Dear Joely: Should I Just Outdrink My Mother?

When the family party starts with cake and ends with you defending your life choices.

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Dear Joely,

My sister turns 40 next month and there's a big family gathering planned — all the immediate family (there are four of us kids, plus Mum and Dad), along with aunts, uncles, cousins, partners and kids.

Over the years I've learned to dread these get-togethers. It's not seeing everyone that's the problem — it's what happens once the drinks start flowing. My mother gets very personal, often downright nasty, and I can see her mood start to turn after a few wines. My aunt usually joins in on whatever her cause is, and then I've got both of them gunning for me. It feels like a sport for them.

They tend to target my job (I work in healthcare, specialising in abortion and contraception services) and the fact that I'm single by choice — endless fodder for judgment and meanness, apparently.

My Dad will sometimes touch my arm as a small gesture of comfort, but he never speaks up — he doesn't want to rock the boat. My brothers ignore it entirely. My sister has tried standing up for me a few times, but it never goes very far — she's always been the golden child, so even her pushback doesn't carry much weight with Mum.

I'm close with my sister and want to be there for her party. But I've been through this so many times, and I always end up leaving early, hurt and upset. My mother never mentions her behaviour afterwards, which somehow makes it worse — like it never happened.

I know a common suggestion would be to talk to her directly, but I don't think that would land. She tends to play the victim and would likely get hysterical rather than hear me.

I'm already anxious about this, three weeks out. What can I do — either to protect myself on the day, or to stop dreading these events altogether?

Yours,
Considering trying to outdrink her

Dear Considering Trying to Outdrink Her,

Don't outdrink her. You need your reflexes, and she's had years to train for this event.

I can understand why you're already anxious. You're not catastrophising about something that might happen. You've been to this particular show before, you know the cast, and apparently after a few wines your mother and aunt perform a little two-hander called Everything That's Wrong With Your Life.

The important thing is that you're not going for them. You're going because you love your sister and want to be at her 40th birthday. So I don't think you should surrender the party in advance just because two other guests have repeatedly behaved badly at previous ones.

I do think you should go differently this time.

First, have your own transport and your own exit plan. Tell your sister beforehand that you're looking forward to being there, but if Mum starts on you, you won't be sticking around for it. That way, if you do leave, your sister knows exactly why and you don't spend half the drive home worrying that you've ruined her birthday.

More importantly, decide now that you are not going to defend yourself.

Your job does not require a submission to the Family Ethics Committee. Your relationship status isn't a vacancy your mother needs to fill. You don't have to persuade either of these women that your life is acceptable before you're allowed to enjoy it.

The moment it starts:

“Mum, we're not doing this tonight.”

If she keeps going:

“I came to celebrate my sister. I'm not discussing my life with you when you've been drinking.”

Then leave the conversation.

And I mean literally. Pick up your glass and move. Go and talk to a cousin. Find the children. Become passionately interested in whatever's happening near the sausage rolls. You don't have to leave the whole party merely because your mother has opened court proceedings.

That's the bit I'd really like you to change this time. At previous gatherings, it sounds as though Mum and Auntie Chardonnay have been able to choose both the subject and the duration of the attack. They start, you defend yourself, they escalate, everyone else becomes fascinated by the carpet, and eventually you leave hurt.

No.

They can start. They don't get to decide that you stay.

If your mother follows you and continues, then yes, go home. No showdown. No devastating final speech from the doorway. No attempt to make a drunk woman finally understand something she has been declining to understand while sober for years.

As for your family, everyone appears to have found a role that keeps them comfortably out of the firing line. Your aunt supplies ammunition. Your brothers have apparently entered witness protection. Your sister occasionally attempts peacekeeping. And Dad touches your arm.

I'm sure the arm-touch is loving. But unless Dad's arm contains a tranquilliser dart for your mother, we're going to have to classify it as emotional support rather than active defence.

The good news is that you don't actually need any of them to rescue you.

That's also how I think you begin to stop dreading these gatherings. At the moment, the anxiety starts three weeks early because you're imagining the same ending you've had before. Mum gets drunk. Mum gets nasty. Aunt joins in. You endure it until you can't, then go home devastated.

Give the story a different ending.

Go to your sister's party. Have a lovely time. Don't explain your career. Don't defend being single. Don't enter the witness box. And if your mother decides that her daughter's 40th is the perfect occasion to get pissed and conduct another performance review of her other daughter, let her discover what happens when the employee simply walks out of the meeting.

She'll probably pretend nothing happened the next day.

She can.

You'll know something did.

You stopped standing there for it.

Yours, declining to appear for the defence,
Joely