SITTING in the pizza restaurant watching my daughter blow out the candles on her birthday cake, I spotted two familiar faces at a table across the room.
They were looking directly at me, and it took all my strength not to quickly usher my daughter Rose, 13, out of her seat, away from her friends, and into the car home.
It was too late because whilst Rose was too young to understand fully she sensed my panic, turned to me and said, ‘Can we leave Mum?’.
Her annual birthday meal at her favourite place in tatters.
Nine years earlier, after dealing with a decade of increasingly toxic behaviour, I’d given my husband Michael, 50, an ultimatum – choose me, or your narcissistic parents.
Luckily, he’d picked me, and together we’d made our feelings clear, severing all ties and cutting them out of all our lives.
We blocked them on social media, ignored their barrage of bizarre emails questioning our decision, and refused to bow down to guilt trips and gaslighting.
Once, when we were told Michael’s mother was on her death bed by his younger sister, he did the right thing and visited her in hospital.
She spent the entire time telling him where he’d gone wrong in his life and she wasn’t seriously ill at all, it was a routine operation and she made a full recovery.
On every one of Rose’s birthdays they send a card, a tiny but self-seeking invasion of our privacy which probably makes them feel better but causes our pain – which we constantly try to bury and get on with our lives – to resurface.
Nobody takes the decision to cut off their immediate family lightly.
Before we blocked them on Facebook they’d be pictured in happy snaps with Michael’s sister. She’d tag us, presumably egged on by them, in a misguided attempt to make us feel like we were the ones missing out.
And now, as they sat just metres away from me, Michael and Rose, it was another deliberate attempt to creep their way back into our lives.
Rose picks the same restaurant for her birthday every year and until her 4th birthday her grandparents joined us. That’s how they knew we’d be there.
Whilst no one knows what’s going on behind closed doors in the Beckhams’ feud, I do know this – it’s time Victoria and David, two loving parents with the best intentions I’m sure, let Brooklyn and his wife Nicola be.
It’s clear from this week’s shocking news that Brooklyn, 26, has sent his parents a “desist” letter from his lawyers, instructing them to not even tag him on social media, that he and Nicola believe the famous couple are not respecting their boundaries.
While many think it’s a rather Gen Z move – to cut out or block your parents – I’m a woman in my fifties and I know that sometimes it is the only option
While many think it’s a rather Gen Z move – to cut out or block your parents – I’m a woman in my fifties and I know that sometimes it is the only option, and it can be the only way of potentially reconciling or repairing the damaged relationship.
People will judge me and say I’m cold hearted for backing my husband into a corner and callous for cutting my daughter’s grandparents out of her life. I’m sure they say the same about Brooklyn and would even liken me to his wife Nicola, 31.
Unless you have been in the midst of a tangled family estrangement you have no idea. Each time Michael’s parents get in touch it ends in heartache – we were seething about the stunt they pulled in the restaurant for months.
Any minute chance of a reconciliation diminishes with every trick they pull.
I first met my husband’s family in 2002 when I was 27, a few months after we got together At first, they were really smiley — possibly a bit over-the-top friendly.
But Michael seemed tense. After one of our early meetings, he asked if I liked them, then said, “They’re not as nice as they make out, you know.”
Over time, I found out exactly what he meant and eventually, I told Michael he had to choose — me or them.
Thankfully, he chose me and we cut them off completely. One in five UK families cut off family members, with ten per cent severing contact with their mums and 20 per cent cutting out dads.
For me, the red flags came about a year into our relationship.
David’s mum would often be late — once by two hours when we hosted Christmas dinner — or would suddenly change plans.
I would call it being awkward for awkward’s sake.
‘Narcissistic traits’
Before our wedding in April 2008, my mum offered us £1,000 out of the blue.
In contrast, my in-laws said they had spent enough on their son all his life and didn’t want to do it any more. But I thought it was strange, as I’d been brought up in a generous household.
When we had our daughter in 2012, their odd behaviour went into overdrive.
They wanted to see their granddaughter whenever they liked and would get angry if we said no — even if a visit clashed with her bedtime routine.
They started accusing us of keeping their granddaughter from them, which was so far from the truth.
In the end, I became so paranoid that I’d text them every Monday morning, detailing what I was doing that week to tell them when I was free.
It made me feel very on edge and they would often just reply with: “No, not this week, thanks.”
We said we’d had enough and explained how frustrated we were feeling with the relationship
One day they said they wanted to open a bank account for Rose, but Michael didn’t trust their motives as his mum once spent all his childhood savings on herself.
And when his grandad left him £250, his parents said they would invest it. He never saw it again.
During my second pregnancy in 2013, I had a missed miscarriage (when the baby has died but the mother experiences no symptoms of this). Afterwards we asked if we could stay at their caravan on the coast to recuperate, but they said no, dishing out a lame excuse that they didn’t have time to clean it.
Over the years they also made digs about my weight, comparing me to an obese friend when I’m not even overweight.
In 2015, at our daughter’s third birthday party, a friend commented on my mother-in-law’s behaviour. She had watched her gushing over every child there apart from her own granddaughter.
That night we came across narcissistic personality disorder on Google. Michael read a book called You’re Not Crazy — It’s Your Mother by Danu Morrigan and checked off every point on a list of narcissistic traits.
It was also the first time we’d come across the idea of going ‘no contact’, the name commonly given to a decision like ours, where we’ve put our own mental health first.
The final straw was at Christmas 2015, when my daughter brought home a toy torch she had been playing with at their house – after they had said she couldn’t.
‘Cruel’
They were so angry, they made her apologise and said we must return it immediately. They moaned about it so much, I ended up posting it.
In January 2016, we finally sent a recorded letter telling them how we felt. We said we’d had enough and explained how frustrated we were feeling with the relationship.
They emailed us, venting their anger and saying we were cruel. But when we met them in person, they didn’t say anything to our faces.
Feeling they were losing us, my father-in-law said his wife was getting poorly, never specifying how, and that Michael should call her. We knew it wasn’t true.
We were at the end of our tether. I told my husband I didn’t want to be a part of their lives any more and, in despair, said, “It’s either them or me.”
In October 2016, he phoned his dad and told him to stop calling.
On reflection, I know I did the right thing giving Michael an ultimatum. It was the push he needed to end this dysfunctional relationship.
Sadly, Michael has no happy memories of his childhood. He recalls being locked out of the house for being naughty and how he and his sister used to be happier when they were away from home.
He also finds it hard to take the blame or responsibility for his actions because as a child he was repeatedly punished for innocent mistakes.
Each time they get in touch it feels like they are belittling us and it ruins our day. It brings us back into the drama – we end up spending a few days stressing about it
You’d think birthdays and Christmas might be hard, but these occasions make us thankful they are not in our lives. They always made an occasion stressful. Nowadays, we get cards from them but they go straight in the bin.
Michael is happier to be free of them than I am. Our daughter does not ask about them, which is why we made the decision to ignore them, and leave the restaurant before cutting the cake.
But why should we be backed into making those decisions? I’d respect them more if they allowed us some distance and acknowledged their faults.
Perhaps then we would consider a reconciliation. Instead, they continue to send occasional texts to Michael, protesting their innocence.
They come as one narcissistic team even though Michael’s dad once tried to instigate a meet up, blaming the issues we have on his wife.
In reality, we know he would always take her side – the woman who the rest of the family revolves around – because he fears her wrath.
Each time they get in touch it feels like they are belittling us and it ruins our day. It brings us back into the drama – we end up spending a few days stressing about it.
A year ago my father-in-law got in touch saying he had listened to a podcast about a man who had left his family for a cult. He asked if that is what happened to us.
This sums up how insane it is to be in a relationship with them — for now at least we are so lucky to be out of the madness.
Michael says: “I’ve never regretted making the decision, ever. It is hard sometimes because I’ve lost my parents and my daughter has lost her grandparents, but they are not the loving people they like to portray to the outside world.
“Behind closed doors, they are monsters.”
