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Although I can't really relate to the OP, I do think that the recollections and feelings of siblings can GREATLY vary, but it doesn't necessarily mean that one sibling is correct and the other isn't.
I do not have loving feelings toward my mother because she was emotionally cold to me, I was the oldest and expected to be an unpaid housekeeper and unpaid babysitter to my four younger siblings, and we were working-class poor when I was young. After I left home when I was 18, my parents' financial situation improved, and the memories and feelings of my youngest sibling (11 years younger than I am) are VERY different than my own. I have often told her that her childhood and teen years were completely different from my own, and my mother even agreed that she was not really ready to be a mom when she had me when she was only 20.
So, in my case, although my sister's and my opinions of our childhood are very different, I think that both recollections and opinions are accurate.
Last edited by katharsis; 05-17-2024 at 10:48 PM..
Boy, this hits home for me. My wife is a narcissist who drinks a bottle of wine every night, and turns verbally abusive. She finds "something" to get angry/insulted/enraged about most nights which of course is my fault, and then immediately calls her friends to rant about how she does "everything" around the house, and gets no help. She of course calls me lazy.
She's sweet as pie to everyone outside of the house. BTW, she's a SAHM, and I run a company, but I still have to handle all household finances, pay all bills, schedule all vendors/repairmen while she does "errands" every day or lunches with girlfriends. Our kids are older teens, and are rather self-sufficient.
Although I can't really relate to the OP, I do think that the recollections and feelings of siblings can GREATLY vary, but it doesn't necessarily mean that one sibling is correct and the other isn't.
I do not have loving feelings toward my mother because she was emotionally cold to me, I was the oldest and expected to be an unpaid housekeeper and unpaid babysitter to my four younger siblings, and we were working-class poor when I was young. After I left home when I was 18, my parents' financial situation improved, and the memories and feelings of my youngest sibling (11 years younger than I am) are VERY different than my own. I have often told her that her childhood and teen years were completely different from my own, and my mother even agreed that she was not really ready to be a mom when she had me when she was only 20.
So, in my case, although my sister's and my opinions of our childhood are very different, I think that both recollections and opinions are accurate.
I can relate---My mother treated me like I was her personal slave. Yes, I, too, was an unpaid housekeeper and babysitter to my brothers. At dinner time, if one of my brothers wanted more milk, I was expected to get it for them. They never said "please" or "thank you". One day, I told my mother they could get it for themselves which caused her to let loose a stream of verbal abuse.
Yes, each sibling sees things differently. My surviving brother, I swear he makes up things that didn't happen. He'll ask if I remembered something that he claims happened but no such thing occurred. He was the youngest and my parents didn't raise him properly. They made excuses for him due to him being dyslexic and ADHD. As an adult, he hasn't managed his own life very well.
I, too, don't have loving feelings for my mother. She was clueless. Sometimes she would cry because we didn't have a close relationship. It astounded me that despite her being cruel and abusive to me, she still expected us to be close
Boy, this hits home for me. My wife is a narcissist who drinks a bottle of wine every night, and turns verbally abusive. She finds "something" to get angry/insulted/enraged about most nights which of course is my fault, and then immediately calls her friends to rant about how she does "everything" around the house, and gets no help. She of course calls me lazy.
She's sweet as pie to everyone outside of the house. BTW, she's a SAHM, and I run a company, but I still have to handle all household finances, pay all bills, schedule all vendors/repairmen while she does "errands" every day or lunches with girlfriends. Our kids are older teens, and are rather self-sufficient.
I'm just about done...
Oh my! She sounds just like my mother. I'm sorry you've had to go through all that. My mother would call friends and family to tell them that we were all mean to her and never lifted a finger to help her. That, of course, was a lie.
Yup. My father handled all the household finances, paid all the bills and scheduled repairmen. When we moved to a new location, my mother needed new glasses. My father told her where to go to get them and how to schedule an appt. She refused to go on her own. He had to take time off work to take her there---and, yes, she had her own car.
When she told me she couldn't wait for me to get my drivers license so I could do all her grocery shopping...guess what? I told my father that I wasn't going to learn and that she could do her own shopping. My husband said that was passive aggressive when I told him about it. I said to him what else did I have any control over when it came to my life? It was all I had.
I don't blame you when you say you're just about done. Don't let her manipulate you into staying. Watch the money. The first time my parents separated, it was my father who told her he wanted a divorce. As soon as she could, she cleaned out their joint account. She couldn't fathom why he wanted to divorce her. The way she saw it, she spoiled him rotten! I told her he was tired of all the yelling. She refused to believe it. He came back to her because he said he couldn't afford to divorce her. I say he could have found a way to do it.
Sorry you had to go through that, OP. In terms of where your father stands in all of this, I think it's very complicated. You say that your father should have left your mother and taken custody of you (perhaps he very well should have). But I wonder if your father did that at first sight of abuse, would you and your brother have grown up to hate him for depriving you of a mother? Somewhat of a rhetorical question, but something to think on all the same IMO, especially if you would not have been old enough to understand why your father would/could have left.
Yes, total strangers. Our windows were open year round. Our townhouse community was small. Her voice carried. I would be on my way home, about a block away, and someone would tell me "Your mother is yelling again." How I wished I had someplace else where I could go.
Just because this never happened to you or anyone you knew, doesn't mean it never happens at all.
I don't know what else to tell you. My brothers and I were glad that no one we went to school with lived nearby. It was humiliating enough without that aspect which would have made it even worse for us.
Got it now?
Why do you think such a thing is implausible?
Back then, it was a widely-held belief that one didn't meddle in the affairs of other families, even for close relatives. The family was sacrosanct. Times have changed tremendously since then. Probably the 70's were when mores in that regard began to change, but they didn't change overnight.
I was talking with my brother, who at this point is my sole surviving sibling. Our mother, who passed 25 years ago, was an abusive alcoholic and a malignant narcissist. She was verbally, emotionally and sometimes physically abusive person. None of us was left unscathed. However, as the oldest and only daughter, I took the brunt of her abuse. Meanwhile, our father never confronted her about her behavior. Rather, when we kids would try to defend ourselves when she was verbally abusive, he would pull us aside and tell us not to argue with her. He said when we argued with her, he caught h*ll for it later on. Instead, we were told to ignore her (as if we could do that).
As I got older, I realized that his behavior was just as bad as hers. He enabled her to the point where no one was allowed to confront her on her drinking. No matter how horrible the things she said and did to us kids, he would never speak up. For example, as a teen, she made a salad and ordered me to add olives to it. The only ones I saw in the fridge were green olives. I put some on top. She saw it and went into a rage, then said she was going to get the dog chain and beat me. My father was nearby and didn't say a word or even attempt to intervene. If I hadn't grabbed the chain from her, she would have beat me.
Well...when my brother and I talked, he told me that he found an old photo of our mother and put it up on FB. I hadn't checked FB yet that day. I said to him "I don't miss her at all." That shocked him. Then I pointed out that our father was just as bad for not defending us in any way. BTW, along with the photo of our mother, he left a mushy note calling her "my dear mother".
He then argued with me and claimed that our father was defending us by staying married to her. Plus he thought it was his way of protecting us. I told him "no". If he wanted to protect us, he would have left her and gotten custody of us kids.
My brother as of late, has been watching YouTube videos about narcissists. He said you can't ever escape them. Also, he said he saw videos of men who stayed with their narcissist because of the kids.
When I was in high school, I told a teacher what was going on in our house. Where we were living at the time, when my mother was drunk and screaming at us, crowds would gather outside the house to listen to her.
My mother was very manipulative. People who didn't live with her thought she was so nice. She told people that we never helped her around the house and we were all mean to her. Her friends bought it all. They would talk to me and ask me why I didn't help my mother. When I would tell them that I did help (I did most of her housework), they would tell me it wasn't enough.
So...I told my brother that if I had told a teacher today what was going on in our home, they would have reported it to CPS. My brother refused to believe that.
Long story and thanks for reading.
My question is --- Do you think my brother's take was the correct one where he said by allowing our mother to abuse us all, our father was protecting us? Or do you think my take on this was that he was enabling her by allowing her to abuse us is correct?
Send this post to your brother. Or, post it up on his fb photo page. That'll help him leave the island of denial.
First off BOS2IAD, i am sorry to read you lived in such a bad situation. As hard as it is/was to live in that, it ultimately makes us more empathetic, caring people toward others...
I am the youngest of 5 kids, oldest brother is 10 years ahead of me. As an infant, my mother often passed me over to him for feedings, comfort and other care. I and two brothers closest in age were passed around to various babysitters (and the oldest brother) so mom could live her own life. I've just learned that recently, as my brother waited for mom to be gone before he shared it. I literally have only two baby pictures, and they were both taken with my oldest brother holding me. Now, it makes sense.
For as long as I can remember, my mother was uncaring and unloving toward us and did not want to involve herself with us much. Before I was born, she used my brother to vent and complain about her life and marriage. He was literally just a little kid. No wonder he had such an old soul while he was a teenager.
She's been gone a few years now and when she died, none of us truly cried, it was more like sad relief. She made it very clear that we only existed to take care of her as she aged (and both the oldest and myself legitimately tried). Yet, growing up we were provided with only what we needed, sans love. My dad's work had him away from home often and when he was home he just wanted peace. The two of them fought over his drinking and also money. He died years ago in an accident.
What's done is done. It sucked growing up in that, but what I learned from the bad experiences my mother provided growing up, was how to raise my own kids. They always have known they are valued and loved as the people they are; their activities, feelings and ideas are worthwhile and accepted. They know to put themselves into other peoples' shoes and react accordingly. I also learned to be a careful observer/listener as people will eventually reveal to you who they really are. This has helped to build strong relationships and avoid toxic ones.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth
This is a good point. People forget, or aren't aware, that there was a time when children's testimony was dismissed as unreliable. Children did not have credibility against adults. There was a belief among many adults that children were natural liars and manipulators. Dark ages, indeed.
So there was no escape from a child molester in the family, for example. It was extremely controversial once light began to be shed on abuse in families, and incest and other horrors became part of public discourse. A lot of people weren't comfortable with the growing media coverage of such taboo topics, and the acknowledgement that all was not rosy in American families. Fortunately for the child victims, that has changed.
Exactly. Very fortunate, that that has changed.
It used to be that girls were even blamed, in gossip, for being victims of incest. And you certainly didn't talk about it, in polite society.
There was a girl in my 3rd grade class who stole something insignificant from another student. A pencil or something. It was discovered, and her mother burned her with an iron on her arm. We all saw it, the teacher saw it, and we all had great pity for her and I know the teacher was so shocked and saddened, but nothing ever was done about it that I knew. She and her sister also wore the same dress, Monday-Friday for that week, so they "didn't make more work for their mother". So sad.
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