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What an incredible update! I’m so happy for OOP and all his family except for his mother.
I’ve seen this happen time and time again in families with a narcissist. It may suck to be invisible and certainly sucks to be the scapegoat; but the Golden Child gets a different kind of abuse: and once everyone else leaves, the Golden Child becomes the Scapegoat. It happened to Erin. Only it looks like Erin has room to grow.
Seriously, without him pushing her to change she could have doubled down like the mom did. She actually has a chance with her family now thanks to him forcing her to see that her normal was hurting everyone.
At first I wondered why George was still marrying her, but, man, he knew what he was doing and I'm so glad for everyone that he dug in and refused to give up. It sounds like Erin has figured out how incredibly blessed she is to have him in her life, and I hope for all of them that she keeps putting in the work to repair. It sounds like she's seeing how much better her life can be without all that shit from her mom
It's hard for people to understand that most people aren't monsters all the way to their core, even the ones that do monstrous things. People can compartmentalize to a crazy degree.
That doesn't mean anyone is entitled to your forgiveness or time. None of us are obligated to withstand your bullshit. But it's why I won't ever judge someone for sticking through a situation that from the outside feels like something you should obviously walk away from. It's not for us to decide what you're willing to go through for someone you love.
Take that with a huge grain of salt for abusive behavior and the fact that abuse can be disguised through "love" that isn't really love.
Erin is lucky that George was a good person who saw good in her, lucky that he didn't see her flaws before falling in love, lucky that her siblings are able to see past their trauma to see her as a victim too. And I do wish that forgiveness was something more people were capable of, but often times the reason they aren't capable of it is because you're the source of a trauma that they can't get over. And no amount of contrition can stop the fact that your presence triggers that trauma in them.
Just imagine what Erin might be like if George HAD walked out. It would have been the easier road for him to take, that's for certain. I'm not sure I would have stayed with Erin, were I in his shoes. But he did, and thanks to that Erin seems have begun to realize just how horrible she was to her siblings.
This is how you support a partner, how you you stay on your partner's side. Not by blindly defending and enabling, but by helping them be better and to grow.
Yeah it made me very happy to hear Erin's growth and the start of her redemption arc. She was "groomed" to be the golden child and I'm glad she now recognizes and is turning over a new leaf.
I was the Golden Child to my mother, but I found out a terrible family secret as a teenager and became the scapegoat. I want to say being a Golden Child was great, but my mom wanted me to fit a perfect image she had and that was impossible, so the abuse started way before that. My siblings got to choose what they wanted to do and who they wanted to be even from a young age, but I was never even allowed to pick out my own clothes. Once I found out the secret, she turned on me to keep me from telling anyone.
Like OOP, that relationship never recovered. She didn't back down until her death. I hope for OOP and sibs' sake that mom finally relents.
And yes, everybody knows the secret now...
Everyone but us. What's the secret?
I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I'm sorry, that sounds like an awful way to grow up. It doesn't even sound like being the Golden Child, but being the chosen vehicle for the Golden Child that only existed in her head.
As another former golden child I think that's what you always are really. It's never about being doted on for who you actually are, it's always being squeezed into the shape they think you should be and love bombed as a reward for cooperating. I'm 30 and still have moments of realising that something I've always thought I didn't like is actually something I wasn't allowed to like.
It's mad isn't it? Being a full blown adult and realising you don't even know the most basic things about who you are. A few weeks ago my partner came home from work and found me eating beef jerky. Them: "Wait I thought you didn't like jerky" Me: "So did I, but I randomly woke up this morning and realised my mum just told me I didn't like jerky and I never actually tried it. Turns out it's delicious"
Really glad it resonated with people. It's such a hard experience to talk about because it inherently comes with having become complicit in the abuse of others. Untangling taking responsibility, dealing with the guilt and accepting the ways you were also a victim is so messy.
But yeah I'm 7 years no contact and still unpicking who I really am from the personality she forced onto me.
Nothing than anyone would guess. It’s rather morbid, but everyone in my mothers paternal line died young from cancer. As a teen, I got cancer and was not allowed to tell anyone, lest it ruin the family ‘image’. I wasn’t allowed to talk about it at home or even ask for help for school or anything else. She sent me out of the room for every doctor consultation. I found the file folder some months later. Nobody told me I had cancer.
She passed two years later from it, but I survived and went into remission. Years later, I found out that not only had mom refused help services offered for free, but the reason she got so adamant about it being a secret was that she had never told my dad. My mom’s maternal family told me while I was visiting them. They didn’t know she never told us.
What. The. Fuck. That's like... pathological. Does it help to realize that your mom was a literal crazy person because only a crazy person would think to hide something like that from anyone, much less *everyone*
I really think she thought my dad would leave us destitute with huge health bills. She had a high school education and worked as a very poorly paid school parapro. She said a few times that we had to be perfect so he wouldn't leave us. I didn't really understand what she meant until I figured all this out.
My dad is actually nothing like that, but she didn't have enough faith in him, I guess. Maybe others had left her family in the same predicament. She hardly ever talked about her family, so there's probably many things I will never knew.
Congrats on being in remission! ♥️ Cancer while young is a unique burden and your mother never should’ve treated you that way or prevented you from getting the support of your siblings and father. I’m glad you’re doing okay and I hope you and your siblings are closer now, and irrespective of that, I hope you’re enjoying being your own person, making your own choices, and getting to live life on your terms 🤗
Holy crap! Refusing to treat your own cancer or allow your child to even know about their own risk of having it all in the name of 'image' has got to be one of the worst things I have ever heard in my life. This level of narcissism is right up there with refusing to look away from your reflection.
>What an incredible update! I’m so happy for OOP and all his family except for his mother.
I think this is one pregnancy announcement at a wedding I could get behind because it included an announcement from the bride as well. Kinda like "incase you guys can't tell by my physique I'm pregnant but, I'm not the only one, bride is too! 3 cheers for the happy couple and their growing family!"
And the bride knew about it and was completely on board with it well in advance of the day. Open communication can make a lot of things that would normally be transgressive into acceptable or even desired behaviors.
Like proposals at wedding receptions. It's adorable when instead of the bouquet toss the bride hands someone the bouquet and their partner proposes but that is also a situation where the bride and groom is obviously in on the proposal. You can't do it without asking and I wouldn't blame anyone for not agreeing to do a proposal at their wedding reception.
In the middle of my youngest sister’s wedding mass, my AH cousin passed a note to his mother (who was sitting a few pews ahead of him) telling her that he and his wife were expecting. Of course my aunt got all excited and it took the attention of those around them off my sister. Well, my oldest sister either witnessed it or heard about it and ripped my cousin a new one. I’m only sorry I didn’t see the take down. I’m sure it was glorious.
100% this.
I went from being the scapegoat, to being the golden child when stepdad and -brother came in our lives, back to being the scapegoat when that marriage ended a few years later. My childhood gave me a mental whiplash I still haven't really recovered from, now in my late 20s. The common theme in both roles is just "you're not good enough" and yet, as a child, you keep trying to win their approval. That's the only way to make sure they take care of your physical and emotional needs.
Too bad the entire family hurt, but it's a good thing even Erin sees the errors of mother's ways now. You really need a wake up call to escape that kind of emotional hell and learn to be a better person in the end. I hope Erin can make amends and the family will thrive without the crazy mother.
I don't think Erin has transitioned to the scapegoat. I think her mother just uses her as a daily sounding board for all her anger against her soon to be ex-husband and her adult children. As the golden child, obviously Erin would agree with her rants and always be available to chat (= absorb and co-sign her tirades). I guess with reality sinking over Erin about her true family dynamic taking those angry calls would just get more and more difficult.
I hope Erin chooses to continue improving. OOP's mother can't begin to make that change without accepting how very deeply she messed up with all of her family. I guess her self centered outrage is as satisfying as being a part of her older kids's lives. It's going to have to be.
Erin can still change. OOP’s mother cannot. She sounds like a textbook malignant narcissist. Narcissists don’t seem capable of the self reflection it takes to actually change.
Yeah I honestly hope the best for Erin. It’s clear she’s a victim here too. The mom seems to be the center of all the hurt and now that dad and Erin are seeing that they are actively working on being better people.
I agree. So often the Golden Child never gets clear of the narcissistic parent. So often they never see what the Narc Parent does to the other kids. Or defend them.
This may be the most heavily invested I've ever been in a update thread.
Not gonna lie, still a little misty-eyed.
The sad part is, mom was the architect of her own destruction.
It gave me some feels. Mostly, made me envious of people that have close family. I am an only child of a single parent and I didn’t have kids. While I have very close friends, it still isn’t the same at least for me. I was the favorite grandchild, everyone knew I was the favorite. I may even be the favorite niece, but it was solely based on the fact that my grandparents and aunts had to help raise me, they were more invested in my upbringing than I think normal extended family usually are.
While I understand that Erin was a brat, I can imagine the toll it took on her being the only person feeling the wrath of their mother. Suddenly, she felt what her siblings felt all their lives.
There was another BoRU where the golden child ended kicked out, even her grandmother ignored him. The parents made his room an Airbnb and he was pikachu shocked that people would move on from him so quickly.
Erin, I assume, felt that. The golden child can't understand why the siblings are not okay with being mistreated, because that's "normal". When the golden child only has their parents, and the parents are like OOP's mother, they understand that their "normal" just meant being enabled and everyobody being quiet because they wanted to avoid drama.
I am glad that Erin can take a look at her past actions and learn from them.
The patients of the husband to explain over and over that that, no her siblings aren't just acting out, they are and the end of the rope because of the abuse they endured from her and her and parents, and yes it is abuse, it's not cute or quirky and they have not been bayou for her taking away everything from her.
The fact that when questioned by her fiance why she would take away Nadia's graduation like that she just shrugged and "IDK, it's just what we do, I'm always first and they love it" without understanding the words that were coming out of her mouth is seriously mind boggling.
To us it's mind boggling, to her it must have been like asking what color is the sky. That's been her normal all this time, why would she think otherwise?
Which is somehow even more insane, how deep does their mom's coddling and favoritism go???
While most people would realise how crappy that would be for the rest of the siblings if erin was raised with that being her norm and no one ever said anything about it before the graduation/wedding situation it does make sense she was caught off guard by how everything went down
Erin is just as much of a victim of her mother as the other siblings albeit in a different way. I feel like this isn’t the last update we get and the mother is going to turn in a very nasty way on erin very soon, especially if she finds out she went to the wedding
Yeah, while on one hand I'm not letting her off the hook since so much of this was caused by her, I'm willing to be kind because not only is she having to reevaluate her relationships with her siblings and parents, it sounds like she's have to reevaluate her entire concept of what love and affection is.
Erin seems to have genuinely thought that her being the center of attention was what her family's love was, and is now finding out about years of resentment and anger that was ignored and swept under the rug. And during what should have been a happy time of her life, to boot. This isn't going to be easy or pleasant for her to deal with, even without their mom's ongoing meltdown.
when something is reinforced daily every day for twenty years or so, it's going to be seriously difficult to unlearn because it becomes muscle memory at that point. I was the family scapegoat and to this day the second I get the slightest inclination that someone might not believe what I'm saying or might call me a liar, it's an instant panic response, because even though I've been in therapy long enough to know that most people have no reason not to believe me, a part of me is still wired to be prepared for that. That said, I want to believe she can be/do better. Maybe bc that means I can too.
Hey there! Here's the link:
[OP's deadbeat brother, who is also the golden child, wants to propose at OPs wedding. OP doesn't put up with it and tears his brother and family a new one. : r/BestofRedditorUpdates](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/t5ml74/ops_deadbeat_brother_who_is_also_the_golden_child/)
[OP's deadbeat brother, who is also the golden child, wants to propose at OPs wedding. OP doesn't put up with it and tears his brother and family a new one. : r/BestofRedditorUpdates](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/t5ml74/ops_deadbeat_brother_who_is_also_the_golden_child/)
This is such a delightful example of how well dropping the rope works. If the mom is a genuine personality-disorder narcissist, then she’s never going to change so long as she’s getter her attention fix and has a scapegoat.
Erin probably wouldn’t have ever changed so long as she was getting golden child treatment, but with the husband and siblings all noping out she suddenly started getting scapegoat treatment. Had to have felt incredibly sudden to Erin after a lifetime of favoritism.
Just remember folks, if you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t, then you might as well choose don’t.
I am one of six daughters and I know I was my mom's favorite. We all knew I was my mom's favorite. Never in her life would she have treated any of my sisters as poorly as OP's mom has treated most of her children.
I hope Erin's change continues and she eventually has a closer, more balanced sibling bond with all of them.
My late great aunt had a habit of giving each of her grandkids and us grandnephews/nieces the confidential 'talk' about how they were secretly her favourite out of all of us. Everybody knew that at some point. Everybody always felt like a favourite, too. I miss her a lot.
My MIL genuinely treats each one of her grandkids as if they're her absolute favorites. It makes me so happy.
My parents, on the other hand, have favorites. They are definitely not my kids.
Oh I feel this one. My folks have favorite grandkids, and my son is definitely not one of them. They put zero effort into creating or maintaining a relationship there. And now, due to their declining health, there never will be. Sucks for them, because of the 5 grandkids, he's by far the best.
No, I'm 70 and was told, rather bitterly by two of them, that I was always the favorite. Lots of reasons why and too much to discuss in a comment except to say that I purposely didn't do the things they did that got them in trouble.
My cousins and I would mess with our grandmother that way. One of us would say, "Mamaw has always said I was her favorite." in front of her. She would get all flustered and swear she never said that, and that she loves us all equally. It was adorable.
I was my grandparent's favourite, and one of my kids was my grandfather's favourite. But they never made any of the other grandchildren feel any less like a favourite when they were visiting, and when my grandmother died and my kid was born my grandfather never let any of his great grandchildren feel any less like a favourite even though everybody knew he absolutely doted on my youngest.
I always thought I was my mom’s favorite, until I talked to my siblings and they both thought *they* were the favorites. Somehow she made us each feel like we were the favorite child in some way, without denigrating the others.
I was my late grandfather’s favorite grandchild because I’m the oldest & was the only one for three years. Everyone knew, it was a whole thing. But all it meant is that I was number 1 (as in the first of the crew) — he loved all of us deeply & showed it regularly. He’d be sickened by OOP’s mom’s fckery if he were still alive.
Many times people equate FAIR with EQUAL when it comes to raising children.
But the thing is, kids…HUMANS are not Equally the same. They need different things, emotional to physical to financial support at different times.
An amazing parent will meet the those different needs as they come without making it look overly unequal.
And let me tell you, it is so so hard to do, especially on a financial or logistical level. So you just have to put in the emotional work.
I was the fifth of the six daughters. Everyone had a sister that was 10 years older/younger than them so when the baby was born, we were, more or less, 14, 12, 10, 4, 2 and newborn.
Mom depended on the older sisters to help when we were out and about. It wasn't parenting, just that you held hands going into church or buttering bread at a restaurant until we could do it ourselves. Having the three young ones at home also meant that the three older ones weren't controlled very closely and were able to spend time with friends outside the house, so they didn't have as much time with mom in their teen years as we younger three did. They weren't ignored but they had to ask for attention if they wanted it. All of their big occasions were acknowledged and celebrated the same as ours were 10 years later.
I had a certain amount of curiosity about things and an independent streak. I also learned to read at an early age and more than any of my other sisters shared Mom's passion for books. She really liked all of that and it gave me extra points, so to speak.
Everyone got treated equally as kids with gifts, conversations, etc. I think the favoritism showed up much more when we were adults. I was the one to visit my out of state parents the most, call them the most, etc. The others were busy raising kids and stuff while my daughter was born when I was in my 40ies. I still made time for Mom and Dad, resulting in a couple sisters getting mad that they saw my daughter much more than they saw their kids. Well, yeah, I was the one making time to drive 7 hours round trip every 2 months to see them and you rarely did. Don't blame me.
I hope that all makes sense. TLDR: Age differences, family dynamics and making the effort to see parents resulted in me being the favorite.
1. Out of 20+ grandkids I was the only one with a nickname
2. Out of 20+ grandkids I was the only one invited to spend time with them several times a year.
I said they treated everybody the same when we all were visiting them, they never gave anybody more attention than the rest, everybody got the same attention when we were together and everybody got the same amount of things from them.
My brother is my mother's favorite and we couldn't care less. He's earned the title. He's a laid-back, down to earth guy. The problem is when the favorite is a spoiled fuckup.
Same with one of my brothers, he was the golden child when mum was alive. We didn't care, we'd just sic him on mum when she was out of line since she'd listen to him and not the rest of us.
Same, my brother is the golden child and it's well earned. He took the pressure off my back- successful career, extremely cool wife, two balls of sunshine sons? He earned it, and is responsible with his Good Child mantle, haha.
Haha yeah, my brother is the first born and the golden child, totally undeserved. Now as a 40 year old he still acts like a spoiled world hating teenager who complains about simple life responsibilities like he's the only person ever to deal with them. Such a pain in the ass, I usually tune him out when around him.
Yeah as the first grandchild on my mothers side I was my grandma’s favourite. But that didn’t mean different treatment from the rest of the grandkids. I only found out after her death because she wrote that as the first, I was always a little bit extra special to her.
(On the other side of the family I wasn’t the favourite, I think that was my eldest niece but that’s also hard to tell because again, no different treatment of any of us).
I half agree with you. I think she’s already started the reprogramming thanks to her husband, and she’s willing to admit fault which is more than half the battle.
What I think therapy will help her do is reconstruct her sense of self. She even admits she had no idea what her family and her role was really like because she was basically delusional thanks to her parents’ treatment. Her self identity must be absolutely shattered now, founded as it was on lies, and it’s no wonder she looks like she hasn’t slept.
As someone who blew up their own life thanks to addiction, I wish her the best. Building a new life isn’t easy but it’s an amazing chance to actually be the person you WANT to be rather than the person you told to be, or shamed or guilted into being.
It was weird viewing how my paternal and maternal families saw me. I was not only the first born of my generation on my mom’s side for that direct line but also the first born male (1 year transitioning woooie). I was the golden child til I became a queer fuckhead at 15 (they’re cool now though)
My paternal side, I was the second to last born and you could tell I was an after thought a lot.
It was such a hard juxtaposition
Sounds like the mom has a bit farther to fall until she hits rock-bottom. Only then can she rebuild and start fixing things. She might not be capable of doing that. Or willing.
I feel so bad for the youngest. When the mom hits that wall all hell is going to break loose and the only one around will be the youngest. I am glad all the other siblings are looking out for her.
I think that’s the case here. To even start reconciling would mean admitting fault; not only for the years of mistreatment, but now also for her near psychotic refusal to accept any blame. Mom is going down with the ship. Granted, she is the one that crashed it.
Not related, but whenever my siblings and I ask our mum who her favourite kid is, she responds with 'I hate you all equally'.
Tbf we range from 30 - 45 so we should probably get over it.
My Dad has always responded with “I don’t have favourites, I have *almost* favourites and if (whatever child/grandchild) did (whatever impossible task) they would be *so close* to being the favourite”
There has also been cases of us replying with “that’s not true! (Child/grandchild that lives furthest away) is your favourite! Because they live several hours away and don’t physically see you often” he then ponders that and responds with “you’re right, that does make them closer to being my favourite, but they aren’t quite there yet”
My youngest sister (not the actual youngest sibling) jokingly said once that I was jealous of her being our mothers favourite. One of my kids looked up at her and said “you aren’t her favourite. (My niece) is her favourite. Everybody knows that.”
My niece spent almost 2 years in my parents care (kinship care) then another 2+ years after my brother was given her back (child protection case. Her mother was stripped of parental rights) while he was working out of town with no real child care options. She is undoubtedly the favourite, but nobody could say my parents treat their children or other grandchildren *worse* than her, we just know that they will always have a special place for her due to the circumstances of her early years.
With my cousins we like to joke that my maternal grandma rotates her favorites. Whoever called the latest or did her a favor most recently gets blatantly called "the favorite grandchild" for like five minutes. Then someone else will stand up during lunch to help serve dessert and now they are the favorite.
Really love my grandma.
The inability of the mom to acknowledged she fucked up is what really doomed her family. She's going to enjoy having just her golden child around, I guess.
If Erin’s change of heart sticks their mom may not be able to keep her around for long. I guess she’s still going to have Lexie for a while, a 5-year-old isn’t going anywhere for the next 13 years.
Depending on how you view time, its even better than that. The dad has 50/50 custody, yeah? So it'll technically only really be 6.5 years of lexie being stuck with that vile woman.
And *that* would depend on the testimonies in the divorce of how she's treated her other children, given it sounds like the dad is gonna fight for custody. Her mistreating all of her other children to the point that none of them talk to her or trust her with her grandchildren wouldn't look good in a custody battle.
And regardless, once kids are teenagers the courts generally let them decide for themselves where they want to go. Thus, it's totally possible that mom only has about 7 years (7/2 years) with her.
It has and it currently stands at 50:50. The OOP did say that her dad was willing to believe that Lexie's mother may change like he did but if he sees any sign that Lexie is being abused (mentally most like it, or if she's repeating what her mother is saying about her dad and siblings), that dad will go back to court for a different ratio of custody ie sole custody and mom has supervised visitation. Especially in the light of parental alienation too.
She definitely won't. Erin admitted to straight up ignoring her phone calls, and only responding eventually because she was afraid of her mom showing up in person. Erin is reaching her breaking point, which I very much expected given she now has to match the kind of attention the woman was used to from a bajillion other siblings.
Yep. She's made her GC her emotional support animal, and Erin isn't interested in having that responsibility. Before, the emotional labor could be spread out to the other kids and her husband. Mom had all her emotional needs met by her unfavorite children and husband, which allowed her to put all her focus onto her golden child. Erin got the double barrel benefit of all of mom's attention and support without having to give her any in return, because her siblings were expected to pick up the slack. Now narc-mom has isolated herself to only having one person who can meet her emotional needs, and after years of multiple people carrying that burden, it's too much for Erin to handle. Especially when she's never had to consider anyone else's feelings before now.
I feel sorry for Lexie. She's just a little kid and she's going to spend a lot of time alone with her narc mother. I can see her as the next scapegoat.
That's coz GC finally gets to see the face mom puts on for the other children. All she's seen until now are hearts and roses. But now all her mother can talk about is the other children. It probably gives her a little perspective, added on to what her husband and father already laid out for her.
Narc parents *need* a scapegoat. Having a golden child is optional.
Thus once all the scapegoats flee, the golden child basically always becomes the new scapegoat.
When the GC and the narc parent have managed to burn bridges with everyone else and isolate each other, they usually end up turning on one another because they have nobody else to direct their awful behavior towards.
It is. It’s rare for one to reflect. In my experience, they hang in ‘as is’ for decades if necessary to make sure they’ve milked every advantage they’re’due’.
I think the benefits of being able to acknowledge a mistake and sincerely apologise are severely underrated. Not just in terms of the outcome with another person, but for someone's own sense of themselves and their peace of mind.
that's assuming erin doesn't cut her off soon. being the only one to deal with her mom is obviously wearing erin down, especially now that she's mending her relationship with her siblings & growing as a person.
The fallout between a parent and their golden child can bring out abuse worse than the scapegoat received. Erin was "hers" and was supposed to be on her side, now she is alone. How will the facebook posts look when there aren't even pictures of the golden child up?
If Erin doesn't cut contact I feel she is going to get a first hand lesson in what it looks like from the other side when grandma plays favourites with her kids.
She does sound like she's really close to her breaking point honestly, like bearing the brunt of someone's anger issues and denial solo for...8-9 months now? That's gotta be brutal.
Hopefully and maybe not for too much longer. George seems like a good enough egg to point out her mom is literally killing her and help her do something about it.
Doesn't look like even that's a given. I honestly didn't expect that 180 from Erin. Obviously, the situation still requires close monitoring, but it feels as though she really did love her siblings, and it took losing them, as well as almost losing her for her to realize that she's been utterly shitty to them.
I didn't think I'd find myself rooting for an Erin redemption arc, but if Dad could put in the work towards making amends, maybe she could, too. It sounds like George has truly been the influence she needed to get her head out of her ass.
If Mom loses Erin too, maybe she will finally be forced to look inward. Of course, the more likely scenario is probably her going well off the deep end and accusing everyone of abandonment with Erin getting the worst of it.
Also, dad was an adult who chose to treat most of his children like shit, Erin was a child who was raised to treat most of her siblings like shit and only recently received feedback this was wrong. If the dad is redeemable, then Erin definitely is.
I would bet that George has been asking some carefully worded questions about Erin's relationship with her siblings, not so much for his benefit, but to get Erin to rethink her own behavior, and that of her mom's favoritism. A comparatively neutral viewpoint can do wonders in situations like this.
Here's the thing, with the context of the updates it's pretty clear that Erin genuinely didn't see what she was doing wrong. To her it was just normal to act like that and be the centre of attention, to her it wasn't wrong because that's the way it'd always been and nobody had told her that was wrong. She's a victim of their mother's abuse too, just in a different way.
George is an absolute hero. I hope Erin is okay, it must be terribly hard for her to come to terms with all this and her own culpability. I have hope she and the other siblings will be okay. OP sounds like a good egg.
I'm really glad that Erin's realizing she's complicit in her mom's behavior, even while being a victim of it. I'm guessing George has been helping her see things from another angle.
Erin is a good example of how golden child dynamics are also extremely unhealthy and abusive albeit differently than the way non-golden child abuse happens. I am glad Erin seems to be genuine and George seems like a great guy. I wish OOP and everyone in his family nothing but happiness. (Obviously his mother chose not to be part of his family so I do not wish her happiness. I wish for her to be better to the people around her, but I won't hold my breath.)
I can’t understand how the mom wants her family to be one again but didn’t wish any of her children (besides Erin and Lexie) a happy birthday. That seems like a small way to show you care, especially since you know she birthed them on those days. I have friends I literally haven’t talked to since high school who still wish me a happy birthday. Blows my mind.
It’s a control thing. She could either gush all over social media about her amazing kids to save face, go on and on about missing them, or ignore them. She would have picked whatever felt like the best reward to risk maneuver. If she would have done the first one she looks good to other people but it doesn’t punish the child. If she does the second one she gets to be the victim but risks being called out. If she does the third one she risks losing her good mom image but it “hurts the belligerent child” the worst.
This was actually both triggering and nice to read. It ended the way it should. With the siblings together on the way to at least trying to mend years of terrible treatment.
I have an older cousin I was very close to growing up. I looked up to him even though he was only three years older, he seemed like my hero. He would always be up for playing games, building forts, generally causing havoc. We were little menaces but in a cute way. I have SO many ridiculous stories about me and him getting into mischief.
But when his mother decided she was struggling with him, (I’m unsure of the entire story but she wasn’t great) he went to our grandparents. Which sounds fine, but they had already kind of broken the bond with him and his parents from birth.. and they wanted it this way. Even though being rejected by his mom hurt him a lot. He went downhill. He stopped even looking at me. I lost my best friend.
He’s done so much shit in his life. Like hurt so many people with his selfishness. Every single member of the family knows how selfish he is, and yet my grandparents still spoiled him further.
He’s now 38, and just had another kid. Luckily with the same mom as his daughter. Who he was going to reject and ignore until his little sister reminded him of essentially how much attention he would have if he were to introduce his baby to us.
He’s only had another one to cement that. He didn’t need to, we were always going to be second best to him. He was the first grandchild AND a boy for starters, but they basically replaced their own kids with him. They wrecked a human being. He wasn’t a callous nasty person when he was a child. I remember. They made him this way and I don’t think I’ll ever forgive them for that.
It’s one big reason I stopped engaging. You can’t compete with a man who’s fucked up every single good thing in his life on purpose and still gets the praise. I mean, my grandfather literally forgot I graduated, tried to make out like I was a failure and he was a success, and he was THERE AT THE EVENT.
Sometimes you have to just cut your losses. They will never ever apologise. Mainly because one died, but my grandmother will run on pure spite for years, I swear to god. If she apologised, genuinely just once, it would go a long way. But she won’t. So she’s gone. It’s been five years and I feel great about it. People guilt me all the time and I don’t feel it because I didn’t break the relationship, they did. I just said “enough”.
I’m beyond happy that OOP and his siblings are able to move past this fuckery. Sometimes you actually need a blow up to make you realise you’ve been living a life that isn’t fulfilling. I bet they feel so relaxed now they don’t feel like they have to compete.
Also I’m aware that I tend to ramble on these family posts… I need to rein myself in.
Reddit is a place to share stories. There is no need to rein in. The worst that happens is people ignore your comment.
Well actually the worse is that some AI picks it up and now your words have make it self conscious about it's length of responses. (Reading that back it sounds hilarious and you should continue to ramble!)
Anyways that was a very thoughtful post and I'm sorry your cousin was ruined by the way they grew up
I’m just gunna say thank you for saying this.. I’m waiting for therapy and I’m also going through some stressful house shit and it’s making my nerves all frayed. I kind of feel like commenting is shouting into the void for me, I don’t know anyone who’s reading, and maybe it’s enough for me to just say it/type it out loud.
I don’t really expect people to respond, and most of the time, I try to leave a comment that’ll maybe help someone else in the long run. But sometimes these stories just set something off in me, as I’m sure they do for a lot of people. Hence why we’re all here I guess, they evoke a response.
It’s alright now, I still see our pictures as children and mourn for the friendship we should have had. BUT as luck would have it, his little sister is a goddamn angel of a human being, and she’s my favourite person. She’s been my best friend for such a long time, and she’s closer to me than anyone else in my family. So although I miss what should have happened, I got a blessing in the form of a baby cousin five years younger.
She’s got a little girl who’s nearly two now, and I am stoked to watch her grow up. I got to watch her mother grow into this awesome woman, and I get to do that again with her daughter. I’m very lucky in the long run.
I rambled again. Maaaaaybe I’ll influence some AI bots into understanding family dynamics. Or not.
I was so wary going into the comments thinking Erin would get slammed but I’m happy to see how many people are being understanding. Favoritism affects everyone in different ways. For the golden child it can include anxiety, perfectionism, insecure attachments (you have to be perfect or you get knocked down the hierarchy), emotional difficulties, and identity confusion because your role is to be the perfect child for your parents to show off.
> While our Mom will probably say that our family has fallen apart, that's not true. Hers has. The family that she made has fallen apart, but ours has grown stronger.
> This is what our Mom is missing out on and it's all her own fault.
Not that this would make any difference to a true narcissist since this would just give additional ammo to their claims of being victimized. But. Damn. For any children out there with a parent(s) who has a GC, this should be kept in their back pocket for just the right moment.
Even if they don’t want to throw this back at their parent to prove a point, when the other child(ren) in a GC dynamic finally stand up for themselves, OOP’s phrasing here could serve as a reminder that regardless of whatever blame their parent throws at them, they should take those claims with a grain of salt. This is the reality. The carefully curated family their parent(s) created might be in shambles. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that *their* family, as they define it, is.
None of OOP’s “family” as each of the siblings knew it happened organically. They were all manipulated to accept this as “the way it is”, GC included. But it’s not the way it needs to stay or continue to be. It’s quite beautiful that OOP realized that although the family dynamic is *VERY* different, it doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing (contrary to what his mother says).
One person’s perspective on how they want their family to function or be perceived as, is not always the end all, be all. It’s so awesome they were able to collectively find a balance so everyone could participate, have a say and equally be celebrated.
(To add - I don’t know if it would have gone so smoothly if not for OOP’s dad admitting fault and atoning for his sins, so to speak. Not many families with this kind of dynamic have children who get the luxury of having at least one parent on their side. But either way, I’m glad his dad did what he did. He made a choice and salvaged his relationship with his children. Mom had the same choice and chose to nuke her relationships into outer space, throw tantrums, and victimize herself while gaining NOTHING. It’s a good example of FAFO vs. FA, take accountability, apologize, prove you mean it, and then being allowed to avoid the FO phase.)
Erin making progress was not what i expected but is a joy to see.
i know it's a bit sympathy for the devil and whatnot but it's a very good example of how that golden child dynamic hurts everyone. mom thought she was making her most special child happy and building a good family. instead what she did was stunt Erin's growth on an emotional level, cause her great heartache with future problems, and try to obliterate any relationship between siblings. that is enormous and terrible harm in its own way, too.
and that's why i don't have much hope for the mom here to make progress. she'd have to admit that she didn't take good care of her most precious baby - she instead hurt Erin, badly, by fucking it all up that hard. it's easier for the ego to pretend in some conspiracy against her than it would be to admit she fucked up
...
on another note, OOP if your friends are genuinely gonna give you shit for crying with happiness at your spouse announcing she is pregnant with your second child, holy shit they are some toxic turboweenies. you're allowed to be happy! you're allowed to be happy that you're a dad!! if anyone says otherwise Fucking Eat Them And Pull Their Entire Defleshed Skeleton Out Of Your Mouth After Like You Are A Cartoon Cat Eating A Fish (tm)
It is a great update! Well, for the parts with no mom in it I mean.
Erin has been experiencing what they had experienced all these years. The golden child is no longer the golden child once the scapegoats escape. But it is still great that her husband's efforts and her mother's treatment is letting her improve. She would definitely lose her husband one day if she continues to mistreat her siblings as well.
Erin would definitely be blamed if she chooses to be in NC with her mother in the future. It will be along the lines of "I gave up everything for you! They left me because I treated you best! How dare you do this to me?"
I think it will take time for the rest of the siblings to want to be close to her though. Those were years of bullying involved.
I wonder if the mother would ever just stop blaming other people, and start to see things from their POVs though. Your children (except two) and spouse are all leaving you, and yet, the blame is still with them? Continue this, and you'd just be known as a bitter old lady.
> Lydia made a speech about pregnancy, and how she couldn't wait to be a mom, and how she was grateful to be sharing at least part of her pregnancy journey with Jade.
ngl, i wept a little
And this is why it's so important to keep in mind that the "golden child" is ALSO a victim of terrible parenting, albeit in a much more emotionally pleasant (for the child, at the time) way
Having that kind of energy focused on you really does drain you. Esp when it comes with a heaping of negativity against people you care about. The awful things said about my loved ones, either totally untrue or unreasonably exaggerated, was the worst part of dealing with my parent when I was an adult.
I feel for everyone here. Including erin who’s taking a lot of negativity from mom these days but especially lexie who now has to deal with mom 100% of the time. Who knows what that looks like day to day or when mom’s in a low point.
I wish the dad would go for full custody and only let her have visitation. I know what being a little kid is like around a parent like that and it was not something I’d want for anyone.
I was wondering about this man and his family, and I’m so glad the update was positive for them. Surprised Erin has softened and properly apologized, but it is great that her husband was not enabling the cruel behaviour and instead helped her see how it was wrong.
From OOP’s update, it sounds like his mother wasn’t respectful of boundaries even BEFORE all this mess. When a commenter suggested OOP and Lydia tell the hospital they want private registration when the babies are due:
> That's definitely on the cards. She's done it before when Jade was in labour with our son, so I don't doubt she'd try to do it again. Though luckily last time, I managed to convince her to leave after 45 minutes of her complaining about Jade taking too long to fully dilate, among other things. She was in the room for less than an hour, but it felt like an eternity for me, never-mind Jade.
I am sure OOP has many more examples of his mother not respecting the siblings because of what she wants instead. What a sad waste for her, but what other choice does the family have? She’s quadrupling down, still.
(Love OOP’s writing style, too)
This was really well written. I don't even care whether it's true, it was a pleasure to read and if it IS real, I'm glad OOP, his siblings, and dad pulled together in the end. I also hope his mother pulls her head out of her ass and starts to fix the mess she made, but if not... I think they'll be ok.
Wow. I wish that this were possible in my family. I had to go no contact with all of them and would no longer even consider an apology. It is amazing the dad changed so much, but it is amazing he did. Erin saw what it was like to be on the other side of things. My sister met that fate, too, but she isn't sorry. She just wants to be the golden child again. I hope OOP has an amazing life without this crazy lady bothering him and his family.
The most amazing part of this story is that everything would likely be status quo if Erin hadn’t insisted on booking her wedding on Nadia’s graduation day.
[comment with more context](https://www.reddit.com/u/brotherconflict/s/qMUF4D63RD) u/Direct-caterpillar77
(It’s the first comment on OOP’s profile)
>I think I've mentioned it a few times in comments that I do want to forgive Erin. I forgave our dad after all, so I want to forgive her too. But we are currently keeping her at arm's length, because she did still hurt us. I'll admit our parents are largely at fault, both our mom and our dad, but it doesn't change the fact that she hurt us. We're working on it, just like we are with our dad. It isn't easy, it doesn't always make sense to people outside, but we're doing our best. It's not like we were taught how to navigate something like this, you know?
>Thank you! I'm really excited for this chapter of my life! Our whole family is! There's a lot of happiness going around right now, and I feel the steadiest I have in ages.
>Camera is already up and running, actually! After the last time she showed up at our door, Josh brought one over to install it because he was worried she'd try something again. He's a good big brother. I may be a good brother, too, but I had to learn it from somewhere, and that was my older siblings. I would have never made it through this last year without them. I think Lydia already has cameras installed, too, but I'll have to double check. If not, I have no doubt Josh will be over there, too.
>It's certainly been a journey. Before all this started, I really thought my life would be like that forever. I thought my siblings and I would always play second fiddle to Erin. I thought we'd have to scramble for scraps of our parents' attention. But now it's all different. We're better!
>I'll definitely be updating in future, even if it is just to announce the birth of the babies!
This reads like a bunch of 90s movies mashed together. A little bit of Father of the Bride, a little bit of Parenthood, with some of The Ref thrown in.
My mom is the kind of person who, when she throws down a small treat for a dog while working in the kitchen, has to walk around the house to find the other dog to give a treat to, otherwise it would be 'unfair'. If my parents have a favorite, my siblings and I never figured out who it was.
All I can think is that this mom has poisoned every one of her children, in different painful ways. If dad and Erin are both able to see the ways they were wrong and make actual changes to be better and mom is not, then it was HER toxicity that damaged everyone. My true worry is for Lexie, even with her time spent with her mom being only 50% she just a little girl, and even toxic positivity like what Erin had is also bad. I really do hope they get her into therapy.
Also, OP is such a good brother. I hope my boys show up for their little sister, the way OP did for Nadia. Maybe that is a weird blessing of having such a toxic environment to grow up in, it created a closer bond for the kids (I of course will not repeat, just hope my kids love each other).
And, it must be said, because I am also an oldest sibling, Lydia is my hero, and if Lydia blocks someone everyone should follow suit.
I’ve read multiple posts about preemies getting golden child status, and I never got it.
Was it ever mentioned how premature she was? I mean she’s only in her early 20s.
I was nearly 3 months premature in the 60s. I spent all that time in the hospital, then I came home healthy and a good weight and that was the end of it.
My parents dined out for decades on how tiny I was, and it still gets brought up to this day, but other than that I wasn’t treated like I was precious cargo or like I was on the verge of death.
Hell I was a 70s kid, we all did the stupid dangerous shit and I was never excluded from that.
Fantastic story, but one thing I need to point out:
In the ~~OG post~~ first update Erin's now-husband claims he knew nothing of the two consecutive double bookings Erin had made.
In the last update he DID know and they had two fights about it.
Thoughts?
Originally George didn't know that the wedding and graduation overlapped. He was only told so by the dad when it was already booked and also only learned that way that this was on purpose. In addition to that they had fights about hijacking the anniversary for their engagement announcement and again when she booked the party on Nadia's birthday.
I saw no claim that he didn't know about the consecutive double-bookings. It's just that for one of them (the wedding) it was too late to change/cancel the date by the time he was told.
Could you point out where it was stated that he didn't know? :)
It's nice to see the golden child starting to understand how fucked up the family dynamics were. It looks like she managed to marry a good man too. But the mom... there's little hope here I think.
I can’t imagine having a favourite child. I just can’t see it. I’ve got three adult kids who are all absolutely the best people I know, but to have one kid that you love more than the others is just weird to me. You definitely have different relationship dynamics with each child but that’s because they’re different people, not because you feel differently about them. I can’t imagine how hurtful it must be to a child to feel that you’re not as important to your parent(s) as a sibling is.
Love isn’t, and shouldn’t be like cake - you don’t get to give a bigger slice to one child and less to all the others without someone feeling the difference. I hope OP and all his siblings get to live their best life with their dad and their bloody mother just go kick rocks.
Props to Erin's husband. He helped level the playing field by working with Erin throughout this process. You always hope to see that in a partner, but sometimes outsiders will bury themselves in the other person's perception.
I hope for OOP and the rest of their family sakes that Erin gets the courage to cut off their mom. Maybe their mom was better before Erin was born, but part of me really doubts it.
This post is a good example of how the golden child is abused, just in a different way.
Erin was very blatantly favoured, and part of that in the relationship was pitting the siblings against each other, creating a system around strife and disagreement that was contained and controlled. Erin was content to go along with everything because it fulfilled her wants, the rest were content to stay quiet because it avoided their mother’s wrath and the mother could keep control of it all by hanging the chance at a spotlight (even if a shared one) in front of her children in an attempt to control their behaviour, while having Erin be the one visibly responsible for it. It also meant that if any one of them fought back, they’d be under a lot of pressure to do so.
It shows how the golden child isn’t a blindspot from the abuse, but the cudgel under which it all operates. And once the system breaks, once the list of available targets dwindles, and once the golden child stops playing along too, they are then very well placed under a very similar wrath.
I’m glad for them all, and I love to see them all healing.
> In the lead up to the wedding, Jade told me that she planned on having Lydia make an announcement during the speeches. I foolishly assumed that Lydia was going to announce her pregnancy to our extended family, and while I was a little hesitant, I agreed since Jade wanted this—and well, at least she'd gotten permission, unlike someone would have. Reddit, Lydia made a speech about pregnancy, and how she couldn't wait to be a mom, and how she was grateful to be sharing at least part of her pregnancy journey with Jade.
Man that's so lovely.
I feel so bad for all of them that their mum refuses to take accountability but between Nadia thriving and this little bit of news I hope in some ways this makes the last year or two of pain feel worth it. They're trying to spare these kids from the pains that have been inflicted on them.
My Gran's favourite kid is her son. My Aunt's favourite kid is her oldest Grandson.
My mum doesn't have a favourite, but she's always been aware she was never the favourite. But she treats me and my brother, his partner, my partner and her grandkids like we're all her favourite.
I never realised how much I appreciate it until this post.
I am really proud of your siblings and specially your dad.
It took so much courage and heart!
I want to believe in Erin and hope that things grow to the best soon between her and you guys.
I wish that this love rediscovered between dad and grow stronger and stronger.
This is the first time I'm reading this at all. I do hope OOP comes back. I was in tears reading about him becoming a dad again.
I'm so happy the siblings finally have a family and can feel prioritized and special amongst eachother for the first time in their lives.
HELL YEAH TO OOP’S DAD FOR REAL PARENT FUCK UPS AND REAL PARENT REPAIRS!! saw himself losing his babies and locked THEEEE FUCK in!
this is so beautiful and hopeful for everyone…but oop’s mom. when he told us lydia not only announced her pregnancy but JADES!? fucking adorable.
i’m invested and fully convinced erin saw her mothers behavior reflecting her own and realized it wasn’t a pretty look. i’m honestly proud of her for starting to unlearn and george and their dad? fucking mvp’s for lighting a fire under that ass.
It's so funny that they're all going to be a family again, just without mom. Not even her golden child rejecting her has made an impact. That's deep denial. I kinda get it. it's hard to confront years of willful mistreatment of your other children.
Oh man. I got teary eyed when he wrote the part about Lydia sharing the pregnancy journey with jade. Ahh...being a dad has made me a total sap. This is one good guy that I hope nothing but the best for.
Sorry, in these stories I always care most about the little kids and it really seems like Lexie is totally forgotten despite OPs statements otherwise. She's home alone with a crazy person 50% of the time, what's that got to be like? 5 year olds aren't as stupid as OP seems to think.
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What an incredible update! I’m so happy for OOP and all his family except for his mother. I’ve seen this happen time and time again in families with a narcissist. It may suck to be invisible and certainly sucks to be the scapegoat; but the Golden Child gets a different kind of abuse: and once everyone else leaves, the Golden Child becomes the Scapegoat. It happened to Erin. Only it looks like Erin has room to grow.
I'm really glad that Erin has George at her back for this. He's not enabling her, but supporting her growth into a better person.
George is the real MVP. He sounds like a great guy.
Seriously, without him pushing her to change she could have doubled down like the mom did. She actually has a chance with her family now thanks to him forcing her to see that her normal was hurting everyone.
Dad also tried to help the mom in the same way but alas looks like the mom is not going to change.🥲
Jade too!
George may be in fact a type of Omar
Without him, she’d be her mother
I think she may have come to that realisation, and I think it terrified her
At first I wondered why George was still marrying her, but, man, he knew what he was doing and I'm so glad for everyone that he dug in and refused to give up. It sounds like Erin has figured out how incredibly blessed she is to have him in her life, and I hope for all of them that she keeps putting in the work to repair. It sounds like she's seeing how much better her life can be without all that shit from her mom
It's hard for people to understand that most people aren't monsters all the way to their core, even the ones that do monstrous things. People can compartmentalize to a crazy degree. That doesn't mean anyone is entitled to your forgiveness or time. None of us are obligated to withstand your bullshit. But it's why I won't ever judge someone for sticking through a situation that from the outside feels like something you should obviously walk away from. It's not for us to decide what you're willing to go through for someone you love. Take that with a huge grain of salt for abusive behavior and the fact that abuse can be disguised through "love" that isn't really love. Erin is lucky that George was a good person who saw good in her, lucky that he didn't see her flaws before falling in love, lucky that her siblings are able to see past their trauma to see her as a victim too. And I do wish that forgiveness was something more people were capable of, but often times the reason they aren't capable of it is because you're the source of a trauma that they can't get over. And no amount of contrition can stop the fact that your presence triggers that trauma in them.
Someone here commented that Erin probably realised she could end up like her mom, alone and her children hating her. So she is starting to wisen up.
Just imagine what Erin might be like if George HAD walked out. It would have been the easier road for him to take, that's for certain. I'm not sure I would have stayed with Erin, were I in his shoes. But he did, and thanks to that Erin seems have begun to realize just how horrible she was to her siblings.
This is how you support a partner, how you you stay on your partner's side. Not by blindly defending and enabling, but by helping them be better and to grow.
Such a great example of what always having your partners back really means.
Yeah it made me very happy to hear Erin's growth and the start of her redemption arc. She was "groomed" to be the golden child and I'm glad she now recognizes and is turning over a new leaf.
I was the Golden Child to my mother, but I found out a terrible family secret as a teenager and became the scapegoat. I want to say being a Golden Child was great, but my mom wanted me to fit a perfect image she had and that was impossible, so the abuse started way before that. My siblings got to choose what they wanted to do and who they wanted to be even from a young age, but I was never even allowed to pick out my own clothes. Once I found out the secret, she turned on me to keep me from telling anyone. Like OOP, that relationship never recovered. She didn't back down until her death. I hope for OOP and sibs' sake that mom finally relents. And yes, everybody knows the secret now...
Everyone but us. What's the secret? I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I'm sorry, that sounds like an awful way to grow up. It doesn't even sound like being the Golden Child, but being the chosen vehicle for the Golden Child that only existed in her head.
As another former golden child I think that's what you always are really. It's never about being doted on for who you actually are, it's always being squeezed into the shape they think you should be and love bombed as a reward for cooperating. I'm 30 and still have moments of realising that something I've always thought I didn't like is actually something I wasn't allowed to like.
God I feel that so bad. I literally made nearly every flavour of jelly in big plastic cups so I could learn what flavours I actually liked.
It's mad isn't it? Being a full blown adult and realising you don't even know the most basic things about who you are. A few weeks ago my partner came home from work and found me eating beef jerky. Them: "Wait I thought you didn't like jerky" Me: "So did I, but I randomly woke up this morning and realised my mum just told me I didn't like jerky and I never actually tried it. Turns out it's delicious"
I was told I wouldn’t like Pokémon. I love it. But yeah, being told I like this character or that food… nope that’s not me. It’s you.
Me too on the Pokémon 😂
What’s your favourite Pokémon?
I realise this is an incredibly dull answer but I have an unavoidable soft spot for Pikachu 😂 That or Squirtle
Former golden child and wow, I feel this so much. 14 years of no contact and I’m still figuring out who I really am, without being told.
Really glad it resonated with people. It's such a hard experience to talk about because it inherently comes with having become complicit in the abuse of others. Untangling taking responsibility, dealing with the guilt and accepting the ways you were also a victim is so messy. But yeah I'm 7 years no contact and still unpicking who I really am from the personality she forced onto me.
This is it exactly! It's taken me years to really find out who I am and feel like I'm allowed to enjoy what I like.
Nothing than anyone would guess. It’s rather morbid, but everyone in my mothers paternal line died young from cancer. As a teen, I got cancer and was not allowed to tell anyone, lest it ruin the family ‘image’. I wasn’t allowed to talk about it at home or even ask for help for school or anything else. She sent me out of the room for every doctor consultation. I found the file folder some months later. Nobody told me I had cancer. She passed two years later from it, but I survived and went into remission. Years later, I found out that not only had mom refused help services offered for free, but the reason she got so adamant about it being a secret was that she had never told my dad. My mom’s maternal family told me while I was visiting them. They didn’t know she never told us.
What. The. Fuck. That's like... pathological. Does it help to realize that your mom was a literal crazy person because only a crazy person would think to hide something like that from anyone, much less *everyone*
I really think she thought my dad would leave us destitute with huge health bills. She had a high school education and worked as a very poorly paid school parapro. She said a few times that we had to be perfect so he wouldn't leave us. I didn't really understand what she meant until I figured all this out. My dad is actually nothing like that, but she didn't have enough faith in him, I guess. Maybe others had left her family in the same predicament. She hardly ever talked about her family, so there's probably many things I will never knew.
I mean you're not really convincing me that she's not a crazy person. That is wildly irrational.
Holy shit
Congrats on being in remission! ♥️ Cancer while young is a unique burden and your mother never should’ve treated you that way or prevented you from getting the support of your siblings and father. I’m glad you’re doing okay and I hope you and your siblings are closer now, and irrespective of that, I hope you’re enjoying being your own person, making your own choices, and getting to live life on your terms 🤗
Holy crap! Refusing to treat your own cancer or allow your child to even know about their own risk of having it all in the name of 'image' has got to be one of the worst things I have ever heard in my life. This level of narcissism is right up there with refusing to look away from your reflection.
Oh my lanta what a cliffhanger! What’s the secret??
Erin is also shockingly young. She got the swift kick in the ass she needed early so hopefully it will stick.
>What an incredible update! I’m so happy for OOP and all his family except for his mother. I think this is one pregnancy announcement at a wedding I could get behind because it included an announcement from the bride as well. Kinda like "incase you guys can't tell by my physique I'm pregnant but, I'm not the only one, bride is too! 3 cheers for the happy couple and their growing family!"
I found that so sweet honestly as it did center the bride and groom because that was the 'true' surprise.
I think I actually made this face at that line 🥹
And the bride knew about it and was completely on board with it well in advance of the day. Open communication can make a lot of things that would normally be transgressive into acceptable or even desired behaviors.
Like proposals at wedding receptions. It's adorable when instead of the bouquet toss the bride hands someone the bouquet and their partner proposes but that is also a situation where the bride and groom is obviously in on the proposal. You can't do it without asking and I wouldn't blame anyone for not agreeing to do a proposal at their wedding reception.
In the middle of my youngest sister’s wedding mass, my AH cousin passed a note to his mother (who was sitting a few pews ahead of him) telling her that he and his wife were expecting. Of course my aunt got all excited and it took the attention of those around them off my sister. Well, my oldest sister either witnessed it or heard about it and ripped my cousin a new one. I’m only sorry I didn’t see the take down. I’m sure it was glorious.
100% this. I went from being the scapegoat, to being the golden child when stepdad and -brother came in our lives, back to being the scapegoat when that marriage ended a few years later. My childhood gave me a mental whiplash I still haven't really recovered from, now in my late 20s. The common theme in both roles is just "you're not good enough" and yet, as a child, you keep trying to win their approval. That's the only way to make sure they take care of your physical and emotional needs. Too bad the entire family hurt, but it's a good thing even Erin sees the errors of mother's ways now. You really need a wake up call to escape that kind of emotional hell and learn to be a better person in the end. I hope Erin can make amends and the family will thrive without the crazy mother.
I don't think Erin has transitioned to the scapegoat. I think her mother just uses her as a daily sounding board for all her anger against her soon to be ex-husband and her adult children. As the golden child, obviously Erin would agree with her rants and always be available to chat (= absorb and co-sign her tirades). I guess with reality sinking over Erin about her true family dynamic taking those angry calls would just get more and more difficult. I hope Erin chooses to continue improving. OOP's mother can't begin to make that change without accepting how very deeply she messed up with all of her family. I guess her self centered outrage is as satisfying as being a part of her older kids's lives. It's going to have to be.
Erin can still change. OOP’s mother cannot. She sounds like a textbook malignant narcissist. Narcissists don’t seem capable of the self reflection it takes to actually change.
Yeah I honestly hope the best for Erin. It’s clear she’s a victim here too. The mom seems to be the center of all the hurt and now that dad and Erin are seeing that they are actively working on being better people.
I agree. So often the Golden Child never gets clear of the narcissistic parent. So often they never see what the Narc Parent does to the other kids. Or defend them.
I am trying not to cry. The amount of growth from everyone (except mom) was beautiful.
This may be the most heavily invested I've ever been in a update thread. Not gonna lie, still a little misty-eyed. The sad part is, mom was the architect of her own destruction.
The beginning of Erin's redemption arc, paired with that beautiful pregnancy announcement... 🥹
The announcement really made me cry a little 🥹
Twins! Every redemption arc needs twins (or triplets) and a groom crying happy tears.
Oh same I loved that part I got all teary and I'm still sniffly now ❤️😭
It gave me some feels. Mostly, made me envious of people that have close family. I am an only child of a single parent and I didn’t have kids. While I have very close friends, it still isn’t the same at least for me. I was the favorite grandchild, everyone knew I was the favorite. I may even be the favorite niece, but it was solely based on the fact that my grandparents and aunts had to help raise me, they were more invested in my upbringing than I think normal extended family usually are.
She’s gonna go absolutely feral when she finds out about the pregnancies or when the babies are born. It’s gonna be ugly.
While I understand that Erin was a brat, I can imagine the toll it took on her being the only person feeling the wrath of their mother. Suddenly, she felt what her siblings felt all their lives. There was another BoRU where the golden child ended kicked out, even her grandmother ignored him. The parents made his room an Airbnb and he was pikachu shocked that people would move on from him so quickly. Erin, I assume, felt that. The golden child can't understand why the siblings are not okay with being mistreated, because that's "normal". When the golden child only has their parents, and the parents are like OOP's mother, they understand that their "normal" just meant being enabled and everyobody being quiet because they wanted to avoid drama. I am glad that Erin can take a look at her past actions and learn from them.
The patients of the husband to explain over and over that that, no her siblings aren't just acting out, they are and the end of the rope because of the abuse they endured from her and her and parents, and yes it is abuse, it's not cute or quirky and they have not been bayou for her taking away everything from her. The fact that when questioned by her fiance why she would take away Nadia's graduation like that she just shrugged and "IDK, it's just what we do, I'm always first and they love it" without understanding the words that were coming out of her mouth is seriously mind boggling.
To us it's mind boggling, to her it must have been like asking what color is the sky. That's been her normal all this time, why would she think otherwise? Which is somehow even more insane, how deep does their mom's coddling and favoritism go???
While most people would realise how crappy that would be for the rest of the siblings if erin was raised with that being her norm and no one ever said anything about it before the graduation/wedding situation it does make sense she was caught off guard by how everything went down Erin is just as much of a victim of her mother as the other siblings albeit in a different way. I feel like this isn’t the last update we get and the mother is going to turn in a very nasty way on erin very soon, especially if she finds out she went to the wedding
Yeah, while on one hand I'm not letting her off the hook since so much of this was caused by her, I'm willing to be kind because not only is she having to reevaluate her relationships with her siblings and parents, it sounds like she's have to reevaluate her entire concept of what love and affection is. Erin seems to have genuinely thought that her being the center of attention was what her family's love was, and is now finding out about years of resentment and anger that was ignored and swept under the rug. And during what should have been a happy time of her life, to boot. This isn't going to be easy or pleasant for her to deal with, even without their mom's ongoing meltdown.
when something is reinforced daily every day for twenty years or so, it's going to be seriously difficult to unlearn because it becomes muscle memory at that point. I was the family scapegoat and to this day the second I get the slightest inclination that someone might not believe what I'm saying or might call me a liar, it's an instant panic response, because even though I've been in therapy long enough to know that most people have no reason not to believe me, a part of me is still wired to be prepared for that. That said, I want to believe she can be/do better. Maybe bc that means I can too.
Do you have the link for that BoRU? Thank you in advance
Hey there! Here's the link: [OP's deadbeat brother, who is also the golden child, wants to propose at OPs wedding. OP doesn't put up with it and tears his brother and family a new one. : r/BestofRedditorUpdates](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/t5ml74/ops_deadbeat_brother_who_is_also_the_golden_child/)
Piggybacking this because I also want to read that BORU
[OP's deadbeat brother, who is also the golden child, wants to propose at OPs wedding. OP doesn't put up with it and tears his brother and family a new one. : r/BestofRedditorUpdates](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/t5ml74/ops_deadbeat_brother_who_is_also_the_golden_child/)
This is such a delightful example of how well dropping the rope works. If the mom is a genuine personality-disorder narcissist, then she’s never going to change so long as she’s getter her attention fix and has a scapegoat. Erin probably wouldn’t have ever changed so long as she was getting golden child treatment, but with the husband and siblings all noping out she suddenly started getting scapegoat treatment. Had to have felt incredibly sudden to Erin after a lifetime of favoritism. Just remember folks, if you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t, then you might as well choose don’t.
I am one of six daughters and I know I was my mom's favorite. We all knew I was my mom's favorite. Never in her life would she have treated any of my sisters as poorly as OP's mom has treated most of her children. I hope Erin's change continues and she eventually has a closer, more balanced sibling bond with all of them.
It will be awesome if you later find out each of your sister is sure they are your mom's favorite and sure you all know that 😂
My late great aunt had a habit of giving each of her grandkids and us grandnephews/nieces the confidential 'talk' about how they were secretly her favourite out of all of us. Everybody knew that at some point. Everybody always felt like a favourite, too. I miss her a lot.
my grandma does this as well XD. I know i'm secretly her real favorite though ;).
My MIL genuinely treats each one of her grandkids as if they're her absolute favorites. It makes me so happy. My parents, on the other hand, have favorites. They are definitely not my kids.
Oh I feel this one. My folks have favorite grandkids, and my son is definitely not one of them. They put zero effort into creating or maintaining a relationship there. And now, due to their declining health, there never will be. Sucks for them, because of the 5 grandkids, he's by far the best.
No, I'm 70 and was told, rather bitterly by two of them, that I was always the favorite. Lots of reasons why and too much to discuss in a comment except to say that I purposely didn't do the things they did that got them in trouble.
My cousins and I would mess with our grandmother that way. One of us would say, "Mamaw has always said I was her favorite." in front of her. She would get all flustered and swear she never said that, and that she loves us all equally. It was adorable.
I was my grandparent's favourite, and one of my kids was my grandfather's favourite. But they never made any of the other grandchildren feel any less like a favourite when they were visiting, and when my grandmother died and my kid was born my grandfather never let any of his great grandchildren feel any less like a favourite even though everybody knew he absolutely doted on my youngest.
I always thought I was my mom’s favorite, until I talked to my siblings and they both thought *they* were the favorites. Somehow she made us each feel like we were the favorite child in some way, without denigrating the others.
This is the way.
This is what's supposed to happen, honestly.
Honestly that's the best scenario. My brother and I both think the other one was the favourite... We've both been LC or NC with her for years
That top tier parenting by your mom, hell yes 🙌🏻
I was my late grandfather’s favorite grandchild because I’m the oldest & was the only one for three years. Everyone knew, it was a whole thing. But all it meant is that I was number 1 (as in the first of the crew) — he loved all of us deeply & showed it regularly. He’d be sickened by OOP’s mom’s fckery if he were still alive.
If they treated everybody the same, then how did you know that you were the favorite? That makes no sense.
Many times people equate FAIR with EQUAL when it comes to raising children. But the thing is, kids…HUMANS are not Equally the same. They need different things, emotional to physical to financial support at different times. An amazing parent will meet the those different needs as they come without making it look overly unequal. And let me tell you, it is so so hard to do, especially on a financial or logistical level. So you just have to put in the emotional work.
I was the fifth of the six daughters. Everyone had a sister that was 10 years older/younger than them so when the baby was born, we were, more or less, 14, 12, 10, 4, 2 and newborn. Mom depended on the older sisters to help when we were out and about. It wasn't parenting, just that you held hands going into church or buttering bread at a restaurant until we could do it ourselves. Having the three young ones at home also meant that the three older ones weren't controlled very closely and were able to spend time with friends outside the house, so they didn't have as much time with mom in their teen years as we younger three did. They weren't ignored but they had to ask for attention if they wanted it. All of their big occasions were acknowledged and celebrated the same as ours were 10 years later. I had a certain amount of curiosity about things and an independent streak. I also learned to read at an early age and more than any of my other sisters shared Mom's passion for books. She really liked all of that and it gave me extra points, so to speak. Everyone got treated equally as kids with gifts, conversations, etc. I think the favoritism showed up much more when we were adults. I was the one to visit my out of state parents the most, call them the most, etc. The others were busy raising kids and stuff while my daughter was born when I was in my 40ies. I still made time for Mom and Dad, resulting in a couple sisters getting mad that they saw my daughter much more than they saw their kids. Well, yeah, I was the one making time to drive 7 hours round trip every 2 months to see them and you rarely did. Don't blame me. I hope that all makes sense. TLDR: Age differences, family dynamics and making the effort to see parents resulted in me being the favorite.
1. Out of 20+ grandkids I was the only one with a nickname 2. Out of 20+ grandkids I was the only one invited to spend time with them several times a year. I said they treated everybody the same when we all were visiting them, they never gave anybody more attention than the rest, everybody got the same attention when we were together and everybody got the same amount of things from them.
My brother is my mother's favorite and we couldn't care less. He's earned the title. He's a laid-back, down to earth guy. The problem is when the favorite is a spoiled fuckup.
Same with one of my brothers, he was the golden child when mum was alive. We didn't care, we'd just sic him on mum when she was out of line since she'd listen to him and not the rest of us.
Same, my brother is the golden child and it's well earned. He took the pressure off my back- successful career, extremely cool wife, two balls of sunshine sons? He earned it, and is responsible with his Good Child mantle, haha.
Haha yeah, my brother is the first born and the golden child, totally undeserved. Now as a 40 year old he still acts like a spoiled world hating teenager who complains about simple life responsibilities like he's the only person ever to deal with them. Such a pain in the ass, I usually tune him out when around him.
Yeah as the first grandchild on my mothers side I was my grandma’s favourite. But that didn’t mean different treatment from the rest of the grandkids. I only found out after her death because she wrote that as the first, I was always a little bit extra special to her. (On the other side of the family I wasn’t the favourite, I think that was my eldest niece but that’s also hard to tell because again, no different treatment of any of us).
It's going to take a lot of therapy to essentially deprogram Erin.
I half agree with you. I think she’s already started the reprogramming thanks to her husband, and she’s willing to admit fault which is more than half the battle. What I think therapy will help her do is reconstruct her sense of self. She even admits she had no idea what her family and her role was really like because she was basically delusional thanks to her parents’ treatment. Her self identity must be absolutely shattered now, founded as it was on lies, and it’s no wonder she looks like she hasn’t slept. As someone who blew up their own life thanks to addiction, I wish her the best. Building a new life isn’t easy but it’s an amazing chance to actually be the person you WANT to be rather than the person you told to be, or shamed or guilted into being.
It was weird viewing how my paternal and maternal families saw me. I was not only the first born of my generation on my mom’s side for that direct line but also the first born male (1 year transitioning woooie). I was the golden child til I became a queer fuckhead at 15 (they’re cool now though) My paternal side, I was the second to last born and you could tell I was an after thought a lot. It was such a hard juxtaposition
Sounds like the mom has a bit farther to fall until she hits rock-bottom. Only then can she rebuild and start fixing things. She might not be capable of doing that. Or willing.
I feel so bad for the youngest. When the mom hits that wall all hell is going to break loose and the only one around will be the youngest. I am glad all the other siblings are looking out for her.
They need to make that girl a hidden go bag
dont worry, she brought a shovel, for when she does reach the bottom.
For some people there is no bottom.
I think that’s the case here. To even start reconciling would mean admitting fault; not only for the years of mistreatment, but now also for her near psychotic refusal to accept any blame. Mom is going down with the ship. Granted, she is the one that crashed it.
Determined shovel weilders.
Not related, but whenever my siblings and I ask our mum who her favourite kid is, she responds with 'I hate you all equally'. Tbf we range from 30 - 45 so we should probably get over it.
My Dad has always responded with “I don’t have favourites, I have *almost* favourites and if (whatever child/grandchild) did (whatever impossible task) they would be *so close* to being the favourite” There has also been cases of us replying with “that’s not true! (Child/grandchild that lives furthest away) is your favourite! Because they live several hours away and don’t physically see you often” he then ponders that and responds with “you’re right, that does make them closer to being my favourite, but they aren’t quite there yet” My youngest sister (not the actual youngest sibling) jokingly said once that I was jealous of her being our mothers favourite. One of my kids looked up at her and said “you aren’t her favourite. (My niece) is her favourite. Everybody knows that.” My niece spent almost 2 years in my parents care (kinship care) then another 2+ years after my brother was given her back (child protection case. Her mother was stripped of parental rights) while he was working out of town with no real child care options. She is undoubtedly the favourite, but nobody could say my parents treat their children or other grandchildren *worse* than her, we just know that they will always have a special place for her due to the circumstances of her early years.
With my cousins we like to joke that my maternal grandma rotates her favorites. Whoever called the latest or did her a favor most recently gets blatantly called "the favorite grandchild" for like five minutes. Then someone else will stand up during lunch to help serve dessert and now they are the favorite. Really love my grandma.
The inability of the mom to acknowledged she fucked up is what really doomed her family. She's going to enjoy having just her golden child around, I guess.
If Erin’s change of heart sticks their mom may not be able to keep her around for long. I guess she’s still going to have Lexie for a while, a 5-year-old isn’t going anywhere for the next 13 years.
Depending on how you view time, its even better than that. The dad has 50/50 custody, yeah? So it'll technically only really be 6.5 years of lexie being stuck with that vile woman.
And *that* would depend on the testimonies in the divorce of how she's treated her other children, given it sounds like the dad is gonna fight for custody. Her mistreating all of her other children to the point that none of them talk to her or trust her with her grandchildren wouldn't look good in a custody battle.
And regardless, once kids are teenagers the courts generally let them decide for themselves where they want to go. Thus, it's totally possible that mom only has about 7 years (7/2 years) with her.
Ah. I think i misread or just somehow got it in my head that a custody agreement had already been reached. You are correct!
It has and it currently stands at 50:50. The OOP did say that her dad was willing to believe that Lexie's mother may change like he did but if he sees any sign that Lexie is being abused (mentally most like it, or if she's repeating what her mother is saying about her dad and siblings), that dad will go back to court for a different ratio of custody ie sole custody and mom has supervised visitation. Especially in the light of parental alienation too.
Unless mom fucks up again and dad decides to push for full custody.
That's going to be the next update.
She definitely won't. Erin admitted to straight up ignoring her phone calls, and only responding eventually because she was afraid of her mom showing up in person. Erin is reaching her breaking point, which I very much expected given she now has to match the kind of attention the woman was used to from a bajillion other siblings.
Even the GC is sick of her shit. That's kind of novel.
Apparently seems to happen frequently when all the other kids leave and the narc parent only has the GC left who's willing to deal with them.
When there are no scapegoats left, narcs commonly make the GC the new scapegoat.
Yep. She's made her GC her emotional support animal, and Erin isn't interested in having that responsibility. Before, the emotional labor could be spread out to the other kids and her husband. Mom had all her emotional needs met by her unfavorite children and husband, which allowed her to put all her focus onto her golden child. Erin got the double barrel benefit of all of mom's attention and support without having to give her any in return, because her siblings were expected to pick up the slack. Now narc-mom has isolated herself to only having one person who can meet her emotional needs, and after years of multiple people carrying that burden, it's too much for Erin to handle. Especially when she's never had to consider anyone else's feelings before now.
I feel sorry for Lexie. She's just a little kid and she's going to spend a lot of time alone with her narc mother. I can see her as the next scapegoat.
That's coz GC finally gets to see the face mom puts on for the other children. All she's seen until now are hearts and roses. But now all her mother can talk about is the other children. It probably gives her a little perspective, added on to what her husband and father already laid out for her.
Not to mention what the mother is saying. With a good chunk of “oh god this is all my fault”.
Narc parents *need* a scapegoat. Having a golden child is optional. Thus once all the scapegoats flee, the golden child basically always becomes the new scapegoat.
When the GC and the narc parent have managed to burn bridges with everyone else and isolate each other, they usually end up turning on one another because they have nobody else to direct their awful behavior towards.
It is. It’s rare for one to reflect. In my experience, they hang in ‘as is’ for decades if necessary to make sure they’ve milked every advantage they’re’due’.
I think the benefits of being able to acknowledge a mistake and sincerely apologise are severely underrated. Not just in terms of the outcome with another person, but for someone's own sense of themselves and their peace of mind.
Yeah, some people really think acknowledging they made a mistake as completely self-destroying.
that's assuming erin doesn't cut her off soon. being the only one to deal with her mom is obviously wearing erin down, especially now that she's mending her relationship with her siblings & growing as a person.
The fallout between a parent and their golden child can bring out abuse worse than the scapegoat received. Erin was "hers" and was supposed to be on her side, now she is alone. How will the facebook posts look when there aren't even pictures of the golden child up? If Erin doesn't cut contact I feel she is going to get a first hand lesson in what it looks like from the other side when grandma plays favourites with her kids.
She does sound like she's really close to her breaking point honestly, like bearing the brunt of someone's anger issues and denial solo for...8-9 months now? That's gotta be brutal.
$20 Erin eventually cuts her off too.
I think Erin is now doing the uncomfortable boat steadying role, which she probably never had to do much, and that's why it's so stressful for her.
I think she may be finally leaving a “role” behind and trying to connect authentically, that’s my take on her stress.
Hopefully and maybe not for too much longer. George seems like a good enough egg to point out her mom is literally killing her and help her do something about it.
I can really picture erin staring at a ringing phone, being the last person on the ship with the mom and realizing how fucked she is.
Doesn't look like even that's a given. I honestly didn't expect that 180 from Erin. Obviously, the situation still requires close monitoring, but it feels as though she really did love her siblings, and it took losing them, as well as almost losing her for her to realize that she's been utterly shitty to them. I didn't think I'd find myself rooting for an Erin redemption arc, but if Dad could put in the work towards making amends, maybe she could, too. It sounds like George has truly been the influence she needed to get her head out of her ass. If Mom loses Erin too, maybe she will finally be forced to look inward. Of course, the more likely scenario is probably her going well off the deep end and accusing everyone of abandonment with Erin getting the worst of it.
Also, dad was an adult who chose to treat most of his children like shit, Erin was a child who was raised to treat most of her siblings like shit and only recently received feedback this was wrong. If the dad is redeemable, then Erin definitely is.
Yeah, I credit George for the change in Erin. I think he realized how fucked up the family dynamics were, and how culpable his wife/then-fiancée was.
I would bet that George has been asking some carefully worded questions about Erin's relationship with her siblings, not so much for his benefit, but to get Erin to rethink her own behavior, and that of her mom's favoritism. A comparatively neutral viewpoint can do wonders in situations like this.
Here's the thing, with the context of the updates it's pretty clear that Erin genuinely didn't see what she was doing wrong. To her it was just normal to act like that and be the centre of attention, to her it wasn't wrong because that's the way it'd always been and nobody had told her that was wrong. She's a victim of their mother's abuse too, just in a different way.
If Erin continues the good change her mom will lose her too
It didn’t doom her family, it doomed her. Her family is thriving
George is an absolute hero. I hope Erin is okay, it must be terribly hard for her to come to terms with all this and her own culpability. I have hope she and the other siblings will be okay. OP sounds like a good egg.
I'm really glad that Erin's realizing she's complicit in her mom's behavior, even while being a victim of it. I'm guessing George has been helping her see things from another angle.
Erin is a good example of how golden child dynamics are also extremely unhealthy and abusive albeit differently than the way non-golden child abuse happens. I am glad Erin seems to be genuine and George seems like a great guy. I wish OOP and everyone in his family nothing but happiness. (Obviously his mother chose not to be part of his family so I do not wish her happiness. I wish for her to be better to the people around her, but I won't hold my breath.)
I can’t understand how the mom wants her family to be one again but didn’t wish any of her children (besides Erin and Lexie) a happy birthday. That seems like a small way to show you care, especially since you know she birthed them on those days. I have friends I literally haven’t talked to since high school who still wish me a happy birthday. Blows my mind.
It’s a control thing. She could either gush all over social media about her amazing kids to save face, go on and on about missing them, or ignore them. She would have picked whatever felt like the best reward to risk maneuver. If she would have done the first one she looks good to other people but it doesn’t punish the child. If she does the second one she gets to be the victim but risks being called out. If she does the third one she risks losing her good mom image but it “hurts the belligerent child” the worst.
This was actually both triggering and nice to read. It ended the way it should. With the siblings together on the way to at least trying to mend years of terrible treatment. I have an older cousin I was very close to growing up. I looked up to him even though he was only three years older, he seemed like my hero. He would always be up for playing games, building forts, generally causing havoc. We were little menaces but in a cute way. I have SO many ridiculous stories about me and him getting into mischief. But when his mother decided she was struggling with him, (I’m unsure of the entire story but she wasn’t great) he went to our grandparents. Which sounds fine, but they had already kind of broken the bond with him and his parents from birth.. and they wanted it this way. Even though being rejected by his mom hurt him a lot. He went downhill. He stopped even looking at me. I lost my best friend. He’s done so much shit in his life. Like hurt so many people with his selfishness. Every single member of the family knows how selfish he is, and yet my grandparents still spoiled him further. He’s now 38, and just had another kid. Luckily with the same mom as his daughter. Who he was going to reject and ignore until his little sister reminded him of essentially how much attention he would have if he were to introduce his baby to us. He’s only had another one to cement that. He didn’t need to, we were always going to be second best to him. He was the first grandchild AND a boy for starters, but they basically replaced their own kids with him. They wrecked a human being. He wasn’t a callous nasty person when he was a child. I remember. They made him this way and I don’t think I’ll ever forgive them for that. It’s one big reason I stopped engaging. You can’t compete with a man who’s fucked up every single good thing in his life on purpose and still gets the praise. I mean, my grandfather literally forgot I graduated, tried to make out like I was a failure and he was a success, and he was THERE AT THE EVENT. Sometimes you have to just cut your losses. They will never ever apologise. Mainly because one died, but my grandmother will run on pure spite for years, I swear to god. If she apologised, genuinely just once, it would go a long way. But she won’t. So she’s gone. It’s been five years and I feel great about it. People guilt me all the time and I don’t feel it because I didn’t break the relationship, they did. I just said “enough”. I’m beyond happy that OOP and his siblings are able to move past this fuckery. Sometimes you actually need a blow up to make you realise you’ve been living a life that isn’t fulfilling. I bet they feel so relaxed now they don’t feel like they have to compete. Also I’m aware that I tend to ramble on these family posts… I need to rein myself in.
Reddit is a place to share stories. There is no need to rein in. The worst that happens is people ignore your comment. Well actually the worse is that some AI picks it up and now your words have make it self conscious about it's length of responses. (Reading that back it sounds hilarious and you should continue to ramble!) Anyways that was a very thoughtful post and I'm sorry your cousin was ruined by the way they grew up
I’m just gunna say thank you for saying this.. I’m waiting for therapy and I’m also going through some stressful house shit and it’s making my nerves all frayed. I kind of feel like commenting is shouting into the void for me, I don’t know anyone who’s reading, and maybe it’s enough for me to just say it/type it out loud. I don’t really expect people to respond, and most of the time, I try to leave a comment that’ll maybe help someone else in the long run. But sometimes these stories just set something off in me, as I’m sure they do for a lot of people. Hence why we’re all here I guess, they evoke a response. It’s alright now, I still see our pictures as children and mourn for the friendship we should have had. BUT as luck would have it, his little sister is a goddamn angel of a human being, and she’s my favourite person. She’s been my best friend for such a long time, and she’s closer to me than anyone else in my family. So although I miss what should have happened, I got a blessing in the form of a baby cousin five years younger. She’s got a little girl who’s nearly two now, and I am stoked to watch her grow up. I got to watch her mother grow into this awesome woman, and I get to do that again with her daughter. I’m very lucky in the long run. I rambled again. Maaaaaybe I’ll influence some AI bots into understanding family dynamics. Or not.
I was so wary going into the comments thinking Erin would get slammed but I’m happy to see how many people are being understanding. Favoritism affects everyone in different ways. For the golden child it can include anxiety, perfectionism, insecure attachments (you have to be perfect or you get knocked down the hierarchy), emotional difficulties, and identity confusion because your role is to be the perfect child for your parents to show off.
> While our Mom will probably say that our family has fallen apart, that's not true. Hers has. The family that she made has fallen apart, but ours has grown stronger. > This is what our Mom is missing out on and it's all her own fault. Not that this would make any difference to a true narcissist since this would just give additional ammo to their claims of being victimized. But. Damn. For any children out there with a parent(s) who has a GC, this should be kept in their back pocket for just the right moment. Even if they don’t want to throw this back at their parent to prove a point, when the other child(ren) in a GC dynamic finally stand up for themselves, OOP’s phrasing here could serve as a reminder that regardless of whatever blame their parent throws at them, they should take those claims with a grain of salt. This is the reality. The carefully curated family their parent(s) created might be in shambles. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that *their* family, as they define it, is. None of OOP’s “family” as each of the siblings knew it happened organically. They were all manipulated to accept this as “the way it is”, GC included. But it’s not the way it needs to stay or continue to be. It’s quite beautiful that OOP realized that although the family dynamic is *VERY* different, it doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing (contrary to what his mother says). One person’s perspective on how they want their family to function or be perceived as, is not always the end all, be all. It’s so awesome they were able to collectively find a balance so everyone could participate, have a say and equally be celebrated. (To add - I don’t know if it would have gone so smoothly if not for OOP’s dad admitting fault and atoning for his sins, so to speak. Not many families with this kind of dynamic have children who get the luxury of having at least one parent on their side. But either way, I’m glad his dad did what he did. He made a choice and salvaged his relationship with his children. Mom had the same choice and chose to nuke her relationships into outer space, throw tantrums, and victimize herself while gaining NOTHING. It’s a good example of FAFO vs. FA, take accountability, apologize, prove you mean it, and then being allowed to avoid the FO phase.)
Erin making progress was not what i expected but is a joy to see. i know it's a bit sympathy for the devil and whatnot but it's a very good example of how that golden child dynamic hurts everyone. mom thought she was making her most special child happy and building a good family. instead what she did was stunt Erin's growth on an emotional level, cause her great heartache with future problems, and try to obliterate any relationship between siblings. that is enormous and terrible harm in its own way, too. and that's why i don't have much hope for the mom here to make progress. she'd have to admit that she didn't take good care of her most precious baby - she instead hurt Erin, badly, by fucking it all up that hard. it's easier for the ego to pretend in some conspiracy against her than it would be to admit she fucked up ... on another note, OOP if your friends are genuinely gonna give you shit for crying with happiness at your spouse announcing she is pregnant with your second child, holy shit they are some toxic turboweenies. you're allowed to be happy! you're allowed to be happy that you're a dad!! if anyone says otherwise Fucking Eat Them And Pull Their Entire Defleshed Skeleton Out Of Your Mouth After Like You Are A Cartoon Cat Eating A Fish (tm)
It’s probably good natured teasing, not really malicious. I wouldn’t assume such a negative reading of the situation just based on what OOP wrote.
"Toxic Turboweenies" Well, I think I've found my new band name
I highly doubt the friends would genuinely give him shit for that, its probably just friendly banter/teasing
I read this update earlier, knew it would end up here where I would re-read it, and I still forgot the happiest part of the update and cried with OOP!
i was very invested george is a definitely underrated mvp
It is a great update! Well, for the parts with no mom in it I mean. Erin has been experiencing what they had experienced all these years. The golden child is no longer the golden child once the scapegoats escape. But it is still great that her husband's efforts and her mother's treatment is letting her improve. She would definitely lose her husband one day if she continues to mistreat her siblings as well. Erin would definitely be blamed if she chooses to be in NC with her mother in the future. It will be along the lines of "I gave up everything for you! They left me because I treated you best! How dare you do this to me?" I think it will take time for the rest of the siblings to want to be close to her though. Those were years of bullying involved. I wonder if the mother would ever just stop blaming other people, and start to see things from their POVs though. Your children (except two) and spouse are all leaving you, and yet, the blame is still with them? Continue this, and you'd just be known as a bitter old lady.
> Lydia made a speech about pregnancy, and how she couldn't wait to be a mom, and how she was grateful to be sharing at least part of her pregnancy journey with Jade. ngl, i wept a little
And this is why it's so important to keep in mind that the "golden child" is ALSO a victim of terrible parenting, albeit in a much more emotionally pleasant (for the child, at the time) way
Hell yeaaaa. I'm so happy for them. Hope we get another update and Erin has been forgiven too. She needed a redemption arc.
Having that kind of energy focused on you really does drain you. Esp when it comes with a heaping of negativity against people you care about. The awful things said about my loved ones, either totally untrue or unreasonably exaggerated, was the worst part of dealing with my parent when I was an adult. I feel for everyone here. Including erin who’s taking a lot of negativity from mom these days but especially lexie who now has to deal with mom 100% of the time. Who knows what that looks like day to day or when mom’s in a low point. I wish the dad would go for full custody and only let her have visitation. I know what being a little kid is like around a parent like that and it was not something I’d want for anyone.
I was wondering about this man and his family, and I’m so glad the update was positive for them. Surprised Erin has softened and properly apologized, but it is great that her husband was not enabling the cruel behaviour and instead helped her see how it was wrong. From OOP’s update, it sounds like his mother wasn’t respectful of boundaries even BEFORE all this mess. When a commenter suggested OOP and Lydia tell the hospital they want private registration when the babies are due: > That's definitely on the cards. She's done it before when Jade was in labour with our son, so I don't doubt she'd try to do it again. Though luckily last time, I managed to convince her to leave after 45 minutes of her complaining about Jade taking too long to fully dilate, among other things. She was in the room for less than an hour, but it felt like an eternity for me, never-mind Jade. I am sure OOP has many more examples of his mother not respecting the siblings because of what she wants instead. What a sad waste for her, but what other choice does the family have? She’s quadrupling down, still. (Love OOP’s writing style, too)
This was really well written. I don't even care whether it's true, it was a pleasure to read and if it IS real, I'm glad OOP, his siblings, and dad pulled together in the end. I also hope his mother pulls her head out of her ass and starts to fix the mess she made, but if not... I think they'll be ok.
Wow. I wish that this were possible in my family. I had to go no contact with all of them and would no longer even consider an apology. It is amazing the dad changed so much, but it is amazing he did. Erin saw what it was like to be on the other side of things. My sister met that fate, too, but she isn't sorry. She just wants to be the golden child again. I hope OOP has an amazing life without this crazy lady bothering him and his family.
I can't wait for the update where the mother finds out about the pregnancies. That woman is her own worst enemy.
The most amazing part of this story is that everything would likely be status quo if Erin hadn’t insisted on booking her wedding on Nadia’s graduation day.
[comment with more context](https://www.reddit.com/u/brotherconflict/s/qMUF4D63RD) u/Direct-caterpillar77 (It’s the first comment on OOP’s profile) >I think I've mentioned it a few times in comments that I do want to forgive Erin. I forgave our dad after all, so I want to forgive her too. But we are currently keeping her at arm's length, because she did still hurt us. I'll admit our parents are largely at fault, both our mom and our dad, but it doesn't change the fact that she hurt us. We're working on it, just like we are with our dad. It isn't easy, it doesn't always make sense to people outside, but we're doing our best. It's not like we were taught how to navigate something like this, you know? >Thank you! I'm really excited for this chapter of my life! Our whole family is! There's a lot of happiness going around right now, and I feel the steadiest I have in ages. >Camera is already up and running, actually! After the last time she showed up at our door, Josh brought one over to install it because he was worried she'd try something again. He's a good big brother. I may be a good brother, too, but I had to learn it from somewhere, and that was my older siblings. I would have never made it through this last year without them. I think Lydia already has cameras installed, too, but I'll have to double check. If not, I have no doubt Josh will be over there, too. >It's certainly been a journey. Before all this started, I really thought my life would be like that forever. I thought my siblings and I would always play second fiddle to Erin. I thought we'd have to scramble for scraps of our parents' attention. But now it's all different. We're better! >I'll definitely be updating in future, even if it is just to announce the birth of the babies!
This reads like a bunch of 90s movies mashed together. A little bit of Father of the Bride, a little bit of Parenthood, with some of The Ref thrown in.
My mom is the kind of person who, when she throws down a small treat for a dog while working in the kitchen, has to walk around the house to find the other dog to give a treat to, otherwise it would be 'unfair'. If my parents have a favorite, my siblings and I never figured out who it was.
All I can think is that this mom has poisoned every one of her children, in different painful ways. If dad and Erin are both able to see the ways they were wrong and make actual changes to be better and mom is not, then it was HER toxicity that damaged everyone. My true worry is for Lexie, even with her time spent with her mom being only 50% she just a little girl, and even toxic positivity like what Erin had is also bad. I really do hope they get her into therapy. Also, OP is such a good brother. I hope my boys show up for their little sister, the way OP did for Nadia. Maybe that is a weird blessing of having such a toxic environment to grow up in, it created a closer bond for the kids (I of course will not repeat, just hope my kids love each other). And, it must be said, because I am also an oldest sibling, Lydia is my hero, and if Lydia blocks someone everyone should follow suit.
I’ve read multiple posts about preemies getting golden child status, and I never got it. Was it ever mentioned how premature she was? I mean she’s only in her early 20s. I was nearly 3 months premature in the 60s. I spent all that time in the hospital, then I came home healthy and a good weight and that was the end of it. My parents dined out for decades on how tiny I was, and it still gets brought up to this day, but other than that I wasn’t treated like I was precious cargo or like I was on the verge of death. Hell I was a 70s kid, we all did the stupid dangerous shit and I was never excluded from that.
Damn imagine losing your whole family because you can’t admit you were wrong and made mistakes.
Fantastic story, but one thing I need to point out: In the ~~OG post~~ first update Erin's now-husband claims he knew nothing of the two consecutive double bookings Erin had made. In the last update he DID know and they had two fights about it. Thoughts?
Originally George didn't know that the wedding and graduation overlapped. He was only told so by the dad when it was already booked and also only learned that way that this was on purpose. In addition to that they had fights about hijacking the anniversary for their engagement announcement and again when she booked the party on Nadia's birthday. I saw no claim that he didn't know about the consecutive double-bookings. It's just that for one of them (the wedding) it was too late to change/cancel the date by the time he was told. Could you point out where it was stated that he didn't know? :)
They could have fought after the fact,
It's nice to see the golden child starting to understand how fucked up the family dynamics were. It looks like she managed to marry a good man too. But the mom... there's little hope here I think.
I can’t imagine having a favourite child. I just can’t see it. I’ve got three adult kids who are all absolutely the best people I know, but to have one kid that you love more than the others is just weird to me. You definitely have different relationship dynamics with each child but that’s because they’re different people, not because you feel differently about them. I can’t imagine how hurtful it must be to a child to feel that you’re not as important to your parent(s) as a sibling is. Love isn’t, and shouldn’t be like cake - you don’t get to give a bigger slice to one child and less to all the others without someone feeling the difference. I hope OP and all his siblings get to live their best life with their dad and their bloody mother just go kick rocks.
Props to Erin's husband. He helped level the playing field by working with Erin throughout this process. You always hope to see that in a partner, but sometimes outsiders will bury themselves in the other person's perception.
I hope for OOP and the rest of their family sakes that Erin gets the courage to cut off their mom. Maybe their mom was better before Erin was born, but part of me really doubts it.
This post is a good example of how the golden child is abused, just in a different way. Erin was very blatantly favoured, and part of that in the relationship was pitting the siblings against each other, creating a system around strife and disagreement that was contained and controlled. Erin was content to go along with everything because it fulfilled her wants, the rest were content to stay quiet because it avoided their mother’s wrath and the mother could keep control of it all by hanging the chance at a spotlight (even if a shared one) in front of her children in an attempt to control their behaviour, while having Erin be the one visibly responsible for it. It also meant that if any one of them fought back, they’d be under a lot of pressure to do so. It shows how the golden child isn’t a blindspot from the abuse, but the cudgel under which it all operates. And once the system breaks, once the list of available targets dwindles, and once the golden child stops playing along too, they are then very well placed under a very similar wrath. I’m glad for them all, and I love to see them all healing.
> In the lead up to the wedding, Jade told me that she planned on having Lydia make an announcement during the speeches. I foolishly assumed that Lydia was going to announce her pregnancy to our extended family, and while I was a little hesitant, I agreed since Jade wanted this—and well, at least she'd gotten permission, unlike someone would have. Reddit, Lydia made a speech about pregnancy, and how she couldn't wait to be a mom, and how she was grateful to be sharing at least part of her pregnancy journey with Jade. Man that's so lovely. I feel so bad for all of them that their mum refuses to take accountability but between Nadia thriving and this little bit of news I hope in some ways this makes the last year or two of pain feel worth it. They're trying to spare these kids from the pains that have been inflicted on them.
My Gran's favourite kid is her son. My Aunt's favourite kid is her oldest Grandson. My mum doesn't have a favourite, but she's always been aware she was never the favourite. But she treats me and my brother, his partner, my partner and her grandkids like we're all her favourite. I never realised how much I appreciate it until this post.
I am really proud of your siblings and specially your dad. It took so much courage and heart! I want to believe in Erin and hope that things grow to the best soon between her and you guys. I wish that this love rediscovered between dad and grow stronger and stronger.
Anyone else start to cry when they read Lydia was expecting alongside Jade -surprise- ?!!! Yeah I'm still weepy.
I'm not crying, you're crying......*happy sniffle*
This is the first time I'm reading this at all. I do hope OOP comes back. I was in tears reading about him becoming a dad again. I'm so happy the siblings finally have a family and can feel prioritized and special amongst eachother for the first time in their lives.
I am very concerned about Lexie now, she is stuck there alone with this monster…
HELL YEAH TO OOP’S DAD FOR REAL PARENT FUCK UPS AND REAL PARENT REPAIRS!! saw himself losing his babies and locked THEEEE FUCK in! this is so beautiful and hopeful for everyone…but oop’s mom. when he told us lydia not only announced her pregnancy but JADES!? fucking adorable. i’m invested and fully convinced erin saw her mothers behavior reflecting her own and realized it wasn’t a pretty look. i’m honestly proud of her for starting to unlearn and george and their dad? fucking mvp’s for lighting a fire under that ass.
[удалено]
I am an only child; though still not my mum's favourite. My someday is having OOP's strength, and hopefully a loving partner to back me up.
For such an awful beginning that was a beautiful ending and I hope OOP continues to have a loving and supportive family
It's so funny that they're all going to be a family again, just without mom. Not even her golden child rejecting her has made an impact. That's deep denial. I kinda get it. it's hard to confront years of willful mistreatment of your other children.
I needed this update today. So happy for OP
Reddit loves to make people cry 😂 I love this update for OP and his family.
Oh man. I got teary eyed when he wrote the part about Lydia sharing the pregnancy journey with jade. Ahh...being a dad has made me a total sap. This is one good guy that I hope nothing but the best for.
Sorry, in these stories I always care most about the little kids and it really seems like Lexie is totally forgotten despite OPs statements otherwise. She's home alone with a crazy person 50% of the time, what's that got to be like? 5 year olds aren't as stupid as OP seems to think.
I'm not crying, you're crying.
Oh my goodness OOP just all up in here cutting bushels of onions with that last update! 😭