u/SnooGiraffes3930

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My son recently turned one, and a few weeks ago I made one of the hardest decisions of my life. I decided to distance myself from my parents, especially my mother, and stop allowing them to interfere in my marriage and how my wife and I raise our child.

I'm almost 35 years old, and I feel ridiculous admitting how difficult this has been.

For some context, I grew up in Brazil during the 90s. My parents became evangelical Christians when I was about a year old, right around the time the whole Satanic Panic thing was spreading through churches here.

And my parents went ALL IN.

They were already pretty strict. Lots of yelling, physical punishment, controlling pretty much everything my brother and I did. But religion took it to another level.

I remember having my toys burned, trading cards destroyed, sticker albums thrown away, videogames scratched up. All because some American pastor had convinced them that Disney movies, games, cartoons and basically anything that wasn't Christian had demons hiding in it.

I couldn't even listen to regular music without being warned that I was inviting demons into the house.

As a kid, I was genuinely terrified. I had nightmares, woke up thinking I could see shadows watching me, and constantly worried about going to hell.

I developed terrible anxiety, which followed me into adulthood. I struggled with it throughout university and still deal with some of it today.

But the weirdest part is that I also became extremely attached to my mother.

Whenever anything went wrong, I needed to tell her. It didn't matter what it was. I felt like she HAD to know, because somehow she would fix it.

It's hard to explain. The same person who made me terrified of so many things was also the person I ran to whenever I was scared.

And that continued for decades.

Now, before I go any further, I really need to explain something. My parents weren't just awful people who treated me badly my whole life.

They've also been incredibly generous to me.

We weren't rich when I was little. Quite the opposite. I remember my mom crying because we couldn't afford meat.

Things got better financially when I went to university. They sold a property, made some good money, and our lives changed quite a bit.

When I bought my first car, my father paid about 70% of it. Whenever I needed help with money, they were there.

When my wife and I got married during COVID, I was unemployed, and they helped us financially every month. Even after I found a job, they insisted on continuing because they said they wanted to help.

And I was always grateful for that.

But over time I started feeling like the money came with strings attached.

Almost like, "We're helping you financially, so we get to have an opinion about everything you do."

And I let it happen for years.

Then my son was born.

My wife had a very difficult delivery. She needed an assisted vaginal birth, was badly injured, and was in a lot of pain afterward.

Our son was having trouble breastfeeding, wasn't gaining enough weight and had jaundice. We ended up spending five days in a pretty awful public hospital.

We shared a room with several other mothers and newborns. There was barely any privacy, nobody was sleeping, and my wife was in a terrible state, physically and emotionally.

At one point she was moved to a different room where I couldn't stay overnight.

The next morning she texted me saying she couldn't take it anymore, that she was feeling awful and needed help.

So my mother and I went to the hospital.

I was filling out some paperwork when my mother went into my wife's room first.

Apparently she walked in and immediately started yelling at her.

She told my wife to stop being dramatic, stop making a fuss, and give her the baby so she could take care of him. She basically took the baby from her and told her to go to the emergency room if she was in so much pain.

My wife told me all of this while crying.

I was furious, but I didn't really confront my mother the way I should have.

I said something to her, but I didn't push it. I was exhausted, worried about my wife and son, and frankly, I was still scared of confronting my own mother.

I hate admitting that.

A day later we finally went home, and my mother stayed with us to help out.

We really needed the help. My wife was still bleeding and recovering, and I was taking care of her while we both tried to figure out how to take care of a newborn.

We also run a small business together, so we couldn't just completely stop working. We had clients to answer, things to sort out. We took turns watching our son while the other person handled work.

About a week after we got home, my mother started yelling at my wife again.

I wasn't there when it happened.

She told her she wasn't taking proper care of the baby, complained that the house was dirty and smelled like poop, and criticized her for working.

She even brought up some story about a neighbor from 30 years ago who supposedly went crazy after giving birth, and warned my wife that she might end up the same way.

My wife came to me crying again.

This time I lost it.

I confronted my mother and told her she was completely out of line. That we had asked for HELP, not someone to criticize my wife while she was recovering from childbirth.

My mother immediately started crying.

She went on about how apparently we just wanted a maid, a silent servant, a slave who wasn't allowed to have an opinion.

And I said something pretty shitty in response.

I sarcastically told her, "Great, that's exactly what we need. Someone who helps and keeps quiet."

I'm not proud of saying that. I was just so angry and tired of seeing my wife being treated that way.

My mother spent the following day sulking, barely talking to anyone.

My wife eventually told me she couldn't take it anymore and that we needed to figure things out on our own.

I agreed.

That evening, when my father came over, I told my mother, half jokingly, "Mom, you're fired."

I thanked her for helping, but explained that we needed some space and wanted to find our own routine as parents.

She took it terribly.

My father later told me she cried the entire drive home.

After that, things were never really the same.

Whenever my parents visited, my mother would constantly try to take over everything involving our son.

Changing diapers, holding him, deciding what needed to be done.

But something else started bothering both of us.

Whenever she picked him up, she seemed to look for an excuse to leave the room with him. She always wanted to be alone with him.

And if we followed, she seemed annoyed.

I don't know how to explain why this bothered me so much, but it did.

Fast forward several months.

My mother went on a trip abroad, and since my father is getting older and has back problems, my wife and I decided to stay at their house for a while.

Things were fine at first, although there was an incident where I accidentally saw a WhatsApp message my father had sent my mother, saying that my wife and I didn't know how to do anything and couldn't properly take care of our own son.

I wasn't snooping. My wife had hurt her ankle, and I was using his computer to schedule a medical appointment. WhatsApp was already open on the screen.

We argued about it, but eventually he apologized, and we agreed to put it behind us.

When my mother returned, we continued staying with them.

We were actually considering living there temporarily because my wife and I are planning to move abroad, and my parents have a large property with plenty of space.

It sounded like a good idea financially.

It was not a good idea.

Within about ten days, my mother was controlling everything again.

If we said we wanted to do something one way, she would do it another way.

It didn't matter what it was. She always had to be the one making the decisions.

My wife was getting increasingly frustrated, and I was trying to keep the peace while also supporting her.

Eventually, my mother once again tried to take over something involving our son. I told her no, and she got angry and started sulking.

I decided we needed to have a serious conversation.

I told her that living together wasn't working, that we would be moving back home, and that she needed to understand something very simple.

He's OUR son.

Not hers.

I told her that I understood she wanted to help, but that her constant interference was actually making our lives harder.

And then I brought up what happened at the hospital.

I told her that the way she treated my wife, just days after she had given birth, was completely unacceptable.

She looked me straight in the eyes and said:

"If I hadn't been at that hospital that day, your son wouldn't even be alive."

I can't even describe how angry that made me.

My wife had suffered so much. We had spent five days desperately trying to get our baby to gain weight, barely sleeping, doing everything we could.

And my mother genuinely believed she was the reason our son was alive?

I demanded that she take it back.

I told her that saying something like that completely dismissed everything my wife and I had gone through.

That was pretty much it for me.

My wife and I went home, and after talking about everything, we decided we were done depending on my parents.

No more financial help. No more allowing them to interfere in our marriage. No more treating their opinions as if they mattered more than our own decisions about our child.

We've also decided to severely limit their contact with our son for the time being.

And now comes the part that's been eating me alive.

My mother is devastated.

She cries whenever I see her.

During the few visits we've allowed, she'll hold my son and say things like, "You're my dream come true," "You're everything I've ever wanted," and "I love you so much it hurts."

She kisses him constantly and still tries to find excuses to be alone with him.

I know those might sound like perfectly normal things for a grandmother to say. Maybe they are.

But something about it, especially after everything that's happened, makes me extremely uncomfortable.

I don't want to accuse her of anything. I don't even know exactly why it bothers me as much as it does. I just know that it does.

And the worst part is that I still love my parents.

They've done so much for me.

They helped me financially when I needed it. They supported me through university. They've helped other people too. They're not monsters.

I genuinely believe that, in their own minds, they're just trying to help us.

But I also feel like their version of love has always involved some degree of control.

And for the first time in my life, I'm refusing to play along.

I'm nearly 35, married, with a child of my own, and I'm only now realizing how much of my adult life I've spent worrying about upsetting my mother.

It's such a strange feeling.

On one hand, I feel relieved. Almost free.

On the other, I see my parents getting older, crying because they don't get to see their grandson as much anymore, and I feel like the worst son in the world.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm overreacting. If this is just a generational thing. If I should have been more patient or found some other way to deal with it.

I keep remembering everything they've done for me, and then I remember my wife crying in that hospital room.

I don't know.

I just know I don't want my son growing up feeling the same fear, guilt and obligation that I grew up with.

And I don't want my wife to ever feel like she comes second to my mother.

I guess that's why I'm writing this. I don't really know what to do with all these conflicting feelings.

I always thought that finally standing up to my mother would feel like some huge victory.

Instead, it feels like I'm grieving a relationship with someone who's still alive.

https://preview.redd.it/mgkum2tovejh1.png?width=489&format=png&auto=webp&s=d43ceb3711787a7a36af07cfd42cb96bc10403d6

Minhas comissões este mês foram muito boas, e procurei algum jogo da Steam para comprar e percebi que não queria nenhum... Meu backlog está lotado e não quis esbanjar, por isso vou compartilhar minha alegria fazendo outra pessoa feliz.

Comente qual jogo você quer, e após analisar, vou adicionar uma pessoa e presentear.

É isso!

Hi guys!

Im moving to spain with my wife and my little boy, and im searching for pisos to rent in these two cities.

I chose these two cities because we want to live close to Barcelona, and we want a medium size city (around 200k citizens) with not so expensive rent.

Im aware of the rivality between these two cities, and actually find it very amusing (where i come from this is a thing too), but i wanted plain and flat the pros and cons...

Every information is welcome!!

Thanks a lot guys!

Hi guys!

Im moving to spain with my wife and my little boy, and im searching for pisos to rent in these two cities.

I chose these two cities because we want to live close to Barcelona, and we want a medium size city (around 200k citizens) with not so expensive rent.

Im aware of the rivality between these two cities, and actually find it very amusing (where i come from this is a thing too), but i wanted plain and flat the pros and cons...

Every information is welcome!!

Thanks a lot guys!

Hello guys!

I'm 34 years old, my wife is 30, and we have an 8-month-old baby. We're from Brazil, and I also have European citizenship (Italy).

We're thinking about moving to Spain. I'm interested in working in logistics, especially as a delivery van driver, since I've heard there's strong demand in that sector.

My English is nearly fluent. My wife doesn't speak English yet. Our spanish is currently very basic.

Our goal is simply to find stable jobs in high-demand fields. I'd like to work in logistics, and my wife is willing to work as a cleaner.

We already have enough money to live 3 months while settling in. Im also thinking in going alone first.

What advice or opinions would you have for a family in our situation? We'd really appreciate any tips or experiences, especially from people who have made a similar move.

Thank you in advance!

I'm 34 years old, my wife is 30, and we have an 8-month-old baby. We're from Brazil, and I also have European citizenship (Italy).

We're thinking about moving to Belgium. I'm interested in working in logistics, especially as a delivery van driver, since I've heard there's strong demand in that sector, and the salary is good.

My English is nearly fluent. My wife doesn't speak English yet.

Our goal is simply to find stable jobs in high-demand fields. I'd like to work in logistics, and my wife is willing to work as a cleaner.

What advice or opinions would you have for a family in our situation? We'd really appreciate any tips or experiences, especially from people who have made a similar move.

Thank you in advance!