Cousin disrespected wishes, put my family in terrible position

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We've come within a hair's breath of filing for a restraining order against my estranged mother, who has stalked us in person and on line (and gone into our house when we weren't there, lying to our contractor to get his key while he was out -- not his fault).

We decided to go on vacation with all of my cousins. As a condition of our going, I told all of the cousins they could not let her know I would attend. It's a small beach town and even without our address, she could find us because there's only one main commercial strip and one public beach. Based on her past behavior, it is completely possible she'd drive to that town and troll the main drag and beach until she finds us. That would be unacceptable-- she's a psychopath and it's been a rough road for all of us.

Only one cousin even speaks to her. It's strained my relationship with her but I've made peace with the fact that she doesn't believe what I say - probably because my mother gives her gifts.

Anyway, vacation is two weeks away and cousin lets me know my mother knows the town and dates, but not the address. She does not apologize and actually gaslights me for telling her she is at fault for defying my wishes.

Now we simply can't go. This was the only vacation we could afford. It would be unfair to make the other cousins pay for our share. Now my kid won't have a vacation and neither will we.

There's nothing to be done, and I'll probably get slammed here by people who can't believe there are mothers who stalk or that this isn't somehow my fault.

At this point I just have to give up on having a family vacation with anyone and I've got to drop this cousin. If she can't honor an explicit promise not to tell my mother, she isn't someone I can safely have in my life.

Send an email or PM to all of the cousins:
Sorry, folks. My one condition on going was that my mother not be told that I would be joining the vacation. Unfortunately, Larla told my mother that we would be going to the beach with everyone and since my mother has been stalking us and broken into our home, we now have to back out of the vacation to avoid her. We're sorry we have to back out and upset we'll lose our vacation, but you'll have to work with Larla to cover our portion of the rentals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Send an email or PM to all of the cousins:
Sorry, folks. My one condition on going was that my mother not be told that I would be joining the vacation. Unfortunately, Larla told my mother that we would be going to the beach with everyone and since my mother has been stalking us and broken into our home, we now have to back out of the vacation to avoid her. We're sorry we have to back out and upset we'll lose our vacation, but you'll have to work with Larla to cover our portion of the rentals.

I forgot. You should then use the funds you would have used to go to the beach to go somewhere else. If you can't afford somewhere else, then have a staycation. Take the time of and go down to the Smithsonian or go up and visit some places in Baltimore that you normally never get to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm just wondering how you expected the cousin to lie to your mom, not tell her where they are for a week, etc.

Maybe because I'm in an estranged family situation myself, but I'm not going to lie to one family member because someone else asks me to.

Obviously she should have told you (like I do), "no, I can't keep my vacation a secret. I talk to Aunt Jenni a lot, and we share a lot of pictures, I'm just not comfortable lying about my whereabouts for a week and having the kids lie too. I'm sorry"

If they are FB friends and have kids that talk too, and hang out, it's really not likely without lying. I always ask in small talk "so are you going anywhere this summer?" Or "have you been to the beach", and from my perspective just wouldn't be able to lie like that.

I'm sorry OP, it sounds like you can't hang out with this group if it needs to be secret.
You have my empathy!

If the cousin didn't want to lie she shouldn't have agreed to the condition and the OP could have backed out before she got in a position where she'd lose money.

[Anonymous]

OP why havent you gone an applied for the protective order?

[Anonymous]

Sounds like your mother is like mine who suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder. Nobody can understand what you are going through other than people who have seen it first hand. I'm sorry about your vacation but you shouldn't risk the damage that will be caused by seeing her. I know what this is like and its devastating. I'm sure its easy to ignore the people who are critical since you know that they have no remote clue about what you are dealing with . Again, I'm sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't care how crazy your mother is, she gave you life and you apparently can't forgive her for whatever she has supposedly done wrong. I think it's more painful for a mother to not be able to see her kids than for you to miss out on a vacation.

+1000 We are supposed to honor our parents, after all she obviously was good enough to give birth to you and keep you alive

I call troll on both of these posts! These two posts are just too unbelievable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't care how crazy your mother is, she gave you life and you apparently can't forgive her for whatever she has supposedly done wrong. I think it's more painful for a mother to not be able to see her kids than for you to miss out on a vacation.

+1000 We are supposed to honor our parents, after all she obviously was good enough to give birth to you and keep you alive

Giving birth to a person is not carte blanche to attack, harass, and mistreat them as long as you both shall live. Abusive parents don't get a pass just because they are parents.

Agree with this 100%. OP - you also have my sympathy.

If I were in your shoes, I would email the whole group and call out the cousin who ruined things for everyone. You might be surprised and find out that you won't be only one impacted. Maybe you guys can even move your accommodations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't care how crazy your mother is, she gave you life and you apparently can't forgive her for whatever she has supposedly done wrong. I think it's more painful for a mother to not be able to see her kids than for you to miss out on a vacation.

+1000 We are supposed to honor our parents, after all she obviously was good enough to give birth to you and keep you alive

You have no idea whether this parent worked hard to keep her DD alive or did all she could to try to kill her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't care how crazy your mother is, she gave you life and you apparently can't forgive her for whatever she has supposedly done wrong. I think it's more painful for a mother to not be able to see her kids than for you to miss out on a vacation.

+1000 We are supposed to honor our parents, after all she obviously was good enough to give birth to you and keep you alive

Giving birth to a person is not carte blanche to attack, harass, and mistreat them as long as you both shall live. Abusive parents don't get a pass just because they are parents.

+1. I think some people believe you should honor your mother no matter what. Doesn't matter what kind or level of abuse they inflicted. I cannot understand this line of thinking. Wish someone could explain it so I can understand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't care how crazy your mother is, she gave you life and you apparently can't forgive her for whatever she has supposedly done wrong. I think it's more painful for a mother to not be able to see her kids than for you to miss out on a vacation.

+1000 We are supposed to honor our parents, after all she obviously was good enough to give birth to you and keep you alive

Giving birth to a person is not carte blanche to attack, harass, and mistreat them as long as you both shall live. Abusive parents don't get a pass just because they are parents.

Agree with this 100%. OP - you also have my sympathy.

If I were in your shoes, I would email the whole group and call out the cousin who ruined things for everyone. You might be surprised and find out that you won't be only one impacted. Maybe you guys can even move your accommodations.

This. Your other family members need to know in case they need to bail as well--and can not trust your tattletale cousin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Send an email or PM to all of the cousins:
Sorry, folks. My one condition on going was that my mother not be told that I would be joining the vacation. Unfortunately, Larla told my mother that we would be going to the beach with everyone and since my mother has been stalking us and broken into our home, we now have to back out of the vacation to avoid her. We're sorry we have to back out and upset we'll lose our vacation, but you'll have to work with Larla to cover our portion of the rentals.

I think this is perfect. Place blame where blame belongs while helping cousins understand the severity of your mother's behavior. maybe emphasize that you don't want to ruin their vacation and upset their children should there be a confrontation.

And by all means get the protective order!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't care how crazy your mother is, she gave you life and you apparently can't forgive her for whatever she has supposedly done wrong. I think it's more painful for a mother to not be able to see her kids than for you to miss out on a vacation.

+1000 We are supposed to honor our parents, after all she obviously was good enough to give birth to you and keep you alive

Giving birth to a person is not carte blanche to attack, harass, and mistreat them as long as you both shall live. Abusive parents don't get a pass just because they are parents.

+1. I think some people believe you should honor your mother no matter what. Doesn't matter what kind or level of abuse they inflicted. I cannot understand this line of thinking. Wish someone could explain it so I can understand.

They're part of the abuse dynamic and don't understand healthy relationships. The saddest part is that they're teaching their own kids that abuse is acceptable from family members, that it's not a big deal.

[Anonymous]

OP I am sorry you are going through this. We have had similar issues with family and come close to restraining orders. Some people can be horribly codependent and it gets toxic enough that they just cant see straight and will always put you in harms way....Just as an fyi - you can get a temp restraining order very easily by having a police officer to your house and describing the situation that makes you feel threatened... they will take a report and issue the temp order. Your mom will then be served and if she comes within a certain range of you will be arrested. There is a court date set within the month where you will need to get the permanent order by providing more concrete evidence and your Mom would have an opportunity to defend herself. I know this because I helped someone else do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We've come within a hair's breath of filing for a restraining order against my estranged mother, who has stalked us in person and on line (and gone into our house when we weren't there, lying to our contractor to get his key while he was out -- not his fault).

We decided to go on vacation with all of my cousins. As a condition of our going, I told all of the cousins they could not let her know I would attend. It's a small beach town and even without our address, she could find us because there's only one main commercial strip and one public beach. Based on her past behavior, it is completely possible she'd drive to that town and troll the main drag and beach until she finds us. That would be unacceptable-- she's a psychopath and it's been a rough road for all of us.

Only one cousin even speaks to her. It's strained my relationship with her but I've made peace with the fact that she doesn't believe what I say - probably because my mother gives her gifts.

Anyway, vacation is two weeks away and cousin lets me know my mother knows the town and dates, but not the address. She does not apologize and actually gaslights me for telling her she is at fault for defying my wishes.

Now we simply can't go. This was the only vacation we could afford. It would be unfair to make the other cousins pay for our share. Now my kid won't have a vacation and neither will we.

There's nothing to be done, and I'll probably get slammed here by people who can't believe there are mothers who stalk or that this isn't somehow my fault.

At this point I just have to give up on having a family vacation with anyone and I've got to drop this cousin. If she can't honor an explicit promise not to tell my mother, she isn't someone I can safely have in my life.

Send an email or PM to all of the cousins:
Sorry, folks. My one condition on going was that my mother not be told that I would be joining the vacation. Unfortunately, Larla told my mother that we would be going to the beach with everyone and since my mother has been stalking us and broken into our home, we now have to back out of the vacation to avoid her. We're sorry we have to back out and upset we'll lose our vacation, but you'll have to work with Larla to cover our portion of the rentals.

This x 100. Stress that the safety of your family has been compromised b/c of cousin's disclosure. Do not offer to pay your portion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't care how crazy your mother is, she gave you life and you apparently can't forgive her for whatever she has supposedly done wrong. I think it's more painful for a mother to not be able to see her kids than for you to miss out on a vacation.

+1000 We are supposed to honor our parents, after all she obviously was good enough to give birth to you and keep you alive

All animals procreate. And most animals are better parents than some humans.