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Relatives putting me down? Or just over sensitive?
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04-02-2013 10:50am#1
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MintyDoris wrote: »Two of my aunts are exactly the same. One said to me when I was about 27 that if I wanted kids I should really look into the process of finding a sperm donor. It was implied as I had just split up from my long term boyfriend that I wouldn't have a hope of finding anyone else in time to have the kids she knew I always wanted
The weird thing about that suggestion - is that it is a viable idea and still a good idea
:D Albeit a drastic suggestion when someone is 27.:eek:
It is kinda the idea have kids if you want them, find a good quality sperm donor and not having to wait to find a man and all the ****e that comes first with that etc, etc.
It is something that I would say also:rolleyes: And it wouldn't be any reflection on your ability to have relationships with a man - it would be entirely about you getting what you want out of life. Have kids, have your career and if you meet a man well and good and if not, then that is fine also. Although I do understand why it hurt you and am not diminishing that in any respect.
And also your aunt's comment was also probably a slightly twisted version of encouragement.
Back to the OP - I would let some of those comments fly over your head. My mother is one of the most tactless people I know and she is incredibly helpful. One of the best persons I know - but has the worst first reactions ever. What she says can be taken so wrong - but she never means it in that context.
When next with your counsellor - talk about tips you can use for yourself in not taking these comments personally. Because they are not being said to directly hurt you.0 -
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Your missing the point entirely. It's not about seeking approval. It's about snide remarks and put downs and whether people have experienced similar and how they dealt with it. I brushed a lot of things aside but my counsellor for one has gone as far as using the term "bullying" so I thought I was making light of the situation. Wanted to be treated with respect does not equal no confidence and seeking approval.
OP I get where you're coming from. I don't think you're being over sensitive at all. I think it's the fact these kind of snide comments are coming from people that are related to, as opposed to a stranger saying something to you and you wouldn't care less. One just doesn't expect to have to put up with this sort of nonsense from their relatives.
The best example I can think of is my own parents. You could cure world hunger and they'd still be able to point out that you didn't cure world poverty! The reason I have to laugh is simply because it IS laughable that people can be so petty and so determined to make sure you "know your place", which is to always defer to their "better" advice and judgement.
You give your aunts far too much information and ammunition tbh (you discuss your boyfriend having IBS with them? No OP, just... No! :pac:), and are then surprised when they speak to you in a condescending fashion. It's partly because you're naive enough to think that the 90% of the time you do get on means that you tend to forget about the 10% and you open up to them more. Then when they turn, you feel humiliated for not having known better by now so to speak.
From my own experience, I had given up on my parents long ago, I accepted that they as big bag of chips said would always see us, their children (it wasn't just me), they tried to make sure each one of us knew equally what failures we were to them as opposed to cousin Ignatius or whoever who was doing great things with their life, etc.
Effectively what my parents did was drive a wedge between all of us and set us up in competition where we would on some subconscious level at least, try to outdo each other and try and be one better than our siblings in an effort to have our parents see that we too "could be just as good, if not better, than everyone else".
It was something I copped on to at a very early stage in my childhood and so I never bought into it or entertained their behaviour, instead choosing to live my life according to how I saw fit, not according to how I thought my parents would approve (I'd be a priest or a teacher by now if I'd went along with their ideas! No thanks!). My brothers on the other hand continued to try and appease my parents, constantly deferring to "their better advice". They became very bitter and insecure people for it tbh, just as bitter and insecure as my parents actually.
Now what we're talking about here is a time span of 20 odd years, during which time I would've only had to deal with my parents at funerals and weddings, maybe two or three times in that 20 years. At my father's funeral, we were back at the house (my wife insisted we go as I didn't want to!) but my wife and I had our two week old son with us and at one stage my son started crying. My mother in front of a crowded room pipped up with "I'd say he's hungry, you'd better go feed him!". It wasn't so much what she said, but the way she said it, that had me think "You don't say?", but I thought better of it and bit my tongue.
Four years ago we were invited to my brother's wedding. Again only for my wife's insistence I wouldn't have gone (it can be hard for people who have no experience of this, to understand what a pain in the face it is to maintain ones dignity and how mentally draining it can be to have to maintain that sense of decorum in the face of somebody who knows what they are doing, yet still seeks some perverse enjoyment from it anyway!). At the reception, where my brother and his wife had just spent €42k and given my mother a great day out, the best my mother could manage in front of all the relatives when referring to brother was "and guess who talks on the phone while driving...". Even the relatives who would previously have dismissed my mother's barbs as the ramblings of a woman a few sandwiches short of a picnic, were stunned. You could see the jaws drop in unison! Yes, she had a point, but, time and a place! His wedding day wasn't it.
And so (sorry for the length of this post, fair dues if you've made it down this far!), Christmas just gone, my brother decided to get the whole family together for dinner. My brother finally had enough when my mother at the dinner table and asked him "so X (my brother), how do you think Y (me) has done in life?". He had to be restrained and escorted outside his own house to calm down before he lost the plot altogether! All the time my mother feigning innocence in a "What did I say?" kind of way. I told her she knew well what she was at, and that she would do well to grow up.
Recently my brother's wife had a baby and they've asked me to be the child's godfather. His reasoning being that he's determined not to see that bitterness, resentment one-upmanship that had built up between us all, not be carried forward to a third generation. It took him long enough to see it, but I'm more of a build a bridge, it's in the past kind of guy.
TL:DR; You'll only torment yourself OP trying to get through to your aunts. They'll never change because they don't see a reason to change. They're perfectly happy to be condescending towards you. The only thing you can do is just not give them so much ammunition. It can be intimidating at first, but it can give you great confidence when you deny these people their self-thought right to thinking they know better than you or thinking they are better than you simply by virtue of the fact that they are older than you or appear to have more life experience than you. When you become more confident in yourself you realise how much you don't have to defer to these people, and that in turn puts you more in control of your own life and takes away these people's power over you.0 -
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OP I get where you're coming from. I don't think you're being over sensitive at all. I think it's the fact these kind of snide comments are coming from people that are related to, as opposed to a stranger saying something to you and you wouldn't care less. One just doesn't expect to have to put up with this sort of nonsense from their relatives.
The best example I can think of is my own parents. You could cure world hunger and they'd still be able to point out that you didn't cure world poverty! The reason I have to laugh is simply because it IS laughable that people can be so petty and so determined to make sure you "know your place", which is to always defer to their "better" advice and judgement.
You give your aunts far too much information and ammunition tbh (you discuss your boyfriend having IBS with them? No OP, just... No! :pac:), and are then surprised when they speak to you in a condescending fashion. It's partly because you're naive enough to think that the 90% of the time you do get on means that you tend to forget about the 10% and you open up to them more. Then when they turn, you feel humiliated for not having known better by now so to speak.
From my own experience, I had given up on my parents long ago, I accepted that they as big bag of chips said would always see us, their children (it wasn't just me), they tried to make sure each one of us knew equally what failures we were to them as opposed to cousin Ignatius or whoever who was doing great things with their life, etc.
Effectively what my parents did was drive a wedge between all of us and set us up in competition where we would on some subconscious level at least, try to outdo each other and try and be one better than our siblings in an effort to have our parents see that we too "could be just as good, if not better, than everyone else".
It was something I copped on to at a very early stage in my childhood and so I never bought into it or entertained their behaviour, instead choosing to live my life according to how I saw fit, not according to how I thought my parents would approve (I'd be a priest or a teacher by now if I'd went along with their ideas! No thanks!). My brothers on the other hand continued to try and appease my parents, constantly deferring to "their better advice". They became very bitter and insecure people for it tbh, just as bitter and insecure as my parents actually.
Now what we're talking about here is a time span of 20 odd years, during which time I would've only had to deal with my parents at funerals and weddings, maybe two or three times in that 20 years. At my father's funeral, we were back at the house (my wife insisted we go as I didn't want to!) but my wife and I had our two week old son with us and at one stage my son started crying. My mother in front of a crowded room pipped up with "I'd say he's hungry, you'd better go feed him!". It wasn't so much what she said, but the way she said it, that had me think "You don't say?", but I thought better of it and bit my tongue.
Four years ago we were invited to my brother's wedding. Again only for my wife's insistence I wouldn't have gone (it can be hard for people who have no experience of this, to understand what a pain in the face it is to maintain ones dignity and how mentally draining it can be to have to maintain that sense of decorum in the face of somebody who knows what they are doing, yet still seeks some perverse enjoyment from it anyway!). At the reception, where my brother and his wife had just spent €42k and given my mother a great day out, the best my mother could manage in front of all the relatives when referring to brother was "and guess who talks on the phone while driving...". Even the relatives who would previously have dismissed my mother's barbs as the ramblings of a woman a few sandwiches short of a picnic, were stunned. You could see the jaws drop in unison! Yes, she had a point, but, time and a place! His wedding day wasn't it.
And so (sorry for the length of this post, fair dues if you've made it down this far!), Christmas just gone, my brother decided to get the whole family together for dinner. My brother finally had enough when my mother at the dinner table and asked him "so X (my brother), how do you think Y (me) has done in life?". He had to be restrained and escorted outside his own house to calm down before he lost the plot altogether! All the time my mother feigning innocence in a "What did I say?" kind of way. I told her she knew well what she was at, and that she would do well to grow up.
Recently my brother's wife had a baby and they've asked me to be the child's godfather. His reasoning being that he's determined not to see that bitterness, resentment one-upmanship that had built up between us all, not be carried forward to a third generation. It took him long enough to see it, but I'm more of a build a bridge, it's in the past kind of guy.
TL:DR; You'll only torment yourself OP trying to get through to your aunts. They'll never change because they don't see a reason to change. They're perfectly happy to be condescending towards you. The only thing you can do is just not give them so much ammunition. It can be intimidating at first, but it can give you great confidence when you deny these people their self-thought right to thinking they know better than you or thinking they are better than you simply by virtue of the fact that they are older than you or appear to have more life experience than you. When you become more confident in yourself you realise how much you don't have to defer to these people, and that in turn puts you more in control of your own life and takes away these people's power over you.
Thanks for taking the time for writing all this. A lot of what you speak about living my own life, not letting them bother me is largerly what i'm speaking about. You speak about one upmanship and doing better etc but with my aunts they've tried to sway from doing positive things, going to college etc. Recently I was on the phone to one of them and speaking about my course and was told "Don't do anything else after that sure you won't"? Its all very confusing.0 -
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OP I get where you're coming from. I don't think you're being over sensitive at all. I think it's the fact these kind of snide comments are coming from people that are related to, as opposed to a stranger saying something to you and you wouldn't care less. One just doesn't expect to have to put up with this sort of nonsense from their relatives.
The best example I can think of is my own parents. You could cure world hunger and they'd still be able to point out that you didn't cure world poverty! The reason I have to laugh is simply because it IS laughable that people can be so petty and so determined to make sure you "know your place", which is to always defer to their "better" advice and judgement.
You give your aunts far too much information and ammunition tbh (you discuss your boyfriend having IBS with them? No OP, just... No! :pac:), and are then surprised when they speak to you in a condescending fashion. It's partly because you're naive enough to think that the 90% of the time you do get on means that you tend to forget about the 10% and you open up to them more. Then when they turn, you feel humiliated for not having known better by now so to speak.
From my own experience, I had given up on my parents long ago, I accepted that they as big bag of chips said would always see us, their children (it wasn't just me), they tried to make sure each one of us knew equally what failures we were to them as opposed to cousin Ignatius or whoever who was doing great things with their life, etc.
Effectively what my parents did was drive a wedge between all of us and set us up in competition where we would on some subconscious level at least, try to outdo each other and try and be one better than our siblings in an effort to have our parents see that we too "could be just as good, if not better, than everyone else".
It was something I copped on to at a very early stage in my childhood and so I never bought into it or entertained their behaviour, instead choosing to live my life according to how I saw fit, not according to how I thought my parents would approve (I'd be a priest or a teacher by now if I'd went along with their ideas! No thanks!). My brothers on the other hand continued to try and appease my parents, constantly deferring to "their better advice". They became very bitter and insecure people for it tbh, just as bitter and insecure as my parents actually.
Now what we're talking about here is a time span of 20 odd years, during which time I would've only had to deal with my parents at funerals and weddings, maybe two or three times in that 20 years. At my father's funeral, we were back at the house (my wife insisted we go as I didn't want to!) but my wife and I had our two week old son with us and at one stage my son started crying. My mother in front of a crowded room pipped up with "I'd say he's hungry, you'd better go feed him!". It wasn't so much what she said, but the way she said it, that had me think "You don't say?", but I thought better of it and bit my tongue.
Four years ago we were invited to my brother's wedding. Again only for my wife's insistence I wouldn't have gone (it can be hard for people who have no experience of this, to understand what a pain in the face it is to maintain ones dignity and how mentally draining it can be to have to maintain that sense of decorum in the face of somebody who knows what they are doing, yet still seeks some perverse enjoyment from it anyway!). At the reception, where my brother and his wife had just spent €42k and given my mother a great day out, the best my mother could manage in front of all the relatives when referring to brother was "and guess who talks on the phone while driving...". Even the relatives who would previously have dismissed my mother's barbs as the ramblings of a woman a few sandwiches short of a picnic, were stunned. You could see the jaws drop in unison! Yes, she had a point, but, time and a place! His wedding day wasn't it.
And so (sorry for the length of this post, fair dues if you've made it down this far!), Christmas just gone, my brother decided to get the whole family together for dinner. My brother finally had enough when my mother at the dinner table and asked him "so X (my brother), how do you think Y (me) has done in life?". He had to be restrained and escorted outside his own house to calm down before he lost the plot altogether! All the time my mother feigning innocence in a "What did I say?" kind of way. I told her she knew well what she was at, and that she would do well to grow up.
Recently my brother's wife had a baby and they've asked me to be the child's godfather. His reasoning being that he's determined not to see that bitterness, resentment one-upmanship that had built up between us all, not be carried forward to a third generation. It took him long enough to see it, but I'm more of a build a bridge, it's in the past kind of guy.
TL:DR; You'll only torment yourself OP trying to get through to your aunts. They'll never change because they don't see a reason to change. They're perfectly happy to be condescending towards you. The only thing you can do is just not give them so much ammunition. It can be intimidating at first, but it can give you great confidence when you deny these people their self-thought right to thinking they know better than you or thinking they are better than you simply by virtue of the fact that they are older than you or appear to have more life experience than you. When you become more confident in yourself you realise how much you don't have to defer to these people, and that in turn puts you more in control of your own life and takes away these people's power over you.
Thank you so much for posting this. I was sitting here this morning wondering had I done the right thing. I have cut myself off from my two older sisters completely having been put down by them all my life. My mother was an emotionally abusive woman, towards me and my dad, I was like an only child as the older siblings were away in boarding school and then university when I was growing up, as there is quite an age gap between us.
Since my dad died two months ago, the dynamic changed, in other words, the emotional abuse was exposed totally , he was the only reason I ever kept in touch. I am now in mourning for him, and the three main female figures in my life have exposed themselves for the sociopaths and toxic people they really are.
It's hard to accept that reality, but there is a weight lifted off my shoulders as I know I don't need to have them in my life any longer.
I couldn't even attend the months mind because of the toxic atmosphere I knew would be there.
Am glad to have read that post this morning just to know I'm not alone in this kind of situation.
What resonated with me in particular is when you said that even though you may get on with them 90% of the time, it's that other 10% that can be so damaging. My two sisters are highly qualified high earning professionals , I tried for years to be tolerant towards them, but it was like walking on eggshells around them. Things would be going along great and as soon as my guard was lowered either one of them would go in for the kill. A snide comment or remark designed to devastate would be made. The fact that they have high powered careers and I having no job even meant that their behaviour was accepted by extended family, including aunts. And funnily enough the reason that I have no career and could never settle down in academia was because of the emotional and sometimes physical abuse I received at home.
All I know now for sure is that I am responsible for my own personal health and well being and I have made the right decision.0 -
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