Aunt Agony 161005

Originally posted by The Den:
Hi Aunt Agony,

My dad and mum are no longer in talking terms. They sleep in separate rooms and lead separate lives. They walk past each other without acknowledging each other's presence.

Dad is always out on Saturdays visiting his own relatives, and sleep over their homes. I have a younger brother in poly who is super rebellious. Mostly the time spent at home he will be asleep. He works night shift at 7 eleven just to avoid mum.

What makes mum so detestable? She demands us spending every night with her watching tv in the living room, insists to cook us dinner when her cooking tastes worse than army food, and kicks up a huge fuss when we say we want to go out with our friends.

But Saturday nights are different. One of my secondary school mates are having bbqs at Pasir Ris Chalet, and yet I have to spend the whole night to "accompany" her at home since no one else is home.

Sometimes Dad will have a kind word for me but I feel so messed up with my life, 'cos mum will call at 6 every day and threaten to do something violent if I do not make it home before 8 for dinner. My career never took off as a result... social life crashed because I have to make up excuses to friends when we are suppose to have a good time together.

When I walk around the house with a grouchy look on my face, she would go:

Mum: "Why that long face?"
Me: "Nothing."

Starts to pick a fight, like saying something to agiate me. Will sound sometimes like:

"Go fuck yourself, I havent die yet, so u are unhappy is it?" Dad will take it as a cue to pack a few shirts into his bag and usually 3 min later I can hear the slamming of the metal gate, and click. Just me and her again.

How do I deal with his woman who threatens to jump off a building each time I tell her I have a date? Or have a meeting at work? Or can't make it back for dinner? Or tell her I want to sleep over relatives house with dad? :cry:

How I wish I can attend the sg forums bbq.... but I guess I'll be home again..


Apparently, you still obliged to your mum's will of coming home, despite how reluctant you are. Maybe you feel pity for her, or even afraid that she may attempt something foolish, still, the maternal influence is heavy - does this exercising of control is in process long ago... when you were younger and stuff?

Your mother is undergoing a crisis now. She probably has nobody else to turn to and therefore choose to bar you from 'fleeing' so that she has some unseen emotional support, even if you don't say or do anything. She just needed some physical evidence to show that not everyone is 'fleeing' from her life. She is not trying to cease you from your hedonistic pursue with your friends and life... more like trying to save herself from emotional drowning.

Never... never use logics to decipher her ideology - your mum has gone beyond common sense and logics. She truly needs some form of emotional counselling and if you don't know how to open her wounds, fear and instability and nurse them through words and stuff, one good option is to consider counselling. A third party may be able to release that intensity in her and regain some sanity - or at least quit threatening the suicide thing.

Cheers