Mother/Daughter Angst in Scottish Meanderings

I need to offload what’s happened between Nikki and I this month but I’m finding it really hard to do. So I think I might generalise to give the gist and maybe expand in my next entry depending on how things are.

(Ha! Look at the length of this entry! Be thankful you’re not getting the detailed version😁)

When I was ill, Nikki did not cope well. She wasn’t too bad in the beginning but as time went on I think she just got sick of it and eventually stopped coming through here completely. This meant I went weeks without seeing the girls and as she’d stopped getting my shopping without any warning I had to scrabble round to get others to do it.

There seemed to be a whole lot of resentment built up somehow and I felt like I was being blamed for being ill. As I began to recover I discovered all sorts of lies which I and others had been told - things which definitely happened which she now denies and which made a big difference to my recovery - and I came to the conclusion that I was never going to get to the bottom of anything so it was pointless trying.

Naturally this changed our relationship and I felt I had to develop a thick skin to cope but the best thing to do was keep the door open and in time we might salvage some part of that relationship again.

Which was exactly what happened.

In doing so I had to put up with a lot and also bite my tongue a lot but I had watched her deny Joel and Jane seeing the girls for 3 months because she couldn’t get along with Joel (Jane, Joel’s mum, could only see them when Joel had them) and I was terrified the same thing would happen to me.

At one time I would have said our relationship was strong enough that she would never have done that to me but now we were in a different ballgame and I honestly couldn’t say that any more so I wasn’t prepared to risk it.

One of the things I was desperate to do was have the girls on my own at my house. Grannies everywhere will understand when I say that there is an entirely different relationship which gets built up when you have your grandchildren in your own space.

I wasn’t able to do this off my own bat because the drive out to her house alone would exhaust me sometimes so for two years I begged Nikki to either take them in or pick them up. She refused. Multiple times. ‘There’s nothing in that for me - I would still have Ruari to look after’.

I eventually gave up but with all the months in lockdown I was able to conserve a bit more energy than usual and wondered if I might be able to try doing the whole thing. So I asked her. She seemed fine with it.

I was very anxious because I knew so much was at stake but managed it all perfectly okay. We baked cakes, had tea, decorated the cakes and toddled off home and I left on a high :) I arranged to do it every second Saturday (they are at Joel’s the other weekends) but I could tell Nikki wasn’t happy with it.

The second time I was due to take them I texted her on the Saturday to ask if 4 pm was ok to pick them up like before. At QUARTER PAST THREE (I have to leave at half past 3) she replied saying can we leave it as they were currently up Bennachie so not sure when they‘d get back. Bennachie is a huge kick ass hill 1,732 ft high and an hour’s drive away so not exactly the sort of thing you decide to do in passing. It had clearly been planned out.

Sabotage much?

I let it go and the next weekend they were due to come to mine I checked on the Wednesday this time that there was nothing planned. Everything seemed fine. When I arrived we were standing outside and she said she had a proposition for me which she outlined and which was looking after the girls on a Wednesday instead of a Saturday but at their own house.

This made no sense because I already come out on a Wednesday to look after Ruari while the girls are at their drama class and stay till bedtime. But in the course of the ensuing conversation it transpired that if I was taking the kids she wanted me to take all three.

I said I couldn’t do that and again the whole ‘nothing in it for me’ comes out and I asked why was it so difficult to do something for *me* for a change?? She does nothing for me at all - I have to go out there to see the kids and I don’t even get my tea when I do - I have to bring my own!!

Actually what’s worse about that whole scenario is that when she makes the tea, she just shouts ‘teatime’ and they all go and sit at the table and I have to then get my own tea organised. By the time I sit down they’re half way through theirs! It’s completely ludicrous.

Anyway she started going on about how people’s lives were turned upside down when I was ill, the girls suffered because I was unable to do the normal things a granny does and when I said but I wasn’t in control of that she said she felt I was more in control of it than I let on!!

That’s tantamount to saying I’m making the whole thing up and have deliberately thrown my life into chaos for the last five years! So clearly I must have at some point decided to stop work so that there was no income coming in (endangering the mortgage and me living in the house), stayed in bed for months on end on two separate occasions, stopped sleeping, barely ate, was unable to sit in a chair for five minutes, unable to go on the Internet, read, watch TV, speak to people for any length of time, go outside, even get dressed. For literally months. Whilst dealing with the most hellish of symptoms anyone can imagine with absolutely no let up.

Yeah ‘cause that’s the sort of thing someone would do to themselves🙄.

I was really disgusted and hit back with a couple of home truths of my own - which she clearly didn’t like and at that point I left it because I had to care of two sweet little girls for the next four hours. Which of course was then totally ruined.

I knew it was absolutely pointless trying to sort it out because she would just twist everything and deny loads - she was already denying what she’d said under 24 hours later! We clearly had very different narratives of that time so it got left and we continued to climb over the huge mountain of stuff swept under the carpet :)

Fast forward to almost 4 weeks later - I’m out there as usual on Saturday night and once the kids were in bed she suggested having a talk. Admirable no? That’s what I thought too and I’m so furious with myself for not standing my ground and refusing to do it because it turned into an absolute shit show.

This time she got the big guns out and let me have it - both barrels. I mean I’m actually surprised you’re all still talking to me because I appear to be *that* despicable and basically she’s just been ‘putting up with me’ for years! Even my parenting was getting the works - everything I did was apparently wrong and appeared to have screwed her up royally.

I’m sorry - I don’t quite remember the day I told her to treat people like shit and the way to have babies is to dupe guys into getting you pregnant and then drop them like a hot stone afterwards?

It was two and a half hours of a vile, vitriolic attack - at times I would retaliate but mostly I just sat there shaking my head and wondering what the hell has happened to her.

And that’s the stupid, sad thing. Despite all the bad behaviour, the manipulation, the gaslighting and the crass attitude, I still only want the best for her and to be happy. How sad is that??

And if this was only between her and I - well that would still be horrendous but maybe understandable to a certain degree - but in the past two years I have had no less than FOUR separate people come to me in distress about her treatment of them and behaviour towards them.

Can you imagine how that feels - to have several people come to you telling you how much distress they’re in because of your own daughter?? I mentioned to her that I thought she’d changed quite drastically in the last few years and she said yeah what's happened is that she’s become much more independent and I don’t like it!

I don't like it?? FFS that’s what I’ve been striving to get her to become - exhaustingly - for the past God knows how many years! And when you continuously get yourself pregnant - deliberately - without any means of support of any kind, you’re pretty much making that harder and harder to do y’know? What was I supposed to have done instead? Just turned her and Lily out into the street??

Her understanding of being independent and mine are clearly very different. She has done a good job of bringing those kids up - I’m not taking that away from her - but she definitely hasn’t done it on her own by any means. She’s currently very heavily dependent on her friend Tracy for virtually everything and has relied on me, Joel and Jane for regular childcare and financial help since before Lily was born. Joel has continuously fought to have the girls for an extra night for most of this year (he only gets them for pretty much 24 hours at the moment) and is just as continuously refused.

And being independent does not mean receiving benefits and having at least FOUR loans out at any one time from your mother for the last 10 years!!

I made sure to check what this meant going forward because like I said, I was terrified she would say not to come out any more and I’d never see the kids and she mumbled something about ‘putting a face on for the kids’ which, although hard, I was prepared to do. She knows she’s got me over a barrel where they are concerned.

To date I’ve been out 4 times since and am very glad to see we can manage it. Conversation is limited and there have been a few digs but it’s bearable. And there are actually some positives from it.

1) I now don’t stay after the kids are in bed when I’m out so get home at a much more reasonable time which helps me tremendously.

2) After the first fallout she was in the process of buying a new-to-her car and instead of asking me for another loan she took out finance and paid off one of the biggest loans to me. Score!

3) I imagine she’ll be desperately trying to break any chains that still make her dependent on me so although that may mean less time with them overall, that can only be a good thing. She’s 32. It’s about time.

I’m so pleased to notice that it’s not consuming me as much as I thought it would. I had a horrible stress headache for 3 days and couldn’t sleep properly or focus on anything. I went through a stop light in the car and emerged from a junction sooner than I should have but I’m glad to see that that all seems to have settled down now.

So I’ll just toddle on with my life and continue to put the face on for my lovely grandchildren - who, by the way, are totally worth it!🥰


And next month, unless there’s been another episode or blood’s been shed, I will resume talking about the mundane again!