Demanding a card for her anniversary.

[Finding Courage]

So, this is the email I got from my uBpd mom today:  When you are at the grocery store etc, you might want to buy an anniversary card for your parents who just celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary, a big milestone.

Love Mom

Their anniversary was in February.  I am feeling quite angry about this email because:

-It is so passive/aggressive; instead of saying she is hurt that I didn't send a card, she sends this.

-I feel like it is shaming of me.  She knows I send cards to my grandmother a lot, which she is jealous of, so I'm sure there is a part of that in this too.

I didn't send a card for several reasons:

I have an infant daughter and my husband and I both work full time.  We are busy, stressed out people with very little time.  I totally forgot.

But I also didn't make an effort because when I was a kid, this kid of thing was part of the enmeshment.  Like she would expect me, as a child, to celebrate and enjoy THEIR anniversary.  Shouldn't that be a thing between the adults?  Plus, I used to send cards and go all out in these ways and she never appreciated it/ or she would expect/demand it more. Or she would make comments about how awful my dad is anyway, so why celebrate.  (Although my dad, who is very passive, should receive a medal for dealing with her for 40 years!) Although in "normal" families, such a milestone would be something the adult children might celebrate, it is an important boundary for me to not gush over her and be enmeshed like she wants. 

So, I am weighing my options on how to respond. 

I hate this kind of thing.  She has a special knack for doing highly manipulative, sometimes subtle, things that make me so angry!

Any comments or feedback would be most appreciated.

[StarStruck]

Hi - sounds like you have thought about this and choose to make a stand at the time by not sending a card. So stay firm. If it's about you standing up for yourself and moving on, be brave don't let her bully you.

Are you scared of what might happen if you stand up? You were brave at the time of not sending but now crunch time has happened you are scared of following what you need though? In other words scared of following this boundary though.

It could be an opportunity to set this boundary; no cards for anniversaries (in general not just for them maybe; if you can get away with that, and still send to some other couples for their anniversary if you want to, as a long as parents don't find out), along lines 'you and your partner don't feel this is something you want to do as a couple anymore' etc.

It's unusual to stand up at first. When I did no christmas, presents/cards, it went down like a lead balloon (mom flipped out a bit) but then each year it got easier for me. Goodluck, I think there's a good opportunity hidden in there. 

[Sitara]

Things like these are incredibly frustrating. I agree with you, why can't they just come out and say, "hey did you forget it was our anniversary? I'm a little sad you didn't send a card." My mom wouldn't mention anything about it to me until I did something else that bothered her or we were in the middle of an unrelated fight then, bam, out of nowhere she'd bring it up. I'd sit there thinking, why didn't you bring this up a year ago when it happened?

I stopped getting my parents an anniversary card after years of my mom bashing my dad and how she talked about how she would like to get a divorce but won't because it's too hard. So when she brought up (as in above scenario) over a year later I just told her the truth. I wasn't going to buy a congrats on your marriage card for two people who acted like they were completely miserable in their marriage and how much my mom talked about hating my dad. My mom said she was really hurt that I didn't send one, so I tried to mend fences by getting her a pretty generic "Happy anniversary" card the next time around. We got an incredibly passive aggressive one for ours. I won't send any more.

I ask my friends a lot of questions about how their families deal with things like this. When I asked what she did for her parent's anniversary (because my mom expects it to be a big deal and since my anniversary is close to theirs that we're supposed to be celebrating together), she told me that she just sends a card, and maybe will go out do dinner with her parents if her parents invite them over. But it wasn't something that the kids were expected to make a big deal out of.

And a side note, I once completely forgot my mom's birthday because of my busy life and she brought it up nearly every time we saw each other for at least a year.

Something like that probably doesn't warrant a response. You aren't going to be able to JADE (justify, argue, defend, or explain) without provoking a fight. Like StarStruck said, you could use this to establish a no card/gift boundary, either for just anniversaries or all holidays if you want.  I don't think you should have to hide that you do it for other people as each relationship is different. I wouldn't expect your mom to understand that, but if she gets mad it's because she's choosing to get mad.  You shouldn't have to go about your life in fear you'll upset her, but I also can understand the desire to continue to walk on eggshells around her in fear of dealing with her upset.

If she's anything like my mom, it doesn't matter what you do, she'll find an excuse to be mad. This time it was because you didn't send a card, next time it will be because the card came a day late, or wasn't sweet enough, or was too sweet.  There's just no winning.

It's just time to figure out what you want because you're the only one you can make happy.

[lucyhoneychurch]

Like you, the hypocritical notion that she can rant for years (or did) how much she hated being married to him, what a loser he was, how rotten her life was (at the time all of her children alive), etc and then almost in the same breath say something that indicated she was expecting card, flowers, whatever - ha, it was laughable.

I didn't just decide not to play along and I can't remember how many years before NC, but it was sort of a "prep" stage for knowing I could live with logic if I chose to - I could live with the idea that, Fine woman, you hate the man, he's the reason you're so messed up as opposed to some other more deep-seated explanation, we'll go with that, but I won't be sending something to honor the occasion when you two hooked up forever and then started popping out babies doomed to your unhappiness as well.

Highly manipulative and subtle crap is still crap. Treat it at face value - don't congratulate someone on an occasion that supposedly was the beginning of the end, if your mother describes it like my late uBPD'd mother always did without fail. You got where you could fill in the words in your mind as they were pouring out of her mouth for the umpteenth time.

Mother's Day cards same thing - I didn't send, she noticed, she whined, I changed the subject. We were the reason, according to her, that she was so miserable, whether as a collective foursome or each of us in turn going from gold to black then back again, splitting us and pitting us against each other when we really needed siblings the most.

People scoff at how anyone could fall for Scientology. It is bunk. It is nonsense. But look at the things we fell for, from infancy on up, because we were brainwashed to think her needs matttered most.

And that our fear of the repercussions were so huge, and rightly so, until when we can decide to play along in that sick game or not - we were held hostage really by our own say-so.

It's not that cut and dried. Or I would've caught on alot sooner. I didn't have a board with other adult children to dissect this crazy stuff and help me see.

But you get what I'm saying - just because our abusive parent was selling or is selling crazy, doesn't mean we have to get a fresh supply.

The minute they catch on, of course, all hell can break loose. All the more reason to save ourselves and run like hell.

Alot of memories bubble to the surface reading these posts - several decades between when these things happened to me and today - but the pain of knowing a mother can harm her children in this way is still so fresh.

Don't expect rational thought or action from an irrational being.

I'm sorry you're grappling with this.

[PleaseValidate]

That totally sucks and i know the feeling.

When i was in the 8th grade i was grounded for not getting her a b day card. I was like, "hey, I was grounded! How could I even get one?" And her reply was that I should have sent my Grams who didn't drive to walk into town to get her one. Anyways... .

If I were you, I would either 1. Not respond at all as to not encourage the pass aggressive shaming. Or 2. Tell her that it would be useless as it has passed. If she persists, perhaps tell her how you feel about their anniversary now that you are an adult.

Good luck 

[PleaseValidate]

(Whoops, grounded for something else. I don't know how to edit.)