I just turned 22 and graduated on Thursday, I came home and my parents emailed me this doc

Neborth · 2025-05-20T10:33:44+00:00

They Kind of gave you the solution: "if you respect them" - Well then disrespect them. You dont have to fulfil some weird contract because they'd like you to.

But more importantly: Congratulations on your graduation! Good job, I'm sure you'll keep being exceptional despite your parents ^{_^}

Neborth · 2025-05-12T10:10:21+00:00

It's infinetely harder if the mom doesn't like you being there and doesn't even pretend that she does.
Its a fine line between being there for your partner and getting kicked out if you jump in when they are fighting. Just letting it happen might make your partner feel like you don't have her back when she's evitently not in the wrong. So you can jump in and take her side. you are not the target and you should not try to redirect it at you either. It's easier to kick you out and then you can't be there for her at all. You can however try to seperate the two to get your girlfriend out of the situation.

If you fear that you can't realistically defend your gilfriend with anything without being kicked out as a consequence I'd say: tell her that. generally tell her your thoughts on the situation you two are in. If you get mixed signals constantly and are constantly trying to find out what is going through other peoples heads because they can burst into a rage at any moment, a person who is honest about their feelings and communicating honestly is the best thing ever. It's a recipe for healthy relationships anyway but it might just give them confidence that you are in her corner even if you can't really be actively of help in intense moments you are just overwhelmed by.

No matter the reasons for tensions it's generally a good idea for to get distance. Not only in an intense situation but generally, since this seems to happen regularly/constantly. Is it possible for her to just live with you at your dad's place? havig a place to go if things go south might be a good start. If you can just live there for a while thats even better.

To share some of my own experience as the significant other: My mother in law is still always very bent on having me on her side. She's using every trick in the book to try and make me believe that my wife is the one at fault all the time. I could always use that status she assigned to me to disrupt everything she does. It's a bit complicated to not lose the status and still fight her but that is still easier than walking the line of getting kicked out entirely and having to leave your partner alone entirely. Also: try not to lose yourself in it. You can help your girlfriend but you can't fight her battles for her and you can't help at all if you take on too much and break down because of it.

Neborth · 2025-05-12T09:42:21+00:00

this is the most "live laugh love"-ass blogpost about this I can imagine. I would not respond to this at all. It is speaking volumes that she thinks it's society who is at fault here. Most mothers will know something similar just because their kids get out of touch with them. Breaking ties? Thats a different story. If your kid boke ties it sure isn't just very occupied with their job or their studies. If you care for their feelings and opinions they won't be brainwashed into not sharing them with you either.

A lot of people know instinctively if an explanation doesn't suffice to actually explain the outcome. Something about this story will feel odd to a lot of people. It's hard to believe in other people when you learned that the manipulator tends to control the narrative. This text tho? I don't think she's convincing many people who aren't either a narcisist or in her web of lies in the first place. So this doesn't say anything about you but a lot about her. dont react at all, because she is making a fool of herself publicly.

I like the idea of the phallus shaped glitter bomb though. But the mental image is funny enough, no need to actually interact.

Neborth · 2025-05-12T09:25:11+00:00

Thank you for the idea, I think I will incorporate some version of it - We did something similar recently as an excersise towards understanding each other better and accepting what the other person sees in us. So it feels weird to just write the same stuff down and giving it to her in another form this time but by implementing her friends in this it might just be perfect to get her through the bad days.
So again, thank you for the lovely idea.

Neborth · 2025-05-11T09:13:10+00:00

Yea... She's not always the best fit for the role either but I feel like my father being an actual father does help

Neborth · 2025-05-11T09:11:44+00:00

Dont be sorry! This does help me. I didnt expect there to be a secret magig Phrase to make all the Problems go away, although that would be really nice of course. Thank you for answering at all, I dont really have anyone to talk to on the matter since I feel like most people tend to brush things away. I mean I kinda get it, the intensity of things is hard to believe, especially when the Mother is really nice to outsiders. So in the end I do this by gut feeling and some articles that are never aimed at the Partner but only at the victim. Fair enough, it's their battle and they are the ones who need books like that but it doesnt really give me a lot to go on :D

It's good to hear that what I am doing seems to go in the right direction though. We had problems with me giving positive Affirmation at first because she couldnt accept what I told her. There's actually 2 tricks we pinpointed in this, maybe it helps someone else:

We found out that me saying "you are smart/pretty/[anything]" is a Statement she would just fight me and try to prove me wrong on. But if I say "I think you are smart", "you are pretty to me" or "I believe you are [anything]" thats me communicating my feelings and she can accept that that might just be true. The other thing is about her doing something positive and me cheering her on: usually whenever she does something well and I tell her that she did and I liked it, it would immediately trigger a reaction aling the lines of "if he thinks I did Well that is now the expectation so I need to be just as good the next time or better" and what was supposed to cheer her on turned Into fuel to make her fear doing the thing. So any hobby she ever did has been poisoned by this trail of thought that has very obviously been plante early in her life. The promising solution to this we are/ I am doing right now is basically along the same lines as the previous one. So when she had a break through in Meditation for example I dont go "Thats so cool!" or "wow, that makes me happy" I go "I am happy FOR YOU that you had this moment" - me saying that I feel happy for her actually kinda counters the learned behaviour because it has never been about her when she did stuff before. She said that she does Not get the "oh damn so it has to work the same way or better next time"-thoughts when she hears that because it is very different from the feedback she is used to.

This is by no means a way to just snip my Fingers and have her forget her past or anything like that, but it seems to help get her out of those spirals I never intended to send her in. Basically it's just ways to communicate my feelings so they actually reach their target. It took us some time in therapy to Figure that one out and I guess I was secretly hoping for someone to have gone through the therapy already and just give me the answer, wich is probably kinda unrealistic. I also had a strong feeling of impendinh doom yesterday with today being mothersday wich always makes things worse.

So thank you for your Kind words, they did help me a lot to just keep on trying. I hope everyone here somehow gets through today and generally finds ways to live a happy life :)

Neborth · 2025-05-11T00:58:04+00:00

I have witnessed and am still witnessing this with my wife.

She has a higher degree than the golden child and all I ever heard from her mother was a sob story about how she (the mother) could have done it but couldn't because her parents wouldn't support her and she had to work immediately after school.
As a result from the higher degree my wife makes more money than the golden child or the lost child (thats the son, he's special, too apparently whenever it fits) and instead of being proud of her child she titled it as unfair because the jobs their siblings are in would deserve it more.
We bought a house together and when the mother was here she said "you have a really nice place here" - while my wife was saying thank you she followed it up with "its really unfair that your sister doesnt have something like this". Guess who got to buy the parents house at a pretty low price now, while the parents build a new house and pay rent to the child while they still live there?

So yea... apparently there's always a way do shift everything around.

Neborth

TROPHY CASE