This is a long one reddit.
My mom died when my older brother (34) and I (31) were in our early teens. About five years later my dad (67) met his now wife (51). They've been together 13 years now and have a 7 year old son.
Our relationship with her has always been difficult. She is a difficult woman to be around and for many years she treated us terribly and isolated my dad from everyone around him. My brother and I have both spent up to a year without speaking to them at all, thats how bad it has been.
This year, she went through a psychotic break, in which she tried to OD various times, and at one point threw herself out of a window. There was one particularly awful day which culminated in social services getting involved. Its a long and complicated story but the gist of it was that for about 2 months my little brother was only allowed to be at home if myself or my older brother were present.
We are based about 2 hours from where my dad lives, with jobs and partners there. For those two months we had to put our own lives on hold in order to protect their family. It was incredibly rough for us both and we are still processing some of the things that happened.
Now, things have slightly settled and we want to bring my little brother up to where we live for a sleepover and a trip to the zoo. We want to do this without his parents for various reasons. My dad is quite old and isn't really up for trips out like that anymore. And while I know she is ill, and I want her to get better of course, she is really really difficult to be around. Also, she is over protective to the point where it is, in our view, detrimental to his development. For example, when covid hit last year and we were in lockdown she wouldn't let him outside of the house for over 2 months straight. And I mean, she did not let him step foot outside their two bedroom apt for all that time - not even for a walk.
Well, she has said that she will never allow us to take him even for a night, that he will never be without her even when he is older and we have no say in the matter. She is his mother and I get that, but all we want to do is give my little brother, who has already been through so much, some fun memories and experiences with his siblings who were, admittedly, absent for most of his childhood.
I think we have this right. When everything hit the fan we were the ones who put our lives on hold to save her family. When she was in hospital I took over his care, bringing him to school, feeding him, bathing him etc. If it were not for my brother and I, they would have likely lost their child to the system. And now she has the audacity to say we can't spend some time with him away from her?
I'm visiting tmrw to see if I can convince her to change her mind. I need advice, and, for the argument I know we are going to have, some support. Any ideas?
Tldr: dads wife suffered a mental break and social services got involved. Brother and I acted as responsible adults and protected family. Now she won't let us spend time with him alone.
Submitted August 02, 2021 at 06:13AM by BoozeySocks https://ift.tt/2V78pIL
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