Relationship and family issues

My Auntie will probably pass away today

replies: 0

This morning, I got a call from my auntie's nursing home, and they asked me to let my mum know so she can call them back. A little bit after she got back home, the phone rang and she answered it. I thought that it would most likely just be about some... View more

This morning, I got a call from my auntie's nursing home, and they asked me to let my mum know so she can call them back. A little bit after she got back home, the phone rang and she answered it. I thought that it would most likely just be about something minor that they wanted to discuss, but I wasn't completely sure. Fairly soon in the phone call, I could tell that it was probably something more serious. After the call, my mum let me know that she will probably pass away soon and that they would make her very comfortable in bed and give her drugs that would take away the pain. We were never really close with our extended family (I'm not close with my immediate family either though it probably seems to others that I am), but I feel a bit upset. My auntie is a really nice person. My mum told me that whatever happens is probably for the best because her quality of life isn't good because she has a lot of health issues, which I agree with. It just feels strange, I guess. If she passes away today, that means she will pass away on the same day as my cat, just in a different year. I'm not really religious, but I realized last year that there probably is some truth to religion, and I was just wondering if anyone knows if there is some type of meaning behind this? If so, I hope there's some positive reason behind it, I just don't know what it would be. I'm glad that mum and I visited her recently. I wanted to write her a letter as well since it was hard for her to have visitors over at the moment because of her health issues so she could read them in her nursing home, but I can't do that now. I feel kind of bad that I didn't visit her more often, especially when she was feeling better because she would have loved to have us over then. I usually feel strange when a loved one is about to pass away.

I miss my babies....

replies: 2

Single father of 2 girls aged 7 and 5. Long story short, High school sweethearts fell out of love after our second child, found out she was cheating on me on social media and traced it back to when it started when she was heavily pregnant with my sec... View more

Single father of 2 girls aged 7 and 5. Long story short, High school sweethearts fell out of love after our second child, found out she was cheating on me on social media and traced it back to when it started when she was heavily pregnant with my second child, fast forward a few years and I haven't seen them in years. I feel this big gaping hole in my chest wont go away... I feel I need to improve on myself in areas where I failed in the relationship with my ex and kids but until that happens I feel her and her family will keep them from me until "i have gained their trust". I've been trying so hard to move on and better myself but this hole in my chest gets bigger with every though of them.... I long for my girls and I dont know what to do.

Feeling a bit like a failure

replies: 3

I had a party today self hosted ( I’m single mum no family . One of the other parents stayed kinda helped out( I didn’t ask but boy did I feel guilty for it but I didn’t ask but yeah I kinda felt awkward afterwards and kinda like well maybe he felt h... View more

I had a party today self hosted ( I’m single mum no family . One of the other parents stayed kinda helped out( I didn’t ask but boy did I feel guilty for it but I didn’t ask but yeah I kinda felt awkward afterwards and kinda like well maybe he felt he had to rescue me like I was managing 10+ kids by myself plus other stuff of party’s that I was kinda like felt like a failure . My child is also struggling a bit with our family dynamics like I’ve had to cut off 2 family members due to emotional abuse and malipulation and I’m kinda like i understand u miss ur family so do i but can’t go back nothin will ever change or be better because they have demonised me to the point they can’t see their own behaviours and I don’t want to go back because it’s not safe for me or my child we will constantly be used as fixers and putter uppers . I just don’t like that my child is sad missing them I know it’s normal but it’s like this party and various other things like celebrations make my child feel more lonely I get it I do because I do too but I kinda have to live with the pain what’s worse staying in the same situation same or worse behaviour or being alone . I choose being alone my child is much same but is getting the missing of them and they were blatantly mean to my child and using her to solve Their problems with thier own lives and choices . How do I stop feeling like crap and why do events like this hurt ? And do people pity me because I’m alone ? And how do I help my child not let these things wreck her day ?

Triangulation the evil behind it

replies: 0

I was lucky, I left home at 17yo not primarily to pursue an Airforce life, not to earn adult money but to escape the dynamics under my family's roof. Such tension I couldn't understand at the time but it wasn't happiness. It wasn't long before living... View more

I was lucky, I left home at 17yo not primarily to pursue an Airforce life, not to earn adult money but to escape the dynamics under my family's roof. Such tension I couldn't understand at the time but it wasn't happiness. It wasn't long before living with other recruits, that they pulled me into line. The first lesson was what we can call "backstabbing". I can vividly recall another colleague screaming at me to discuss personal matters with him face to face "like a real adult". I was shocked, what actions I saw as perfectly normal wasn't normal at all. So the tough road to the realisation that I needed to re-educate myself began. In fact I had to also realise my family habits were way out of proper human to human behaviour. While I did change for the better, I didnt really embrace why my family developed into this toxic method of treating others. Now 70yo I've known for many years why and I want to share it with you using some examples, then a remedy. Triangulation, the behaviour of introducing a third or more people into a personal disagreement between two people is carried out by a party that is insecure, they require other people to agree with their disagreement to - make themselves feel stronger, an endorsement if you will, they also need those loved ones to pursue the fight on their behalf, to put pressure on the other party to concede, to front up and apologise. This works quite well with children albeit as wrong as it is, but with adults it causes more friction and generates anger thereby extending the estrangement. The triangulator is clever enough to be able to recruit the third parties without the third party realising they should butt out of the conflict. Normally they might but the tears of the instigator tug at their heart strings so they become in the least a silent enemy of the one that tries to contain the problem. I've had a person say "I hate what you did to your mother" to which I replied- "I never interfered with you and your mother- butt out" Triangulation is a narcissistic action. It is not carried out by mature adults that can accept that disagreements between two people should remain that way. Indeed the ramifications are far more reaching. The act of triangulating is clearly mentioned in the book "walking on eggshells" by Dr Christine Lawson. Extracts can be found by googling - witch queen hermit waif. It's under the queen umbrella. The queen treats people, usually their children as extensions of themselves, an extra limb, eg they own you. You dont dare cross the queen, if you do the witch will hunt you to the end of the earth, harm you by any means then call upon the WAIF to cry to their supporters telling them how hurtful that person was. Such manipulation, emotional blackmail is classic narcissism. In my case my mother (dec) recruited cousins, aunties and others to disown me and I went years not knowing their true feelings. Again no face to face discussions. She even told them all not to tell me she had died, as if it was the last punishment she could muster after 15 years of estrangement. My sister repeated the triangulating methods as she knew no better, trained by the best. But here's the thing- if you stand up against that behaviour you will suffer also. A no win! My sister had a disagreement with my daughter. I left it to them until a phone call from my sister was to recruit me against my daughter. it failed. The fallout meant that I lost my two adult nieces siding with their mother (get the picture), it meant my daughter lost her cousins. So a dispute between two people resulted in 5 destroyed relationships. The war from a triangle! Now years later we have a stable life, there's nobody present in my family that tolerates such behaviour, no drama, no games, no indirect negative talk. Narcissism sadly has only one answer- to remove them from your life. We are talking personalities, not necessarily mental illness. Personality disorders are hard to treat because the patient believes they are 100% correct, they know no other way. TonyWK

I'm frozen in a house on fire

replies: 2

My family is barely functional, and I mean we come acorss fine enough to others but it's a mess the second anyone has something going on. There's a lot of arguments and they always escalate to extremes, no matter how dull it starts. I'm normally the ... View more

My family is barely functional, and I mean we come acorss fine enough to others but it's a mess the second anyone has something going on. There's a lot of arguments and they always escalate to extremes, no matter how dull it starts. I'm normally the one to play role of peacekeeper, the support afterwards, but more and more I'm feeling like that's not even enough for people now: after all the years helping my sister vent and bridging between her and my mother, she's decided it's no good if I don't participate in fights too. The thing is, when it's fight or flight, I'm frozen like unwanted leftovers. I don't say anything, I don't make threats. I claim it's because I don't like making things worse, but maybe I am by doing nothing I don't know. And then of course I look aloof because I can't cry in front of people most the time, so I'm here rationalising everyone's feelings and my sister just screams at me to stop psychoanalysing, but I'm not. I just don't understand how they are so blind to each other every time they fight. And then because she gets all fired up, her and dad get aggressive- What am I supposed to do?? I'm not getting in the way of you guys like that or I'll be hit on both sides over a nothing-dissagreement! Is that selfish? Is it silly? No more than the subject matter of their fights I'd say, but that's not to say I wouldn't immediately throw a fist if one came towards my sister. Of course I would, but she doesn't believe me. Why would she, I'm just the quiet, useless one who does nothing

Single mum with DV past

replies: 5

I’m a single mum and have experienced DV from my ex husband. We are divorced now and I have a 3yr old son who lives with me. After marriage our relationship involved a lot of fighting and my ex started to get abusive he also developed a drug addictio... View more

I’m a single mum and have experienced DV from my ex husband. We are divorced now and I have a 3yr old son who lives with me. After marriage our relationship involved a lot of fighting and my ex started to get abusive he also developed a drug addiction and things got worse after I fell pregnant. He was never there or made an effort or took on any responsibilities. He never spent time or was there since I gave birth he was on/off jobs, sleeping most of times or never home. It got to a point where the abuse became worse and was going to get physical. I really tried everything to save the marriage but nothing worked. I felt like I was walking on egg shells whenever around him and scared. I feel much better and at peace since leaving but now I think he wants to see our son and he never wanted me to leave or divorce him. He is very manipulative and controlling. I don’t feel it’s safe or comfortable him meeting our son but I know he is the father. I have no assurance he is off drugs and knowing his character I don’t think he will change as he still shows no signs of improvement and change. I still feel trauma and PTSD from the relationship and just want nothing to do with him. Are there are single mums in the same situation and what do you do in these cases. I know this stuff may involve legal steps and processes but we are just better off without someone like that in our life. I feel he will be stuck in my life forever and make it hell. I often regret my choice in marrying someone like that and having a child with them.

It’s been a while, I’m back worse then before (relationship etc)

replies: 3

Hey all, it’s been a good while since I last checked in on here (years) for the past year I’ve been really struggling, I entered a relationship with someone over two years ago, and I thought he was my person, we shared so much similar interests, we s... View more

Hey all, it’s been a good while since I last checked in on here (years) for the past year I’ve been really struggling, I entered a relationship with someone over two years ago, and I thought he was my person, we shared so much similar interests, we speak the same language, we connected on a deep trauma I went through and at the time I thought he was my rock at a hard time in my life. I wasn’t ready for a relationship at that time, but he did come around often and we ended up being what they call a situationship. fast forward I was clear headed and ready to start a relationship with this man, I ended up telling him this, and instead of a response I got ignored. So after a couple of months, I decided to move on dating. Strangely enough I ended up dating one of his friends, it didn’t actually take me long to work out I couldn’t date his mate as I still had feelings for him, he ended up coming back into my life this time telling me he wanted to be with me. All while finding out he had a girlfriend the whole time. (I didn’t know) we decided to be together, we are both European so we jumped into living together. Both of us having kids from previous relationships. During this time he was still contacting his ex behind my back and then decided to spend a night at hers, took all his things without any explanation. A day after he decided to come back to explain himself, silly enough due to my feelings towards him I forgave him. I thought it would get better but since then all he has done is uplift her. He’s belittled me, called me horrible names during arguments dog, s***, told me to k*ll myself, called me a piece of sh*t etc etc I mean it’s horrible things , he’d come up to my face, swear at me in our language when people are around, he’s taking all our joint monies in arguments, one night away he decides to call his ex again as a “friend chat” we had NYE and an incident occurred where one of our friends (male) tapped me on the butt intoxicated, I decided to ignore it as he and the other person were intoxicated- instead of him letting it go, he found out through others and abused me infront of our mates, mostly in our language so they weren’t aware of the horrible words. This has been most the relationship, one night he came home intoxicated and I noticed he took our monies for a 3rd time and left me and my kids with zero, I ignored it , I told him if he was to come back I wanted peace, instead he woke me up at 2am and insisted on physical intimacy and when I said no, he got me to get off “his bed” took me downstairs and got verbal again, telling me I wasn’t allowed to sleep and then woke my kids up to hurt me and take the dog (which he paid for) I decided to call police and got an avo. he also told me if I was pregnant (which he wanted to get pregnant, to have an abortion) this was 1 year ago. Have I moved past it all? No. I genuinely wanted to, so after a few months I took him back, this time no joint account and some boundaries, but he throws all the things he does in my face like things he buys or a bill he pays or how he is good to my kids (which he is) but that is beside the point. he will still kick me out the bed (he purchased) he will , still be disrespectful and when I tell him how I feel nothing changes. he even blames me for his avo, not understanding what that did to me, and on Mother’s Day weekend. im now 15 kilos heavier, I’ve lost hours in work, I feel like I rely on him but feel trapped, I’ve lost myself, I don’t know how to process this, I’m looking for full time employment now so I can get him out my life. everything is about how much he is doing for me, I should be greatful I don’t appreciate him, and I don’t understand it at all. I run the household still work, and it’s not good enough, he calls me a user. He’s constantly throwing things in my face and I don’t know how to feel anymore I feel overwhelmed my driving is affected I have anxiety driving , I’m binge eating and I don’t know how to cope. I don’t have support and can’t talk to my family

Business and Marriage Failure

replies: 1

My husband is sending us bankrupt, we have 4 kids (17, 15, 13, 10) and have been together 34 years (married for 28) - he has a business that has been failing for approx 5 years, has put is into heaps of debt, poured over $200k of personal funds into ... View more

My husband is sending us bankrupt, we have 4 kids (17, 15, 13, 10) and have been together 34 years (married for 28) - he has a business that has been failing for approx 5 years, has put is into heaps of debt, poured over $200k of personal funds into it, and won't act on anything to remedy the situation He has a failing business, isn't contributing to the family income, is aggressive when I brings it up and keeps bringing up things from my past before we were even together - he's never been physically violent but can be verbally aggressive and he's making no attempt to change his business, sell assets or find a job He apologises one minute and says things will get better/customer will pay, then the next minute when I ask him whether he's able to contribute financially to the household income this week he sends awful text messages and calls me names He has now asked for a separation and when I agreed his whole attitude changed and he started selling assets which he would keep anyway if we separated - I am very confused and hurt that he would do this now, whilst not when we were still "together" in order to protect the family unit financially so that we were secure in our home (am now having to potentially sell, and haven't told the children yet) - he also seems almost cheerful about it, I asked yesterday why now, why sell things now, why not do it before to save us, but feel like a little piece of me believes that perhaps he is happy to be done with the relationship and the pressure, which makes me angry that he would throw it all awayI think he would stay together if I asked (he asked yesterday whether I wanted to try and make it work) but I said that I can't tolerate the aggressive / abusive behaviour every time he feels under pressure or wants to have a go at me for something and don't want to put up with this for another 10 years (I found a text from 10 years ago with the same vitriolic rant that he sent last week) when I am too old to get myself setup again with the kids I feel for the kids, but don't think it's enough to keep us together - am I doing the right thing holding strong and separating, uprooting the kids from their family home and from their current life, or should I stick with him (despite not feeling anything for him other than anger, resentment, fear and irritation) to keep the family unit together ?

HELP: Can mediation/counselling(Relationship Victoria) resolve entrenched family dynamics

replies: 6

I arrived in Australia alone in 2022 to build a future. After securing our PR in 2024, my wife and 9-year-old son joined me in July 2025. Since their arrival, our relationship has drastically deteriorated.We are currently in a state of "in-house sepa... View more

I arrived in Australia alone in 2022 to build a future. After securing our PR in 2024, my wife and 9-year-old son joined me in July 2025. Since their arrival, our relationship has drastically deteriorated.We are currently in a state of "in-house separation." We maintain separate daily lives, yet she continues to cook for me, creating a confusing façade of a normal household. Simultaneously, she sleeps exclusively with our 9-year-old son, effectively excluding me from their routine. Communication is minimal, and any attempts at intimacy are met with rejection. It feels like she wants to maintain control over the household structure while actively blocking any genuine emotional or physical connection. The tension peaked this past March, and the environment has become suffocating.I feel isolated, silenced, and I am struggling to find my place as a father.I am currently reaching out to Relationship Australia Victoria, but I need perspective:Is it common for a 9-year-old to sleep with a parent in this context, and how can I reclaim my role as a father without escalating the conflict?Has anyone experienced this type of "performative duty" (cooking/household chores vs. total emotional coldness), and how did you navigate it?From your experience, is this kind of deeply entrenched dynamic something that a professional counselling (RAV) can realistically resolve, or does it require a different type of intervention?Is it inevitable that a situation like this, characterized by total emotional withdrawal and parent-child enmeshment, ultimately ends in divorce?Any advice or strategies for re-establishing healthy boundaries for my son’s development and my own mental well-being would be greatly appreciated.

Moving away

replies: 1

Hi, since having children the grandparents have been overbearing such as overstepping, overbearing, controlling, undermining our parenting, being clingy etc. We all live nearby and it's negatively affecting my mental health being in close proximity t... View more

Hi, since having children the grandparents have been overbearing such as overstepping, overbearing, controlling, undermining our parenting, being clingy etc. We all live nearby and it's negatively affecting my mental health being in close proximity to them. We have spoken to them about boundaries, visits etc to no avail. It's been happening for many years (our eldest is 11) and I have had enough. We would like to move away and just wondering if anyone else has been in a similar situation and moved either interstate or 30 mins away (to make it harder for drop ins etc). Given the age of our children moving interstate would be a big deal. Staying but relocating within our current city would be better but is it enough? Thank you for your help.

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Hey there - read this to see what this section is all about

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