I won't go into all the details, but I've always had a rocky relationship with my DM, sometimes downright terrible. She can often be pleasant company, but I am always on edge because anything can set her off. She then tends to play the martyr, and be emotionally manipulative.
The thing is, I don't know how to respond when she is in this state. Normally I try not to engage as much as possible, so I will say nothing, or very little. Sometimes she pushes me so far that I crack and get angry at her, but unfortunately this makes me look like the bad guy and provides further fuel for her.
I'll give a couple of examples - how should I respond in these situations? 1. She picks up DS (9 months) and he cries. She hands him to me and says to him wistfully "You're the only grandchild who doesn't smile at me. X,y,z always smile at me when I see them." In this case I told her what she said was upsetting 2. She goes on and on about friends/family who have wronged her in some way, eg. not made enough effort for her birthday when she did for them. I tend to listen and not engage but sometimes it gets too much as I don't have any beef with the rest of the family. If I protest, then she'll say "well you obviously don't care about me, so I might as well just go home". 3. She pries into my life, asking me very direct questions about what I earn, my outgoings, what I do with my time etc. It might not sound too bad, but it feels like a grilling rather than pleasant small talk. I tend to answer all of these questions as if I challenged her motives she would deny anything and make me out to be the bad guy. 4. She complains about herself all the time - her life, her health etc., even though any bad things are mostly self-inflicted. I think she wants me to show concern, but I feel like it's attention-seeking so I tend to say "that's not very healthy, you shouldn't do that", and leave it there.
Basically what I'm trying to say is I can never "win" any arguments or come out of any conversations looking good. Any advice from people who've been there?
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Responding to emotionally manipulative DM?
5 replies
timealone · 15/06/2015 20:14
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