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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=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.[/quote]

+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.[/quote]

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