Rant

People using other people's illness as an emotional weapon!

Posted 8 months ago|2 comments|236 views

TAGS

Emotional blackmail , mother , guilt , argument , cancer

Written by

Ddraig
England

It really gets my goat when someone in a family makes an illness about them, when it is not them suffering from said illness.
At this particular moment in time it happens to be the mother of the family, and she has had the ordacity to rip into the eldest daughter of the family.
Why did she do this? Because her daughter was upset that her children's birthdays had gone unmarked by her siblings who are all over 16 and working.
I see no correlation to this daughter stating a sentiment that she thinks it is not too much to ask for one sentence on Face book, saying Happy birthday.
Apparently it is however, and not only is it too much to ask for, but outright disgusting of the daughter, as does she not know that the mother has enough to deal with, with her husband having cancer.
When told that the argument has nothing to do with her at all, and that it has no relation to what her husband is going through, she goes into a complete rhetorical prose about how it is not on that people are having arguments like this when she is living with that.
When told that she is not the one with cancer, she gets even more volatile and hangs up the phone.

The two points I have issue with are.
1) Why is the daughter in the wrong for defending her children's feelings?

And
2) What the hell has siblings forgetting children's birthdays got to do with the mother's husband having an illness?

To me, this is just a woman looking for a fight and begging attention on a subject that is nothing to do with her.

Opinions would be accepted, against or for my thoughts.

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Out Of The Box

Moderator

8 months ago: Two possibilities I see:

The mother is playing the guilt card to try to force her children to behave as she wants them to, in this case, not fight.

Second possibility:

The mother is overwhelmed by the stress of having a husband with cancer, with all the accompianing extra work and uncertainty. She does not want to be bothered by what she considers a petty sibling squabble compared to the life or death situation she faces every day. If her husband is someone she loves dearly, then yes, she does have cancer as well. To lose a loved one to cancer is worse than watching your own body wither and die.

It is apparent that the mother's husband is not the daughter's father, which if he were, would make the daughter feel more sympathy toward the mother's situation, because the grief and worry would be a shared experience between mum and daughter. But the mother is capable of loving this new husband with every bit of the same intensity as she loved the daughter's father at one time.

I would recommend tryingto make things as easy as stress free as possible for the mom. She is probably writing a piece in her head about how her selfish children try to drag her into their immature, insignificant disagreements abut how their precious children should be honored on their birthdays, when she is at risk of losing her other half.

With the shoe on the other foot, were it the daughter's husband that has cancer, and the mum called to complain about a percieved slight by one of the other siblings, how would the daughter react?

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Ddraig
England

8 months ago: I see exactly what you mean and agree OTB. But it was not the children's mother that contacted the grandmother of the children. It was a sibling. The daughter did not see any need to drag the mother in to this situation, for the very reasons you have concluded.
But it did seem as though the mother was willing to step in and argue with the mother of the children on behalf of the other sibling.
Then brought up the illness, which is unrelated to the issue at hand, and made the children's mother hurt and upset for standing up for her children to her siblings. The grandmother was not meant to be involved.

I have four children and I would not side with one over the other for some issue such as birthday cards. I really do not understand how this grandmother could. Apart from as you say, her stress.

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