How to handle estrangement from my mother when she sends cards to my children?

[Listener]

I just wanted to clarify something about my opinion. The person who started this post did not indicate that there was anything at all toxic about the birthday cards and gift certificates that her mother sent to her children. I assumed that it was just an ordinary card with a gift certificate enclosed.

Naturally, my opinion would be different if a relative was sending hate mail to children, suggesting that they run away. In that case, the parent should open it and read it and determine if giving it to the child would be harmful.

If there is nothing negative or harmful in the gift, the children should simply graciously accept the gift and write Grandma some thank-you notes.

 

[Allegra]

If I where you. I would fight fire with fire. I know this may not be the most catholic advice, but call, or even better write, your mother saying "I refuse to let you into my life or my daughters life because you are an abusive negligent sociopath, and I will not let you ruin my daughters like you ruined me and my sister. Just let it all out. Also, set up strict no-contact boundaries in place, and don’t let her forget why those boundaries are in place. She can not control you anymore. Not talking to her makes her think she won. And continuing to send her these notes will slowly make her see that her abuse does not phase you. Even encourage your sister, if she feels the same, to also start writing. If she replies back, don’t even read it, and let her know that you did so. sometimes this is what it takes for someone to see what

This would only serve to confirm that mom can still get the OP’s goat.

 

[mommamaree]

Listener,
I am painfully aware of the irony of wanting to keep cards or presents from my mother away from my kids, while also wanting my niece to be able to receive cards and gifts from me. It is a genuine struggle for me, and not a game.
I did not throw away any gifts. In fact, today, I discovered a sack full of Christmas presents she had sent for my kids for Christmas that my husband intercepted two days ago. However, the contents of the sack revealed much. My littlest daughter and my son got expensive and age-appropriate gifts. My oldest daughter, the one my mother identifies with me, even as she identifies my niece with her? What did she get? A single pair of footsie pajamas. A fraction of the money spent was used for my oldest. As in, about 1/10 of the per child cost. This is what she does with affection, too. My oldest daughter is criticized openly, and constantly compared to my niece, while my other children are snuggled and loved on in a saccharin sweet fashion. All while my oldest feels rejected and inadequate. It is just like my upbringing. My mom always put me down and built herself up. She makes me cry at EVERY SINGLE VISIT. She is so subtly cruel, and evil even, that in every visit, I end up thinking about suicide or cutting.
This is not normal. It is not healthy. And it is has been ramping up with my oldest daughter. There is simply no way that I or my daughter can handle this emotional abuse. In fact, my husband will not allow visits any longer.
I understand people want to be helpful and encourage me to maintain a moral high ground and be charitable, but I will just at this point have to admit my fragility, and ask to be given the same benefit of a doubt that you ask me to give my abusive mother. I love my mother. It tears my heart to have to cut off contact from her. I gain no pleasure from this arrangement. It is torturous. But I have to heal. And I must always protect my children. Just as I must allow my husband to protect me. Even and especially when I doubt, he maintains absolute certainty that she is a sociopath. His family agrees with him. I will trust their judgement in this situation, because their actions over two decades have shown me how much they love me and want me to feel safe. I never had that in my family of origin.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

I just wanted to clarify something about my opinion. The person who started this post did not indicate that there was anything at all toxic about the birthday cards and gift certificates that her mother sent to her children. I assumed that it was just an ordinary card with a gift certificate enclosed.

Naturally, my opinion would be different if a relative was sending hate mail to children, suggesting that they run away. In that case, the parent should open it and read it and determine if giving it to the child would be harmful.

If there is nothing negative or harmful in the gift, the children should simply graciously accept the gift and write Grandma some thank-you notes.

You honestly can probably never understand. With a sociopath, there is NEVER EVER “just a card” or “just a gift.” There are ALWAYS STRINGS ATTACHED!!! There is a reason they give, it is not out of generosity!! You will PAY for that gift at some point, when they want to call in that investment. It is NOT CLEAN! I am shouting because I am tired of people who think you can just be charitable with people like the OP’s bio-mom. Notice I never call her a mother, because she’s not. She’s a biological mom, that is all. And very very dangerous. The OP’s husband gets it, thank God, and is protecting her and his children. May God richly bless him and his family. I have tried to do the same for my family, and failed in many ways because the illusion of a caring person is so hard to shatter.

Taking a gift from a sociopath is like taking a bomb from a terrorist. It’s going to blow up on you. You don’t know just when. Still think it’s a good idea??

:banghead::banghead::banghead:

 

[ThyKingdomCome]

I would like to take a different approach to the challenges to the OP.

I suggest that the OP doesn’t need more challenges at this point. She has cut off contact with her mother, because of the emotional abuse that her mother has inflicted on her, and is starting to inflict on her children. One of the situations an emotionally abused person finds themselves in, is that of having to defend their feelings to the abuser, and even to other people. Getting to the point where you trust your own feelings, and where you believe yourself worthy of acting on your own needs is very difficult for such a person. Getting to the point where you finally say, “I don’t need to prove myself to you for my feelings to be valid” is a really big deal, and does not come easily. It is so much more than winning an argument, it is believing that you have value, and that you can trust yourself, that your feelings don’t depend on the approval of others, that you’re not crazy, and that you don’t deserve to be abused.

People who continue to try to convince her that her feelings about this situation are wrong, at this point in the conversation (she has already made her decision), are not being helpful. Instead they are perpetuating the situation in which she is being made to question the validity of her feelings, not to trust her judgment, etc… This is exactly the type of situation that she is trying to keep herself and her children safe from by avoiding her mother. (Well, I imagine it is one of the things she needs to avoid) She doesn’t need to prove herself, and she doesn’t need more permission from outside sources to make the decisions that she feels will protect her and her kids’ well being. Which is why she didn’t ask for judgments about her no-contact decision, but just for help in how to implement one aspect of it.

Ok, so you might say that she could be not telling us the whole truth. Ok fine - there is no way to prove her truthfulness. This is the internet - this is how it works. And if that’s the case, then she made that decision, and she is responsible for it. If for some reason we are all being given the wrong impression, then oh well. We haven’t done any harm by answering as though she were being truthful.

But if things really are as she says they are, then we can do harm by thrusting her back into the cycle of having to prove and defend herself for things that are not ours to judge. Let’s stop undermining her attempts to finally protect her and her children from a dangerous relationship.

 

[mommamaree]

Thank you TRJ and ThyKingdomCome.

I know that no one knows me here, other than how I present myself through posting on the forum. But that is the reality of any online communication. There is no way for me to prove that I am a trustworthy and honest person. But I do have my family and friends IRL who know me and they have faith in me and have been both a victim and a witness to this situation. Those are the people whose ability to know the truth are the most important in this situation, and they support me completely (even to the point of wondering how I could manage to absorb so much abuse for so long without going completely insane by now).

For the purposes of this thread, I just needed some ideas on how to deal with the cards, gift cards, and presents that my mother sends. TRJ is absolutely right in that there are never freely-given gifts from people with severe personality disorders. For that matter, no gift can ever be given to a person with ASD or NPD without abuse being thrown at the giver!

So anyway, I have worked through this particular challenge for the time being. My husband and I will handle it on a case-by-case basis, but cards and letters will not be passed on to my children. I sent a Christmas card and some money to my niece through my legally-adoptive stepdad (with whom I have a barely-there relationship at this point, but he is not abusive or cruel). He will handle the gift-giving on my behalf (he is her granddad). He was curious about this new arrangement, and I briefly gave him an explanation (he deserved an explanation of some sort) and he was sorry but not the slightest bit surprised. My relationship with him deteriorated over the course of my adolescence as he became more and more emotionally withdrawn and began to seriously neglect our relationship. But with the treatment that he and I both suffered at the hands of my mother, is it any wonder that he coped so badly. He was likely in survival mode (a dark place I have been many times due to my relationship with that woman). Anyway, it doesn’t mean all is hunky-dory with him now, but at least he gets it and is willing to help me maintain a bit of contact with my niece that does not involve my mother.

Well, that is the update. Thanks everyone for helping me to figure this out. I am very grateful that so many people have offered sympathy and encouragement. I am doing better now than I was a few months ago. It gets easier with each successful baby-step where I make the choice to be sane despite the insanity of a toxic relationship.

 

[the_phoenix]

Hi mommamaree,

Thank you for having the courage to start this thread as well as your other threads. It has been a comfort to see the encouraging words of wisdom that some are posting for you. I’m in a similar situation to you, only I’m a single lady, never married, so I have no family support to fall back on at all when it comes to a husband or children.

And I can definitely vouch for you when it comes to cards and gifts not being as innocent as they might seem when they arrive unopened in their envelopes.

As of this time, I’ve limited family contact to written communication with exceptions being made for phone contact with a couple of young, innocent nieces below the age of reason, and one family emergency (an actual real emergency) where I spoke with a sister and her daughter in order to lend support where I believed (and still believe) it was due … and one brief phone call for Mother’s Day, which fortunately went all right, after prayer and consulting with a friend and asking this friend to pray. Believe me, I pray for my family and look to guidance from the Holy Spirit when it comes to deciding what kind of contact is healthy for me to allow. My decisions are not made lightly.

Based on the above, I sent a few monetary Christmas gifts in the mail with a simple message of “Merry Christmas.” One of the gifts was to my mother … who responded with a monetary gift of her own … and a real doozy of a message in the accompanying Christmas card … a message having nothing at all to do with Christmas, and perhaps it’s best I leave it at that. This message of my mother’s is a clear indicator that she cannot simply let Christmas be Christmas, she feels the need to drag other stuff into it that in an inappropriate way and that just doesn’t belong. It was my decision to allow an exchange of cards, so really I can’t complain about the consequences. Sure an eye-opener though, I don’t recall past her Christmas messages being quite like this. Something more to take to prayer … Things have deteriorated to the point now where this latest card I received provides written confirmation that it’s best for me to love my mom … “bio-mom?” … from a good safe distance and pray.

Wishing you a very Merry and Blessed Christmas,
may Jesus bless you,
may God bless us, every one.

~~ the phoenix

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

It really sounds like you have made huge steps in the last few months.

Have a blessed Christmas and all the best in the New Year.

 

[Allegra]

Listener,
I am painfully aware of the irony of wanting to keep cards or presents from my mother away from my kids, while also wanting my niece to be able to receive cards and gifts from me. It is a genuine struggle for me, and not a game.
I did not throw away any gifts. In fact, today, I discovered a sack full of Christmas presents she had sent for my kids for Christmas that my husband intercepted two days ago. However, the contents of the sack revealed much. My littlest daughter and my son got expensive and age-appropriate gifts. My oldest daughter, the one my mother identifies with me, even as she identifies my niece with her? What did she get? A single pair of footsie pajamas. A fraction of the money spent was used for my oldest. As in, about 1/10 of the per child cost. This is what she does with affection, too. My oldest daughter is criticized openly, and constantly compared to my niece, while my other children are snuggled and loved on in a saccharin sweet fashion. All while my oldest feels rejected and inadequate. It is just like my upbringing. My mom always put me down and built herself up. She makes me cry at EVERY SINGLE VISIT. She is so subtly cruel, and evil even, that in every visit, I end up thinking about suicide or cutting.
This is not normal. It is not healthy. And it is has been ramping up with my oldest daughter. There is simply no way that I or my daughter can handle this emotional abuse. In fact, my husband will not allow visits any longer.
I understand people want to be helpful and encourage me to maintain a moral high ground and be charitable, but I will just at this point have to admit my fragility, and ask to be given the same benefit of a doubt that you ask me to give my abusive mother. I love my mother. It tears my heart to have to cut off contact from her. I gain no pleasure from this arrangement. It is torturous. But I have to heal. And I must always protect my children. Just as I must allow my husband to protect me. Even and especially when I doubt, he maintains absolute certainty that she is a sociopath. His family agrees with him. I will trust their judgement in this situation, because their actions over two decades have shown me how much they love me and want me to feel safe. I never had that in my family of origin.

Can you husband refuse to accept any packages from your mother? Can the post office just send them back unopened?

 

[TheRealJuliane]

Can you husband refuse to accept any packages from your mother? Can the post office just send them back unopened?

Personally, I really like the idea of receiving the “gifts,” and deciding what to do with them, such as donating them to charity. It means that someone benefits, and the manipulations of the sociopath are thwarted.

 

[Allegra]

Personally, I really like the idea of receiving the “gifts,” and deciding what to do with them, such as donating them to charity. It means that someone benefits, and the manipulations of the sociopath are thwarted.

Also a good solution. I only mentioned sending them back since the OP unfortunatly had her blood pressure raised when they were opened and she was the slight toward her oldest daughter. If they were simply sent back, then no one would know what was in them, including any coded meanness.

 

[mommamaree]

Also a good solution. I only mentioned sending them back since the OP unfortunatly had her blood pressure raised when they were opened and she was the slight toward her oldest daughter. If they were simply sent back, then no one would know what was in them, including any coded meanness.

I was actually not really upset about the slight toward my oldest daughter. It was more of a calm and sad recognition that my observations and suspicions are being borne out as I continually am presented with my mother’s choices. My husband and I opened the gifts behind closed doors, without the kids being even slightly aware of our task. The solution we came up with was to quietly lay the new toys out in the playroom, for the kids to discover and claim jointly. We receive so many packages this time of year, mostly from my husband’s family, that it was easy for them to just accept the appearance of new toys. And so my daughters and son all have been sharing the toys without any hurt feelings. The pajamas that were sent will be donated to charity, because they are neither age-appropriate or suitable for the personality of my oldest daughter.

This is a hard situation, but I feel that each baby step that we make, to refuse to play games, to protect our children, to choose to nurture healthy relationships, and to let go of what I cannot change…it has all been very productive and conducive to healing.