1. Not Sure If Normal
My family talks badly about anyone and everyone. This has led to me having horrible social anxiety and thinking everyone hates me.
I also didn't realize other families had family friends. Neither of my parents had friends, and I thought this was normal for adults.
Finally, I did not know that it was normal to say, " I love you.”
sortofsatan
2. Plans And Promises
In my household, plans and promises fall through all the time.
Growing up if we made plans as a family to go apple picking in the Fall, 9/10 times it would not happen because some big fight would happen that Summer and no one would be on good terms.
If you wanted to buy a new couch, that couch would not be purchased without a 5-year delay, a lot of nagging, and multiple fights.
If you planned a vacation, the vacation would end in some type of fight when one narc doesn't get exactly what they want.
Basically, planning nice things seemed very hopeless and tedious in general.
I needed a lot of slow effort to get any small nice thing done.
Then I realized that this is NOT how life worked for everyone else. It's just how joint plans with narcissists work. They purposefully sabotage and delay a lot of nice things in life because they seek chaos and power instead of happiness.
It was actually a relief when I realized that life isn't always meant to be that hard. For my own part, I have to work on being proactive and timely about keeping my own promises and plans instead of procrastinating them.
I got so used to the slow, dragging pace of narc life that I have trouble staying motivated and active about big projects.
greenappletw
3. Plan Crushers
I had no idea this had anything to do with narcissism. As soon as I got some independence, I would make plans to go to a nearby city to see a play or do something special.
My parents would always tell me not to and to wait for them to go with me. Because they wanted to come, and they could "use their airpline to get a better deal," and they'd "look into it."
This has happened like ten times, and not only did the plans never follow through but if I'd known that, I would have gone on my own.
So, I missed out on a lot of special memories and opportunities by trusting in these family members.
I thought they were just unreliable.
froge_on_a_leaf
4. What Just Happened?
My grandmother ruined her own son's birthday gathering because someone said a comment that conflicted with her husband's original comment to make the entire day about her.
Started crying because her son's wife said, "I think he looks handsome today." In response to his father's comment, "Huh. Looks like you didn't shave today."
Grandmother walks out dramatically, crying, and wants to leave.
I remember sitting there stunned at what seemed like stupidity, but I know it was narcissism.
burritoimpersonator
5. Broken Promises
Omg. There are 2 narcissists in my life: my mother and ex-husband. They are both exactly like this—so many grandiose promises, then outright refusal to follow through.
Of course, I was then being difficult for pushing for things to actually happen the way we had agreed.
Everything was so, so, so difficult all the time.
It makes you just want to give up and believe that you don't deserve anything nice.
greenblueseatwo
6. Having Too Much Fun
I experienced lots of teasing growing up, along with accompanying emotional invalidation
"Don't be so sensitive, we were just teasing!"
Teasing is inflicting emotional distress on someone for your own entertainment.
Extremely narcissistic.
Icy_Comfort8161
7. A Living Puppet
Hahahaha, my mum used to say whatever she wanted to me, but as soon as 10-year-old me showed any emotion other than what she wanted, I was the worst son someone could have.
How can you claim you “love” someone but then consistently treat them in the same crappy ways that always lead to the same results?
My upbringing was so far from how one should be. I worry about who I will become one day.
Papalal13
8. Great Pretender
Yes! I had this happen to me a lot at home around family members, where they were shocked at some of the jokes my father made at my expense.
When I was about 10, he made these cruel jokes.
The jokes then get played off as nothing, and that I'm okay, and to save face for the family.
I would pretend to be okay.
memestar20
9. Toxic Jokes
This is something I'm only really processing in my 30s, as I've gone no contact and spent a lot of time with my partner's family. He's a gay man with 3 sisters, and the style and tone of conversation never included sarcastic, put-down humor.
Though they all enjoy cringe humor, which used to make me almost vomit with anxiety to watch before I started my healing journey.
I've also noticed that both my brothers (who mirrored their narcissistic father and ended up with similar personalities) treat their wives with sarcastic teasing, and they also have developed anxiety disorders and had to go on SSRIs.
I've lost my anxiety disorder and have gone into complete remission for my depression after cutting them out.
Suburbanturnip
10. Not Like A Home
I never saw my parents kiss once, let alone actually be affectionate with one another.
Cruelty was totally normalized, as some other posters have alluded to.
Growing up in a narcissist’s environment is just deciding how much you can make yourself disappear to fit into their delusions because we, as children, are vulnerable and want to belong to something/anything, even if it’s obviously poisonous.
How’s therapy going for everyone else?
woodeehoo
11. The Confusion
I once walked into the kitchen while my mom and grandmother were talking, and my grandmother said, "You're going to walk into the kitchen and not give your mother a hug?"
So I went to give my mother a hug, and as my arms were starting to near her shoulders, she said, "You're hanging on me," and stepped away.
I've since learned that any time my mother wants to hug me, it's performative, to show someone else how much she cares about me... which is worse.
flatlanded
12. No Affection
My parents were married for 16 years, and I never saw them hug. They only did a peck on the lips on NYE, and they never said 'I love you.'
It really messed up the way I view relationships, and I have a difficult time saying I love you as well.
I’ve been in a relationship for 7 years, and I still haven't said it.
poopinmyguts
13. Prepare for a Checkpoint
When I was in grade school, if I left my backpack downstairs or anywhere in the open, my mother would rifle through it, pull out every sheet of paper, test, etc., and lay it out on the kitchen table.
She would then berate and admonish me for things I seemingly “didn’t tell her about.” then, she’d launch into a diatribe about how horrible of a kid I was and how my older sister was so honest and smart.
It usually ended with her comparing our report cards and reiterating that everything going on in my life was unimportant and some slight to embarrass her or the family.
Garbouliak
14. An Eye-opener
This sort of fits, but backwardly, it’s something I thought nobody did because it never happened in my family: parents apologizing to their kids.
In elementary school, a teacher read us “Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing” by Judy Blume, there’s a scene where the main character’s mom says “I’m sorry” to him. I thought- I better not let my parents catch me reading that book!
When I was 28, a co-worker I was eating lunch with, talking about whatever was going on in our lives, said she had told her 11 y.o. daughter that she couldn’t go to a movie with her friends because it was a school night, “but then I realized I was being too hard on her, so I apologized and let her go.”
I was shocked because I had never heard of such a thing happening in real life (maybe on sitcoms, but those are so fake, right?), and I blurted out loudly, incredulously, “You apologized to your daughter???”
And everyone in the lunch room turned around and stared at me like I had grown an extra head. And at that moment, I realized that I was the oddball for thinking that was a horrible thing! Kinda made me rethink some things.
My immediate thought was shock because she’d always seemed like a smart woman and a good mom, but that was terrible parenting! How are you going to maintain absolute power over your kids if you do that?
I even thought it was unChristian because there’s a story in the Bible that my dad liked to remind us of that says that once you swear an oath, you can never go back on it.
Once a parent makes a decision, it’s a huge mistake for them to change their mind.
A big show of weakness.
Even though I HATED the way I was raised, I was still stuck in thinking it was how things were supposed to be.
It took me 2 more years to be brave enough to get into a support group, but it was an eye-opener!
(I’ve never had kids, btw, in case anyone’s wondering if I’d never apologized to mine either.)
EmilyAnne1170
15. Sorry, but…
Not every "sorry" is truly an apology. My N(covert)mother tries to apologize sometimes but in a way that you cannot accept it even when you want to, saying stuff like:
"I'm sorry you feel this way,"
"Sorry, we should forget about it already"
"I don't want to argue anymore, so I will be the bigger person and will be the first one to say sorry".
Or that she is sorry that I misunderstood her intentions, and she meant it well when she was saying I am going to be a bad mother and that I am too sensitive because I got angry at that.
I hope I will never end up like this!
Positive_Storage3631
16. Not Once
My parents NEVER EVER apologized to me.
Not once.
They would call me names, shame my appearance, attack my character, tell me that nobody liked me, and scream at me while I was already crying. They would then rationalize it to themselves by creating an explanation for why I "deserved it."
Can you freaking imagine being a grown adult and having this little self-awareness? What is the actual crap their brains are like on the inside?
When I apologized to them, they would just respond with "OK."
Ok_Specific6904
17. Spreading Hate
Wow, yes. The moment after the relatives left the house (or we were in the car driving away from their house), the Narc went over everything that was said, mocked it, laughed at it, and chewed it up.
Nothing but disdain and superiority.
Prime supply for them to get some fresh details on other people’s lives.
They lived for it.
They came alive when hashing over the interaction.
Accomplished-Zone393
18. Seeking Private Life
I was never allowed to have any privacy. My door could never be locked. My mom and sister would read my diary behind my back and then ridicule me for the things I wrote.
Triangulation. I rarely spoke directly to my dad, even though he always lived with us. My mom was the messenger between us, which was a convenient way for her to control the messaging.
I was in my 30s when I first started to have direct conversations with my dad and finally started to really get to know him, which made my mom really uncomfortable and eventually led me to uncover some distortions of the messaging in earlier years.
As a teen, my mom would get high with me and my friends. She was the “cool” mom who was more like one of the girls than a parent. I knew that wasn’t “normal” but never realized how messed up it was until I became a parent myself.
My mom constantly berated my dad in front of anyone and everyone. Everything about him was a complaint.
She still does this.
RedF77
19. Tragic Teller
My mom is a trauma junkie. I grew up on stories of how family members, past and present, suffered.
She collects tragic stories - ‘Isn’t this a lovely view? this park bench is dedicated to a woman who died in a car accident!’ - and when she visited the country, her father came from and came back with stories of war crimes.
One of the few times I visited my hometown and got to spend much time around my sister-in-law and had a chance to get to know her a little.
She went and got the local paper and sat near us reading the obit section aloud, said she was looking for people in my age range, and kept asking me, ‘This person is a little older / younger than you, but maybe you knew them?’
She also recited a list of every teacher or teacher's spouse she knew of who now had a serious illness.
… and I thought this was all normal stuff and/or her trying to keep me safe from accidents and informed about people I cared about …
smlstrsasyetuntitled
20. Misery of Expectations
Treating some parts of relationships as transactions and projecting your needs onto others. More simply, doing things for people with the expectation that they will do it for you.
I have a tendency to let people "off the hook" so that when I choose not to do my best, they will do the same for me. If they don't, I feel angry and resentful.
This can be other favors too, like cooking dinner for someone and then expecting them to do the same under similar circumstances and feeling sad, abandoned, and straight up like a better person than them.
After all, I cooked, I'm clearly the better person!
These are nasty fleas that have caused me and my loved ones a lot of misery.
FriendCountZero
21. For Manipulation Purposes
My parents liked to say they did me a “favor” that was really only beneficial to them. Then they would say something like, “We did that for you (even though you didn’t ask for it), and you had fun.
In return, you can help me do this other thing that only benefits me while I tell you that you don’t appreciate anything”.
His favor was usually getting some kind of fast food without the other parent, getting driven to a sports practice, or getting a new pair of shoes.
All things that any other parent was happily doing without drama or manipulation.
TjbMke
22. Tied Chain
My mum never had accountability. Ever. I watched her playing a game with her church buddies (had thyroid cancer, and my energy levels were poop), and I watched her get the answer wrong and completely deny it.
Every time I asked to go out with friends, she'd ask for names and numbers and if they were "good people." My group of friends was the Magic, the Gathering, and Pokémon nerds! We never even touched weed or alcohol underage.
Happened even at university, and I said, "There were hundreds of people. Did you wanna background check everyone???"
She told me that her cruelty was because the world is cruel. Lmao.
Jokes on her as a queer person because I know the world is crap. Doesn't hurt less that my mum isn't encouraging me, but part of the problem.
Vacations. Everything had to cater to her. Food, drink, sleep schedules (she can't fall asleep without a computer blaring)....it's tiring being with her because you never get a say.
Eating junk food all the time but then judging your food choices.
Gossiping about everyone! This is the most annoying one, but she's toned it down because I parroted it back to her, and she found it annoying that I called everyone a dumbass. (Lmao.)
astrangeone88
23. Cheap Intimacy
I’m reminded a lot of what some therapists call "cheap intimacy". Which, unfortunately, is also a major flea I caught from my family.
It basically means you're "bonding" by banding together against someone else instead of actually bonding by getting to truly know each other. This was a survival strategy for my siblings and me as kids, and we just kept doing it after we were out of our abusive household.
I'm trying not to do that anymore.
Closely related to this, and to answer your question, everyone in my family was triangulating at all times. Anyone who had a problem with anyone would never, ever communicate with that person directly.
Instead, they'd complain about them to everyone else, and eventually, someone would tell that other person that the first person had a problem with something they said or did.
I'm also trying really hard not to get dragged into this anymore.
CardinalPeeves
24. Abused Innocence
Reading these posts validates what I went through with my mom. She literally did most of the stuff people have mentioned here. Here are the things I thought were "normal" as a kid:
She would harshly criticize me and mock anything I said the moment we were alone after socializing with people. I used to have social anxiety and hated going out (mom would have to be there).
I used to stay in my room for a month, as much as possible if I could. My mom gaslighted (and still does) about me and my personality.
Now I'm obsessed with going outside, and I struggle to stay inside for more than a day (I get depressed immediately). Ironically, my mom thinks I'm still "shy" or "meek", but she's not around to witness me doing my crap.
She is like Judge Judy when she meets people. Everyone is an idiot (except her), even if she smiled straight to your face for whatever aspect she could criticize you over. Very few people are chosen to be 'intelligent ones' in her world. She'll bad-mouth anyone over literally anything.
She screams and cries in public spaces. I remember once she did that over my desire to change my major and left somewhere (I don't remember where), and a waitress tried to calm me down, telling me that my mom would get over it.
She hasn't, really.
She told me adult stuff in her life, like my dad cheating on her and her fear of getting STDs (I don't remember when but I was quite young when she told me).
She mostly told me direct words rather than something different or more child-friendly. I used to make people uncomfortable as a kid over things my mom shouldn't have told me.
She called me "overly dramatic" or "drama queen" literally anytime I got upset.
She lied to me plenty of times by rewriting history gaslighting me. She admitted she would lie to people to get what she wanted. I don't trust her anymore.
I even told her that I didn't trust her anymore, and she told me that people would judge her, and she denied anything wrong. She even flipped it around and said I'm a liar and she's been abused.
I did and still do lie to her.
I don't care anymore as I realize that I lie because I don't trust her anymore.
ApocalypticThoughts_
25. Not a Hint of Privacy
I thought keeping the door open even when you're asleep was normal.
I was only allowed to close my door if I was getting dressed (though my mom would still walk in because, ya know we're both girls).
I thought this was normal until my boyfriend said it wasn't.
SunnyDaisy4Ever
26. Money Controller
My family displayed quite a number of toxic traits. Despite a middle-class income with a nice house in a good neighborhood, we were living in poverty by choice and keeping total control over money. Never being able to go on field trips or buy pizza at lunch with the rest of the class because it cost money.
We had to wear our clothes for a full school year. We couldn't get a new shirt if they were all worn or stained. Confiscating my money "for my own sake." They never, ever paid for anything of quality for us.
Not caring how our appearance and mindset of poverty would affect us socially. My mother controlled all money, even her own. She wore her clothes till they were threadbare.
She gave us home haircuts.
Some parents actually give kids money; just give it to them. Really? Mind blown.
I was told that anything I asked for was unreasonable and inconsiderate. For example, I could attend a hiking club for free, so I did and when it came time to buy actual hiking boots for the free day trips, she surprised me.
Mom bought an ill-fitting, unlined pair of stiff workboots from the Sears catalog. The leader of the club told her they were wrong for the task. Instead of getting me appropriate hiking boots, she got offended that she was told they weren't good enough.
She never took us to the doctor because it cost money. She never believed me when I was ill. My mom sent me to school with meningitis, but that was lucky for me because they called a squad when I passed out.
Mom would have told me to sleep it off. Never being comforted when upset or sick. Always being told my concerns were melodramatic or insignificant compared to the rest of the family and the world.
Character_Bomb_312
27. Family Red Flags
I have some.
Having to pay for our own babysitter as kids. Together with constantly giving mom money from our birthday presents for “essentials.”
Stealing from people in your family. No compassion or love. Only a militant style of being raised, like authoritarian but worse.
Constant accusations of being interested in anything sexual or drugs. Never being believed by parents (in any aspect).
Not being helped with school and just getting yelled at for being “dumb.”
supercarluvr
28. Just A Kid
My mom treated me like I was an adult and expected me to have the emotional maturity / emotional regulation skills of an adult.
From as far back as I can remember, she incessantly trauma-dumped on me and treated me like her personal emotional support animal.
It's been 42 years, and still, every conversation is one-sided - with me listening to her go on and on about all the trauma in her life - while I get no support in return.
I am now very low contact. She's just too exhausting to be around or talk to for more than short bursts of time.
apriliasmom
29. Huge Mockery
My dad made fun of every single aspect of my life growing up, my mom enabled him to verbally bully me my whole childhood and adolescence.
I was a military-homeschooled fundie Christian and had no outlet besides church, so I had no idea that what he was doing was hurtful and mean.
He made fun of my clothes, my voice, my body, my intelligence, my cooking, my sense of humor, and any of my interests. Having no friends, staying in my room, etc…
He made fun of how dumb I was for not understanding certain educational concepts even though my parents were the ones “educating” me. I was behind all my peers.
He would harp on purity culture, and how I needed to dress modestly and wait for marriage, and then when I dressed modestly, he told me, “My huge ugly glasses and grandma sweaters were my own form of birth control,” and he said would never get laid.
Pretty huge when your whole childhood is preparing you for marriage. My mom let it all happen and never stood up for me, and I remember my younger siblings joining my dad in the mockery.
I was a snowflake when I finally told him it wasn’t funny and that it was hurtful. He tried to kick me out at 19 for not politically agreeing with everything he said. As soon as I got the chance, I moved out, I’m in low contact with them now.
I cannot imagine doing what they did to me to ANYONE, let alone my own freaking kid.
It ruined my self-esteem, and I doubted every single thing about myself.
InitiativeSpecific18
30. Pass The Baby
My parents gave me to my grandmother almost a month after I was born (for 2 years because they were moving to an unreasonable area), BUT when they came back, they still didn’t take me for ANOTHER 5 years.
I always thought we had a fun/crazy/quirky family.
Now I understand that it was basically because they didn’t want me.
Be it laziness or whatever.
puddingcakeNY
31. Who Got Your Back
As a teenager, I would never ever go to my parents when in trouble. I would get blamed for whatever was happening to me.
I thought that was normal teenager behavior, and when I saw kids trusting their parents either on TV or in real life, I thought they were fake, melodramatic, or plain bad parenting.
Because “your parents aren’t your friends.”
I just turned 44, and I’m still discovering ways this messed me up and trying to figure out trust towards myself and others.
EleEle1979
32. Unwanted One
I begged my mom to come to my first graduation. I was a high school dropout, but I went to her college and was graduating with honors, hoping to impress her.
First, she offered me money to drop the subject. When I continued to beg, she said she refused to go because my dad’s family would be there (my cousin was graduating, too).
I asked her why that mattered, and she said that she wanted to abort me, and they talked her out of it.
I was never wanted by her, but now she was stuck with me because they convinced her it was her responsibility to have children with her husband.
Look, I support a woman’s right to choose, but don’t tell that child they weren’t wanted. I’ve spent a lot in therapy trying to deal with that. Good thing I graduated college!
Haven’t talked to her in 9 years. She still has a relationship with my younger sister because my sister accepts money in lieu of emotional support, which is my mom’s preference.
Lilliputian0513
33. Good Riddance
My sister-in-law had an affair, our relationship was already strained, and tension was building. Once I learned she was having an affair, I cut her off completely.
She posted on social media that she "cut off toxic family members."
I already had her blocked at this point, but she needed people to believe she cut me off.
She was extremely toxic, and I'm empathic. She drained the life out of me in less than 5 minutes.
Good riddance!
peacedfcg
34. Selfish Choice
There is something my parents didn't do that I thought was normal but turned out to be neglectful. You know how parents watch their kids play [insert activity] and cheer on the sidelines?
Well, I was in all kinds of sports and an extra curricular activities through out junior and senior high. My parents never showed up to any of them. They told me they were so busy working that they couldn't make it, even when events were on weekends and they were free.
I didn't feel I had a right to complain because they put food on the table and a roof over our heads and were living pay cheque to pay cheque.
Those other parents who came to their children's games were simply rich and had the time to come out to support them.
When I started my career in my mid twenties and worked fulltime I did loads of things on my days off. That's when I realized, my parents used work as an excuse to never attend a single game--and trust me there were hundreds of games, hundreds of opportunities to show me emotional support.
But nope the physical basics of food and shelter was enough, they didn't go beyond that. I am grateful I never starved and never was homeless but my self-esteem suffered a lot from their disinterest. I felt ignored, invisible, irrelevant. I won't do that to my future kids.
fortheloveofminions
35. Mouth Everywhere
I realised I had toxic family when my mother blamed me for her divorce from my stepdad - supposedly they divorced because I came home for the holidays when I was in college.
My father was cut out after I overheard him speaking negatively about me and spreading rumors within the family that I was on drugs because "no one can be enrolled in college, work a part-time job, and maintain a social life without being on something.”
bananacreamdreams
36. All For Nothing
When I was working 60 hours a week at an 8/hr job to keep a roof over our heads and provide for my sister's kids while my mom made 20/hr, worked 40 hours a week, and couldn't afford to keep her already paid-for home.
Yet my husband and I were leeches in the eyes of everyone else.
Realized I couldn't actually have my own future if I didn't just let them sink.
tigress95
37. Not A Lie
I think the last one was when I started my first business (in IT) and mentioned that to my father when he called me. That was already a blip of contact after many years of no contact, and many last straws.
Anyway, his response was that I don't need to lie to him because everyone who knows me knows that I am not even capable of using a computer casually, and if this is my way of asking for money because I needed to resort to prostitution, I should say it directly.
He called me once again a few years later, saying he was really sad because both his daughters abandoned him. He's old and will not live forever, and it would make him happier if he at least weren't completely alone.
No apologies, though, of course, just this.
I was not sorry.
kavesmlikem
38. All About Her
My mother always tried to control my life, from how to dress, what to study, what to eat, when to get married, etc.
The final straw was when she told me my life would be a lie and I have nothing to live for if I didn’t have kids.
Didn’t even care if I had fertility issues or if I miscarried, etc.
Everything was always about her.
stygian_shores
39. It’s Her Birthday
This probably is going to seem petty, but I’m okay with that.
This past year, my birthday rolled around. Every year, I get together with my immediate family to do a “family” birthday dinner.
This time was no different, I decided to just do dinner and cake at my parent's house. No extended relatives, literally just me, my parents, my 2 siblings, and obviously my husband came too.
We arrive- my mom is almost too drunk to stand. Ends up going to bed before we even get the cake out. Didn’t say goodbye or anything like that. A week prior, she had called me and expressed that she really wanted to get sober again. We had a heart-to-heart about it, so to show up to her blitz really stung.
My little sister (18, so old enough to be less clueless about it) didn’t realize it was my birthday.
Brother showed up but didn’t even bring a card. (I didn’t want anything material from them anyway! But not even a card?) He’s in his early 20’s, so old enough to know better IMO.
My dad was the only one who showed any semblance of it being a special occasion.
Please note: up until this point, I have always gone all out for my family DESPITE things that should have prevented it, like my mom's long-standing history of abuse towards me and my siblings. Despite this, I love them all, and it brings me a lot of joy to make them feel special on birthdays and holidays.
Their lack of care for my already low-key birthday was such a punch to the gut for me. I cried on my way home, a grown woman, lol.
I’ve distanced myself from them all drastically since then, and none of them have really taken notice, so I think it was the right decision.
plsmakeit
40. Did Not Try
My father made it clear to me that he actually had no idea what he had done to me as a child despite how much I had told him.
I was going back to therapy and was very excited to be getting the help I needed again, and he started his "therapists make you into zombies by giving you happy pills" routine, which is what had stopped me from seeking help as a suicidally depressed adolescent.
When I called him out for it and reminded him that this had almost killed me as a child, he refused to hear me.
I realized he wasn't actually trying to do his best as a father or a person, and he wasn't going to.
FreyaFettuccine
41. Hates The World
So most of my family is pretty chill.....except for my grandma. She is a full-blooded German and has a habit of looking down on everyone. She'd be nice to your face and then talk bad when you weren't around.
My relationship was already strained because of how she bad-talks all the family, but the final straw was when my aunt told me the reason she started to hate my grandma.
My grandma used to say all the time how she wished my grandpa would just freaking die and how she had bragged about punching my grandpa. My grandpa had died, and suddenly, my grandma acted like my grandpa was her world.
It just felt really sickening how she wished that on him. I get mad at people, but I would never wish for someone to die.
titaniayaerem
42. Guy In The Basement
My kid bro (25m) lived in our parent’s basement his whole life. Never paid rent or anything. Lectured me on how to be an adult because he thought I was a failure for having moved out, gotten married/divorced from a toxic dump of a person, and being a single mom who had to move back home temporarily.
Dude called me a crappy mom to my face, despite my sacrificing literally everything to provide a safe home for my kid.
He finally moved out last summer and in with his fiancée, and then they’d call family meetings to discuss how we had all offended his fiancée and him every month and how we’re all crap family.
The last straw was when he couldn’t understand why my new husband and I wouldn’t allow them to take our kids without our permission (he’d ask my mom, who watched our 2 kids for us, if he could take them for the day, but never asked us for permission) for a day to build a bear.
He couldn’t understand why that was so wrong. He got in the family group chat and acted like I was the crazy one and said things like, “Yeah, let’s settle this like adults; there’s no reason we can’t”
Then, in a private message, he called me “a bitter old hag” because he went to community college and was “more successful” than me, and yadda yadda yadda.
So I blocked his number, and he started harassing me on every social media platform you could think of (Facebook, Instagram, Google Hangouts, Twitter, and yes, even LinkedIn).
That was the final straw. I blocked him on everything and haven’t spoken to him or seen him since.
Mermoy
43. Big Mouths
Found out from my siblings that they were talking crap about me to them and the family and lying to my face. They denied it, yelled at my sibling for telling the truth, and didn't apologize even when I forced them to admit it.
I'm in my mid-20s, and I'm an adult with my own bills and life. I demanded an apology, some freaking respect, and to apologize to my sibling for the way they acted.
Apparently, they thought I was bluffing, and after a short screaming match, I told them to get the fudge out of my life and never contact me again.
Blocked everything from them, and my entire dad's side of the family.
Chronoset1
44. Not My Mom
My parents were in the middle of the separation, not divorced yet. One of my sisters was having her graduation party with some family and friends.
All the adults are talking, so we kids just listen—a normal Latino reunion. For a reason, I can remember my grandma from my dad's side saying, "My son isn't going to be alone forever." Implying she knew the mistress.
I just cut her off my life, I didn't even try to hide that I no longer want a relationship with her. She disrespected my mother in my mother's house in front of family and friends.
Nobody mistreats my mom.
xrs22x
45. The Old Lady
My nan is despicably selfish and egocentric and treats everyone around her horribly. Previously, I felt obliged to go and visit her when I was in town.
However, when my grandad (her husband) developed Alzheimer's, she treated him so horribly (saying he was just pretending for attention, locking him out of the house when he forgot why she'd sent him outside, etc.) that I haven't gone to see her since.
My dad and sister did the same. Now, only my mum visits her and only because she's her mum and she feels that someone should look after her.
Mooncinder