Hi everybody,
(EDIT: I finally got to the end and realised this is very long, sorry 
)
It's been a while since I've been here. You look all different and newy!
I left a couple of years ago for RL as I was addicted to MN!
Anyway, I've come to a stumbling block in my life wrt my mother and I don't have anyone I can:
a) trust to be brutally honest with me
b) offer advice without emotion
...then I remembered you folks can be trusted to do both :D
I apologise in advance if this reads a little all over the place, I'm cutting a very long story short...
My relationship with my mother has never been great. She has always relied on emotional blackmail to keep me in my place. A couple of years ago I wrote her a letter which basically said I would no longer allow her to control me the way she had been, that I loved her but could not continue to live my life under her cloud. She didn't talk to me for weeks but the upshot is, we talk now, exchange niceties and general chat.
More recently she has slipped back into her old ways and I can feel her grip getting tighter. She's back to guilt-tripping, aggressive outbursts and all that other emotional crap. Grand, I leave her to it. I don't rise to her, I don't become confrontational. I listen, tell her clearly I feel differently about whatever the topic is and she hangs up abruptly without saying anything (The telephone way to say 'fuck you' without actually saying it!)
Through counselling (I just can't spell that word!), soul-searching, rearing my own child and the support of my DH I have learned how to cope with her. It still upsets me in the moment but I can let it go quite quickly now.
I'm finally at the problem...yay!
She started it on my child! DD is 15yo. She's my one and only so anything I know about teens is based on her. I have no other examples or 'typical' teens to reference so what I'm asking you folks is... Do I need to protect my child from my mother or am I completely over-reacting and perhaps my mother was right?
When dd gets a call from my mother she entertains her for a very short time (she's busy being a teenager!) so my mother takes the hump and gets on to me about it. I say "she's just a kid, she hardly talks to me because she's too busy snap-chatting or FBing or whatever other crap they do on their phones. She's not being dismissive, she's just got a teenage brain which has far more pressing things to do than answer a million questions and have half hour long conversations with grown-ups" My mother then slates me for raising a child with no manners.
I have to say at this point that
a) DD is one of the most polite girls you could meet
b) DD was bullied terribly for years and is soft as shit
c) DD is hyper-emotional and feels bad for sometimes breathing the same air as others
Mum says, all the time, how I need to toughen her up. She's too polite. She's too nice etc but then for the first time last night she tore strips off her and me (verbalised to me not DD) because when she rang DD, DD told her she was eating and she'd have to go as her food was going to go cold. My mother did the same thing she's always done to me, hung up!
DD got upset and I told her not to worry about it. She said she'd text, which she did and said "sorry Granny, my food was going to go cold. Love you x".
The response was "aw, ye know what DD, don't worry about it. I'll talk to you some other time. You enjoy talking to your friends"
That right there BOILED MY PISS! (which is why I need your help/advice)
She then rang me and told me DD was very mean and basically told her to fuck off. I was in the room when DD was talking to her and I know for sure she was pleasant and chirpy so I said as much to my mother. I defended her being a normal teen and told my mother to relax about it. She went into a rant, I stayed calm, said we would have to agree to disagree and she ...yep, hung up!
Two minutes later she's ringing again. I ignore. A voicemail appears so I ask DH to listen as I can't bear to here her shouting. I ask what she said and he says "she now understands it wasn't off the grass DD licked it" and some other shite.
Ten minutes later FB is full of 'I'm all alone', 'nobody knows my pain', 'nobody loves me' type quotes.
My question is ... am I being a bitch, a bad mother for making excuses, a shit daughter for pulling back?
Or, seriously, do I need to protect my DD from the emotional blackmail I was subjected to growing up and into adulthood?
Please be very honest. I can take a bashing and thanks in advance
FC
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Relationships
My toxic mother and my teenage daughter - advice needed pls
FortyCoats · 07/07/2015 11:35
She sounds VERY like my mother! And unfortunately as another poster has said, my dad has always been too weak to sort her out.
I've gone down to virtually no contact with my mother because of this, and the relief I felt when I made that decision was incredible. It was a hard thing to do, but she'd assaulted me and I realised that I wasn't going to take any more. I've not heard from her for 3 months until a couple of days ago when she rang to tell me that my dad is dying. I knew this (he's in a dementia home) and yet she still had a go at me for not saying "Good Morning" properly 
My dad will probably pass away in the next few days, and all I can think about is what the funeral will be like, with her there glowering at me, and that's if she tells me when or where it will be?
If you decide to go no contact then you will feel many emotions. Probably some guilt, because she's your mum, but also a great weight lifted off your shoulders. I felt literally lighter, and even though she pops into my head probably on a daily basis it's getting less and less.
There will probably be people who disapprove of going no contact, but they're not the ones in your shoes. I've come across several people who will say "oh but she's old" "she must be very lonely" "she's your mum" but none of those are a good excuse/valid reason for nasty behaviour. Don't put up with it for you and your daughter's sakes. You deserve better than having to put up with her moody behaviour. 
Can I suggest you block her comments on fb? You don't need that kind of PA shit to make you feel bad. Nor does your dd. I'm racking my brains to see why she is divorced and lonely .
May I suggest very low contact as a goal because then you are dealing with the here and now as opposed to the future. She most definitely deserves a back seat for a long while.
No contact is the way to go, or very low contact. I think we put up with it but when they start to pick on our chidren we have to protect.
These types of parent thrive on drama and don't care who they upset in their missión. They use people.
You sound like a lovely and caring mama with a wonderful DD, well done. Keep strong.
Forty
I understand why you are afraid of hurting her, but think for a minute. She doesn't give a monkeys about hurting you. All she thinks about is herself. In some ways, she wants to hurt you. Why else would she keep doing it?
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