I think I need some help

[Nephil Thief]

So, today my parents went for a swim at a nearby beach. As my mom was putting some stuff in the trunk - leaning over it in the process - my dad closed it. It hit her in the head, luckily giving her nothing worse than a bruise. He was completely unapologetic, and told her she just shouldn't lean over the trunk like that.

 

My mom told me about this... And I wouldn't think much, except stuff like this happens every few months. A few months back, my dad yanked open the freezer door as my mom putting stuff in the fridge, hitting her in the head. When she complained, he told her she ought to watch out.

 

Going further back, this stuff has been repeated with cabinet doors, elbows, shoulders, and - on one occasion - a slipper. The slipper was a particularly heavy type with a rubber sole, and actually broke my mom's nose. That was back when I was in college.

 

Sure, accidental. I could believe that, I've been clumsy too. But it never happens to me, and she never does it to him, and I never do it to either of them... It's only him accidentally whacking her. And even assuming it's pure accident, it's hurting her physically, which is not cool and has to stop.

 

...

 

After my mom told me about this, we agreed that in view of past incidents, this seemed like a problem, and we both confronted my dad. He got annoyed with Mom immediately. When I told him I thought she had a point, though, he absolutely blew a fuse; screaming at me to "butt out" at the top of his lungs, and accusing me of "crocking s**t up." He was extremely insistent that it was all Mom's fault for leaning over the trunk, or generally getting in the way, and went on to say that he also banged his own head routinely just by way of being clumsy. (Which is true.) When the argument ended, he still hadn't apologized.

 

Is that all? No, of course not.

 

...

 

See, Dad has frankly been verbally abusive to Mom, on and off, for a long time. Not so much insulting her, as belittling her and making her feel stupid.

 

e.g. Recently she was vacuuming the carpet, and didn't notice that the vacuum's hose had gotten disconnected. Simple, right? Any normal person would say, "Hey, just FYI, that vacuum's hose isn't attached."

 

But him, nope. He's all like, "Oh for God's sake, what are you doing, you're just pushing the dust around, what the hell are you thinking" etc. etc. etc. He talks to her like she's a child at times like that. And, at this point, she frankly has the self-confidence of a child. Any time she messes something up, he's on her about it like a ton of bricks, the anxiety from which causes her to mess stuff up, etc. etc.

 

For instance, she has no confidence in how to use a computer. I'll show her how to do some stuff with it, and she'll do it, and then a week later she'll ask for my help again on the same thing - not because she forgets how, but because she's afraid she'll mess it up. Likewise, she has zero confidence in her ability to handle financial stuff... Even though she's been dealing with various bank accounts for a while. Dad has told her, on several occasions, such things as: "Clearly I'll have to outlive you, because you're just not able to handle financial stuff."

 

There have been, literally, occasions when Mom has felt the need to ask Dad what she should think of some opinion - political, financial, whatever. Just think about that.

 

...

 

And I'm getting increasingly bothered by this. And I just don't know what to do. I'm especially disturbed by my dad's accusation now that I'm "crocking s**t up," because a) I'm not altogether certain I'm not, and I'm bothered by the lack of trust in my motivations that this indicates.

 

But I have absolutely no idea what to do.

 

Help?

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

1-800-799-7233 <--This is a 24/7, confidential, anonymous, national (US) domestic violence help hotline. They can assist with information, resources, finding shelter, and other things, and they are also a crisis line, and a line for family and friends of domestic violence victims. I'm afraid not being a party to the situation there's nothing I can really do for you.

 

I hope things get better for your mother. Good luck.

75

 

EDIT: The forum software is appending random numbers to this post. Please ignore them. @_@

77

Edited July 4, 2015 by The Almighty Doer of Stuff

[Nephil Thief]

Thanks very much, ADoS. *hugs*

 

The thing is, though, it never reaches "crisis." It's just a slow, on-and-off simmer. And I'm afraid of, well, crocking up a situation where there isn't any. Or making things worse. Or that my thoughts on this are completely out of line with reality. I don't know. I don't want to cause trouble and waste people's time.

 

But thank you for that, anyway.

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

87

It's not just for crises. You can seek advice and clarity. It's a good hotline. And it doesn't sound like you're crocking anything up. I still suggest you give that hotline a call. It can't hurt.

99

[Triumph]

*caveat* All I have to go off is your post above */caveat*

 

Everything you described your father doing is WRONG. It is NOT right to treat another person that way, especially not one's spouse. Based on the sheer number of examples you're giving, I think it's extremely improbable that you're overreacting or imaging things. Abusive, manipulative people will often be quite skilled at getting you to doubt your own judgment. You know what you saw - believe your own eyes over your father's words. This sounds like an extremely unhealthy relationship that at a bare minimum calls for serious professional counseling. Do not fear making the situation worse - the situation already sounds pretty bad.

 

I would also caution that this is a problem you cannot personally solve. You can't change your father, nor you can't fix your parents marriage. Probably the best think you do is get someone with more expertise and more authority involved (not necessarily law enforcement authority, but authority in the sense of being able to influence your parents). The hotline ADoS suggests sounds like a solid place to start. You could also consider encouraging your mom to seek marriage counseling - the real problems won't be solved unless your parents are working together, of course, but if your mom gets counseling, it might equip her to know how deal with the situation better. You might also go to some older family friend, someone you really trust, who might be able to talk to your parents and / or give you wise counsel and more confidence about what course you should pursue.

 

I'll pray for you to have wisdom, and I wish you the best.

[Nephil Thief]

Thank you very much also, Triumph.

 

I'll give the hotline a call tomorrow. Right now it's getting late.

 

Again - thank both of you so much for giving me solid feedback on this.

[Slawbug]

With the same caveat as Triumph -- Yeah, it sounds like your dad isn't interesting in things changing, but based on your mom telling you about the last incident, it seems like she is reaching out and therefore potentially open to some change. So she's really the one with the most plausible potential to change the situation here. So probably the best thing you can do is to help her get as much support as possible.

 

But you really, truly won't be making things worse. That's clear. Don't worry about that.

[Nephil Thief]

Gave the number to my mom, too - she needs to talk to someone expert on this stuff, much more than I do. I shouldn't act as a relay... or, for that matter, a gatekeeper.

 

(Just FYI.)

 

Again, thank you all.

[Vexivero]

Sounds like your dad is a douche and a bully.

 

The little stuff like that is always more dangerous because everybody else skims past it since they're on the lookout for the major actions, so those things build up over time and can have a much more lasting impression.

 

I remember when I was bullied, I wanted to change so much but I didn't know how to at the time. When I was finally cognizant of what was going on, it had been years and I was so used to my bullies treating me how they did that it seemed really awkward to do anything different because that was my comfort zone. Only after I got completely away from that toxic environment did I start changing for the better.

[Nephil Thief]

Called the hotline. ADoS and Triumph, and everyone else here - thank you. You've done me a serious mitzvoh.

 

*hugs* all around

[Edgwyn]

Getting to this late, but what you have laid out is clearly a pattern of behavior and getting you mom to call the hot line was exactly the right thing to do. The next step is to support her as she follows the recommendations that the professionals give or gently encourage her to follow those recommendations if she disregards them.

[Valdain the King]

Domestic Abuse is a terrible thing to happen. Luckily for me most of the really bad stuff happened before I was old enough to be able to do something. I will say this-Sometimes in a marriage, it is better for you, them and everyone if your parents are alone and happy rather than sad and together. There might be a way to fix it if doesnt get worse but it seems like father has some pent up angst. People dont generally hit people on accident a large number of times and especially rude/mean for male partner to say watch what you are doing. He is probably upset with the marriage or is not happy for some reason. People usually behave their worst when they are depressed.

 

I wish you all the best and would hope to talk to your father just you and him when mom is not present. As long as she is in vicinity, it could create problem.

[Trenton.]

Please let us know when things get better. We're a family here, and it sucks to see someone else suffering. Many of us have been through the same thing and we know how bad it is. Know that we care, and worry. Your mother and you are in our minds and hearts.

[Nephil Thief]

Again - thank you so much everyone for the advice and support.

 

Things are pretty quiet right now, Dad's basically on best behavior. I hope things stay this way, but I suspect he'll lapse back in another few months.

 

Mom said she'd talk to him in a week or two, re that he could use some counseling; and that I should keep quiet myself. It's now a week or two, and she doesn't seem to want to tell him that. Can't blame her. I think maybe I should float it, but I don't want to trigger another episode of nastiness.

 

It's like, he acts up, and then he just stops for a long while. And during that time, everyone forgets that the acting up ever happened. And meanwhile, Mom (and to a lesser extent myself) continue to be dependent on him.

 

e.g. I need him for transportation at times, because while I have a license, I don't have a car, and I never really developed the confidence to drive. (My road test was a white-knuckle nightmare.) I'm at least financially independent, since my job is reachable by public transit, and pays better than Dad's. But Mom, being effectively retired, depends on him heavily.

 

I feel like this is a vicious cycle. I wish I could figure out how to break it. And yet, at times like right now, it somehow doesn't seem bad enough to warrant action.

 

*sigh*

[Randomizer]

Confidence in driving comes with age and practice. Unless you are like me in my 50s and I still hate driving. I'd rather be a white knuckled passenger than a driver. As long as the vehicle can withstand a crash I don't mind some of my bad driving friends.

 

It doesn't help that I live in a high traffic accident area. I saw a car rear ended that was stopped waiting to leave a shopping center. I once got rear ended for not making a turn as a yellow light went red.

 

As for your father, as long as the situation doesn't get worse you will probably coast along. Try to help your mother gain some confidence and learn to handle finances. At least then you will have more options.

[Slawbug]

It's up to your mom to decide she wants to push for change, or decide not to. You can offer her as much support as you can, but acting without her support may not work well.

[Nephil Thief]

Take two, I guess...

 

This morning my mom wanted to make a small donation to a certain organization - a writer's group, that rents a space in the city where people can write without interruption. One of her friends is a member of said group.

 

To do this she needed a Paypal account. She doesn't have one, because she doesn't manage finance stuff. She doesn't know how to set one up, because she doesn't understand computers and lacks the self-confidence to figure them out. She doesn't do online banking etc. at all; partly because she doesn't think she can grok it, partly because (let's be frank) my dad thinks she'd make a hash of it.

 

Anyway, she asked my dad if he could make the donation for her. He immediately started berating her about it, in an extremely critical and aggressive tone of voice.

 

The scary thing is, I thought he had a point.... and said so. Because my mom has been very nearly scammed, at times, and has trouble learning stuff - e.g. I teach her something about how to use a computer, and next week she asks me the same thing again, because she's so uncertain about it.

 

But I really shouldn't have done that. And I kind of realized that, as my dad continued lambasting her. I mean... there's being protective, and then there's gatekeeping, and this is the latter.

 

I apologized to my mom later. I'm still feeling conflicted. I want her to be more independent, but I don't want her to be conned. And, after years of antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, and emotional abuse eroding her personality, I worry that's what would happen. I could try to educate her about online safety, but she always comes back to me a week later to ask the same questions. It's like she never has any certainty.

 

...

 

Later - just ~30 minutes ago - my dad started berating her again, over not cleaning a frying pan sufficiently.

 

Get this:

 

He had cleaned the pan, found it difficult to get clean, and left it in the sink to soak.

 

She had cleaned it, used it again; cleaned it, found it hard to clean, and left it to soak.

 

She had done exactly the same thing as him. And he berated her nonetheless, for not doing a sufficient job on the pan. Which was in the sink. Soaking. So that it could be cleaned completely later. As he had been doing.

 

When I pointed this out to him, he accused me of "fabricating things."

 

My mom and I both told him he had raised his voice at her unnecessarily. He insisted that he had not raised his voice. Cue much arguing, and him stomping around aggressively and glaring a lot, and insisting that he "just likes things to be kept clean."

 

...

 

Afterwards, I told him: "You know, I leave stuff lying around as much as Mom does, and you get on my case a lot less than on hers."

 

He just grunted. It didn't even seem to register with him.

 

He said something like, "My and your mother's differences about how much dirt we tolerate date back to before you were born."

 

Me: "You know, I'm also capable of cleaning stuff up. I'm the youngest here and all. You think something needs cleaning, you can always point it out to me."

 

Him: "Yeah, yeah."

 

In one ear, and out the other.

 

...

 

Not sure how I should proceed from here.

 

I'm thinking of showing my mom how to set up Paypal and online banking, so she can actually manage her finances. But her grasp of how to do this stuff safely just seems... incredibly tenuous. And that worries me a lot. I don't know how much is my own observation, and how much is my dad's bias.

 

...

 

I should probably call up the aforementioned hotline again, too. Thing is, I'm now a bit worried about that too. See, the person I got on the phone, when I called, was a woman and clearly an expert on this stuff.

 

The person my mom got, when she called, two months ago? Was a dude. And, from what she told me later, a glaringly obvious newbie, and not very sympathetic. And that seemed to further erode her confidence.

 

*sigh*

 

Why do things have to be this way. Why.

[Slawbug]

Hotlines know that not every answerer is equal. They'd probably respond positively to any request to talk to somebody else -- particularly in this case, I'd imagine, if gender were part of the issue. If your mom's not up to asking, perhaps you could start the call with her.

 

It's clear that your mom feels very conflicted about the situation, and has a lot of reasons to be conflicted. But whether or not things change remains basically up to her. You can support her, and you can exhort her to change things if you choose. But I don't think there's much you can do on your own.

[Randomizer]

He said something like, "My and your mother's differences about how much dirt we tolerate date back to before you were born."

This is important because anything that's gone on this long isn't likely to change even when acknowledged. You've got a very deep rut that shows an established behavior pattern. Your father would have to make a conscious decision each time he starts in order to break the pattern and your mother has to do it to in her reaction.

 

As to Paypal, I've had problems where they authorized fraudulent payment taking money from my bank account without my permission and they acknowledged it was an illegal phishing problem. It took a few months to straighten out because I had to created an account with them before they would even listen to my complaint.

 

So I would see if there is another way for your mother to make a donation in a way she is already used to doing. Maybe you could do a Paypal transaction together and she may eventually get to the point she can do it without you.

 

It's even easier to get scammed online and they can get the money faster. If your mother has trouble with computers, she may not even try to get it back because it is too much trouble.

[Edgwyn]

Does she have her own bank account at all? If she were to decide to leave the situation she is in, that would be quite useful.

[Triumph]

I'm sorry you have to continue facing these things.

 

Ultimately, your mother's problem is not her lack of electronic banking services but her unhealthy mental-emotional state (a situation likely brought on multiple factors, but most notably by her abusive husband).

 

To fix situations like this, the people involved must WANT to change, and they must correctly identify the real problem(s). Like Slarty and Randomizer said, any real improvements here would have to come from your parents voluntarily choosing to seek help. Keep encouraging your mother, keep supporting her to the extent that you can, but also keep in mind what the real problems are and don't take on undue pressure or responsibility for something you can't fix.

[Swimmin' Salmon]

You can just send money in Paypal with a credit card, no? No need to do the bank account thing or open yourself (overly) to fraud.