UAW had been bad mouthed by my mother (and dad to a lesser degree) for 15 years. Told us sibs crazy stories how his wife is a whore who greeted my dad at the door wearing a negligee and always tried to sleep with my dad, drgc and my decreased grandpa (my moms dad). Total lie! How UAW is mentally ill and jealous of drgc. She went on endlessly for years about them.
Throughout this time, my brother too was being more and more obviously excluded. No phone calls for him at all, expectations for his service to my mother very, very high. (He remodeled her bathroom, fixed her roof, took care of plumbing, had his son rewire her house while she was with my sister ~ or, initially, with D H and me ~ during the Winter months. For free, of course. And then, she told him she did not want his children or grands at her house when she was not there! Though they were doing work, shoveling snow ~ you name it. Unbelievable, isn't it.)
My brother too- worked on their house and drgc' house and my sisters house. As UAW says, for a damn pizza dinner provided by drgc! All the while, drgc and my mother micro managed him and complained about any money they had to spend at Home Depot. Yes, unbelievable.
Probably, that was D H. After the work we've done here on FOO Chronicles, I can see what my D H was telling me was true. At the time Quicksand, and for such a long time afterwords, I could not see the wrong in the things my mother (or my sister) were doing.
Me either. Yet, I think my fear of any confrontation with my mother scared me into shutting up. I was complicit with my silence.
Denial is the strangest thing.
yup.
So my brother, whom I was protecting and demanding that this exclusionary baloney stop, dropped me, too!
Triangulation, a favorite tool of the narccist.
You are ten thousand times correct in standing your ground on this one. I agree that the mother
expects that you will submit and come to serve her. If she is anything like my mother, she is playing a primo game that you want nothing to do with. If she is anything like my mother, she will subvert the UAW brother.
That is a frightening possibility.
We have a thread somewhere here in the Chronicles about the narcissistic mother's intent to foment alliances and petty arguments and jealousy between the sibs that persists after the mother's death.
They do this intentionally.
I know and can see this now, but when you're raised with that, it's hard to understand and I just ended up being afraid of her and always wondered what was wrong with me.
It's horrible what happened during my dads death, but the reality is - my dad died and all of the fear of her died too. A spotlight illuminated it all- her manipulation and lack of empathy. The cruelty.
It is so unbelievable a situation that even when we are in these kinds of situations, we cannot believe we see what we see or hear what we hear. Or that what is happening could possibly be what it looks like.
EXACTLY
I am very sad about the way everything is for me, and for my family ~ but knowing what I know now, I would do everything I did again in a heartbeat. I wish I'd done it sooner.
Me too.
But still, it is a hard thing, to be without your real mother and your real sibs in the world.
Especially when someone asks or the conversation turn to mothers. I just nod and smile because people just do not understand.
That helps us not to feel that somehow, we are behaving ourselves inappropriately or are secretly jealous or any of the ten thousand other things we think about, when our families of origin are dysfunctional messes.
Again, EXACTLY. I've forever questioned myself constantly. My husband is a very patient man.
But the choice becomes to embrace the toxicity, or to take a stand. It could be that in taking a stand, you will bring your family back together. Or, it could be that you will be actively shunned, like me.
Which is a hurtful thing.
But the more I understand the underlying dynamic, and the more I come out of denial, I think there was no other choice for me to make. Even if I had known it was going to lead to this, I would have made the same decisions. It didn't feel like a decision really. I just did the next right thing.
I understand completely. I cannot be complicit in this twisted game of hers and her useful idiots who are waiting for their pot of gold.
I just can't pretend.
I'm really pissed that your brother fell into the trap.
Cedar[/QUOTE]
