quote:

Why in the world wouldn’t my ed want her grandfathers gift? I sent a text asking if I should mail it and she said no. What in the world did her 90 year old grandfather do to her?

Sleeveless posted:

My favorite bit of mental illness in this thread is all the posters who are utterly aghast at the selfish stupidity of the parents completely defining and reframing their view on their relationships based off of a single book...while they themselves are completely defining and reframing their view on their relationships based on a single issendai blog post.

quote:

This lack of thank you notes is very prevalent. We used to never get thank you notes from my former nieces and nephews from one of my X husband’s siblings. Their dad would call and thank us for them! My kids were forced to write thank you notes. My former MIL told me only my kids wrote thank you notes to her. It drove me crazy but it was my expectations that were the problem. What we started doing was sending one family gift instead of individual gifts to all the kids. If they weren’t going to talk to us on the phone or write thank you notes (when they got thank you notes from all my kids), then I would adjust my gift giving.

Its sounds like your oldest GC is not interested in a relationship with you by not responding at all to calls or texts. Some of this is her generation but some of it is just plain rudeness or she’s been trained to ignore you by her mom and dad. By continuing to send money or gifts, we tell these people that their lack of caring, respect, response is okay. And I think it best not to send cards or gifts to people who show or say they are not interested in a relationship with us. For one thing, it raises our hopes that we’ll maybe hear back this time. That keeps us enmeshed in the hope and the pain. Additionally, it send the message that we are weak and they can treat us as terribly as they want and we’ll allow it. We want this relationship, they don’t, which brings us much pain and depression and even self loathing or self blame.

My rule is if I get a birthday or Christmas or MD card, then they get a birthday or Christmas card. If they send me a gift, then they get a gift. So I do for this year based on their actions last year. Its never the same and seems like every year, one or the other blows me off. These are all adults, no grand kids yet. I am tired of putting in the effort and have a bad attitude now.

quote:

A spring chicken I may no longer be, but
An old boiler is neither the reflection I see
I’m a loving mother hen who sadly laid a bad egg or two.
That one day hatched and away my baby birds flew.
But I won’t let that ruffle my feathers, no siree!
Mother’s day is coming, and though empty my nest be, the day still belongs to me!

Happy Mothers day everyone!
Xx

Light Gun Man posted:

i have a box around here somewhere of like every single birthday/xmas/whatever card my mom sent me, not because i'm sentimental, but because i just expect that i may have to someday show it off as a defense against some bullshit.

i know it ain't healthy. but whatever, it's just a box.

MasBrillante posted:

I was like true, Facebook is horrible, wait what??

spouse posted:

Holy poo poo, the worst thing my mom does is ask me to find someone to date and marry

Tunicate posted:

username/post combo

mllaneza posted:

I keep everything mom sends, email, letters, and cards. I started out of fear that I'd be called to task for not keeping everything, now I worry sometimes that if I quoted something from 20 years ago that I'd be accused of holding on to evidence to use against her. I get enough flat denials of things she's done that I'll just hang on to them.

teen witch posted:

The thing I do wonder with this is, where the gently caress are the dads? Like it seems that most are mothers writing on the website, and I do wonder why that is.

Like there are mentions of husbands and what not but as kind of a tertiary background character, and I kind of think that roles as “mother takes care of hearth and home and your children’s relationships are a reflection of you, thus you have failed as a woman” have a huge influence in all of this.

teen witch posted:

The thing I do wonder with this is, where the gently caress are the dads? Like it seems that most are mothers writing on the website, and I do wonder why that is.

Like there are mentions of husbands and what not but as kind of a tertiary background character, and I kind of think that roles as “mother takes care of hearth and home and your children’s relationships are a reflection of you, thus you have failed as a woman” have a huge influence in all of this.

Sleeveless posted:

Gotta give this thread credit, usually the timescale for a mock thread devolving into armchair psychology, making poo poo up, and accusing the people who point out how weird and gross they're being of being the thing the mock thread is devoted to usually takes weeks or even months and this all unfolded over the course of like a day.

I'm sure the "Rubbernecking At Heartbroken Parents While Writing Fanfiction About How They Deserved It Whilst Oversharing Our Own Pathological Disorders M-M-MEGATHREAD" will have a long history in the first few pages of GBS along with the people jerking off to corpses on Mt Everest and acting like fakeposts on Reddit are real but please know that it isn't too late, you can always tap out and not immerse yourself in a sea of inscutable acronyms and misery from which you will never emerge.

Bloody Hedgehog posted:

I'd assume the dads are either chill and let the kids have their distance, or just noped the gently caress out of the whole situation to start a new life 2 towns over.

Or they were the lucky ones and died early.

Beachcomber posted:

quote:

Sphinx, this is so wise. For me, I painted a picture in my head that the world was all right and that my ex-husband wasn’t really that bad. I cringe now as I think of how I answered someone who asked how we managed to stay married so long (at that point, over 20 years). I said “we are friends first” and boy, I cringe at how stupid I was. We were friends as long as I did what he wanted and didn’t challenge his belittling of me or his non-participation. It is my belief that children in families gravitate to who has the power. Children want the power as they grow up because generally children are powerless until they are adults. I believe that the parent who belittles the other parent and shows disdain of their spouse to the children is vying for power. If the belittled parent, me for example, says silent to get along or doesn’t want to acknowledge what is, then it gives the message to the children that this belittling behavior is okay. That is what I think I did so long ago, taught my kids it is okay to belittle their mom. Doesn’t excuse how they act now as adults who should have a conscience but until they are willing to take ownership of their own behavior, they won’t change their childhood behavioral patterns. That is my opinion anyways.

Ann, your husband’s response shows he is all about himself and his image. No wife could win against this thinking.

Speaking of photos, we saw a photo of my step ES and his mother taken probably at Christmas. She has both her arms wrapped around his waist. Hands clasped in front of him, leaning into him. Like a girlfriend and boyfriend. She has a huge mother of the year smile but the ES has flat affect – no expression, no smile, eyes cold, and his arms are by his sides. She is saying “I own you” and he is saying “I dislike you.” This is how the ES is, narcissistic and unable to give love, his mom is the same but is posing as the great mom for the camera. It just reinforced to us how the ES truly is. Its not us, its within him. And we realized there has to be some genetics at play here with the ES

THOT PATROL posted:

A spring chicken I may no longer be, but
An old boiler is neither the reflection I see
I’m a loving mother hen who sadly laid a bad egg or two.
That one day hatched and away my baby birds flew.
But I won’t let that ruffle my feathers, no siree!
Mother’s day is coming, and though empty my nest be, the day still belongs to me!

Happy Mothers day everyone!
Xx

bell jar posted:

dad enmeshed so what

Bloody Hedgehog posted:

I'd assume the dads are either chill and let the kids have their distance, or just noped the gently caress out of the whole situation to start a new life 2 towns over.

Or they were the lucky ones and died early.

Tinfoil Papercut posted:

I was told that my wife is controlling me, as evidence of this I was pointed to photos of me, her and our kids where "I am smiling with teeth." (I poo poo you not.)

Tip of a major iceberg which I'm not about to get into, but reading every one of these posts makes me think that it's my mother until I see details that don't match.

THOT PATROL posted:

BONUS ROUND! same woman posts an emo thread, comprised entirely of the following:

quote:

My oldest daughter has always been tough, she was born one month after my own mother died.

There Bias Two posted:

I want to point out that toxic masculinity also comes with an inability to articulate and share one's feelings due to a lifetime of repression. It's totally possible that a lot of these lovely dads don't bother to communicate their family problems with others.

If so, a website like this might skew more toward the mothers who are more open and talkative about their family issues.

The Dregs posted:

My wife was diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder after 15 years of hell. I could tell some stories, boy. It's a bit better now that theres medication involved.

Literally A Person posted:

Oh and some content:

Sleeveless posted:

Gotta give this thread credit, usually the timescale for a mock thread devolving into armchair psychology, making poo poo up, and accusing the people who point out how weird and gross they're being of being the thing the mock thread is devoted to usually takes weeks or even months and this all unfolded over the course of like a day.

I'm sure the "Rubbernecking At Heartbroken Parents While Writing Fanfiction About How They Deserved It Whilst Oversharing Our Own Pathological Disorders M-M-MEGATHREAD" will have a long history in the first few pages of GBS along with the people jerking off to corpses on Mt Everest and acting like fakeposts on Reddit are real but please know that it isn't too late, you can always tap out and not immerse yourself in a sea of inscutable acronyms and misery from which you will never emerge.

bad posts ahead!!! posted:

the way to survive in these situations is to never accept gifts from them, and never reveal anything about yourself until you're out of there. keep your computer and phone locked down, if you write a diary for the love of god do it digitally and password protect it. they live off your personal doubts and low self esteem and if they catch wind of any of it, you're going down.