My mother has all sorts of issues. She isn't a very nice person to put it mildly, and a lot of her life is spent in festering resentment, or judgement of others.
One of her reasons for judging others is deciding some aspect about them is inadequate - and then she decides to "fix" this by constantly being "helpful" with suggestions, buying stuff, doing things unasked - and then getting massively resentful when the other person isn't grateful enough "after all she's done for them". She believes that "no personal effort is too great when you know the person and you know what they really need" - and consequently the recipient should put in an equal amount of effort showing their undying gratitude to her. Particularly when she makes it abundantly clear just how much she has sacrificed for them.
So in my case it's that I am boring, stupid, unsociable, unhospitable, ugly, deliberately dumpy, dowdy and scruffy, and lack any concept of good taste or manners. Her idea of how to fix this is to have told me this regularly for the last 40 years, and every now and then buy something expensive that I haven't asked for and don't want - and then carp on about what an ungrateful, ugly slob of a daughter she has, to anyone and everyone.
Every time she and my father go away she buys stuff - comes back saying "I bought this, you probably won't want it, but I did it anyway just to get your goat. You're so dowdy, this might help." I then say thankyou, remind her that it's really not necessary to buy things but the gift is much appreciated. She then carps endlessly abouy how much she has given me over the years and how OTHER people have daughters sho appreciate their mothers' huge personal sacrifices.
When it gets too much I eventually say "our house is really too small, please don't just buy things without asking, we really don't have the space", this is taken as rank ingratitude, the carping gets worse, my father gets furious and screams and shouts at me for being vile... I say "look all of this has been very much appreciated but none of it was actually asked for"... and then the next time they go away it all happens again... and the cycle goes on and on. Every gift comes with criticism. I refuse any offers of anything from either of them, but I can't stop them just buying stuff and then throwing it at me (sometimes literally - my mother once bought a set of guest towels because apparently ours weren't good enough - and threw the plastic bag full of towels at my head while telling me she thought my housekeeping was disgusting).
There are bloody crates of stuff she's bought sitting in our garage that I feel too guilty to get rid of, but that I don't want to be reminded of.
How do you deal with this? It's not just me she does it to - it's most people she knows well. My parents can't understand why they have very few friends and why friendships never last.
Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody
Relationships
transactional/ one-sided / martyr relationships where you don't actually like the martyr
parentsvsPIL · 16/10/2016 20:36
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