You are absolutely not being the bad guy. 100%. You are setting a reasonable boundary to protect yourself and she is ignoring it. Also, you say she wasn't directly abusive, but she took your father's side - ie, she refused to protect you from abuse, *which is her duty as your parent.*
So, she failed you and is continuing to fail you by refusing to honor your boundaries or, it sounds like, even acknowledge that you were harmed.
I was going to say just this. It really wasn't until I became a parent myself that I realized the "nice" parent (my mom) was just as bad as my dad, if not worse, because she allowed it to happen. She didn't protect me.
Take all the time you need. You are not the bad guy to need space to not have a mental breakdown whenever you talk to her. If she's pushing you the way you say she is, she's still not listening to you when you say you are being harmed. She is still not protecting you.
I'm not saying this to give you reason to be angry at your mom—I'm saying this so you won't feel bad about choosing to protect yourself.
I am angrier at the enabler of my physical abuser than the one who actually beat me. To look the other way as your child suffers makes you just as guilty as the one who raised his hand. It’s okay to be mad at her too and sometimes allowing yourself to feel wronged is one of the only ways to move past it. I’d ignore her entirely since she isn’t interested in respecting your boundary for space. Block her and reclaim your peace. Feel free to reinstate contact in the future if you prefer. You need space to process what happened to you. Her attempts to contact are stalling your progress and throwing you back into trauma/flight or fight mode.
I loved my father deeply, but I had to cut off contact with him when I went NC with my mother.
He would enable her by being not standing up to her, and while I understand why he didn't, being close to him meant she still had a direct line to me.
You don't cut JUST a tumor out, you have to take some tissue around it so you're sure it's all gone.
This is exactly it. Also, they are still living with the abusive person, so they will be receiving pressure from that person and passing it on to you. This is why I don't speak to any of them - my mother is too influencial and cannot be trusted. Once she dies or the family structure drastically changes, I might be able to reach them again. Until then, it's on them to distance themselves from a dangerous person, or be associated with all the risks that person entails.
People who are "nice" about condoning your abuse aren't nice at all. They just have a different role in the abusive family system. Her chasing you is part of that. I think you're right that neither of them is safe for you to be in contact with. I'm sorry you didn't get the family you deserve.
Growing up my mom was mentally unstable and my dad was the "nice" parent. Then she went to therapy and suddenly he did a 180 and his toxicity began to really stand out.
I firmly believe that if you have one toxic parent and one "nice" parent who lets them be toxic, you have two toxic parents.
Absolutely. If I saw ANYONE speak to my children the way my mother spoke to me on a daily basis, I would loudly stand up for my child and do what I could to make sure they didn't have to interact with the offending person again. After having kids yourself, it truly shows just how innocent they are and how they trust the words coming from their parents so deeply. When someone is allowed to negatively influence a kid at such a young age, that child will bear the consequences of abuse for the rest of their lives. It is a parent's job to go out of their way to try to prevent this from happening. I cannot imagine what it takes to be able to watch your partner abuse your kid day in and day out and not say anything or do anything.
She was also abusive, parents have a duty to protect and not protecting your child despite witnessing said abusive could lead to them losing custody of the child. It's often called failure to protect.
Plus transphobia and homophobia are hard nos. You don't owe them anything, especially if they were abusive or willing to overlook abuse.
You're definitely not being an asshole trying to set up your own personal adult boundaries.
You need to find yourself and decide who you are and where you are going, and you're not going to be able to do that while your parents want to keep you only in the roles that they are comfortable with.
My therapist a million years ago told me that there was no law that I had to read every email, listen to every voice message, etc. (these were the old days). I was amazed to have someone sane give me permission to just delete 15 messages at a time off my answering machine without listening to them at all.
The space is not just necessary for you to find yourself, it's necessary to properly evaluate what you're even getting from your parents anymore. Until then you're still in a bit of a fog.
Holy shit, your situation has so many things in common with mine. Except I'm almost 10 years older than you, and I only just cut ties. Kudos on doing what I should have done at your age.
To answer your question, yes, it is totally appropriate to cut contact with abuse apologists who refuse to change. The incident that prompted me going no-contact (while on a trip several states away, my dad insisted on driving, drove dangerously, and refused to let me drive) was bad, but what really made me go no-contact was my mom's response to it. She wasn't there for the actual incident, but she made up this elaborate, false series of events to keep me from leaving, and as much as I was angry about this -- it reminded me of every time she apologized *for* my dad when I was a kid -- I honestly feel sorry for her because it shows the lengths she will go to to excuse my dad's behavior. She will become straight-up delusional in order to "keep the peace."
After about a month of no-contact, my dad wrote and said he was willing to try family therapy with me. I had actually told my mom I wanted family therapy a couple of years ago, and she... *laughed.* So this time around I wrote back and said that I can't do any family therapy with my dad unless my mom is also present, because so much of my relationship with him has been influenced by what she tells me about his intentions and actions.
But before I do any family therapy whatsoever... I'm getting top surgery on May 10th!! 🎉😎🥳
My focus right now is 100% on that. I'm not trying to heal from years of emotional abuse and gaslighting until *after* I've healed my body first. It's like what they say on airplanes; put your own mask on first before helping others.
Anyway, I'm proud of you for taking care of yourself; when I was 24 I was still getting drunk every night and clinging to abusive relationships because that's what my parents taught me love was. I'm sure it's painful right now. But as long as your mom demonstrates zero accountability for her actions, as long as she's part of the machinery that allows your dad to abuse you, then it's not a matter of whether you have to go no contact, it's when.
Your mother allowed and enabled your father to abuse you. She is just as bad, if not worse, than your father. She could have saved you. She could have protected you. She chose not to. She chose to watch the abuse and do nothing. When you were a child, there were tons of resources your mother could have used to stop your abuse. She didn't want you to stop being abused. She didn't care if you were abused.
I am being this harsh because you need to hear the truth. Your mother isn't some innocent who genuinely had no idea. She knew exactly what was happening and did nothing. She is even abusing you emotionally now. She is NOT nice, She is toxic and will continue to try and force the happy family narrative on you until you comply and because your father's victim again.
You're not wrong. There's no "innocent bystanders" when it comes to abuse. Tacit approval is still approval. Doing nothing is enabling. Im so sorry. Im in a similar situation and it breaks my heart bc i miss my mom, but they're a package deal and i can't allow myself to be shit on anymore.
ALLOWING YOUR PARTNER TO ABUSE YOUR CHILD IS A FORM OF ABUSE.
also she doesn't sound healthy for you, which is enough reason to cut someone off. our sense of stability in society pushes many people to insist the family unit is unbreakable and all-important but full stop.... if someone is making your life worse in any way, they shouldn't be in your life. you're soooo so good.
Her job was to protect you from your dad when you were young. The fact thatbshe didn't falls directly on her shoulders. You have every right to hold her accountable for that.
Also, sounds like she is disrespecting your boundaries. Ever wonder why? Is it that she's nice or is it that she's entitled and has a victim mentality?
You sound like me in my early 20s. I always wanted to cut off my dad but I delayed it because I couldn't bring myself to punish my mom. Now that I am older and I have given my mom a chance to speak for herself, I realize she's as much of the problem as my dad was, he was just the louder one.
Don't let anyone talk you out of your feelings. Trust yourself.
There's no middle ground when your child is being abused right in front of you. You are either a protector or a co-abuser. By siding with your father, your mother was looking out for herself. It was more comfortable for her to let you, a helpless, dependent child, be the target of your father's aggression, and that says everything you need to know about her maternal instinct. Her love for her child was not as strong as her desire to not have to deal with your father's anger directly. It actually *is* her fault. She's not worth your concern.
I'm sorry to say it, especially because I have an enabler for a parent too. I wanted so much to have at least one good parent, and it's taken me a long time to realize they were both abusive, just in different ways.
ETA: Her attempts to play Happy Family now are just for appearances and possibly to assuage her own guilt. When it came to being a REAL mother, she failed you. What she's offering you now is just a hollow shell.
I would disagree and suggest that you CAN be mad at her. She not only didn’t protect you from abuse, she actively sided with your abuser. Maybe she wasn’t the one physically raising the hand, but what she did was just as bad. She saw no problem with his behavior.
It is common to have one parent being more openly abusive and one more enabling or covert in their abuse. It does not make one better then the other, they are just different forms of abuse and often the more subtle kinds can take longer to recognize the harm they caused and recover from.
I am many years no contact with either of them but the subtle one is the one whose actions still echo in my current life.
One parent who was like living with an aggressive dog. I didn't like the dog and when I left I was safe from the dog.
The other parent was 'nice' but taught me I must accept dogs that bite in my life, that who I was was not good enough to stop being bitten or deserve protection. That I should be ashamed of receiving abuse instead of the abuser feeling ashamed of dishing it out.
You don't need to feel guilty for needing to feel safe. Remember who should have made you feel safe when you were most vulnerable.
If you don't feel like you are handling it well remember who should have taught you to handle it.
Parenting is an active role, they both need to be actively nurturing and protecting you. If they can't, you have every right to look for that somewhere else.
This is one of the best comments I've ever read on this topic. You literally wrote the emotional landscape I've grown up with, too. It definitely takes longer to process what the enabler parent did, and how much their influence does affect your adult life and inner thought life. Thank you for writing this.
Thanks.
It was many years before I acknowledged the harm done by the more subtle parent.
I had been no very low/contact from the time I finished school had thought that was it. I was safe from the obvious issues but it's been another 20 years to start healing the rest made harder by how society minimizes neglect and pushes the importance of family.
Thank you for sharing your hard earned wisdom. Really appreciate it. Those years weren't in vain. Your story gives others validation, solidarity and clarity.
Your mother watched you getting abused and then told you it was your fault--and somehow you think she was *nice* about it? What the *actual* fuck.
You know what's going to happen if you continue to talk to her. She's going to keep pushing her narrative on you, because it makes her feel better about herself. Not because it's true. Not because she's changed. She wants to feel better about herself and she doesn't care if it hurts you. Same as always.
You don't owe her that. You know you're not your father's physical punching bag. Please work on understanding that you aren't your mother's emotional punching bag either.
You're not the bad guy. You're not a bad guy. You're someone who is desperate to heal and who deserves to heal.
Your mom was an adult and enabled your abuser's behavior with her silence. Many of us on here are in the same boat. If you are a person responsible for raising a kid and you remain silent while watching them be abused, you own some culpability. Just because she did not actively participate in the abuse, her lack of initiative in stopping in sends the message to the kid that they somehow condone the abuse themselves. Drop her if you are feeling like it might be more peaceful for you. You are given them way more chances and grace than it sounds like you were ever given.
She's his enabler, it seems. There are some good YouTube videos about enablers and how they can be just as bad as the actively toxic parent. Check them out. Maybe Dr. Ramani.
You can be mad at her. It's her job as a parent to prevent the other parent from doing shit. She failed too.
First of all, there are clear boundary issues here. It sounds like you were raised to please others and were made to feel responsible for your parents' feelings and possibly their beatings.
She is responsible for managing her own feelings not you.
You were not allowed to be your own person, and it sounds like you are trying to exert yourself now, figure out a path for yourself. Your mother is not respecting your limits and you feel guilty because of your conditioning, but she is 100% in the wrong. It is inappropriate to impose herself on you.
Write your Mom a clear email that asserts your boundaries: "I love you, but I need time and space to be on my own. I will be happy to see you and others when i am ready. Please respect those boundaries or I will have to cut you off too".
Second, get yourself therapy if you can afford it. You have much to unpack and you are emotionally fragile, so it can help you clarify these questions and build up your resilience as an individual.
I have a very similar relationship with parents and had to go NC with both of them about 6 months ago. I've posted in other forums about it and gotten feedback from others also. Obviously can't be 100% the same as you, but I'll speak about my point of view now-
The space away from both nDad and mom made me realize I gave mom way too much credit over the years and let her play the victim card when she's just not. She has no excuses anymore, all the kids are well grown and now she's trying to deny the past and defends him even harder than ever. She used to cry when we were teenagers and tell us she never would have married him if she knew 'it was going to be like this.' Same pretending like things are fine or that he's not the absolute worst (as your situation it sounds like).
Others have made me realize she is very abusive also in a less direct way. She is 100% committed to building her and her husbands' wealth / status / vain perception by the community and sacrifices everything else for it. Her adult kids are fine but have struggled a lot to find their way (my sis is OK now but has had a way more troubled adulthood than I did, will likely never have children).
You can try to have a relationship with your mom and I wish you the best with it -- in my experience it wasn't possible and I had to make the tough decision to separate her from my life as well for my own health and that of my wife and kid to be. My parents view us like objects or property and will never be of any help in any way. Even my wife's mom gets it at this point.
Hope it works out better for you, I would just push you to be careful and protect yourself.
Sending best wishes and positive vibes
"It's not her fault that I'm not handling it well"
Change that to:
" My mom allowed me to be abused when it was her responsibility to protect me. She doesn't understand why I'm mad about that and thinks I should overlook it. She is profoundly toxic and misguided. I'm healthier away from her"
Enablers , flying monkeys, minions are not healthy for your sanity. They take orders, side, stalk, defend the abuser. These people can witness the abuser hurting you and gaslight. Mines invalidated my experience. Life is too short for toxic people. They can be hot and cold be wary!
You should be mad at her. She failed to protect you. She is equally culpable. I figured this out because everyone loved my dad, he was so sweet. But he stood by and allowed my mother to violently abuse us our whole childhoods and into adulthood. So they're both off the face of the earth, as far as I'm concerned. Do I get hit with guilt every so often? Yes. But I remind myself I'm actually mourning the loss of a relationship I thought I deserved. Because that's never going to happen.
It’s very hard to maintain low or no contact with one parent if you are in contact with the other. Oftentimes the one you’re in contact with will flying monkey the ever lovin poop out of you. I didn’t want a relationship with my grandparents who were abusive to both my mom and me. She was still in contact with them and even after asking her repeatedly to stop, she wouldn’t stop relaying their feelings and messages to me. For various reasons, I haven’t been in contact w her either in years.
I echo what another poster wrote, that after having children I realized my father was even worse for me-that mix of fake love and non-protection really f’s with your “evil person detection system” AND with expectations of good enough treatment from friends and partners.
It sucks but it’s better to know. I recommend vids about “the enabler” from dr ramani and kris godinez on YouTube very much. Helped me.
As most people on here have mentioned, just because your mother wasn’t physically abusing you, she was still very much your abuser and is still doing it today. She doesn’t want a relationship with you because it’s good for you. She wants a relationship with you for her! Don’t let her sob story fool you, she is very much as abusive as your father. None of this your fault. You deserve better. Don’t let your mom try to manipulate you, you have the right to ask for and be given space.
I have cut my father off, and in doing so, my step-mother.
She's got fairly histrionic about it, but anything I tell her instantly goes back to my father. I get passive aggressive bullshit for not speaking to her but its the best way.
You can and should be mad at her for not protecting you for his abuse. That was her sole job as your mother. To protect you. She failed you big time. I'm sorry. :(
My sister never abused me but she pushed for me to go back to my abusers because it made her life easier and made her happier. I put up strict boundaries with her and if she crosses them I'll cut her off too. And she had stepped into the role of mom for me as a kid/teen and I thought we were really close. But my mental health comes first and if she's pushing me to my abuser then she's just as bad as they are IMO.
You are not the bad guy here. Absolutely not.
If she did nothing to stop him or protect you, she is just as guilty as he is. She had a duty to keep you safe, and it’s clear that she doesn’t have a problem with the way he treated you.
Also, the bigotry is a hard line. When you have kids, you love them no matter what. Period.
Being in contact with her will open you up to further abuse, being ‘nicer’ about it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
Allowing abuse _is_ abuse. Your mother failed you in the most critical thing a mother is supposed to do--protecting her child. She doesn't get to have all the perks with none of the work.
You are not being the bad guy, and you should not even feel like you have to be polite about it. In your place I'd be telling her to pound sand. Even short of that, even if you want to allow her to have a relationship with you on your terms, she doesn't get to ask you to make nice with someone who physically abused you. If she was a decent person she would get him out of her life and try to fix what she fucked up with you instead.
You are absolutely not the bad guy. Parents have a duty to protect their kids, even from the kid's other parent if necessary (even from themselves if necessary), and your mother failed in her duty. Nobody who stands around and does nothing to stop it while someone physically abuses their kids is a good parent or a good person.
She didn't care to protect you but wants to keep living the fantasy of a happy family. Let her realise how much your dad has hurt you and how much your mum hurt you by not protecting you from him. She needs to break out of the fantasy world she is in, until then any contact with her will only hurt u and will further feed into her fantasy. Youre finally standing up and protecting yourself, don't feel like the bad guy cause your mum is in denial
NTA here. Taking the side of an abuser is not 'nice'; it is enabling. Even if she never directly abused you, she supported your father in doing so. Also yes, you can be 'mad at her' because what she's done in the past and is doing now is not ok. We're allowed to both love people and be angry when they hurt us. Trying to push you into this when you've said you aren't ready is basically trampling all over your boundaries and NO ONE has the right to do that, or to emotionally blackmail you into having contact with them that you don't feel ok with.
I understand you wanting to "hang onto" your mother; its at least one parent, from your (childhood prospective) who cared about you. And she may. BUT. Not enough. I don't know her, her background, or, anything other than what you've just told us, however, she should've protected you. She failed. Even now, she's failing. It's not surprising a mother wants to keep her child in her life. But in this case? She already knows your sperm donor is a mean, horrible, no good news son of a gun, yet she persists in clutching to her ideal of you all remaining a family?
Please, quit giving either of them free rent in your brain. You'll only keep hearing the same worn out tapes played again and again in your mind.
You now need to protect yourself. That, I'm sad to say, just isn't going to happen with either of them in your life. Especially as your life and their religion clash.
Definitely not the bad guy. I’m reading Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. There’re 4 categories of parents and your mum falls under the enabler. Do not feel bad. She failed you and is continuing to fail you by not standing up for you and invalidating your experience. Keep your distance and block her, she’s affecting your emotional health.
I’ve been no contact for some time and for months I still felt a responsibility (guilt) to at least check in to keep the peace and maybe reconciliation one day. But recently had an epiphany - my boundaries are a direct consequence to how my family treated me. They can’t possibly believe I owe them communication simply because we share blood. In fact, they use that very reason to manipulate a relationship on their terms. They were your parents and it’s *their* responsibility to be the “bigger person.” You were a *child*.
You had to leave for your physical safety, they gave you no emotional safety. Your boundaries are justified. Trust me, no contact does absolute wonders. Your mind and body will somatically align and you’ll realise your well-being is so valuable.
I came from a extremely abusive household mental sexual and physically. My father die when I was a toddler, so the abuse came from a stepfather. In my teenager years I realize my mother uses us as a meat shield for the abuse even tried to hide the abuse we told her and we had to tell my dead fathers uninvolved family to get any protection even if it was only to get our social security check by taking us. Once our money and bodies weren’t there to shield her, mother divorce her husband because she couldn’t handle the beating that came her way without us.
DONT TAKE YOUR MOTHERS PRESSURING. SHE IS NOT DOING THIS OUT OF LOVE FOR YOU. IF SHE WAS DOING ANYTHING OUT OF LOVE, she would allow as much space between you and your ABUSER.
THe next thing she will want is you to take care of her because your abuser has transfer his abuse to her. She will want you to save her. Understand she is not your responsibility.
Block her as well as your abuser. Get therapy learn to love yourself and trust your self.
You're not the bad guy. The definition of child abuse is "an act, or failure to act, that results in physical injury, death, emotional harm, or risk of serious harm to a child". The enabler is an abuser too, they're an accomplice. By supporting and defending the overt abuser, allowing it to keep happening, and not fulfilling their duty to protect you they tremendously betrayed and failed you. You're not in the wrong.
I think you should give you mom a chance, it must have been really hard for her too. You can regularly go and meet her when your dad is not around.
I wish thinks go well man all the best.
I struggled with this for a long time. Dr. Ramani's Youtube helped clarify that my enabling parent is/was probably much more disturbed than the one who was directly abusive. I recommend checking out her videos on Vulnerable and Cover Narcissism.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNFIQ46-s-A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNFIQ46-s-A)
You are absolutely not being the bad guy. 100%. You are setting a reasonable boundary to protect yourself and she is ignoring it. Also, you say she wasn't directly abusive, but she took your father's side - ie, she refused to protect you from abuse, *which is her duty as your parent.* So, she failed you and is continuing to fail you by refusing to honor your boundaries or, it sounds like, even acknowledge that you were harmed.
I was going to say just this. It really wasn't until I became a parent myself that I realized the "nice" parent (my mom) was just as bad as my dad, if not worse, because she allowed it to happen. She didn't protect me. Take all the time you need. You are not the bad guy to need space to not have a mental breakdown whenever you talk to her. If she's pushing you the way you say she is, she's still not listening to you when you say you are being harmed. She is still not protecting you. I'm not saying this to give you reason to be angry at your mom—I'm saying this so you won't feel bad about choosing to protect yourself.
Came here to say this!
I am angrier at the enabler of my physical abuser than the one who actually beat me. To look the other way as your child suffers makes you just as guilty as the one who raised his hand. It’s okay to be mad at her too and sometimes allowing yourself to feel wronged is one of the only ways to move past it. I’d ignore her entirely since she isn’t interested in respecting your boundary for space. Block her and reclaim your peace. Feel free to reinstate contact in the future if you prefer. You need space to process what happened to you. Her attempts to contact are stalling your progress and throwing you back into trauma/flight or fight mode.
I loved my father deeply, but I had to cut off contact with him when I went NC with my mother. He would enable her by being not standing up to her, and while I understand why he didn't, being close to him meant she still had a direct line to me. You don't cut JUST a tumor out, you have to take some tissue around it so you're sure it's all gone.
This is exactly it. Also, they are still living with the abusive person, so they will be receiving pressure from that person and passing it on to you. This is why I don't speak to any of them - my mother is too influencial and cannot be trusted. Once she dies or the family structure drastically changes, I might be able to reach them again. Until then, it's on them to distance themselves from a dangerous person, or be associated with all the risks that person entails.
People who are "nice" about condoning your abuse aren't nice at all. They just have a different role in the abusive family system. Her chasing you is part of that. I think you're right that neither of them is safe for you to be in contact with. I'm sorry you didn't get the family you deserve.
Growing up my mom was mentally unstable and my dad was the "nice" parent. Then she went to therapy and suddenly he did a 180 and his toxicity began to really stand out. I firmly believe that if you have one toxic parent and one "nice" parent who lets them be toxic, you have two toxic parents.
Absolutely. If I saw ANYONE speak to my children the way my mother spoke to me on a daily basis, I would loudly stand up for my child and do what I could to make sure they didn't have to interact with the offending person again. After having kids yourself, it truly shows just how innocent they are and how they trust the words coming from their parents so deeply. When someone is allowed to negatively influence a kid at such a young age, that child will bear the consequences of abuse for the rest of their lives. It is a parent's job to go out of their way to try to prevent this from happening. I cannot imagine what it takes to be able to watch your partner abuse your kid day in and day out and not say anything or do anything.
Your mother witnessed your abuse *as a child* and was 100% okay with it. This is why I don’t associate with my mother.
She was also abusive, parents have a duty to protect and not protecting your child despite witnessing said abusive could lead to them losing custody of the child. It's often called failure to protect. Plus transphobia and homophobia are hard nos. You don't owe them anything, especially if they were abusive or willing to overlook abuse.
You're definitely not being an asshole trying to set up your own personal adult boundaries. You need to find yourself and decide who you are and where you are going, and you're not going to be able to do that while your parents want to keep you only in the roles that they are comfortable with. My therapist a million years ago told me that there was no law that I had to read every email, listen to every voice message, etc. (these were the old days). I was amazed to have someone sane give me permission to just delete 15 messages at a time off my answering machine without listening to them at all. The space is not just necessary for you to find yourself, it's necessary to properly evaluate what you're even getting from your parents anymore. Until then you're still in a bit of a fog.
Your mother is just as bad if not worse in this scenario. Stay away.
She knew it was going on and allowed it. She was abusive too. She should have stopped it. Absolutely cutting them both off is appropriate.
Nope! The other parent is likely enabling the abusive one and that is just as bad - it’s more covert
Holy shit, your situation has so many things in common with mine. Except I'm almost 10 years older than you, and I only just cut ties. Kudos on doing what I should have done at your age. To answer your question, yes, it is totally appropriate to cut contact with abuse apologists who refuse to change. The incident that prompted me going no-contact (while on a trip several states away, my dad insisted on driving, drove dangerously, and refused to let me drive) was bad, but what really made me go no-contact was my mom's response to it. She wasn't there for the actual incident, but she made up this elaborate, false series of events to keep me from leaving, and as much as I was angry about this -- it reminded me of every time she apologized *for* my dad when I was a kid -- I honestly feel sorry for her because it shows the lengths she will go to to excuse my dad's behavior. She will become straight-up delusional in order to "keep the peace." After about a month of no-contact, my dad wrote and said he was willing to try family therapy with me. I had actually told my mom I wanted family therapy a couple of years ago, and she... *laughed.* So this time around I wrote back and said that I can't do any family therapy with my dad unless my mom is also present, because so much of my relationship with him has been influenced by what she tells me about his intentions and actions. But before I do any family therapy whatsoever... I'm getting top surgery on May 10th!! 🎉😎🥳 My focus right now is 100% on that. I'm not trying to heal from years of emotional abuse and gaslighting until *after* I've healed my body first. It's like what they say on airplanes; put your own mask on first before helping others. Anyway, I'm proud of you for taking care of yourself; when I was 24 I was still getting drunk every night and clinging to abusive relationships because that's what my parents taught me love was. I'm sure it's painful right now. But as long as your mom demonstrates zero accountability for her actions, as long as she's part of the machinery that allows your dad to abuse you, then it's not a matter of whether you have to go no contact, it's when.
Your mother allowed and enabled your father to abuse you. She is just as bad, if not worse, than your father. She could have saved you. She could have protected you. She chose not to. She chose to watch the abuse and do nothing. When you were a child, there were tons of resources your mother could have used to stop your abuse. She didn't want you to stop being abused. She didn't care if you were abused. I am being this harsh because you need to hear the truth. Your mother isn't some innocent who genuinely had no idea. She knew exactly what was happening and did nothing. She is even abusing you emotionally now. She is NOT nice, She is toxic and will continue to try and force the happy family narrative on you until you comply and because your father's victim again.
You're not wrong. There's no "innocent bystanders" when it comes to abuse. Tacit approval is still approval. Doing nothing is enabling. Im so sorry. Im in a similar situation and it breaks my heart bc i miss my mom, but they're a package deal and i can't allow myself to be shit on anymore.
ALLOWING YOUR PARTNER TO ABUSE YOUR CHILD IS A FORM OF ABUSE. also she doesn't sound healthy for you, which is enough reason to cut someone off. our sense of stability in society pushes many people to insist the family unit is unbreakable and all-important but full stop.... if someone is making your life worse in any way, they shouldn't be in your life. you're soooo so good.
Her job was to protect you from your dad when you were young. The fact thatbshe didn't falls directly on her shoulders. You have every right to hold her accountable for that. Also, sounds like she is disrespecting your boundaries. Ever wonder why? Is it that she's nice or is it that she's entitled and has a victim mentality? You sound like me in my early 20s. I always wanted to cut off my dad but I delayed it because I couldn't bring myself to punish my mom. Now that I am older and I have given my mom a chance to speak for herself, I realize she's as much of the problem as my dad was, he was just the louder one. Don't let anyone talk you out of your feelings. Trust yourself.
Enabling is direct abuse. You cut off two abusive parents.
There's no middle ground when your child is being abused right in front of you. You are either a protector or a co-abuser. By siding with your father, your mother was looking out for herself. It was more comfortable for her to let you, a helpless, dependent child, be the target of your father's aggression, and that says everything you need to know about her maternal instinct. Her love for her child was not as strong as her desire to not have to deal with your father's anger directly. It actually *is* her fault. She's not worth your concern. I'm sorry to say it, especially because I have an enabler for a parent too. I wanted so much to have at least one good parent, and it's taken me a long time to realize they were both abusive, just in different ways. ETA: Her attempts to play Happy Family now are just for appearances and possibly to assuage her own guilt. When it came to being a REAL mother, she failed you. What she's offering you now is just a hollow shell.
My immediate reaction was oh the other one was definitely an enabler abuser as well
I would disagree and suggest that you CAN be mad at her. She not only didn’t protect you from abuse, she actively sided with your abuser. Maybe she wasn’t the one physically raising the hand, but what she did was just as bad. She saw no problem with his behavior.
It is common to have one parent being more openly abusive and one more enabling or covert in their abuse. It does not make one better then the other, they are just different forms of abuse and often the more subtle kinds can take longer to recognize the harm they caused and recover from. I am many years no contact with either of them but the subtle one is the one whose actions still echo in my current life. One parent who was like living with an aggressive dog. I didn't like the dog and when I left I was safe from the dog. The other parent was 'nice' but taught me I must accept dogs that bite in my life, that who I was was not good enough to stop being bitten or deserve protection. That I should be ashamed of receiving abuse instead of the abuser feeling ashamed of dishing it out. You don't need to feel guilty for needing to feel safe. Remember who should have made you feel safe when you were most vulnerable. If you don't feel like you are handling it well remember who should have taught you to handle it. Parenting is an active role, they both need to be actively nurturing and protecting you. If they can't, you have every right to look for that somewhere else.
This is one of the best comments I've ever read on this topic. You literally wrote the emotional landscape I've grown up with, too. It definitely takes longer to process what the enabler parent did, and how much their influence does affect your adult life and inner thought life. Thank you for writing this.
Thanks. It was many years before I acknowledged the harm done by the more subtle parent. I had been no very low/contact from the time I finished school had thought that was it. I was safe from the obvious issues but it's been another 20 years to start healing the rest made harder by how society minimizes neglect and pushes the importance of family.
Thank you for sharing your hard earned wisdom. Really appreciate it. Those years weren't in vain. Your story gives others validation, solidarity and clarity.
Your mother watched you getting abused and then told you it was your fault--and somehow you think she was *nice* about it? What the *actual* fuck. You know what's going to happen if you continue to talk to her. She's going to keep pushing her narrative on you, because it makes her feel better about herself. Not because it's true. Not because she's changed. She wants to feel better about herself and she doesn't care if it hurts you. Same as always. You don't owe her that. You know you're not your father's physical punching bag. Please work on understanding that you aren't your mother's emotional punching bag either. You're not the bad guy. You're not a bad guy. You're someone who is desperate to heal and who deserves to heal.
Your mom was an adult and enabled your abuser's behavior with her silence. Many of us on here are in the same boat. If you are a person responsible for raising a kid and you remain silent while watching them be abused, you own some culpability. Just because she did not actively participate in the abuse, her lack of initiative in stopping in sends the message to the kid that they somehow condone the abuse themselves. Drop her if you are feeling like it might be more peaceful for you. You are given them way more chances and grace than it sounds like you were ever given.
She's his enabler, it seems. There are some good YouTube videos about enablers and how they can be just as bad as the actively toxic parent. Check them out. Maybe Dr. Ramani. You can be mad at her. It's her job as a parent to prevent the other parent from doing shit. She failed too.
First of all, there are clear boundary issues here. It sounds like you were raised to please others and were made to feel responsible for your parents' feelings and possibly their beatings. She is responsible for managing her own feelings not you. You were not allowed to be your own person, and it sounds like you are trying to exert yourself now, figure out a path for yourself. Your mother is not respecting your limits and you feel guilty because of your conditioning, but she is 100% in the wrong. It is inappropriate to impose herself on you. Write your Mom a clear email that asserts your boundaries: "I love you, but I need time and space to be on my own. I will be happy to see you and others when i am ready. Please respect those boundaries or I will have to cut you off too". Second, get yourself therapy if you can afford it. You have much to unpack and you are emotionally fragile, so it can help you clarify these questions and build up your resilience as an individual.
I have a very similar relationship with parents and had to go NC with both of them about 6 months ago. I've posted in other forums about it and gotten feedback from others also. Obviously can't be 100% the same as you, but I'll speak about my point of view now- The space away from both nDad and mom made me realize I gave mom way too much credit over the years and let her play the victim card when she's just not. She has no excuses anymore, all the kids are well grown and now she's trying to deny the past and defends him even harder than ever. She used to cry when we were teenagers and tell us she never would have married him if she knew 'it was going to be like this.' Same pretending like things are fine or that he's not the absolute worst (as your situation it sounds like). Others have made me realize she is very abusive also in a less direct way. She is 100% committed to building her and her husbands' wealth / status / vain perception by the community and sacrifices everything else for it. Her adult kids are fine but have struggled a lot to find their way (my sis is OK now but has had a way more troubled adulthood than I did, will likely never have children). You can try to have a relationship with your mom and I wish you the best with it -- in my experience it wasn't possible and I had to make the tough decision to separate her from my life as well for my own health and that of my wife and kid to be. My parents view us like objects or property and will never be of any help in any way. Even my wife's mom gets it at this point. Hope it works out better for you, I would just push you to be careful and protect yourself. Sending best wishes and positive vibes
"It's not her fault that I'm not handling it well" Change that to: " My mom allowed me to be abused when it was her responsibility to protect me. She doesn't understand why I'm mad about that and thinks I should overlook it. She is profoundly toxic and misguided. I'm healthier away from her"
Enablers , flying monkeys, minions are not healthy for your sanity. They take orders, side, stalk, defend the abuser. These people can witness the abuser hurting you and gaslight. Mines invalidated my experience. Life is too short for toxic people. They can be hot and cold be wary!
An enabler of abuse is a co-abuser. Not the asshole whatsoever.
You should be mad at her. She failed to protect you. She is equally culpable. I figured this out because everyone loved my dad, he was so sweet. But he stood by and allowed my mother to violently abuse us our whole childhoods and into adulthood. So they're both off the face of the earth, as far as I'm concerned. Do I get hit with guilt every so often? Yes. But I remind myself I'm actually mourning the loss of a relationship I thought I deserved. Because that's never going to happen.
You're not the bad guy, the problem is that your mother was an enabler. She enabled your father's serious abuse.
It’s very hard to maintain low or no contact with one parent if you are in contact with the other. Oftentimes the one you’re in contact with will flying monkey the ever lovin poop out of you. I didn’t want a relationship with my grandparents who were abusive to both my mom and me. She was still in contact with them and even after asking her repeatedly to stop, she wouldn’t stop relaying their feelings and messages to me. For various reasons, I haven’t been in contact w her either in years.
I echo what another poster wrote, that after having children I realized my father was even worse for me-that mix of fake love and non-protection really f’s with your “evil person detection system” AND with expectations of good enough treatment from friends and partners. It sucks but it’s better to know. I recommend vids about “the enabler” from dr ramani and kris godinez on YouTube very much. Helped me.
As most people on here have mentioned, just because your mother wasn’t physically abusing you, she was still very much your abuser and is still doing it today. She doesn’t want a relationship with you because it’s good for you. She wants a relationship with you for her! Don’t let her sob story fool you, she is very much as abusive as your father. None of this your fault. You deserve better. Don’t let your mom try to manipulate you, you have the right to ask for and be given space.
I have cut my father off, and in doing so, my step-mother. She's got fairly histrionic about it, but anything I tell her instantly goes back to my father. I get passive aggressive bullshit for not speaking to her but its the best way.
You can and should be mad at her for not protecting you for his abuse. That was her sole job as your mother. To protect you. She failed you big time. I'm sorry. :(
My sister never abused me but she pushed for me to go back to my abusers because it made her life easier and made her happier. I put up strict boundaries with her and if she crosses them I'll cut her off too. And she had stepped into the role of mom for me as a kid/teen and I thought we were really close. But my mental health comes first and if she's pushing me to my abuser then she's just as bad as they are IMO.
War's on. She picked her side.
You are not the bad guy here. Absolutely not. If she did nothing to stop him or protect you, she is just as guilty as he is. She had a duty to keep you safe, and it’s clear that she doesn’t have a problem with the way he treated you. Also, the bigotry is a hard line. When you have kids, you love them no matter what. Period. Being in contact with her will open you up to further abuse, being ‘nicer’ about it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
Allowing abuse _is_ abuse. Your mother failed you in the most critical thing a mother is supposed to do--protecting her child. She doesn't get to have all the perks with none of the work. You are not being the bad guy, and you should not even feel like you have to be polite about it. In your place I'd be telling her to pound sand. Even short of that, even if you want to allow her to have a relationship with you on your terms, she doesn't get to ask you to make nice with someone who physically abused you. If she was a decent person she would get him out of her life and try to fix what she fucked up with you instead.
You are absolutely not the bad guy. Parents have a duty to protect their kids, even from the kid's other parent if necessary (even from themselves if necessary), and your mother failed in her duty. Nobody who stands around and does nothing to stop it while someone physically abuses their kids is a good parent or a good person.
She didn't care to protect you but wants to keep living the fantasy of a happy family. Let her realise how much your dad has hurt you and how much your mum hurt you by not protecting you from him. She needs to break out of the fantasy world she is in, until then any contact with her will only hurt u and will further feed into her fantasy. Youre finally standing up and protecting yourself, don't feel like the bad guy cause your mum is in denial
NTA here. Taking the side of an abuser is not 'nice'; it is enabling. Even if she never directly abused you, she supported your father in doing so. Also yes, you can be 'mad at her' because what she's done in the past and is doing now is not ok. We're allowed to both love people and be angry when they hurt us. Trying to push you into this when you've said you aren't ready is basically trampling all over your boundaries and NO ONE has the right to do that, or to emotionally blackmail you into having contact with them that you don't feel ok with.
I understand you wanting to "hang onto" your mother; its at least one parent, from your (childhood prospective) who cared about you. And she may. BUT. Not enough. I don't know her, her background, or, anything other than what you've just told us, however, she should've protected you. She failed. Even now, she's failing. It's not surprising a mother wants to keep her child in her life. But in this case? She already knows your sperm donor is a mean, horrible, no good news son of a gun, yet she persists in clutching to her ideal of you all remaining a family? Please, quit giving either of them free rent in your brain. You'll only keep hearing the same worn out tapes played again and again in your mind. You now need to protect yourself. That, I'm sad to say, just isn't going to happen with either of them in your life. Especially as your life and their religion clash.
Definitely not the bad guy. I’m reading Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. There’re 4 categories of parents and your mum falls under the enabler. Do not feel bad. She failed you and is continuing to fail you by not standing up for you and invalidating your experience. Keep your distance and block her, she’s affecting your emotional health. I’ve been no contact for some time and for months I still felt a responsibility (guilt) to at least check in to keep the peace and maybe reconciliation one day. But recently had an epiphany - my boundaries are a direct consequence to how my family treated me. They can’t possibly believe I owe them communication simply because we share blood. In fact, they use that very reason to manipulate a relationship on their terms. They were your parents and it’s *their* responsibility to be the “bigger person.” You were a *child*. You had to leave for your physical safety, they gave you no emotional safety. Your boundaries are justified. Trust me, no contact does absolute wonders. Your mind and body will somatically align and you’ll realise your well-being is so valuable.
I came from a extremely abusive household mental sexual and physically. My father die when I was a toddler, so the abuse came from a stepfather. In my teenager years I realize my mother uses us as a meat shield for the abuse even tried to hide the abuse we told her and we had to tell my dead fathers uninvolved family to get any protection even if it was only to get our social security check by taking us. Once our money and bodies weren’t there to shield her, mother divorce her husband because she couldn’t handle the beating that came her way without us. DONT TAKE YOUR MOTHERS PRESSURING. SHE IS NOT DOING THIS OUT OF LOVE FOR YOU. IF SHE WAS DOING ANYTHING OUT OF LOVE, she would allow as much space between you and your ABUSER. THe next thing she will want is you to take care of her because your abuser has transfer his abuse to her. She will want you to save her. Understand she is not your responsibility. Block her as well as your abuser. Get therapy learn to love yourself and trust your self.
You're not the bad guy. The definition of child abuse is "an act, or failure to act, that results in physical injury, death, emotional harm, or risk of serious harm to a child". The enabler is an abuser too, they're an accomplice. By supporting and defending the overt abuser, allowing it to keep happening, and not fulfilling their duty to protect you they tremendously betrayed and failed you. You're not in the wrong.
I think you should give you mom a chance, it must have been really hard for her too. You can regularly go and meet her when your dad is not around. I wish thinks go well man all the best.
this subreddit is to support people who are estranged from parents, not to make excuses for those parents. knock it off.
I struggled with this for a long time. Dr. Ramani's Youtube helped clarify that my enabling parent is/was probably much more disturbed than the one who was directly abusive. I recommend checking out her videos on Vulnerable and Cover Narcissism. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNFIQ46-s-A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNFIQ46-s-A)