I recently called my mother out in her attempt to triangulate in order to manipulate me to suit her needs and schedule. My mother is currently in another country and wrote to me a very serious sounding email explaining me the "situation" - which was that my father had to take care of my sisters kids but due to a scheduling conflict provoked by my mother could I fill in (It would require me to travel 600 km to do so).
I kindly replied to her and in my reply I cc'd my father and my sister (who is the one in charge of who takes care of her kids) and told my mother it was probably too complicated for her to try and manage people's schedules from such a distance.
She wrote back aggressively telling me I didn't need to get upset about it ( I was not but only a month ago I told her not to communicate with me on anyone else's behalf so this message was a deliberate transgression of what I asked her to do).
Chaos, chaos, chaos. Cc'ing my sister and father produced the following results: my dad wrote me directly saying he would like to see me which prompted me to go for a visit - but when I spoke with him about the email exchanges he completely denied that what my mother was doing was inapropriate. My sister wrote me directly, evidently upset that my mother was meddling with the schedule and was creating mis-communications and conflict. My sister analyzed the situation as follows: my mother cares only about her schedule, and therefore wrote to me to try and manage that things work out as she wanted them (that my father could leave when she wanted him to), although I see it as her inability to allow the family to spend time together - especially with my father - and she has to run interference with relationships (ie feels she needs to remove him from his children and grandchildren because she is missing out when she's not around and everyone is together). Anyway - I was bothered for about one day - and am proud to say I was successfully able to collapse the triangle, spend time with my sister and father and have a nice time with them and clear up any resentful feelings, and identify the potential source of that chaos. I shipped a gift to her via my father - but since that email exchange she has gone silent. No thank you, no acknowledgement, nothing. She's a spoiled brat and she's pouting because I caught and exposed her. Hopefully she'll think twice before pulling that kind of bull___ again. Feels like a victory of boundary enforcement
