Yet another falling out. Yawn.

[wizard59]

So a few weeks ago our son, (a law-enforcement officer) and his uBPD wife, were allowed to enter our home when we weren't there to do some laundry. Unfortunately, they took opportunity to snoop through an IPAD we hadn't locked out and found a few text messages that were intended to be seen only by the eyes of our trusted confidants. Ironically, these texts were expressing our frustrations because neither our son nor his wife can be trusted. He even took pictures of these texts, then ran around the family showing how much we disrespect him and his wife. He also claimed at first, that his 9 year old son found them and was so traumatized. Even sent me two scathing texts messages proclaiming how we have crushed all of our grandchildren with this and he can no longer allow us to damage them. However, he was ratted out by another family member who was told by our son that the grandson had nothing to do with finding those texts. He just made that part up to cover his unethical (not to mention illegal) snooping.

A few of our family members have been stalwarts of moral support to us, having been through this same thing in their own families. My problem is my mother, brother, father-in-law and one brother-in-law all seem eager to show my son their support, even though they know how much this hurts us.

My wife long ago stopped having much of anything to do with her family members that do this, now I'm contemplating the same with mine. Both of mine live out of state and pull their garbage on Facebook, which I could shut down, but there are so many good people out there and I kind of like to know who is stabbing me in the back. Should be noted that my brother is living off welfare and his multiple-mental disorders wife's SS disability check. I don't talk to or see him that much anyway, but have been very good about calling and trying to make the trip out to see my mom.

Any advice on how I should approach her, because I'm really getting tired of her showing ME no respect.

[GeekyGirl]

I don't talk to or see him that much anyway, but have been very good about calling and trying to make the trip out to see my mom.

Any advice on how I should approach her, because I'm really getting tired of her showing ME no respect.

Could you tell her, perhaps using SET (TOOLS: S.E.T. - Support, Empathy and Truth) that this is between you and your son? In what ways does your mother show you disrespect, aside from taking your son's side?

[wizard59]

I only recently learned about SET, but reflecting back I feel I have been using S and E all along. Only recently am I considering T which is NC at least temporarily. My fear is that to a degree, I would be treating my mom the way our son treats us and I deplore that.

As for other areas of disrespect, my mom has just always seemed spiteful towards me, criticizing everything i do and every position I ever take, whether it's politics,religion,family values,etc. if say the sky is blue, of course it isn't. I have always chocked it up to her liking to argue just for conversational purposes, but interfering between us and our son is over the line.