Mother taking over

[harleysmammy]

Bit of a long story sorry, but please help

My mother is the worse excuse of a mother there is. She has never been there and only makes an effort a few times every so often with both me and my brother. We've both always lived with my dad, he bought us up single parent and he still does everything for us - he's the one who takes me too all my midwife appointments and everything else. Me nor my brother speak to my mother unless we really have too, but my brothers wife and me fell pregnant with only 2 months ish between. When my brothers wife was pregnant, he didnt tell her and she found out through friends and she didnt bother what so ever. She now has 2 grandsons and my boy on the way. She doesnt bother with the first one, nor the second one and when my brothers baby was born 2 weeks ago he sent her a photo saying "this is your grandson" she didnt say congratulations or hes beautiful like normal people would, she just said "lovely" and that was that. She has tried to make some effort with me and my baby but to me, she should have made the effort when i was a baby and i dont want anything from her. She also is trying to get close with my dad again, which means he feels sorry for her and whats me to talk to her. I do phone her for my dads sake because she'll keep on at him otherwise but everything i do phone, she takes over and it drives me crazy. She buys the baby things that i dont even like or want and even when i tell her not too, she does it. I want to breastfeed and not express, i told her this and i told her my midwife advised expressing constantly but my mother turned around and said midwives dont know everything and that i should express and not breast feed. I told her no i want to breast feed and she turned around and said she would get me an expresser because i would "see sense"..to that i lost my rag and told her to for god sake listen to me once in a while. Shes also got her hair off because my dad and my nan are my birthing partners and she isnt. She lives 200 miles away and probably wont even be down to where i live in time to be my partner anyway, i dont want her there but she wont listen. She keeps saying its everyone else trying to tell me what to do and take over but its her. Whenever i tell my nan (dads mam) and my dad about what shes like, they get annoyed too but tell me to just be civil, but its got to the point where i cant take much more of her. Im so fed up with her telling me what to do and what not to do and thinking she's a fully trained midwife and mam of the year when in actual fact neither of her kids want anything to do with her so she cant have been that good. I was so excited to pack my own hospital bag and she kept going on and on and on for months that she was going to buy me a pre made one from the internet, i told her no day after day but she wouldnt listen until my dad went out and bought me the bag i wanted just to shut her up. Shes not coming to my baby shower but she's even trying to control that, telling my best friend and my cousins what to do. Shes saying she wants to get a car seat for her car (like i said she lives 200 miles away and ive never even been to where she lives so i dont plan to start now) but my baby will never use it because he'll never need to go in her car. She gets her wig off whenever i say that my nan and my great nan are his grandmothers too and she isnt the only one, and she says "hes my first grandchild your nan has 5 of you" but he isnt her first. I dont really want my son knowing her at all but she's like this bad cold that you cant shake off, if it wasnt for the fact she keeps on at my dad for him to get me to phone her and i wanna make his life easier, i would have blocked her ages ago. How do i tell her to just leave us alone? She's making me 100 x more stressed than i already was and i cant deal with her, any advise on what to do? X

[LuckyinOctober]

Hey, sounds tough. One thought I have is it sounds like there's a lot of difficult past history and strong, possibly unresolved feelings there and I wonder if some counselling would help you process how you feel about your mum and how you want your relationship with her to be now, and how to go about that? Just thinking it might be a bigger emotional issue that deserves to be worked through properly rather than something easy to give advice on from a thread where posters here don't know either of you