Manipulative mother

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
4

4lilcherubs

Guest
#1
So. My grandmother is very manipulative. She lies about family member to get her own way. My mother (her daughter ) has a poor relationship with her, due to her abusive childhood.
So my now elderly grandmother needs help in her 80s. But there is no relationship there. My mother needs medication(valium) and feels physically ill when visiting her. Is it ever biblical to just 'wash your hands' of a family member for self preservation, and not see them? Or should God be our strength and just keep on helping?
 

Sirk

Banned
Mar 2, 2016
8,896
112
0
#2
So. My grandmother is very manipulative. She lies about family member to get her own way. My mother (her daughter ) has a poor relationship with her, due to her abusive childhood.
So my now elderly grandmother needs help in her 80s. But there is no relationship there. My mother needs medication(valium) and feels physically ill when visiting her. Is it ever biblical to just 'wash your hands' of a family member for self preservation, and not see them? Or should God be our strength and just keep on helping?

I have a friend who's mom and dad are very toxic to him, his wife and his kids. I believe he is doing his duty as a father and husband and is protecting them by cutting off contact with his parents until they get their act together. As well as keeping himself safe and healthy so he can be a better husband and father.
 
U

Ugly

Guest
#3
I distance myself from unhealthy family members. While it would be ideal if your mother was able to work past these things, that won't happen over night. And if, in the meantime, she needs space away from her mother, then i think that's reasonable, particularly since your grandmother is still behaving in such a fashion, and not apologetic.
Sometimes we are in a place where we can endure certain kinds of negative people, sometimes we don't have that capacity, let each moment and situation be a judgment call, no matter if it's family or friends or strangers.
 
D

dalconn

Guest
#4
I would venture to say that if you started sharing the gospel with her every time and all the time you're around her you won't have to distance yourself, she'll do it for you!

prayer, prayer, prayer
 
C

Chuckt

Guest
#5
So. My grandmother is very manipulative. She lies about family member to get her own way. My mother (her daughter ) has a poor relationship with her, due to her abusive childhood.
So my now elderly grandmother needs help in her 80s. But there is no relationship there. My mother needs medication(valium) and feels physically ill when visiting her. Is it ever biblical to just 'wash your hands' of a family member for self preservation, and not see them? Or should God be our strength and just keep on helping?
I am assuming you are all adults now. I am now the power of attorney for my dad. You make decisions for your parents now and you stop letting them run the show if you are adults now.
 

Dan58

Senior Member
Nov 13, 2013
1,991
337
83
#6
So. My grandmother is very manipulative. She lies about family member to get her own way. My mother (her daughter ) has a poor relationship with her, due to her abusive childhood.
So my now elderly grandmother needs help in her 80s. But there is no relationship there. My mother needs medication(valium) and feels physically ill when visiting her. Is it ever biblical to just 'wash your hands' of a family member for self preservation, and not see them? Or should God be our strength and just keep on helping?

Washing your hands of your +80 yr old grandma seems wrong to me. If you already know she lies and is manipulative, then there's probably no danger of you being manipulated? Don't let your valium popping mother be a deterrent. Everyone's screwed-up in some ways, but that's no excuse not to help an aging family member, and I doubt its really a matter of self-preservation. Your last sentence is the correct answer (Matthew 25:44-45). Like grandma, its likely we've all fibbed at some point to get our own way, but remember that Jesus didn't come down off the cross as a matter of self-preservation and wash his hands of us. "For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?" (Matthew 5:45). Doing the right thing may not be easy, but its a responsibility we sometimes need to take on. Go see grandma, and if she lies, cite Exodus 20:16; "Thou shalt not bear false witness". Maybe she'll have a change of heart? That's why you keep on helping, her eternal soul may need help too? jmo
 
C

coby

Guest
#7
Nowadays everyone dumps their parents. I read a book from Corrie ten Boom. They had 2 of those old aunts living with them. They'd try to control their kids and were grumpy and horrible. No problem. Just so sweet to read.
 
C

coby

Guest
#8
Carol Arnott has a book about it, forgiveness. Her mother was very abusive and grandmother to her even worse, quite evil actually. When she forgave her mother God healed her up, took a while, first she got mad, but then her mother got healed up too when she forgave. They all got healed up.
 
Last edited:
Dec 19, 2009
27,513
128
0
71
#9
So. My grandmother is very manipulative. She lies about family member to get her own way. My mother (her daughter ) has a poor relationship with her, due to her abusive childhood.
So my now elderly grandmother needs help in her 80s. But there is no relationship there. My mother needs medication(valium) and feels physically ill when visiting her. Is it ever biblical to just 'wash your hands' of a family member for self preservation, and not see them? Or should God be our strength and just keep on helping?
One does the best they can to help family members, but there is only so much they can do.
 
D

Depleted

Guest
#10
So. My grandmother is very manipulative. She lies about family member to get her own way. My mother (her daughter ) has a poor relationship with her, due to her abusive childhood.
So my now elderly grandmother needs help in her 80s. But there is no relationship there. My mother needs medication(valium) and feels physically ill when visiting her. Is it ever biblical to just 'wash your hands' of a family member for self preservation, and not see them? Or should God be our strength and just keep on helping?
What happens when you get an answer to your question? Will you try to make your grandmother live right? Will you try to make your mom live right? Does it change anything getting just the right answer?

The Bible tells us what we are supposed to do. It doesn't tell us how to make our relatives do the right thing. So, how about working on what you're supposed to do instead? (And, nope. I can't make you do that either. lol)
 

spunkycat08

Senior Member
Dec 7, 2013
403
2
18
#11
I feel that the best thing anyone can do in this situation is to ask God what he wants you to do, and to pray about the situation.

Also, the manipulative person has to want to change their behavior.
 
P

Plus2

Guest
#12
If she's in her 80s and sound like her health is failing I hate to see you cut her off and lose the little time you have left. No one is perfect. My own grandmother was a bit of an instigator between my mother and aunts but we knew that and like Dan said if you know it then you can't really be manipulated. Luckily we were all together with her at the end and not a day goes by that I don't wish I could have one more day with her.
 

presidente

Senior Member
May 29, 2013
9,081
1,748
113
#13
I suppose if you want to die young, you can refuse to help your parents, but not honoring parents is still breaking one of the commandments. In Matthew 15, we see the example of Jesus gave of refusing to support parents by declaring support for them a gift devoted to God as making the word of God of none effect. It's something people did who honored God with their lips but their heart was far from Him.

It's difficult, though, when parents keep sinning.

Another verse that comes to mind is the one that says that if a man won't care for his his own he is worse than an infidel. Most translations translate that passage in I Timothy 5 as being about a man who won't care for his parents or grandparents.
 
E

ember

Guest
#14
I suppose if you want to die young, you can refuse to help your parents, but not honoring parents is still breaking one of the commandments. In Matthew 15, we see the example of Jesus gave of refusing to support parents by declaring support for them a gift devoted to God as making the word of God of none effect. It's something people did who honored God with their lips but their heart was far from Him.

It's difficult, though, when parents keep sinning.

Another verse that comes to mind is the one that says that if a man won't care for his his own he is worse than an infidel. Most translations translate that passage in I Timothy 5 as being about a man who won't care for his parents or grandparents.

Jesus was addressing hypocrisy I believe...not stating a command regarding parents with regard to the 'gift' you speak of in your post

The commandment does not mean always do what your parents tell you until the day they die...that would be somewhat silly...we respect and give weight to their words...allowing abuse and doing anything to appease an abuser is not what the commandment is about

There is such a thing as false guilt and a manipulative person is usually an expert at pouring it on

Read the op again...the mother is physically ill having to deal with the grandmother (her own mother)

Sometimes, you do have to remove the toxic relationship from your life..of course prayer first...guilt can be a difficult thing for a Christian to deal with, but guilt does not create good relationships
 
G

GraceRevelation

Guest
#15
I have almost the exact situation. Any really toxic family member stay away from they don't give you anything you need or want and can cause a lot of problems for you. Pray for them but stay away. Just because someone "birthed" you doesn't make them a mom. They can be just like poison in your life.
 
L

LiJo

Guest
#16
I have a friend who's mom and dad are very toxic to him, his wife and his kids. I believe he is doing his duty as a father and husband and is protecting them by cutting off contact with his parents until they get their act together. As well as keeping himself safe and healthy so he can be a better husband and father.
This is exactly what I had to do with my own mother to protect my family.