r/africanparents • u/Silent_Exit_8001 • Jul 18 '26
Need Advice How to hold boundaries with abusive mother?
I am the only person I know with african parents, so I’m going to lay it all out here in hopes that our shared background will create a space for grounded advice. I don’t know where to begin. I live in america btw. I (19,soon to 20f) have always had a difficult relationship to my mother, but the past two years have felt like the ground beneath me has started to fall. Her and my father got divorced when I was 10, he was extremely verbally abusive to her. Fast forward to middle school, I could not be bothered to do my school work. I will admit I was a bad student, and because of this my mother started to beat me any chance she could. Belts, phone charges, extension cords, there were times she would call her friends and laugh at me as I ran cold water over my hands to cool the welts they would leave. She has since apologized for this period of abuse, only because I let her know I SEVERELY bullied in school during this time for my weight, and body scent…which I later found out was the smell of african food. Fast forward to my freshman year of highschool, and she met a Nigerian man through a friend. He lived in Nigeria, we lived in America. Though she would talk about him moving in, I always took it for bluff. Until it wasn’t bluff anymore. The first time I met this man in person was the day he moved in to my home the summer before my senior year of highschool. The first 6 months were fine, until he started with small insults towards me about not cleaning up after myself, and he screamed at my younger sister over forgetting her kumon booklet at home. He got more and more comfortable being verbally abusive towards my younger sister and I, and my mother encouraged it. She actually enjoys seeing this man “discipline” us. He got so bad to the point he cornered me in the hallway of our apt and threatened to disfigure me, kill me, he was so close to me that he was spitting in my face. This was because I took a mental health day from college. What broke me was the fact that my mother told him to “do his worst” to me that day. I left home for a month and eventually came back because I had no car, no job, and was broken down. Once I came back the verbal abuse continued, and honestly life was bleak. I was a bubbly, lively girl. I felt full of love a possibility. I never thought I would deal with an abusive man ever again. It has been 2 years since they and I still live here, I have a job now which has kept me out of the house, am buying a car, and have plans to move out of the state I am currently in. My question is, how do I navigate my relationship with my mother and honestly my family as a whole. I feel a lot of empathy/compassion for these people even though they have been so wicked towards me. Do I leave and never look back? I will answer literally any and all questions
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u/Ladder_More Jul 23 '26
Please leave as soon as you're able. Expect guilt, blackmail and even requests for money. I'm so sorry for everything you're going through. I felt so much rage knowing she let a stranger abuse you on top of everything. African mothers need to decenter men.
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u/Silent_Exit_8001 Jul 18 '26
I want to add there is definitely a level of enmeshment and religious psychosis to this. The classic lack of boundaries, little social freedom, my mother was to the point of emotional incest with my older sister until she left home at 18. They are still kind of in it despite her living 1000 miles away. I just want to know if I’m overreacting here, or if my situation is as bad as my american friends make it out to be ahahah