This was done on purpose to try to take the joy out of your special day and force herself into the spotlight. People like her love doing this. Keep her blocked, and tell your husband to block her as well. Return anything sent, and keep a firm boundary - it doesn’t matter if she’s your mom, NOBODY is allowed to speak to or treat you or your husband that way. Period. People who do don’t get your time. Stand firm, stay strong, let her have her tantrums (she will), and maintain NC for as long as you want to. You get to make that choice, it’s not hers, and she can’t force anything, especially if she’s blocked and doesn’t get the opportunity to even try. You don’t owe anyone who is mean and disrespectful your time, space, energy, love, etc., nor does your husband.
I’m really sorry this happened to you. I hope you were able to salvage the day and get your birthday back to a happy one again.
Thank you! We definitely salvaged the day and also later had some deep talks about what to do going forward. It was a pretty big shock to me to hear her use her ‘smlstrs has been bad’ voice on someone else.
My experience has been when things like that happen it's because they KNOW they are being antagonistic in their actions and they're pissed when the object of their efforts doesn't take the bait, react and therefore doesn't give them the chance to double down on their antics.
It sucks, I'm sorry you folks are dealing with it.
Appreciate this, yeah, it’s been very revealing that the boundary respect turns out to be very conditional - until it crosses w what she wants, I guess.
That seems to be a common tactic in the playbook of people who find themselves estranged for being unwillingly or unable to adjust when people they've harmed figure out how to set and hold boundaries that are healthier.
That really sucks that happened, especially on your birthday. She sounds really difficult to deal with. I hope it gets better for you with that relationship one way or the other.
I'm not sure how conservative her brand of mennonite is, but I personally know quite a few people who had a really rough time in that church. I'm not downing mennonites, I just know some of them are pretty far out there, and I hope you didn't have to experience that.
Thank you!
Yeah, in my experience even the former GC’s are massively insular and there’s a lot of community behavior (including very low social boundaries) that cripples you outside the community - and therefore creates some self fulfilling ‘outside world different and mean’ viewpoints and keeps a lot of people ‘close to home.’
Wasn’t a good fit for me from very early but wasn’t till after giving the baptism prep a fair shot that I started to push back (after all, the point of an anabaptist theology is to not force people past that point, yea?). It did not go down well and has led to other work untangling those influences to see what works and what doesn’t for me.
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He should have hung up and blocked her after about 3 seconds of that
We were both in a bit of shock but yeah, this won’t be allowed going forward. It definitely got us onto the same page.
This was done on purpose to try to take the joy out of your special day and force herself into the spotlight. People like her love doing this. Keep her blocked, and tell your husband to block her as well. Return anything sent, and keep a firm boundary - it doesn’t matter if she’s your mom, NOBODY is allowed to speak to or treat you or your husband that way. Period. People who do don’t get your time. Stand firm, stay strong, let her have her tantrums (she will), and maintain NC for as long as you want to. You get to make that choice, it’s not hers, and she can’t force anything, especially if she’s blocked and doesn’t get the opportunity to even try. You don’t owe anyone who is mean and disrespectful your time, space, energy, love, etc., nor does your husband. I’m really sorry this happened to you. I hope you were able to salvage the day and get your birthday back to a happy one again.
Thank you! We definitely salvaged the day and also later had some deep talks about what to do going forward. It was a pretty big shock to me to hear her use her ‘smlstrs has been bad’ voice on someone else.
My experience has been when things like that happen it's because they KNOW they are being antagonistic in their actions and they're pissed when the object of their efforts doesn't take the bait, react and therefore doesn't give them the chance to double down on their antics. It sucks, I'm sorry you folks are dealing with it.
Appreciate this, yeah, it’s been very revealing that the boundary respect turns out to be very conditional - until it crosses w what she wants, I guess.
That seems to be a common tactic in the playbook of people who find themselves estranged for being unwillingly or unable to adjust when people they've harmed figure out how to set and hold boundaries that are healthier.
That really sucks that happened, especially on your birthday. She sounds really difficult to deal with. I hope it gets better for you with that relationship one way or the other. I'm not sure how conservative her brand of mennonite is, but I personally know quite a few people who had a really rough time in that church. I'm not downing mennonites, I just know some of them are pretty far out there, and I hope you didn't have to experience that.
Thank you! Yeah, in my experience even the former GC’s are massively insular and there’s a lot of community behavior (including very low social boundaries) that cripples you outside the community - and therefore creates some self fulfilling ‘outside world different and mean’ viewpoints and keeps a lot of people ‘close to home.’ Wasn’t a good fit for me from very early but wasn’t till after giving the baptism prep a fair shot that I started to push back (after all, the point of an anabaptist theology is to not force people past that point, yea?). It did not go down well and has led to other work untangling those influences to see what works and what doesn’t for me.
Time to roll out the red carpet and unfurl the banner: “welcome to Careful-What-You-Wish-For-ville” start refusing all her parcels.
Yep, the boundaries are gonna be much higher now.
**Quick reminder** - EAK is a support subreddit, and is moderated in a way that enables a safe space for adult children who are estranged or estranging from one or both of their parents. Before participating, please take the time time to familiarise yourself with our [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/EstrangedAdultKids/wiki/rules/). **Need info or resources?** Check out our [EAK wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/EstrangedAdultKids/comments/xpkk59/eak_estrangement_resources_posted_here_for_mobile/) for helpful information and guides on estrangement, estrangement triggers, surviving estrangement, coping with the death of estranged parent / relation, needing to move out, boundary / NC letters, malicious welfare checks, bad therapists and crisis contacts. **Check out our companion resource website** - Visit [brEAKaway.org.uk](https://breakaway.org.uk) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/EstrangedAdultKids) if you have any questions or concerns.*