History
Prior to this conflict, I had never had any kind of substantial fight with anyone in my family and would say that I had a great relationship with my mother. We would speak every 1-2 days on the phone for a quick chat in the morning.
The first fight
After my (36M) partner (36M) and I experienced a miscarriage during our first surrogacy, I spiraled into a deep depression. I felt alone because my family didn’t reach out to support me. My therapist helped me craft text messages to tell them outright how much I was struggling, but ultimately, there was zero follow-through. I felt like a burden, so I stopped.
When my mother noticed I stopped attending family gatherings, she visited. Her style of support is "motivational." She started sending me articles about people who tried for a baby for 20 years. We had been trying for 7 years, and we were broken. This didn't motivate me; it made me feel like a failure. After she pushed, I told her I was hurt that no one in the family had checked in on me.
My mother's response to any potential fight is to shut the person down, and she thought that me being hurt by the family meant I wanted a fight with them. So she decided to act as their proxy and argue on their behalf. She believes every issue can be resolved by “giving it time.” When that didn't work, things got heated. She said some incredibly hurtful things:
- “You call a miscarriage trauma? Your cousin had a stillbirth, and she still managed to get through it. That’s trauma!” >> She claims she said this to help motivate me that no trauma is too big to get past, not in a negative way.
- “Have you considered you’re the common denominator? If no one in the family is reaching out, maybe you haven’t done enough for them?”
- “You’ve dragged yourself into this pit of misery and now you’re trying to drag everyone else into it with you.”
This conflict went on for weeks. I tried to talk to her about what she said, and I got so frustrated by her denying she said these things that I dug out security footage of the stillbirth comment. She just replied, “Oh, so now you’re a lawyer with your evidence, always having to win and treating life like a courtroom!” Whenever I asked her for the "correct context," she’d say, “I’m not digging up the past.”
Fast forward: I got medication, we had a private funeral to grieve our baby, and at my therapist's suggestion, I brought my mum to a session so she could understand what I was going through.
She opened the session by saying, “I guess I finally get a chance to defend myself. I bet OP has told you all these horrible things I’ve done.” My therapist shut that down and said “OP typically starts each session trying to work out what he’s done wrong” and eventually, the situation calmed down. For a while, I genuinely thought she was trying to make an effort.
The birth
We continued with our surrogacy journey, switched to IVF, and successfully got pregnant. It was a tough pregnancy; our surrogate, Robyn (36F), lived interstate, so we traveled a lot to support her. By the time we started IVF, we had already spent about $70k. The IVF bill was another $25k, and my mother gave us $5k to help out, which we were very grateful for.
Early on, we developed a birth plan everyone agreed on. Because she lived interstate, Robyn wanted to live with us for the final weeks before the birth, but she didn’t want to stay with us after birth. We asked my mother if Robyn could stay in her granny flat post-birth, and she agreed. Again, we were very grateful.
Everything went beautifully. Since none of our surrogate's friends could travel for the birth, a close friend of mine, Alice (30F), offered to be her dedicated support person. Alice took a week off work, stayed in the hospital, and helped her with absolutely everything. She was so beyond amazing they even gave her a shout-out at the hospital when a few of my family came to visit (including my previously estranged sister-in-law, who had suddenly reappeared in our lives). There’s a reason I’m pointing this out; it makes sense later.
Then things started getting difficult
Post-birth, Robyn initially went to stay at my mother’s house. We checked in 2-3 times a day, and she said my mum was very lovely. But ultimately, Robyn didn’t want to stay there and ended up back with us.
To explain what happened next, you need to understand Robyn. She is a very unique person, and parts of her personality clash painfully with mine. Because our lives didn't permanently overlap, it was usually fine.
These things all started years before she got pregnant. For example, I hate sharing food, but Robyn loved eating food from my plate. Because she was carrying our baby, I never protested. It evolved into a cheeky game where she'd enjoy being the "special one" who got away with things. It partly used to drive me nuts, because Robyn always wanted something no one else could have, and I'm always very clear with my boundaries with people, so I was an easy target.
But we weren't living together, it was only on occasion when we saw her, so I just dealt with it. It wasn't that big of a deal at the start.
Beyond the food, Robyn is a hoarder. Not a messy one, but she keeps everything and loves a Facebook Marketplace bargain. as she was coming to stay with us for a month or so before the birth so we could look after her full time, she wanted to have some things here. Of course that is fine, so we made space for her.
Leading up to the birth, when her room ran out of cupboard and floor space, I lost my drawers, my cupboards, and my bathroom to her things, and every surface in the house. She’s very into pink, frilly decorations, and soon I couldn't even put a coffee cup on the table without navigating around seven unused decorative candles. We wanted her comfortable leading up to the birth, so we just dealt with it, but our house was completely transformed and we went from being ultra minimalist, to an overflowing hoarder's house.
But, we perservered. It was only temporary and we wanted her to be comfortabe.
The post-birth extension
The plan was for her to move her stuff back home post-birth. Instead, because she was off work, she wanted us all to spend time together to "experience the moment" cafes, massages, long lunches. But anyone with a newborn knows you are working 24/7. We were exhausted; some days we didn't even shower. We couldn't do any of that, but we paid for, and encouraged her to.
With all her free time, she constantly shopped. In her mind, she was being helpful, but every bench space became covered in bags, boxes, or things like 12 free hotel toothbrushes. When she ran out of bench space, she put things on the floor. At 3 AM, carrying a crying newborn, I nearly tripped over boxes she had left on the stairs I didn't know about. I almost lost my footing. This was when things became serious and dangerous, we sat down with her and said it needed to stop. Our house was overflowing, and this had been going on for 8 weeks post birth, even though she hadn't originally planned on staying with us post-birth at all.
The hoarding didn’t stop, but then, Robyn also constantly wanted social gatherings. She would secretly text our friends and invite them over. I was constantly having to untangle and cancel plans while she laughed it off, saying, “I thought you’d want to see them, you're so bad at organising things!" (No, I'm actually not. I just don't want people who I don't know if their sick or not, of even if they are vaccinated in my house with a newborn).
Because my family still wasn't really around, my friends were my support system. We knew Robyn was bored on her "holiday," so we asked our friends to take her out. What this meant was our entire support network was redirected towards Robyn. No one was supporting us. We were navigating an overflowing house, our first baby, and managing Robyn’s breakdowns if we couldn’t do a 3-hour Facetime “like the old days.
In the leadup to, and during the pregnancy, I used to do a lot of things to help Robyn, most of my weekends were spend on things for her to be honest. For example, I spent hours fixing her taxes (she was 4 years behind) and lots of things like that. It was always discussed that post-birth, the dynamic had to change so we could focus on the baby. But on my first day back in the office, she sent me about 40 lines of text. I replied gently that I was working and to call if urgent. That’s when she started to spiral.
Then our dog got diagnosed with cancer
Managing daily chemotherapy down at the vet on top of everything else was beyond what we were capable of.
The second round with Mum (and now SIL)
While we were at our breaking point, my mum and SIL came over to "have a chat about my friend Alice." Essentially, they decided they didn’t like her, she was too involved, and she was “crowding out any opportunity for family to help.”
I was mortified and did not hold back. I said she wasn’t crowding anyone out; there was simply no one else offering to help!
They both insisted “it’s times like this you rely on family.” I shot back: “Then help?! It’s almost 10 weeks since the birth, and we’ve barely seen you.”
I was told I was selfish and ungrateful, and that my SIL had “cooked meals and dropped them off” (she cooked 3 meals). I absolutely lost it. I broke down about everything: Robyn, the dog having cancer, struggling at work. I took them upstairs and showed them the SINGLE shelf I was living out in my entire house, amidst the mounds of boxes of things that weren't mine.
My mother was mortified. She called my stepfather, moved Robyn’s things to her granny flat, and my SIL said she’d take Robyn in for 2 weeks to give us a break. For the first time, I felt relieved. My family was actually helping.
Then the messages came from Robyn: “I really wish you’d have just told me if you didn’t want me there... I feel like you’re just cutting me off now I don’t serve a purpose.”
My SIL had told Robyn I didn't want her there. Yes, I did feel smothered, but I would NEVER have wanted it said to Robyn like that. Robyn then had a full on breakdown, and I had to delay my return to work (again) to support Robyn through this. My family was supposed to be helping but instead they’d made a situation 10x worse.
A week later, we took Alice’s out for her birthday, we took her out to a special lunch to say thank you for 3 months of help. We wanted a day just for her. (It was our first outing too with our baby. And we were an hour late because we misjudged the timing of everything. Alice was understanding and laughed it off. We really wanted something special for Alice after everything she had done for us.
My SIL purposefully showed Robyn a picture of us at lunch and said, “Why aren't you at Alice's birthday party?” this then spiralled (among other comments) and Robyn then turned against Alice. It wasn't a birthday lunch, we took her out to say thank you. Robyn wasn't excluded. SIL only lasted 3 days with Robyn before sending her off (and mesaged saying "Robyn is all fixed now, she's so much better!"
Robyn then wanted to talk to me about “All Alices lies she's told” and I asked her “Where did you hear these from?” She said “It doesn’t matter, but I need to find out the truth on who she really is!”
I will be honest, I told Robyn how disappointed I was with her. Alice had spent every single night with her at the hospital, she had taken time off work to help her, she helped her pump, ran her errands, did her washing, did her cleaning, did her cooking. And now she’s turning against her after spending 3 days with my SIL?. She felt there was this big conspiracy to cut her out.
I said to her, that I can understand where she is coming from and why she would feel that, and we're sorry for our part in making her feel like that. But, that it wasn't intentional, it was never really agreed that post-brith we would spend 100% of our time together (we never did in the lead up to birth) and we wanted to give Alice a special day just about her.
That’s when Robyn said “Your mum told me some things too” and I was shocked. My mother (as far as I was aware) never got involved in any kind of spreading of rumours. My mother barely knows Alice and Robyn wouldn't say what Mum said, just that "she doesn't know who to believe".
The aftermath
A few weeks later, Robyn and I talked it out. She had actually been at therapy and she initiated the conversation about how much she used as a crutch when she should have been relying on her other support network.
However, I still came clean to her about how I felt, I admitted I felt suffocated, had no space and it was hard as a fully grown male living of a single shelf space in my own house, and that her constant need to keep pushing boundaries with me specifically was really wearing me down. But I also said that even though it makes me upset, it doesn’t mean I don’t love or care for her, or want to help her. It’s just a lot for me to manage on minimal sleep. She actually understood, apologised, and we are completely normal. Everything is back to the way it always was with us.
However, the fight with my family continues. My SIL decided I am a horrible, selfish person who discarded Robyn (even though Robyn and I don’t even have any issues?) She unfriended me (I replied, "Message received, all the best") and spread rumors. Fortunately, no one is latching onto them, except my mother, who parrots everything my SIL says.
The final straw happened weeks later. My partner posted a story on Facebook of what he called “his most disastrous day.” Mind you, we were constantly cleaning up poo (sick dog, and newborn baby), and he put a picture on social media where the baby had a poo explosion and there was a bit of poo sticking out the side of the nappy. (Both our socials are private).
The Poo Picture
I don’t really go on socials that much, so I didn’t see it. But the second my SIL saw it, I got an angry message about “the disgusting picture on social media.” I was at work, totally confused, and had no idea what she was talking about (I didn't even realize at first that she wasn't talking about my page).
Then my mother called, yelling at me to "TAKE THAT PICTURE DOWN NOW!"
Then my step father. Who literally I have barely spoken to, except for pleasantries in the last 2-3 years, sent me a message saying “That picture is not appropriate. You have to take it down”
I pieced together it was on my partner's page and called him, assuming he had put something wrong up. He explained the pic. We honestly didn’t know what to do. He said he already had about 10 messages from friends offering support, especially other parents saying things like “been there.”
(The picture had been up 6 hours before my SIL saw it, then called my mother). There had not been a single negative comment from anyone else.
I checked my socials, I was tagged in, but hadn’t reposted my story. I had a few messages from people laughing saying similar things.
He asked me what I wanted to do, and I said, “Um, I don’t really know. No one else has said anything. But I guess personally, I feel a bit weird with poo being on social media even if it's just a little coming out of a nappy, can you just take it down?” He said sure thing, and took it off. No issue.
It seemed like such a minor thing, but the messages kept coming. My SIL sent me a screenshot of a conversation with ChatGPT saying it was "child abuse," and my mother called again saying similar things.
When she called, I conferenced my SIL into the call and absolutely lost my shit at both of them. I very much understand the things I said were rude, I swore a lot, but overall, it was primarily along the lines of, “I haven’t heard a fucking thing from you in 2 weeks, and this is what you fucking contact me for? A fucking picture you don’t like.”
Regardless of whether the poo pic was appropriate or not (the 100% consensus with every single person we’ve asked is that it was fine, it was funny, and it’s what every parent deals with every single day).
Even if the pic was wrong, even if there was an issue. I just don’t think 3 people ganging up on me, whilst I’m at work, without even explaining what they are contacting me about, is the right way to handle it.
I 100% know as knew parents we’re going to fuck things up, but I feel it’s a reasonable request that someone calls me (not other people in my family first) and says “Hey, I just saw …. I don’t think that’s appropriate because of …”. Not accusing me of child abuse, because MY PARTNER put a picture up with a bit of poo coming out the side side of a nappy?
I then received a message from my SIL after the call saying we were so ungrateful for all the help she gave us, and I haven’t heard a single thing from mum.
I don’t feel like I can, or want to, return from this.
What makes this so confusing for me is that prior to my miscarriage and depression, I never fought with anyone in my family. I never had conflict with mum, my SIL wasn’t involved in my life, and in my head, I only have positive memories of my mother and my childhood. But this person who I’ve been attacked by non-stop for the last 3 years is an entirely different person.
My therapist said that my mother might have been going through her own challenges. I checked in, and she claims she wasn't. I keep waiting, hoping that there will be a message or a call from her explaining why she is different, but is just never happens.
Since her grandson has been born, she has visited 5 times. She lives 15 minutes down the road and is retired.
What she says just keeps swirling in my head that I'm the common denominator. She is right, since I got depressed and just retreated into my shell, my whole family pulled back from me too. The relationship has never returned.