Help Responding to Email?

[classypancake]

As I mentioned in a previous post, I haven't spoken to my mother in a couple weeks.  She didn't really do anything in particular, I just got busy with life, she freaked out and blew it out of proportion, and now I'd like to start setting up some healthy boundaries. Also relevant, I eloped on New Year's Eve.  Both of us have family/friends all over the country and we wanted to be married by the end of the year (tax reasons/his daughter just started pre-school and it was easier to get guardianship with us married.)  I explained that at length, but she insisted on being hurt and feeling like I did it to exclude her/spite her.  She sent me the following e-mail:

Subj: A Message of Love: We want to throw you a reception, please respond

I wish I knew why you are not taking my calls.  I didn’t think I did anything to make your mad.  I was so worried, I had to at least know you were okay.

Holly, if you’re mad because I haven’t made a big deal out of you getting married, I understand.  But it really hurt me and I’ve had to have a little while to heal.  Also, I’ve been really sick and had to recover.  However, we feel that I may have responding out of hurt and now have reconsidered and want to respond only out of love. We would like to give a nice reception for you and Charles to celebrate your marriage so that your family and friends can celebrate with you. We love you very much and only want what's best for you.

Several people have asked me what they could give you for a wedding gift so you may want to pick out a few things somewhere that I could point them to.

Please contact me and let me know.  I will not call again or try to contact you unless I hear from you.  If you don’t want me to keep trying to have a relationship, please be kind enough to at least let me know.

Remember what I’ve always said.  No matter what you say or do—I will always love you.

Love Mom


I know it sounds like a nice e-mail, please read it with a grain of salt.  I don't know if I should accept her paying for our reception, although I'd love to have one and it is very unlikely we can afford it on our own.  I truly want to have a relationship, but I'd let to set boundaries and let her know it isn't ok to berate me for my life decisions or call the police because her 27y/o daughter hasn't called in a couple days.

[InaMinorRole]

It does sound like a nice email but I am going to guess there is a pattern of nice/abuse/nice/abuse or you wouldn't be asking the question.

The thing about boundaries is you don't need to make a big deal out of the fact that you set them. You don't need to say, "I've decided that from now on I'm not going to let you (whatever it is)." That's just picking a fight. The boundaries you need to make are in your own head. You tell yourself, next time she (whatever it is) I'm going to (tell her I'll talk to her when she's feeling better and hang up/change the subject without engaging in the discussion/leave, or something that's appropriate).

If you want to have a reception thrown by her, be forewarned that it's her party. She will be running the show. If it's worth it to have the party, then go for it.

If you know she's going to use the reception to beat you up somehow it may not be worth it, depending on what she's likely to do.

[GeekyGirl]

InaMinorRole has some good points here. You can decide how often you and your mother should talk (once a week? once every two weeks?) and make that a boundary. If you decide on a frequency, you could tell her that you'll set aside some time (20 min, an hour--whatever's comfortable for you) on a certain date or time where the two of you can talk and you can give her your undivided attention. You may want to think about how she could contact you in between your regular calls, whether e-mail is more appropriate or whether you're ok with receiving more calls.

Do you think she really is hurt that she wasn't invited to your wedding? Your reasons for eloping make a lot of sense, but she may be reacting to not being included (I know my mother would). I agree that if you do take her up on her offer of a reception, you'll need to be prepared for her to want to arrange for most of the details. Do you have any idea of what she has in mind and whether it's in line with what you'd want?

[BiancaRose]

To the untrained eye, yeah, it sounds like a nice e-mail. Reminded me of correspondence I've had from Mommie Dearest in the past. Which is probably why the whole time I was reading, I'm just thinking:

The truth is, it reads like a classic guilt-tripping e-mail, right from the subject line. "A Message of Love"? I am very familiar with my BPD mom love-bombing me as a way to try and get me to do whatever it is she wants. Mommie Dearest is a champion at trying to hook me in by dangling the bait of being loved . . . but it's always about getting loved for doing what *she* wants, never about being loved as I am without strings attached.

And then she goes on with a few more subtle guilt tactics. They're subtly woven in there, but they're there, no doubt about it. She plays up feeling like she's being avoided, feeling like it's her own fault, so you feel compelled to jump right in there and reassure her. And then for good measure she throws in a dose of motherly worrying to make sure the "good mom" role is really entrenched, which is hugely guilt-inducing because isn't everybody supposed to love their mother? She then goes on to assume that you're out of touch because you're mad at her, which gives her the chance to get defensive against something you never even said. And on top of that, at least in my case, I always tend to lose it when somebody presumes to tell me what I'm saying/thinking/feeling - it's a big trigger point for me, and probably for a lot of people. At the very least, it erases what you're actually thinking/saying/feeling and makes it all about the other person's perception.

Of course by this point, the guilt is pouring on thick even though she's been very subtle and sweet about it, because what she's really said here is "I'm this totally loving and understanding parent who you're completely shunning because I didn't make a big deal about your wedding even though you totally eloped and excluded me and now you're ignoring me, probably because you're mad at me. I'm soo sorry I did something that you got mad about, even though I didn't deserve for you to be mad about it, and I'm super-apologetic even though you really, really, really, really hurt me and I've just been SO HURT! Oh, and also I've been really sick which you ought to feel sympathy about but you probably won't because you're so mad at me, which I don't deserve but still understand because I'm SUCH a good person who you totally shouldn't be hurting as much as you do."

And then, the crowning touch: she slinks off to her sad little corner, all tragic and teary-eyed, bidding for sympathy because once again, she's assuming your malicious intent and your lack of caring. And just thrown in there for good measure, a profession of endless love that basically reads "You're a crappy person who does terrible things but I love you anyway because I'm your mother."

I mean, based on your original post I'm pretty sure you saw all that already, but I felt like it was important to let you know somebody else saw it too, because when I get those e-mails I always wonder, "Am I crazy? or am I really an evil daughter and I just can't see it?" You're not, but she's trying to manipulate you by making you feel guilty about making your own choices for your own reasons.

Based on the  -ing parallels I see between your mom and my own Mommie Dearest, I would advise you really, really strongly against letting your parents pay for your reception. I let mine pay for my wedding and it was arguably the biggest mistake of the entire fiasco. Some might argue that the groom I picked was a worse mistake . . . but even from the throes of divorce after a three-years-long abusive marriage I can't say for sure which was the worse choice. That's how much stress letting my parents fund my wedding caused me. They used their support as a way to control my decision-making, to give them veto power over what my husband-to-be and I wanted, and to stir up conflict with my husband and my in-laws. For the entire duration of my marriage, they used the fact that they'd paid for the wedding to try and get their hands on a complimentary coffee-table book our photographer gave us as a gift, and only ever stopped when I handed it over the week after we separated because I couldn't stand the sight of it. And the entire situation is part of a larger pattern where they offer financial "help" when it's needed and then, when I refuse to be obedient, they say "After all we've done for you . . . "

Yeah, believe me, I understand the feeling of wanting a nice wedding/reception and not being able to afford it on your own. That's why we accepted their help. It wasn't worth it, not even close. But that's me, and it might be a different calculus for you.

The frustrating part is, if you try to communicate any of your reasons to them, it just feeds back into another guilt-tripping e-mail; there is no way to explain yourself that's going to get validated. I would just make sure to back up every boundary with some kind of all-purpose phrase like "This is what's best for my new family with [husband] and [daughter]" or "I know what's best for me and this is what I need". It's actually probably not going to do much good in convincing HER, but it's very helpful for convincing YOURSELF that you're doing right . . . and that's what I've found I need most when Mommie Dearest confronts me with her guilt trips.

[Satori]

Hmmm.

BiancaRose may have nailed this one. Mothers can be so subtle, can't they?

Throw a potluck reception for yourself and your new husband. Those are more fun than the expensive kind, and then you don't have to feel as though you should accept your mother's offer.

[WrongWoman]

Hmmm.

BiancaRose may have nailed this one. Mothers can be so subtle, can't they?

Throw a potluck reception for yourself and your new husband. Those are more fun than the expensive kind, and then you don't have to feel as though you should accept your mother's offer.

Co-sign to this and BiancaRose's comment.

[tryinghard2012]

It amazes me how women so evil can write so nicely when they know it's what is required to fix an error or to get what they want. I don't know this woman but she sounds similar to my MIL in your description, and for that reason I am afraid to trust this email as kind without an underlying motive. Proceed with caution. Use boundaries. Don't be afraid to say no. It is more important to protect yourself and keep yourself sane than it is to humor your mother.

Best of luck.

[As1234]

I definitely agree with you and the others who have responded, and I gotta say it is validating to know I'm not the only person receiving and interpreting emails like this.  My MIL sends me emails such as this after she has said horrible things about me to my husband.  I know they are not real or honest, but it is really difficult to make that claim to an outsider.  From the outside I look crazy for taking offense to such "loving" emails.  My advise would be: don't bite.  Respond to kind behaviors maybe, but kind words don't mean anything if she doesn't mean them.   This must be so difficult, but your concerns are real.  Have a simple celebration with the people who support you and your husband, it will mean more in the end.