wanted him to meet his only nephew, and my mother assured me that she understood and would control herself. The phone calls and abusiveness started about 3 hours after he arrived and it got so bad he had to leave early. At that point my mother continued the "episode" for several months - my 16yo half brother ended up staying with me for months and going to school on the train, because she threw him out for wanting to see my brother. She also did charming things like dumping the entire collection of family photo albums on my doorstep in a binbag. SHe then took an overdose (on my brother's birthday, she saved up her pills) and went straight to my stepdad and saifd "call and ambulance, I've taken an overdose". She was taken to hospital, was fine and talked her way around the duty psychiatrist. After that dh and I accepted all the blame for everything and went back to the usual routine on her terms because I was afraid she would succeed next time.

The final episode happened when I told her - over a period of months, and again she promised me she could handle it - that I wanted to stop the rigid two-days-a-week routine (which involved my stepfather picking me and the boys up aa the crack of dawn and then me spending two hours getting her up and out of bed, then going out and not getting back until 8pm with two tired toddlers). DS1 was starting nursery and I wanted more flexibility and more time of my own. We set up several dates for meeting up and for weekend things so she wouldn't feel dumped.

She kicked off, predictably, after a phone call just after he started nursery in which she nonchalantly said "XXX can pick you up from the nursery car park and we'll do our two days a week as usual" and I said "Er no, that's not what we agreed". Cue months of abusive phone calls - up to 30 a night (we got voicemail in the end and woke up to the messages in the morning). It culminated in her turning up at ds1's nursery and then her and stapofather chasing dh through the streets in their car, parking outside our house for hours etc.

my sister has miraculously been in touch with my mother since I disappeared from her life, after years of no contact. She started ringing up my dad (who now has no contact with my mother because he was here and saw some of the behaviour - it was the biggest shock of his life, he has no idea of the kind of childhood they gave us while he was away). She asks questions about me and dh and the boys and tries to probe into what happened with my mother. Today she called my dad's phone, which he has left at our house, and dh answered it. She was very calm and reasonable but very pushy, trying to get him to get me, and asking him to make sure I call her back. As far as she is concerned there is "no problem between me and her"

I don't want to call her. I don't want anything to do with her, I don't trust her and I think all she wants is to gain brownie points with my mother by forging a link. She wasn't interested in meeting my children before (they are 6 and 4) and I don't believe she is interested now. She has hurt me with her viciousness and deceit all my life and I don't want to let her, or any of them, back in.

What would you do? Honestly? I'm prepared for some brutal responses, I've had them before on MN when I've posted about all this. I could really, really use some advice. I am actually shaking inside and out

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Greensneeze · 16/05/2009 20:44

didn't realise how long that was

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