A relative died and I’m learning uncomfortable things about my mom

[Anonymous]

My mom has always been a control freak who has to micromanage everything, including relationships between relatives. Recently, she’s had a lot of age-related physical and cognitive issues so I had to assist her in dealing with logistics when a relative passed away. In talking with other relatives, I learned that people have tried to reach me for close to 30 years, but my mother wouldn’t give them my contact info. She always put across to me that they were disinterested in us when I asked for contact info for wedding invitations, birth announcements, or Christmas cards. I am bewildered and hurting tonight. Family is everything to me. I lost most of these relatives as a young teen when my family moved. Hearing people cry with joy on the phone that we are reunited is amazing, but I can’t believe my mom did this to me. And she’s not well enough for me to confront her. Plus, a couple people have already asked why my mom kept barriers between us. She stayed in contact with these relatives for three decades, but made me think they didn’t want anything to do with me. I didn’t even reach out to them on social media because she made me think they had rejected us when I was a teen. WWYD? Confront your mom? Tell people the truth? Ask them to just let it go and we all move forward? My head is spinning.

[Anonymous]

I would just say that your mom never provided their contact information but you are so happy to have it now. And then schedule time to go and spend time with these relatives.

[Anonymous]

Oh OP. You might need therapy to deal with this revelation. My mother did something similar, except I saw it happening over the years, and she never completely cut off contact with relatives. They would invite me, and she would say no on my behalf. She has a chronic illness, and used her handicap to guilt me out of seeing my friends or having family get-togethers.

It backfired, though, because as soon as I could get a grad school stipend, I hopped the pond and came to the US! I don't know if she ever realized that forced social isolation made her child build an entirely new life on a different continent.

Enjoy the reunions.

[Anonymous]

Could be her trying to protect you from something like physical or sexual abuse. Or she could just be angry at them and wanted to prevent them from seeing you. Could be a lot of things.

[Anonymous]

You don’t know the full story. Maybe they aren’t telling the truth. Maybe your mom has a justification for this.

I would proceed with caution. Try not to be angry with your mom since you don’t know what really happened. If you want to have relationships with these people, move slowly and be careful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Could be her trying to protect you from something like physical or sexual abuse. Or she could just be angry at them and wanted to prevent them from seeing you. Could be a lot of things.

This. My aunt had this same experience. She got really close with those relatives and over time she figured out exactly why her mom wanted nothing to do with them. It's really hard to know who the nut is. Your mom may have been hardened by things they did and may seem paranoid, but she may have been protecting you. It took a friend of mine a long time to come to terms with the fact her favorite uncle was grooming her and her sister and she was just the lucky one because he never got her alone. She would not believe her sister-the craxy one. Her sister was the crazy one because she endured years of sexual abuse from everyone's favorite, charming and hilarious uncle.

[Anonymous]

Go easy Op. Your Mom might have been wrong but these people are, mostly, strangers to you. They are related to you. That doesn't tell you enough, not enough you need to know. So NO big dramatics. Become acquainted with them. Get to know them just as you would any other near-stranger. When the relationship actually develops it will be genuine but you need to allow yourself "an out" if they aren't all you are imagining them to be.

Your Mom was wrong BUT that doesn't mean they are right - it could be that the relationship is not right for you. It's possible.

[Anonymous]

My mom is estranged from her family. She never wanted us to know the real reasons for the estrangement- terrible things she did to her family. She told us a bunch of lies so we would hate her family and not contact them. I have been in contact with my aunts through social media. I know the truth. It’s sad she could be so evil.

[Anonymous]

I agree w/ everyone who is saying to go slowly and cautiously and not make any big decisions/judgments re your mother for a while.

I don't agree w/ how she handled this (I let my kids know why there are certain relatives we either don't see or with whom I very tightly control contact) but I can imagine scenarios where she was doing what she thought best for you.

Certainly puts you in a really upsetting position right now though. Family secrets are really really hard in ways people often don't anticipate when creating them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Could be her trying to protect you from something like physical or sexual abuse. Or she could just be angry at them and wanted to prevent them from seeing you. Could be a lot of things.

+1. She could have been protecting you. She could also have been manipulating you. Hard to know from the outside.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don’t know the full story. Maybe they aren’t telling the truth. Maybe your mom has a justification for this.

I would proceed with caution. Try not to be angry with your mom since you don’t know what really happened. If you want to have relationships with these people, move slowly and be careful.

+1, they are telling you a very convenient story that makes your mom a total villain.

One thing I've learned about family is that it is very rare for a family to have one very dysfunctional, terrible person and for everyone else to be very functional and wonderful. Instead, families have existing dysfunction that impacts everyone in different ways and can produce a wide variety of maladaptive behaviors, some of which combine to create more dysfunction and conflict.

You have to stay empathetic because these behaviors can often be traced to childhood hurts (including neglect or abuse) and the person may be trying to protect or heal themselves but never got the tools to do it correctly. This could apply to your mom OR your relatives in this situation. Something is not quite right in her family but you don't know what it is. I feel confident that it's not that your mom is just uniquely and randomly terrible while everyone else is great and has always made correct choices. Like it is 100% not that.

Also, people do weird things with their memories later in life. They will just expunge painful memories, especially memories that are about them doing something harmful. My own parents were quite abusive and neglectful when we were children and they have both just removed these things from their memory. I recently heard my mother say that she was so grateful that they never hit us when we were kids "even though that's what a lot of people did back then." But they did hit us, quit often, and I've even had conversations with my mom where she has expressed regret for it or tried to justify it. But as she gets older she's just settled into "it didn't happen." I think this is pretty common with older people who just want to think of themselves as good people and not feel bad as they approach death.

[Anonymous]

This OP. Go slow, there is usually not just *one* dysfunctional person in a family, it's usually the whole family. I speak from experience.

[Anonymous]

OP, echoing everyone else to say please go slow and don't jump to immediate assumptions. This is unusual and has to have a bigger story behind it than just "I don't want my daughter to talk to any of the family and I want to control everyone she talks to." It may be that simple, or there may be a reason for the cut-off and hyper control. You could start expanding out to include those folks but please do so carefully, and don't start bashing your mom and completely taking their word for everything since you may not be hearing all the details.

[Anonymous]

I appreciate everyone’s advice.

I’m still confounded. The long lost relatives haven’t said anything bad about my mom only that they whenever they spoke with her, they asked for contact with me but she always turned them down. This went on for 25 years after I became an adult so I doubt it was about protecting me. In contrast, she constantly told me that they didn’t care about us and when I asked for their contact info, told me they wouldn’t welcome contact. Another piece of the mystery is that I had been abused by the other side of the family but my mother forced contact with the abuser’s wife on holidays and even my birthday for the rest of my years as a minor. She tried to force contact after I turned 18, but I refused. This was decades ago and she still brings up the time I refused to catch three buses to go visit my abuser’s wife on Christmas Day. When I had my oldest DC, my mother took DC for a visit to the abuser’s wife twice without my permission. I really don’t think cutting off the other branch of the family tree was to keep me safe.

DH has weighed in that my mother tries to mediate all of my relationships, but she does this to other people as well. Mainly her brother and sister. But also her sister and her nephew, whom my mom helped raise. She tried to play intermediary between them for years. Her siblings have joked about it, but there have also been misunderstandings she causes because she puts herself in the middle. I don’t think she has a sinister intent with them, just that she thinks she knows best how and when people should interact. I guess that extends to who should interact. She is not happy that I am in contact with the relatives I was involuntarily estranged from. I guess I just can’t talk about it at all with her.

[Anonymous]

OP your mother is a narcissist. Maybe a covert narcissist, which is harder to see but it’s always hard for children to see the narcissistic parent because much of the agenda is to break the child down and have her believe she is unworthy of good things like the attention of loving relatives who might interfere with her agenda of using her daughter for narcissistic supply.

I’m sorry your mother did this to you, and sorry that you won’t even be able to confront her about it but honestly I promise you - narcissists never admit they are wrong and will gaslight and lie and try to deflect blame to others so a confrontation is almost never productive.

I’m glad you have the opportunity to reconnect with loved ones in your extended family.