One day I decided that I would tell my mother she hurt my feelings in a healthy way. I explained to my mother that, if we’re really trying to improve our relationship, it might be important for us to spend time together. My mother formerly would go on vacations with me and my kids. Eventually she would go on vacations only with my ex wife. I told my mother that it hurts my feelings that she would not deem to spend such time with me but happily does so often with my ex, and that it would be important to me for her to make time for me.

Her response was to gaslight me, which is not uncommon. My mom doesn’t know how to spell “accountability”. If you ask my mom she’s never made a mistake with me in her life.

And that’s why I no longer talk to my mom.

It’s already hard enough to have cut her out of my life, but she tends to gate-keep the rest of my family from me. She’ll either tell them I’m being unreasonable or it’s all my fault, because my mom is a horrible person. Make no mistake about it, my mom is an absolutely terrible human being and I don’t regret having nothing to do with her. But I digress; she uses my family against me. Since she won’t just “lower” herself to accepting some fault in our relationship, she instead uses other means of punishing me.

The holidays are not my favorite time of year. They’re too busy when I don’t want to be too busy. They’re painful because they remind me of everything I’ve lost. The worst issue of all is that once I go back to work I’ll be feeling worse than when the vacation time started. It’s just emotionally and physically draining and I don’t know how to insulate myself from that.

I’m honestly just lucky my wife is as wonderful as she is. She’s so supportive and loving, and I know she cares about me. I can feel that she cares about me. Not like my ex-wife’s snake venom friendship she tries to pass off, with sneers and back-biting and gossip. It’s ironic that my mom is close to my ex wife, considering all they have in common. Two peas in a pod, they are. Not any pod I need to be involved with. But my wife is honest with me. I know she’s honest with me because she tells me when she doesn’t agree with me and she offers her own view of situations, and I appreciate her perspective. It’s a breath of fresh air considering I’m almost entirely accustomed to gaslighting and manipulation. Grew up with it. Found it in my ex wife. Found it in the ex after her. I hadn’t rid it from my life until I found my wife. Now I’m free, and I’m grateful to be free.

But it’s still pretty lonely when your mother is a raging narcissist and does everything she can to keep you from your family.