First, some background: I have a difficult relationship with my mother, who I strongly suspect has borderline personality disorder (ticks most of the boxes). I finally sought help for my own depression at the end of last year. I'm now seeing a therapist, and finding it really helpful to talk about the relationship with my mother, and how I handle her meltdowns / tantrums. I went no contact for 6 months about 10 years ago after a particularly explosive meltdown (Mum eventually got back in touch with me). For the past couple of years I've been attempting low contact - superficial skype conversation every 2-3 weeks (with occasional longer gaps after the inevitable tantrums).
I constantly feel like I'm walking on eggshells, just waiting for the next inevitable meltdown / nastiness (although I can never predict what will cause this). We had a Skype conversation last week where she was horrible to my 6yo son (had a real go at him for being "rude" essentially because he wasn't being as chatty as she wanted - DS was predictably confused). I shut down the conversation and said we would call back when she felt better. In most of our Skype conversations she will end up telling the kids off at some point (all completely counter-productive when it comes to building a relationship with her only GC).
We're travelling back to the UK in the summer (first visit in 18 months) and I had planned to travel to my parents' part of the country, rent a cottage nearby and see them for lunches / days out (to make sure we have somewhere to escape to when the inevitable breakdown happens). But now I'm not sure that even this will work, given my Mum can't even get 5 minutes through a Skype call without having a go at the kids. And ultimately I want to protect them from all this.
My therapist has said my Mum (now 70) is unlikely to change. I've considered going no contact again, but worried this won't necessarily help (not least because of fear of the guilt I will feel if she dies without us speaking again). I'm really not sure what to do next. Ignore and call again in a couple of weeks, pretending, as usual, that nothing's happened and having an inane conversation? Or a carefully worded email to say that she upset my son during our last call, that we can't speak if she does this, but we're here if she decides that she wants to call us and have a proper conversation. Or something else???
If you've got this far, thanks for reading. Any advice from those who are going through / have been through something similar much appreciated. I have dipped in and out of the stately homes thread (which gave me the impetus to seek help), but not posted on this before.
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Relationships
Toxic mother - next steps?
llamainayurt · 23/01/2017 08:18
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