Older women get a pass??
Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2016 9:35 am
I wonder why it is that an older woman can be an abuser with impunity. She can be threatening (stop arguing with me or I'll throw you out in the street and the state will take your baby away), belittling (11-year-old girl, you sure are getting a big gut on you), controlling (don't use than hanger for your husband's pants and btw, he only likes my recipe for that kind of cake so use that one), mean-mouthed (that baby sure looks a lot more like Joe than he looks like his daddy), and even physically abusive (shut up *swings a fist*), but it's okay. She's not an abuser. She's just old. Tired. Set in her ways. Not feeling well. Used to getting her own way. Or, she's my mother and don't you dare disparage her.
I live with such a person. Every example there is something she has done to me or mine or someone else in the family. And there are more and more. Worse yet, my husband (her son), gaslights by proxy. But there's not a lot of literature out there on the topic that is helpful and I'm left feeling more confused by what is out there than I was before.
Between the pair pf them, I've been by degrees made a prisoner. Myself, my two grown kids who have issues of their own, and my two grandchildren. We can't leave because we have nowhere to go. No friends but theirs. No family but theirs. No car. No money to spare. He won't admit that they are tag-team abusers. He won't go to counseling. He won't even get a job.
He wasn't always like this. We had to move in with her for financial reasons. It was supposed to be temporary. But the longer he was there, the less motivated he became to leave. A man who once would not sneeze at working graveyards in a convenience store if it was what was immediately available, now won't even reach out to contacts ion his field to help him get back to work. He's beloved by the little ones and sees to their care, but does little to no housework. I ask him to fold a load of laundry and it sits for days until I take care of it. But, his mother or sister ask him -- or demand without so much a please or thank you -- to do this or that and he is Johnny-on-the-spot. Then he is angry that I resent his lack of help.
He says I'm reactionary. Overprotective. Hypersentive. Exaggerating. I'm the instigator when I assert my "claim" to cook dinner when I want, take a shower when I want, do laundry when I want, buy whatever groceries I want. I suffer from persistent daily headache and severe herniated and bulging discs in my neck, with nerve pressure. But I'm a brat for not wanting the TV up at 78 deibels (I metered it). I'm rotten because I prefer my grandchildren's laughter or conversations with my kids to reruns of the Family Feud. If I'm asked to do a chore, I suck if I don't drop everything and do it right at that moment, even if I really really have to pee. But I'm the abuser. It's all in my head.
I live with such a person. Every example there is something she has done to me or mine or someone else in the family. And there are more and more. Worse yet, my husband (her son), gaslights by proxy. But there's not a lot of literature out there on the topic that is helpful and I'm left feeling more confused by what is out there than I was before.
Between the pair pf them, I've been by degrees made a prisoner. Myself, my two grown kids who have issues of their own, and my two grandchildren. We can't leave because we have nowhere to go. No friends but theirs. No family but theirs. No car. No money to spare. He won't admit that they are tag-team abusers. He won't go to counseling. He won't even get a job.
He wasn't always like this. We had to move in with her for financial reasons. It was supposed to be temporary. But the longer he was there, the less motivated he became to leave. A man who once would not sneeze at working graveyards in a convenience store if it was what was immediately available, now won't even reach out to contacts ion his field to help him get back to work. He's beloved by the little ones and sees to their care, but does little to no housework. I ask him to fold a load of laundry and it sits for days until I take care of it. But, his mother or sister ask him -- or demand without so much a please or thank you -- to do this or that and he is Johnny-on-the-spot. Then he is angry that I resent his lack of help.
He says I'm reactionary. Overprotective. Hypersentive. Exaggerating. I'm the instigator when I assert my "claim" to cook dinner when I want, take a shower when I want, do laundry when I want, buy whatever groceries I want. I suffer from persistent daily headache and severe herniated and bulging discs in my neck, with nerve pressure. But I'm a brat for not wanting the TV up at 78 deibels (I metered it). I'm rotten because I prefer my grandchildren's laughter or conversations with my kids to reruns of the Family Feud. If I'm asked to do a chore, I suck if I don't drop everything and do it right at that moment, even if I really really have to pee. But I'm the abuser. It's all in my head.