I don’t think that is good.
She calls her mother, who basically blows her off. Instead of her expressing anger, disappointment, resentment, or any number of other negative reactions, she is cheerful?
No, this is just not right. This girl does not really see that what her mother did to her is wrong either. The mom gets another free pass. It sounds like the only only reason she is saying anything at all to the mom is because the OP is so offended, not because **she ** is offended. Remember, initially, she was offended that he was offended.
There are different ways to cope with a parent like this. One is to interpret them differently than a normal person would. Sometimes, you have seen so much from one person that you just let it roll off of you. Some of the children may have learned the “you have to laugh, or you’ll cry” strategy. It isn’t as if walking out was an option when they were kids.
Other people seem to know your other posts, whereas I’m not familiar with them, so perhaps I am missing some history. But as I read this post, I keep coming back to the fact that children tend to grow up to be like their parents. Obviously not carbon copies, and obviously there are exceptions. But it is the general rule from which exceptions vary. I have seen that happen in various ways in my own life. I grew up watching my own parents do or say things that I think they shouldn’t, and even into adulthood, I always maintained that it was wrong. And yet, multiple times I have found myself doing/saying the same things. The fact is that it is hard to abandon what we have been taught for all of our lives, even when we know we should. And by taught, I mean taught by example. When you recognize something as wrong, and serious, you are more likely to make every effort (and it might take a lot of effort) not to be that way yourself. If you are always excusing the bad behavior and are not all that critical of the character flaws, you might be more likely to slip into those behavior patterns yourself someday. So my question to you is: has your girlfriend shown evidence, and has she made you confident that it is important to her not to have these same faults and not to be like that herself? Because if she grew up in that environment, and if she is still not that bothered by it, I would be concerned about her own character - you can avoid her parents, but you won’t be able to avoid your wife, and I’m sure you want to have children grow up with parents who are loving and not toxic to them. Just another angle to consider. Are you looking into your future with her, when you look at her parents?
Children do not necessarily grow up to be like their parents, but they usually do grow up to reflect the soil they grew up in. In my experience, the children in a family with a out-of-bounds parent do not all grow up to take on the same traits. One or two will do that, but the others will grow up with some coping mechanism as a result of the treatment. That might show up with being overly anxious to please, or else taking great pains to cover up bad behavior because of what other people will think because their parents never did, or else having an astonishing capacity to ignore bullies and the consequences they deal out for non-compliance, or else just not worrying one bit about people getting upset about anything.
I would guess that this girlfriend is on board with the “gallows humor, make a joke of it and let it pass” strategy. She needs to understand that this only works when you only have yourself to worry about. A woman who doesn’t enforce consequences when her mother abuses her boyfriend is not likely to enforce consequences when her mother does the same to her children or when other people inflict similar abuse on her family. It is the “what rain? we’re not made of sugar” defense.
Remember, she grew up not being able to defend herself from this directly. She couldn’t walk out. That wasn’t an option. She might have found, however, that her mother didn’t pick her as a target when she neither fought back nor ran. She may have found that if she didn’t give a reaction she wasn’t a very satisfying target for a drama queen. It would have made the dramas aimed at her shorter and less intense. That meant, however, she had to learn to accept the drama (abuse is what they call it at other people’s houses) being visited on someone else, provided it wasn’t aimed at her.
I’d suggest the boyfriend draw a line in the sand. Either her mother stop being nasty towards him, or he leaves. Period. Otherwise, he can explain, he can look forward to having her do the same to his children, and he’s not going to allow that. To be frank, he also needs a wife to look towards his welfare. She doesn’t have to slay the dragon, but she does need to keep others safe from it.
It is good that the girlfriend made the phone call, but I’m concerned that she’s made this one weak effort under the “I can tell you what she’ll do” rationalization. When Mom does what is predicted, that is proof that the confrontation wasn’t worthwhile. The acid test is whether the daughter will respond appropriately to her mothers totally inappropriate choices. Many bad answers, a few acceptable ones, and no really good one that solves all the problems in one fell swoop. Press for success, but give her a little time to get there.
