I (28f) has always had a pretty dysfunctional relationship with my mother (58f) ..
pretty much my whole childhood ,along with my 4 other (now adult) siblings have been pretty dysfunctional.
My parents got together a year before I was born, got married when I was 9 , and then stayed together until I was around 16 .
During this time period, they split up every 1-2 years and then would get back together. We had to move houses, change jobs, move schools.. everything.. every 1-2 years. It was turbulent as a child and it was always my mom’s doing.
She would threaten to leave because of something my dad was doing or wasn’t doing per her standards, and then he would fail her expectations and she would dip ,and then my father would attempt to win her back and so on.
When I was 14 my parents purchased what we thought was going to be our forever home.
It was a beautiful big farmhouse with a basement in old town Florida. A true gem .
It was being foreclosed on and so my parents got it for a really cheap contract. My father at the time had his own landscaping business ,with my siblings and cousins as groundsmen and general employees. My mother was going to dental school and living off financial aide. Life was pretty okay.
Until my mother reconnected with an old co-worker from 8 years prior and they developed romantic feelings behind my father’s back. My mother doesn’t realize I knew of this tidbit.
They secretly canoodled and spoke on the phone for a year and my dad caught her multiple times until I think it affected him mentally. He stopped going on leads, he stopped booking jobs, he stopped paying his employees, and just overall kind of seemed like he gave up. I could see this as a 14 year old bystander and so I KNOW she saw this.
We weren’t getting a lot of money flowed into the household. We ended up being a couple months behind on rent .. or whatever payments was agreed to in contract.
The plan was to pay off rent every month until the house was put up for auction and then the money we paid would be pulled from escrow and would go towards what we would bid on the house .
I’m not entirely sure how it was agreed upon, but my father didn’t have money to put down for 3 months.
My mom kept telling him that if we lost this house ,that this would be it. She was gone for good.
My mom got her income tax in month 4 and decided to get a one bedroom apartment across town and paid for 8 months rent on it in advance.
She left all of us in this house and lived by herself . A month after that the house was bought back from the bank and we were police escorted from the home and we lost everything. My mom moved in her old coworker and they’re still together to this day.
Fast forward 15 years later and she STILL brings up how she’ll never forgive my father for losing that house and ruining her whole life. She constantly brings up every fault my father always had through their whole relationship.
Every time she speaks about the short comings in our childhood ,she blames him.
She spoke to me on the phone yesterday and mentioned it and I just snapped..
I told her that she can’t blame everything that went wrong in the last 20 years only on my father, that she played a part in her life too..
Which prompted a 4 hour long tangent of her screaming at me about how she’s a victim and did nothing but he patient with my father. She screamed at me about the only thing she did wrong in that marriage was continue to give my father chances after chances. My father never once asked my mother to change who she was. He never once gave her an ultimatum.
They had vows. Through sickness and health.. through rich and poor..
Am I wrong?
Comments
ESH
Your mother’s affair isn’t a reason for your father to let everything financial fall apart. He didn’t necessarily owe anything to your mother, but he did fail as a father when he let that happen.
You should have hung up on her. She doesn’t seem like the type that will ever be open to hearing the truth of what she’s done to others. I’m sorry that she hurt you, your father, and your family so much. I think it’s time for you to free yourself of her dysfunction. Maybe you could have one last conversation with her face to face and tell her what she did that negatively affected and hurt you. I’m sure she won’t be open and it won’t be received well but you deserve to be heard. Don’t let her continue to take up all the oxygen in your life. I know she’s your Mom but sometimes we have to let them go.
Nobody knows what goes on between two people in a relationship. You might have been there, but there are things parents don’t want their kids to know.
That said, your mother going off about it every chance she gets is insufferable and you don’t have to put up with it. Go LC or NC and enjoy your own life.
NTA but both of your parents seemed to be. Your mother far worse though.
NTA. Your mom is a narcissist, maybe even a sociopath. She’s a professional victim. She was manipulative, played mind games, only cared about herself & let her children be homeless with nowhere to go!!! It wasn’t just dysfunctional, it was sick & twisted. You would be so much better off without her in your life. Don’t keep forcing a relationship either her if you don’t feel like it. I’m sorry, but she’s a terrible mother & human being!
YOU’RE the victim here!!! Please cut her off, she’s never going to change!
So, let me get this straight.. she cheated, caused the family to lose their home, and still plays the victim? My jaw is on the floor. You absolutely weren’t wrong to call her out
What a karmic mother
NTA for your question.
But Y T A to yourself. Anyone who started screaming at me on the phone would get about 1 minute to calm down and then I would hang up. And if they kept calling or texting I would at least temporarily block them.
You don’t deserve any of that.
She is to blame for everything that happened to her, you are the real victim.
NTA
If that was my mom I would have gone no contact years ago. We can’t just excuse bad or downright evil behavior because the person is blood related.
A POS is a POS no matter who they are blood or no blood.
NTA she cheated he from the sound of it fell into such a deep depression he couldn’t work and she bailed for millionth time and blames him for something she ultimately caused. I would consider NC with her.
You are wrong for letting her scream at you for 4 hours. You hang up when people pull that shit.
NTA
She sounds like a self obsessed, spoiled brat that never grew up. That income tax could’ve paid off what they were behind in, but of course she never even once considered herself and equal partner. She decided she was above him and it was solely his job to pay for everything while she sat on her ass cheating on him openly and slowly killing his soul over the course of two decades.
Op, why are you even entertaining this revolting person? She’s a monster and basically ruined your father’s life. She literally thinks she’s more important and deserving than everyone else around her and I would bet money she’s probably screwed you several times already just in agreements you had yourselves.
The writing is on the wall. She’s a failure as a wife, a shitty excuse for a mother and a generally awful person.
4 hours? That’s a freaking marathon. That means you struck deep and true. NTA.
Seriously for all anybody knows every time she dipped she had an affair interest and she used whatever excuse to dip at the time. You know of one time. From the child of a cheating parent. It’s never just one time if the home life is stable enough. Her blaming that specific incident is indicative of when the home life became unstable to her standards.
She broke your dad and is blaming him for everything.
I personally would have said some very very mean things about her because is sounds like she’s earned it. And about myself as a child to see if she affirmed them to maintain her delusional victim status. If she did, I’d go no contact.
I hope your family, less your mom, have now found happiness in your lives.
Sorry I’m having trouble with the part of a house with a basement in Florida 😳 I didn’t know those existed.
4hrs???? You listened to her go off for 4hrs????
Naaaa this is either fake or you loved to be tortured! 7-10 minutes tops before that conversation would’ve been over.
You were wrong letting her go on for four hours. Nobody has to listen to that.
Did you tell her you know about the infidelity? Hearing that from someone who she never expected to know might give she the jolt she needs to see things differently. I would say NTA, your expressing your hurt to someone who doesn’t seem to have gotten a lot of pushback on some serious behaviors
>Which prompted a 4 hour long tangent of her screaming at me about how she’s a victim and did nothing but he patient with my father.
>Am I wrong?
You are wrong for letting her scream at you for 4 hours. You are an adult, you don’t need to put up with that BS. When she starts screaming, hang up on her. Give her a “timeout” – the first time, tell her you don’t want to talk to her for a week. Double it each time, so the next time she pulls that sort of thing it’s 2 weeks, then a month, then 2 months, then 4, then 8, then 16, then 2 years 8 months, then 5 years 4 months, then 10 years 8 months… if she really cares more about whining than about having a daughter, let her have what she wants, you just don’t need to be there.
Also you don’t mention that you mentioned to her that you knew about her cheating. If you haven’t said it, you should. Not “I’m aware of this,” but “don’t give me that ‘this is all his fault’ nonsense, I know you cheated on him, I know you’re the reason he gave up on life, he doesn’t owe you a f—ing house when you’re cheating on him.”
NTA. You may have been a 14 year old and witnessed things from your own perspective, but you still don’t know what really was going on in their marriage.
I would just tell your mom that she abandoned her family and moved in with her affair partner, and regardless of what your dad’s situation was with his own mental health and ability to hold it all together, she isn’t blameless, nor is she a victim.
And I wouldn’t let someone scream at me for four hours.
STOP ANSWERING HER CALLS!!!
4 hours ranting? Yeah that happened.
you’re a jerk to yourself for not hanging up on your Mother the moment she started screaming at you. Jfc, have some self respect.
NTA for calling her out; long overdue.
Nta your mom let you down I say just stop responding or talking to her since she doesn’t want to listen to her kids she dragged into this world.
NTA, your Mother will never accept her part in anything she did or what happened. She wants someone to blame and it will never be herself. You are better off going low or no contact with her than expecting her to change…
Sometimes the “fault” in a relationship also falls on the person who is not behaving badly staying in the relationship. It sounds like by going NC you are making a positive move forward. If it’s a big step.