Narcissistic Ping Pong (Or: Why it's a Bitch to set Boundaries with an N)

A little background first.  NM has been privy to many times that I have been upset by MIL.  I have confided in her many times and she has seen, first hand, some of the crazy behaviors MIL has had towards me.  In the beginning, when I actually thought she had my back, I would tell her a lot of stuff.  I've learned to temper what I say (where it was later used as "evidence" of why I was wrong in arguments.  Clearly, I couldn't get along with "anyone", neither NM, MIL, or NSIS, so it must be ME, she would imply.  In a discussion with NM about an issue I was having with NM, my confidence was turned into "proof" that was wrong.)  If NM didn't throw it in my face, I know NM felt a secret "alliance" with MIL.  I know my difficulties with my MIL helped her to believe it was all my fault too.

Rarely did my NM express any real empathy or sympathy.  She'd offer a few stories about how she was treated as a DIL, and then run off on a tangent with that.  And I never felt like I had her support.  She gives MIL just as much credibility as me in the issue.  Meaning: to NM, it's like just as much me as it is my MIL.  I get no benefit of the doubt as her daughter.

Several times, she's become indignant at MIL's behavior towards me.  I've heard "I can't believe how these people treat you.  It really pisses me off."  And I really do believe she is fully angry and sees the treatment for what it is.  Not to support me, but because she loves to take the victim side that someone would treat HER daughter that way.  She and my MIL have had a few minor scuffles.  NM has been annoyed (by her own admission) by MIL's behavior at times and sees MIL as trying to one up her.  She often expresses jealousy over the fact that we (and the grandkids) "see MIL more often."  followed up with "you'd think they'd be closer."

When I've explained clear hazards with MIL babysitting, NM agrees that it's an issue, but than always suggests that MIL should babysit too.  I think this is more about her being angry that I don't allow EITHER of them alone with the kids and so she thinks she and MIL are on the same "team" to get freer access to the kids.

Several times, NM has flat agreed with MIL.  Several times, she completely invalidates me by saying "Well, she's always been nice to me."  "(DH's parents) are so nice."  (Step mom does this too me too.) Last summer, she spent time after OS's baseball game chatting with my ILs in the parking lot (about 20 minutes) instead of spending her last bit of time with her grandkids (whom she says she doesn't get enough time with.)  When we called to see if they were OK because they hadn't arrived yet, she said "WHAT? Can't we bond with your ILs?"

Which, I suppose, if they actually liked each other would be fine.  But they don't.  They dance around each other like animals over territory, very careful to always be cordially distant.  But, like I said, they've had confrontations.  MIL has clearly pissed off my NM on occasion.  But they don't talk often, aren't friends, and don't see each other.  They occasionally bond about "their generation".  And this summer MIL invited NM up to hang out at their vacation property.  Blech.


So, fast forward.  I have spent SIX years trying to get NM to tone down gifts: less money (it's obscene), less quantity (it's obscene), and when all else failed, just the SIZE.  (Gifts are often 2X3 ft. square -or more- and don't fold up.  These are not easy to store.  And my kids actually do use all of their toys (part of being a stay at home mom) and so it's hard to just give them away if they are still using them.  Anyway, it's my house, and if I don't want huge toys, so be it.  (And I'd even be willing to compromise, an occasional big gift if it was really cool and would be special to the kids.  But not 3 times a year: their birthday, their brother's birthday, and Christmas.  And a special extra trip for toys every time they visit. )  I have TRIED and tried and tried to curtail this shit.  Talking, boundaries, making it "clear".  But it's always circumvented: they've told the kids they have a "surprise", so it's hard to refuse or some other method.  When I would find a stop to it, they'd find a new route.  And it's "they".  Step dad teams up with NM on this one.  Grandparents are "meant" to spoil the kids.  It's their "right".  And, in some ways, they do spoil the kids in good ways: really cool experiences with Grand dad and some neat things.  But it is so excessive.

Two months ago, NM and I were talking about a similar situation in which a parent refused a grandparent's gift that was too large after being told it was not OK.  She thought this was awful and said "You tell me all of the time that I can't buy large gifts, but I do it anyway.  I mean, if I find something cool."  So, she clearly has heard my boundary, she clearly understands my boundary, and she clearly is choosing to ignore this boundary.  And she is choosing to justify it was an argument that sounds awfully a lot like something I said above: that I would allow it if it was "once and awhile".  But it's not.  It's all of the time.  Every time, three times a year.  She conveniently neglects this point.

I take this opportunity to tell her to please, please, please, please, please to not get a large gift for my son's this Christmas.

She sends me an email to "please do no be mad at the size of YS's gift."  Followed by a large (expensive, I found out today) gift.  Sigh.

I decided that I had laid down the boundary, she ignored it, and now it was time to be clear about the consequences of doing this again.

The therapist suggested this is "pushing back" but I felt that was too aggressive a descriptive for what I was doing.  I felt this was merely standing my ground.  How do you all feel?

When she emailed asking if the package had arrived, I replied something to the effect of "It did, at least the larger of the two.  I sure hope it is the larger of the two, as it is very big.  I'll have to ask you to stop sending big gifts or I will start sending them back."  I had DH proof read it for "emotional loadedness".  Which I'm sure she'd see anyway, but he said it was fine.

Several days later, I got a very pathetic, guilt laden, hurt-that-I-called-her-out email in return.  Hurt that I had refused her "gift".  She offered up the receipt and to just let her know and she'd "work on this at the birthdays."

Then radio silence.  Then an email about how she needs to get started on a family reunion she's planning this summer at her house for her side of the family.  A family that has tried to politely tell her they are not interested.  A reunion with my sister in attendance.  Despite REPEATED rebuffs of getting together with my sister, despite a two year estrangement, she thinks my sister and will show up and stay together at my mother's house.  She's wanting me to commit to dates I have open.  She hasn't really spoken to any one else yet for concrete days (I'm sure she'd say, "well, I wanted to give you first consideration" but she's really trying to shore me up and make me commit.  Give her something to hold me to.)  I IGNORED this email.  It felt like an obvious trap.  I could see no road from a response on my part that would end well for me.

In between this, she puts on my sister's FB page "love you babes!!"  which is so 'un'-her (it's the FB her, the manufactured mom).  I get nothing (fine).  I have been avoiding liking her page, but I just can't "like" bullshit and lies.

Radio silence.  She texts and asks if I got my grandfather's Christmas card.  He's getting old and can't write as well, you know.  So he wasn't sure you got it.  I don't know why I need to tell my NM every year that I get my grandfather's card so that she can tell him (I always send a thank you card.  Not right away but always...oh, he sends a little bit of money for the kids and is anxious to know it arrived.)  But, whatever.  Sometimes replying to this "bullshit" stuff gets me off the hook with bigger stuff and she moves on after I ignore her.  So, I reply that I got it, sent her Christmas gifts out and hope she had a nice weekend.

She replies earlier today that she got the package (and then something to tell DH).  I didn't reply.  Wasn't really feeling in the mood to play "text ping pong" and figured her text didn't need a reply (sometimes if you reply, you get caught up in a huge thread and she won't let the texting stop.)

Tonight, she texted me and asked for my in-laws address.  No reason why.  Just wanting their address.

At the same time, she texted my husband a thank you for a gift he'd sent my step dad (not HER and my step dad, just step dad.  Not sure why she was thanking him.)  No question about HIS parent's address.

She has my in-laws address too.  They have exchanged "sympathy" cards when their parents died.  (Side note, MIL sent a sympathy card to my mother when her mother died, but nothing to me, as it was my grandmother.  But, whatever.  In fact, I don't remember them expressing sympathy at all.)  Other than that, they have NEVER exchanged cards.  NM and MIL rarely exchange Christmas cards with anyone.

I can't help but feel she is choosing to send my MIL a Christmas card to hurt my feelings.  Maybe I'm crazy.  Maybe I'm reading too much into the situation.  It's quite possible.  It's time's like this I wonder if I'm crazy, finding conspiracy where there is none.

It is quite possible she was moved by DH being kind to my step father (which he really was) and thought "I want to send MIL and FIL a card."  And, by her own admission, NM is always sad how few people are on her Christmas card list (actually, she bitches about it, but whatever.  She's sad.)  I get it.

But, what I don't get, is how it doesn't even OCCUR to her that, by befriending a woman who has caused her daughter SO MUCH PAIN, it feels like betrayal.  I'm not asking her to be mean, or rude, or unkind to this woman.  It makes it easier that they get along.  I wish she could support me more in my struggle with MIL (do you KNOW how much that would help to at least feel I had my mom on my side?).  But it is what it is.  I'm not asking them to fight. (And for the record, MIL and my SIL's mother can't stand each other.)

But it hurts like hell that my mom would befriend someone who hurts me so much.  That it hasn't occurred to her that she has totally invalidated me.  I know, to her, it's just a Christmas card.  But to me, it feels like betrayal.  But maybe I'm crazy.

Not a good mom

Lately, NM has been pulling out the "I know I wasn't a good mom" card.  A lot.  I couldn't quite put my finger on why that was bothering me so much.

When I was a child, I idolized my mother.  I wrote stories dedicated to (and about) her.  She was my hero: strong, proud, hard working. 

After the mess of the divorce, and in my twenties, I tried repeatedly to tell her how I felt about her mothering.  CLEARLY, she had not been the best mother.  She had, in essence, abandoned us while she ran around.  She kept claiming it was "her time to be happy".  I remember thinking how something about that logic didn't seem right at the time with that statement.   I remember thinking, was she not happy before?  Is she blaming me for her unhappiness during my childhood?  And now I think, is it an either/or situation?  That either her kids or her could be happy? 

Whenever I confronted my mother about her behavior (present behavior, things she was doing in the moment to upset me) she would turn it around and blame it on my "long-held resentment" over the divorce.   I wasn't mad at her.  I was mad at the divorce.  It did not matter that she caused the divorce, handled the divorce poorly, abandoned her kids at the time of the divorce, among other things.  She would. not. hear. me.  She demanded that I treat her like a good mother.  That I give her the respect and "pay back" for all she did for me.  I was NOT ALLOWED to tell her she wasn't a perfect mom.

When I had my kids, she kept bringing up the things she did for me as a mom.  She wanted me to be like her.  She wanted me to "finally" appreciate her or at least that's what she was thinking in her mind.  She never outright said that.  She expressed anger at my father because he said my MIL was a good mother (ha!) and didn't mention her.  She might say that she "didn't do everything" right, but she clearly still believed she was a good mom.  She brought up all the things she did for me as a kid: swimming lessons, occasional crafts, dance lessons.  You know, all the THINGS, that give you the 'love' of a mother.

So, this new "I'm not a good mom" bullshit is unnerving.  Every once and awhile she'd relinquish that she was a shitty mother.  Usually when I had her trapped in an argument and she didn't have a "move".  She'd go pathetic and weak.  She'd start yelling "I know! I know!  I was a bad mom, what do you want me to do about it!!!  I'm sorry OK!!!"  This did not help.  Really, all I wanted was some sympathy for my childhood.  For her to hear my side of the story.  I did not need a "confession".

She has implied lately that some "things have come out around your sister" (I'm guessing in therapy, but who knows.  It could just be some "heart to heart" conversations.) that have "indicated" to her that "some of the "mistakes"" she made as a mom "might" have contributed to pain in my life.  Maybe.  Sort of.  Little stupid things she may have done.  One that ONE bad day.   Right.   I'm curious too as to why, after YEARS of me trying to tell her this, she's "suddenly" seeing the light.

My guess is that she isn't seeing the light.  In the past few conversations, she's mentioned "I know I wasn't the best mom."  And it makes the hair on my neck stand up.  There is something fishy about it.  First and foremost, she never really makes admissions about WHAT she did that was shitty.  Just "some stuff".  She never really apologizes....although she said she "was not asking for my forgivenss" which means that is exactly what she wants.  (And let's not forget the fact that she is CONTINUING to do the things she did to me as a kid.  Her behavior has not been reflected on and has not changed.)

I couldn't figure out what her angle was in telling me the bad mom story.  Pity?  To look like a victim?  To disarm me?  Make me feel guilty?

It just occurred to me it's most likely a trap.  Because really, I'd LOVE to say, "YUP.  You were a horrible mother.  And you continue to be."  And I couldn't figure out what was holding me back from telling her the truth.

It's because it's a trap.  If I saw that, she'll be able to play the vicitim.  She'll have me "anger" and "resentment" at her being a bad mom as an excuse to deflect from the real reason for my anger.  That she is treating me and my sons horribly.  That she is continuing to play the same old bullshit games.  I can only imagine the rage and tirade and pity party she will throw herself if I dared actually agree with her. 

She's laying out bait, hoping I'll bite, so she can bite back.  No thanks.  I think I'll pass.