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I was thinking today about Eve’s recent post, about her lovely mum, which really affected me.
I wanted to share some family history with you all, if it’s ok.
My grandmother died in the the 80s when I was just about to enter my teenage years.
My grandmother was a funny mix. She projected herself, before her time ( when a lot of women were still subjugated to men) but was kind too.
She won the saleswoman of the year award way before women did that kind of thing, and she miffed her male counterparts in the process.
It was her who came to watch me as a oetrified child, performing in my first drama competition; it was her who I went to about women’s problems, her who bought me my first sanitary towels.
My mum, at that time, was very reserved and bashful about talking about such things. My mum was a good mum in some ways, and still can be. But I couldn’t really talk to her about things; plus her energies were taken up in trying to placate my dad, as she desperately wanted him to love her, but he was quite cruel. My man used to call me her special angel. She used to wink and say ‘don’t tell your sisters I said that’ but I knew she had probably said the same to them. It didn’t matter- we all felt loved by her.
She was a character. She owned her own dress shop. She was tall, glamorous, a Marilyn Monrie. She had been a Bluebell dancer in the war, she’d suffered a stillbirth, and she’s married my grandad, an RAF serviceman.
She was cheeky and funny, but you didn’t mess with her. When she was on what I now know was the cancer ward, she used to order a port every evening, though she was teetotal, and ask us to hide it in her locker for when my grandad came in. her dad had been a philanderer and drinker but a successful charmer. Her mum had been a quiet lady, who died relatively young, and my Nan brought up her own younger sister as her own child. She always had my back. A bit in my school year was being unkind to me, and I mentioned it to her. She used to pick us up from school and one day, she nonchalantly asked, as if she wasn’t particularly interested, which bit it was. I pointed him out. Next thing I know, she jumped out of the car and went to have words with him. I don’t know what hat she said, but he never dared bully me again!
When she died, I was bereft. I remember the night she died: my parents hadn’t bought we should know how ill she was, so I had no warning. I got home one day to be told that she was dying.
We went to see her. Her breathing was laboured. I couldn’t understand why people at her bedside were just talking to eachother and not to her: couldn’t they tell that she was desperately trying to hold on? She felt she couldn’t go? Though only a child, I asked my relatives if I could be left alone with her.
I held her hand and told her we all loved her, thanked her for all she had done for us, and listed everyone who loved her- right down to the pet cat! When I had got as far down the list as I could, she suddenly opened her eyes( she was in a coma) and looked right at me and smiled. I called my family in, and she looked at my grandad, smiled, and then she went.
I hat I was thinking about today was, I don’t know if hat made my mum so co- dependent upon my dad. What made her put up with his unkindness to her. But I think my Nan’s influence- a funny mix of warrior-queen and agony aunt- is the what has carried my two sisters and I through. She’s what gave us our sense of morality and courage. As teens, we girls were out at pubs and clubs maybe even. Encore our friends were, but we never compromised ourselves. We have always tried to walk the right line. I think my Nan’s memory is what had carried me through my. Ifhtmate of a marriage and separation. My Nan is part of my biology. Her stength and kindness has left a permanent imprint.
I remember when I won a drama competition. I couldn’t believe it, as I was a chronically shy girl with a stammer. I told my Nan I couldn’t believe I had one. She raised her eyes to heaven and said: ” Of course you won!”
It was hervunfdiling faith in me, her unusual mix of strength yet gentleness, which had kept me going. My sisters and I still talk about her a lot. I don’t know hi k we will ever fully realise that she has gone. She was too big a character to have gone. Indeed, she lived on in each of us.
By the same token, my mum has changed from shy and dependent to a woman in her own right. I still have issues with her: she has pulled herself out of her pain, bitcsn sometimes be too abrasive. And K think she leaned on us too much emotionally when we were young, especially. Maybe because she lost my Nan? Maybe there weren’t the counselling services there are now. Maybe you kept quiet about domestic violence. Who knows, all I know is my mum had perhaps gone too much the other way.
I want to be like my Nan.
To all ladies who are suffering, I wanted to share this, because I think times are changing. Women have. Any of the top jobs. Our PM is a woman. We don’t need to metamorphose into a hardline woman, much like the tough males out there. We can cemebteste the qualities we have as women- empathy, gentleness- if we can shake free of the shackles offender rigidity, male suppression. We can. S free to be who we are, to fight for ourselves and for those we love.
My Nan was being this whirlwind of a woman a good thirty years ago. She’s left an amazing legacy, which has sustained many of us her family. At the same time, I have a bitter and alcoholic uncle by marriage, my Auntie’s husband, who when he’s drunk is full of insults about her. Like he felt threatened by her strength. A warrior queen/ Earth mother willways get some chauvinist abuser’s back up (he is abusive)!
I wanted to say, ladies, that there is a way of is holding onto our essential empathetic nature and becoming a strong warrior at the same time, one who can bat off perpetrators with one flail swoop!
God bless my darling Nan x
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Awwww that was a lovely lovely post it really touched me snd bought tears to my eyes. You’re completely right! Women like your nan fought so we can have what we have today. I will never ever change I will ensure this makes me a better person. The world is not a cruel place it’s vile people that make the world horrid. I have and will continue to be the loving, kind person that I am I will not let him turn me into a cynical person.
Ladies we have, we will snd we will continue to fight this I promise we will never give up. Whatever life throws at us we can do this I know we can! Women have been oppressed for far too long but we have a voice now. There is no way that we need a man for anything! Completely right about our woman MP. You are doing very very well my lovely I know you can and will do this xxxx
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Dear Serenity, what a lovely story, thank you for sharing it with us. Your nan sounded ultra cool. I feel for your mum, domestic abuse is so hard to deal with. These days we have this forum and so much information to help us, back then I don’t think there was anything, women were meant to just put up with it. Maybe it would help your mum to use this forum and gain some knowledge about helping herself out of the abusive relationship, i’m not sure if your dad is still alive now? Your mum sounds like she is feeling more positive now. It is so great to have such a strong role model isn’t it. My mum I would term a super mum. I look up to her so much, I was only thinking yesterday how through all of the years she has never failed to show me her love. I was thinking about actions speaking louder than words as my ex was so keen on words but his actions were rubbish. My mums actions throughout my life have been unrelenting love and never ending support to me. On top of this she is a strong, feisty and very independent women, she is firm believer in women’s rights and encouraging women to be strong independent women who can do anything. She had me learning DIY, bike maintainance and decorating very early on, so that I could cope independently of any man. I love my mum with all of my heart. X*X
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That’s ok 😊. We are such beautiful ladies it’s hard to describe how beautiful we are snd I know when we all are ready to move on and we find the right man for us my god he will be lucky he will be loved immensely and the love he will have for us will be out of this world. You know why that is? We deserve nothing but the best snd that’s exactly what we will get I’m sure of it. God has a plan for us. I’m not a Christian I am very religious and follow another way of life and I went and sat in a Church today. You know what was being played on the organ? Here comes the bride! It was beautiful, amazing and so inspiring. As you know I come from an ethnic minority background but I’ve already decided when I get married again I am doing an English ceremony nothing extravagant but I’m going to sit and take time to write my vows and I want my dad to see me in a white dress making the right decision with the right man. How that happened today only God knows! Xxxx
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Hi HA,
My mum and Dad divorced when I was a teenager. It was pretty horrible. My dad lied about money too, etc.
My mum took it badly. I remember her lying on the grass, thumping the ground, screaming.
She then used to talk to us for hours about my dad, things I shouldn’t really have had to know. I became anorexic with the stress of it.
My mum has helped me out in many ways. At the same time, I do think her experience of abuse has affected her in some way. She’s become a fighter, but can be too harsh at times. Maybe it’s a defence mechanism.
I think we ladies are lucky. Nowadays, we can share, talk, get support. Think how we have all helped eachother here- and we’ve mostly never met eachother!
I think getting support through my own marriage breakup has helped my mum. I’ve told her how WA had helped me; I’ve shared some of my counsellor’ insights. I think
It’s helped her to see my dad firs the description of a perpetrator: it wasn’t her fault. At the same time, I’ve managed to tell my mum that she’s swung too much the other way- that she’d become too tough, and I do see a change in her. I think she’s making an effort to be softer. My mum said to me the other week: ‘ All that matters at the end of the day is kindness.” It was lovely to hear her say this, as she’d become quite tough after my dad left, almost obsessed with business and money making schemes, and she wasn’t always emotionally available. I think my mum is mellowing. Maybe her age, or maybe my experience has helped her see hers more clearly and it’s allowing her to access her more emotional side.I was thinking how abuse is as old as the hills. My great grandfather was very handscome in photos; he was a greagsrious nan who joked and sang, but at the same time he could be unkind to my great grandmother, having affairs, etc.
My nan married my grandad, who was a shy and gentle man. Maybe she deliberately married the opposite of her father?
All these women, from different generations, have suffered cruelty at the hands of men. But they’ve all fought back and survived, and we can too. X
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I feel for your mum Serenity. The impact of abuse is horrendous isn’t it. We all act in ways to enable us to cope. At work I come across as aloof and unfriendly but I have adopted that way as its the only way that I can manage the job. Your mum might have adopted mannerisms to help her cope. I think when people become obsessed with things its a form of staying in control when they may feel out of control. I know that there have been times that I have been so scared of something my way of coping was to become ultra rigid, it got me through. It is hard for us women when there is abuse in the air, it traps us making us stay in really unhealthy situations doesn’t it. My nan, my mums mum was really miserable and downtrodden, I think that my granddad was abusive to her, but back in those days there was no support for my nan. My mum came from a dysfunctional home, but I think my mum may have been an odd one out. She wanted to educate herself and put herself through college when I was little, she has always encouraged myself and my sister to be strong independent women, abuse was highly taboo for my mum and for us. I would never be in an abusive relationship it would just go totally against the grain over how my mum brought us up. Of course we get trapped by the lovebombing, but I don’t believe past that I would stay.
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Growing up my dad died when i was (removed by moderator). I was his favourite he desperatly wanted a child and my parents struggled to concieve. My (removed by moderator)Â told me recently that he said on the day i was born it was the happiest of his life.
After he died my mum remarried my stepdad very quickly. That i think set the tone for my life. My mum was afraid of being alone and i think i adopted that attitude. My stepdad was abusive to my mother and to me. Everything my ex did he did minus the sexual abuse. He would call me names, tell me he scraped better things off his shoe than me and show my brothers and sisters obvious favouritism. I remember once he bought them all expensive football shirts and made a huge show of giving them in front of me.
My mum came home with a (removed by moderator)Â she had seen and bought for me that. I loved (removed by moderator).. She gave it to me secretly. That (removed by moderator)Â was worth more to me than anything my stepdad could have lavished.
Looking back i see he wanted my mum all to himself. I was a constant reminder as the eldest of her former husband and my mum always showed a special relationship with me. I was punished because my mother dared to love me.
He died and i moved in with my boyfriend who became my eldests dad. The relationship wasn’t perfect but he wasn’t abusive until we broke up. I left him and he used my son to punish me for hurting him.we get on ok now but i can’t forgive him for that.
My next boyfriend my youngests dad was abusive and continues to be so.
I have been dogged my whole life by this belief that i need a man to survive. I am starting to realise i don’t.
After my stepdad died my mum again remairried quickly, luckily this man is a good one.
I see so much of my mother in myself. I love my mum but i feel some resentment. She saw how i was treated and did nothing to stop it. I am starting to understand how she couldn’t leave him but it doesn’t make up for the past. She has always taken my exs part even now she knows what my youngests dad has done and still justifies it so she can keep her opinion of him. When he put me in the hospital they asked me if i wanted to call anyone and i said no. I felt totally alone, i felt so sure she would be angry with me.
She wasn’t.
But after everything she still stands by him. That hurts especially when i was telling her about our relationship and she said it sounded like how my stepdad treated her. She has lived this and can still support him.
The truth will come out. It always does. Maybe now, maybe in 20 years when he puts his wife in the hospital for buying the wrong bread.
It is the powerlessness i hate the most. The feeling of being totally alone unable to show the world what you have seen. Isolated is exactly how i feel.
But i am not my mother and i won’t let him hold the power over me my stepdad did over her. I don’t need a man. I am not afraid of being alone, when i am alone i am not lonely, i have been in a room full of people and felt what being alone really is.
Noone will ever do this to me again. I won’t let him do this to our child.
I agree serenity, we are women and times are changing. -
Well done, Velveteen.
Yes, times are changing. We can be financially independent, enjoy rewarding careers- we don’t need to put up with domineering men anymore.
You went through a great deal in your childhood. I hope that the knowledge that your dad loved you more than anything helps you to realise your worth, despite your experiences.
I think your mum is fearful. My mum has behaved in ways that have hurt me very much too. When my ex left, she was in fact not very supportive. Maybe it triggered too much pain in her, feelings she thought she’d successfully buried. I would go as far as to say that my mum was quite unkind to me on a number of occasions when I most needed her.
I think my mum has coped by almost denying feelings. I remember her telling me once that there was never any reason on earth that meant we needed to cry. How unhealthy is that? When I was very emotional, she was quite unkind, as if she despised my weakness. But I don’t agree that we should deny our feelings and become robots.
My mum and I have had some nice talks recently. I’ve told her that healing is a process, and that tears are natural. She has listened. She still has a tendency to deny her feelings and to be impatient with others’- but she is mellowing a little. I am sure telling her what I thought and standing up to her has helped.
Your mum is blocking and denying certain things, maybe as a defence mechanism. Sometimes, our parents don’t have the strength of the skills to parent properly.
I imagine that, deep down, she feels guilty about how she let your stepfather treat You and is trying to minimise how bad he was to let herself off the hook, and her own guilt is stopping her from accepting your ex’s abusiveness.
But that is her problem, and she has her own agenda. You know the truth of your situation. And you can rise from it xx
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Dear Velvet, I remember once my ex said to me that he could not see himself being with a women who had dependent aged children. He would not appreciate the love and time the woman would give the children as he would expect to get all of her love and attention. I thought Hmmm when he said that, red flag time. A relative of his had a partner who had a young child of his own from a previous relationship. He was dedicated to his child and saw the child a lot. His GF, my ex’s relative, it was perceived by the wider family my ex included that this man was a no good person as he was putting his child first. The lot of them disapproved of him being a thoughtful committed dad and thought he should give his GF more time. When I heard this I thought what a nice, decent man he sounded. I said that I would want a man who put his child first. I too said that If i ever had children these would be put in front of any man, my ex didn’t look very impressed when I said that.
I too have never been single throughout the whole of my adult life, it is only this past (removed by moderator).. I feel a bit lonely and empty but my mum says i’m doing great now.
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