My mum's coming to visit in 3 hours, I just want to cry :(

[MrsHuxtable]

We don't really get on. She's not a horrible person (I wish because then I could just stop talking to her) but very destructive and passive aggresive. She's messed my childhood and consequently my adult me up big time and I have come to the realisation that she's simply toxic.

I can't get myself to show affection to anyone in front of her. I even cancelled my originally planned wedding and got married with just a few friends because I knew I wouldn't turn up if she was there.

Now I'm 6months pregnant and she has more or less invited herself from abroad to come and stay with me for 10 days. I'm signed off sick so have no chance to escape her. I don't want her to see me with a bump and I certainly can't deal with her touching it.

She will be here in 3 hours. I really really don't know how to get through the next 10 days. She has no boundaries.

[mummytime]

Can you not book her a B and B or Hotel room? If necessary occupy all spare space quickly with boxes and painting material, so there is no room at the inn.
She "invited herself" so she has to deal with the consequences.

She is horrible...she is passive aggressive and destructive, that is horrible.

I think you need to go to you GP and get yourself some counselling.

Good luck!

[ImperialBlether]

What a horrible situation. It's awful that you can't bear to think of her touching you.

What sort of things does she do to upset you?

Do you have any friends who can help you to deal with her? What's your husband like with her?

[AddamsflimFlamily]

That sounds awful but difficult to get out of it now. 'She has no boundaries' - OK, so you have to strengthen your own boundaries. Practice clearly and calmly telling her what you are and are not OK with. Take some time out every day, even if it's grocery shopping, whatever, don't let her come with you, say you need a little time to yourself. Ask your DH to support you and be around as much as possible to back you up.

And come and post and let us know how it's going!

[MrsHuxtable]

There's no way I can make her stay somewhere else. She's not being horrible enough for that. I have written about her on here in the past with a different name and everyone suggested she was physically and emotionally abusive to me in my childhood, some even say sexually (though I can't see that bit).

I feel like she is trying to be nice now but has damaged me so much. Then she falls back into her old patterns and says the most horrible stuff. She still can't see what she did wrong.

The last time I saw her we got into a fight and she told me to keep my voice down as shouting was what I could do best and that even when I was little, neighbours used to tell her off for the noise. I said that that was only because she beat the shit out of me so therefore wasn't my fault. Her reply: I had to because you were so horrible. Yeah, because small children are just "horrible" without a reason...

I've had counselling about this before, paid privately, but it didn't help and now, with a baby, I can't afford to go anywhere else.

I appreciate that she was a single mum and that must have been hard but I have no respect left for her because of the way she treated me. It makes me sick to the stomach that a grown woman of nearly 60 is still bitter about her divorce almost 30 years ago and can't see that she contributed to the situation. It's all my dad's fault apparently and according to her, I'm just like him. She has told me all my life, how I have a bad character and inherited those traits from him.

Why is it that I don't want her to see my bump? Can I tell her to respect my boundaries and not touch it? Is that something she will want to do?

[GertieWooster]

Was she critical of your looks when you were a child? Yes of course you can tell her to not touch you - sweetie you don't need permission to have boundaries.

What positives does she bring to your life (if any) and do you want her to have a relationship with your child?

[mummytime]

I really really advise you to get some counselling, ask your GP to put you on the NHS waiting list.
Having a baby brings to the surface a lot of things from our childhoods. I have at least one friend whose PND was partially triggered by unresolved issues with her parents.
My Mum was a single parent, but she never called me horrible, never said I was as bad as my Dad, never blamed me. (She also had a difficult mother, but had overcome those issues.)
You mother hasn't respected your boundaries before, so you will have to be very forceful to get her to do so now.

Please at least make a GP appointment and go and tell him how you are feeling etc. If it is in a couple of days time the stress of dealing with your mother should be evident.
You are finding it hard to say No to her because that is how she has conditioned you.

[ItsMeAndMyPumpkinNow]

Can I tell her to respect my boundaries

Yes. But when she trespasses your boundaries, as she will no doubt do, you have to be prepared to enforce them. By repeating "Mum, don't touch my bump" like a broken record. By walking away. By telling her, "Mum, you touched me when I asked you not to. Leave my house now."

This will be very hard to do for someone still in the FOG as you seem to be, but it is necessary if you want to be respected; if you want to acquire the room to be yourself (and not what she wants you to be).

[andreasutton]

Hi, this sounds horrible and Im sorry I dont have any advise on how to handle this situation.

You mentioned you cannot afford to go for counselling, you can go to your GP and get referred for counselling, I did this after having reoccurring nightmares after an incident with my DD. They also got me in very quickly. So it would be worth going to see your GP to see what they can offer.

I have had counselling many times for various things from being bullied in school to dealing with an alcoholic ex husband. sometimes it works and others it doesn't.

I hope you try and it helps you.

A xx

[MrsHuxtable]

Imperial She keeps undermining me in a way I can't even describe. She makes me feel like a failure for having dropped out of uni (due to severe depression). I moved to the UK to be with DH. She used to hate him and say I would end up in the gutter with 6 kids and no money but now she loves him and critisises me constantly " That poor husband of yours!". Now it's also "That poor baby of yours", not in a jokey way but deadly serious because I said I don't want to paint the nursery pink.

I have 3 half-sisters from my dad's second marriage and we get on brilliantly. My mum can't accept this as they are the product of my dad's marriage after her. She has manipulated me all my life into thinking that my dad's 2nd wife broke up their marriage but I have recently found out that my parents had separated 2 years before my dad actually met that woman. So now instead of being happy that I have a healthy and supportive relationship to my siblings, she tries to destroy that.

You can really sum her up with one word: bitter.
She's letting herself go emotionally, and in respect to her health and blames a man and a divorce 30 years ago. She's unable to move on.

She keeps bitching about my dad which is so hurtful to me. I know he's got his flaws but he is actually working on himself. He's had therapy for his failed marriage and seems like he has actually learnt something.

[LydiaWickham]

Will your DH be around to help? Could he take a few days off work?

You can tell her you don't want her to stay in the house, or that there's not room, it's your house, you are an adult, this is your space and she can only be in it with your permission. Hard after your childhood to believe, but it's true. If she won't leave, you can. You can go to a friends, or maybe PIL's house. Tell her you wno't come back while she's there, make getting her out DH's job, he will do it for you, you are pregnant with his child, he will rather upset her than you.

[ItsMeAndMyPumpkinNow]

She is a horrible, horrible mother. She says hurtful things to you on purpose. Could you imagine doing that to your own DC?

Your feelings are completely understandable. You would be perfectly justified to pull her up each and every time she upsets you, or to cut her out of your life completely. She has not earned her place in it.

[MrsHuxtable]

Gertie She wasn't critical of my looks so much when I was a child. More from when I was a teenager. Telling me I was fat (size 10 max) and not well groomed (also not true). She couldn't deal with me growing up so when I had my first boyfriend at 16, she kept calling me a whore and him a pimp and making inappropriate remarks about my sex life (which didn't even really exist at that point), like "Did you enjoy fucking him?".

[LydiaWickham]

oh x post - you do't really need to have this person in your life. You really don't.

Go to your sisters, call her tell her you won't be home and she's not welcome. Switch off your phone.

You are an adult now, you are allowed to choose who to have in your life.

[latedeveloper]

Why is she in your life still? she sounds absolutely vile. Agree with the suggestion to book her into a b&b. Or at least at the first row ask her to leave. if she has no where else to stay offer to pay any extra costs for her to fly home.

It is just possible that if you massively stand up for yourself now she will improve her behaviour as she realise you will no longer take her shit.

If she doesn't then it doesn't sound like a great loss.

Do you really want this woman around your dc?

[YaMaYaMa]

Take control of the situation now. Book her into a B&B and tell her you're not feeling up to dealing with her, don't want anyone staying in the house with you and that you aren't prepared to discuss it further.

If she touches your bump say 'Don't do that, I don't like it'. If she does it again tell her if she carries on she wont be welcome in your home at all.

Easier said than done, I know. But I think you must take control of this now.

Poor you, OP. Hope you're pregnancy is going well and you are otherwise ok.

[MrsHuxtable]

I'm glad I live in a different country now but at the same time that makes me feel guilty as she is all by herself and has noone. I feel I can't cut her out. I can, however, pull her up every single time she says something hurtful. I have started doing that. She then starts to wollow in self-pity. Her favourite phrases in any given situation are " I can't do anything right." "Everyone is mean to me" " Noone respects and likes me".

I wonder why she is so lonely. She still lives where she grew up, her own mother is alive, her siblings are around, people she went to school with, people she has worked with. Yet she manages to fall out with everyone but of course it's never her fault, the problem is every other person.

Unfortunately she knows I'm signed off completly and I have no relatives or close friends nearby. I'm also a volunteer so maybe I could fake some shifts there...

[LydiaWickham]

You know why she's lonely, other people when treated the same as you don't put up with it, they cut her out. She is an adult who is capable of learning that if she wants people in her life she needs to be nice to them, she is choosing not to do that. This is her choice. If she is horrible to you and you cut her out, that's her choice too.

You are allowed to take control, ask your DH to back you up if need be.

Answers to her self pitying whines are "Well you could try being nice to people, and then they might not be mean back." "no one likes you because you are horrible to them, it's your behaviour that's the problem, not their responses to it."

[MrsHuxtable]

I'm seeing my GP tomorrow anyway so I will see if I can manage to ask him then about counselling. I'll probably inevitably burst into tears and he will think I'm a weirdo nut job as I was really upset last time I saw him and he had to keep me in until I had calmed down.

The only reason she still is in my life is because I feel so sorry for her. if I was in trouble, she would do her best to help me, it's just that she can't seem to stop herself from being cruel.

DH works from home (PhD) but has just said, he has to go out to study when she's here as she will sleep in his study and he can't fall behind. So I will be by myself with her mostly.

I appreciate all your responses btw and it helps me realise again, that the way my mum behaves is not normal and that it's not my fault. She was very succesful in making me believe all my life that I was bad and deserved everything I got, so knowing that this is not the case, is progress.

[YaMaYaMa]

Honestly, you need to take control now before your baby arrives. If you can, obviously.

I have a grandmother who is exactly the same - unhappy marriage (although that only ended when my granddad died a few years ago), has no friends, no family who speak to her (mostly dead now, but nobody bothered with her for the 30 years before), constant battles with neighbours, window cleaners, people in shops, hairdressers. Basically, everyone she comes into contact with. And is completely obvlivious to it being down to her bitter, twisted, arguementative, bad-minded personality. We just stopped engaging with it. We still see her but leave when she starts reverting to the usual behaviour. I no longer try and reason with her or rationalise with her.

You can't alter her so unless you later the way you react to her, then you are consigning yourself to a lifetime of misery by allowing her to affect you.

[CailinDana]

You seem to feel like you have a duty towards her. You don't. She had a duty towards you - to nurture you, to help you develop into a happy secure adult. She totally failed and is continuing to fail. She is still damaging you and you are allowing it to happen. You need to stop it. No one should be allowed to invite themselves to your house, least of all an abusive nasty woman like her and especially not when you're pregnant and ill. Tell her to stay away.

[YaMaYaMa]

Sorry, lots of spelling mistakes in there.

[CailinDana]

I really wonder why you keep saying she's "not horrible" - she clearly is! What kind of nutjob asks their daughter if she enjoys "fucking" her boyfriend!! That is way beyond normal and is absolutely vile. For that alone I would consider not having her in the house, but it sounds like she did a lot more than that.

[BertieBotts]

Some good boundary stuff on this site:

Understanding levels of boundaries
Boundaries are upheld with action
This one is a bit harder to follow but has some good points
Broken Window Theory (this is excellent).

Some of the language is a bit geared towards romantic relationships, but the same principles apply, although of course you can't break up with your mother.

[YaMaYaMa]

if I was in trouble, she would do her best to help me, it's just that she can't seem to stop herself from being cruel.


My mum has always said that my grandmother would love it if my mother was in trouble and she needed her help, not because she loves my mother and wants to look after her - it's because it would indebt my mother to her, would make her a central figure in my mum's life and would prove that my mum was dependant on her.

Sorry if that's not the case with you, but she sounds so similar to my grandmother