My grandmother treats us like strangers!
I honestly don’t know how to deal with this anymore. My dad’s side of the family has made our lives emotionally miserable for years, especially for my mom. I come from a really loving family. My parents and siblings are very close, we care for each other deeply, and Alhamdulillah we’ve always tried to live with kindness and respect.
My grandmother and some of my dad’s sisters have never truly accepted my mom, even after more than 35 years of marriage. They’ve always treated her like an outsider. They constantly criticize her, speak badly about her, and make unfair assumptions about her because we live abroad. When me and my siblings were younger, they even tried to turn us against our own mother. But now that we’ve grown up, we can clearly see how unfairly she has been treated all these years.
What hurts even more is how badly they treat my dad too, despite everything he does for them. My dad has always supported his mother financially and emotionally, no matter how much she insults him or spreads lies about him to relatives. He has invited her many times to stay with us, but she refuses, then tells people that he abandoned or disrespected her. Because of this, many relatives have a very negative image of us without even knowing the truth. People backbite about us, avoid us socially, and we often hear horrible things being said behind our backs through others.
The saddest part for me is that we genuinely never wished bad for anyone. We always wanted a loving extended family. But my grandmother clearly favors her daughters and their children over us. Around us, she feels cold, distant, and negative, almost like we are strangers instead of her own grandchildren. Even after spending a few minutes with her, the atmosphere feels negative and heavy.
I think what hurts the most is constantly being misunderstood when your intentions were never bad. We’ve spent years trying to keep peace while being painted as villains in other people’s stories. I don’t really know how to deal with the sadness and disappointment that comes with that.
This is honestly just a brief overview of the situation because if I wrote every single thing that has happened over the years, this post would become extremely long. There are so many incidents, comments, lies, and moments that slowly built this distance and pain within the family. I just wanted to explain the main issue and the overall environment we’ve been living in for years because sometimes it feels emotionally exhausting carrying all of this silently.