I've never had a good relationship with my mother. I have gone LC before but she's become outraged quickly without ever allowing me to explain why. I've felt she's got better sometimes and let her back in, but it always eventually bites me. She doesn't want to communicate properly or in an empathetic way, she seemingly just wants what she wants and doesn't care how I feel.
E.g. Today.
DS had aspiration pneumonia when he was 8mo from choking on a piece of food that another family member gave him. I have developed a lot of anxiety around him eating and I need to feed him myself. My parents came round to see DGC and my M immediately took DS (who is now 10mo) and walked off with him to feed him - although she knew - and I had made it clear many times in emails, spoken, all communication, very apologetically - that I had anxiety around feeding him and I wanted to do it myself, so I can be sure he's safe and not experience anxiety/fear that someone else isn't doing it properly.
I called after her and reminded her verbally to please let me feed him (and suggested other things she could do with the other DGC.) she immediately became very angry, saying how dare you tell me what to do, you've got a nerve for speaking to me like that (i had not been confrontational at all, more apologetic) and she marched away with DS.
I followed her and got a bit angry. Usually I am a lot more passive but I have been reflecting on my relationship with her and finding my true feelings a lot more. I told her that if she wasn't prepared to do what I asked, she should leave. This made her even worse and she started accusing me of being a terrible mother to have let it happen in the first place and that I should "take a good look at myself." I said regardless, if you are going against what I ask, you need to leave. I was following her room to room at this point as she was walking away while I was talking. She then launched into this poor me thing where she said I was making her a pariah. I said it's not about you, it's about my anxiety, but you're making it about you. Then comes her childish bit "oh just shut up will you." "Oh piss off with your anxiety." "What a fuss about nothing." "Time you lived in the real world."
My Ddad has been around all this time but is completely and deliberately ignoring this argument just like he has always done. He talks to us both separately and appears to agree with us both, but when he is in the middle of it he pretends it isn't happening. This was definitely a problem in childhood.
So she went off and did her thing with ds. I was extremely upset and crying because it does cause me a lot of anxiety that something will happen to him. In the meantime she was sarcastically calling me a "precious flower" over her shoulder, and saying things to my dad like "don't upset little miss precious over there," and stuff about how I am ungrateful for their support with my DC (which i never ask for and which they actually enjoy much more than I enjoy.) and how she'd never been more offended in her life than being asked to leave by me if she didn't hand her own GC over. I tried to explain several times, very calmly, that the problem was not with her personally, it was with me. But as someone who should love me and want me to feel safe, she should let me do it myself. But again that was met with her continuing to feed him and, short of getting physical with her, there was nothing else I could do.
They stayed in total about two hours. Once my DC were in bed I made them a cup of tea and tried again to talk to my mum about what happened but she just would not engage. When I tried to tell her how I felt again she said I was "like a dog with a bone," then was ostentatiously yawning when I talked and said "you're really boring us. Please stop. You're obsessed, just get over it."
If I try and see this objectively, even from the point of view that I was being precious, if two people are functional people and have argued to the point of shouting, there is usually a time when everyone is calmer that you communicate about it to try and make it not happen next time? Isn't there? Well she doesn't do that. She is happy to come, take what she wants and leave again, never mind me crying, or wanting to discuss it.
She also says things like "we love the GC to the ends of the earth, but we have to put up with you to get to them."
My dad tried to speak to me alone and I explained how I felt to him and he understood. I calmed down after that and relaxed around her again, which she liked because it meant I was no longer holding her to account.
But this is the trap I always fall into. Dad listens to my feelings and empathises and so I relax around them. Then she uses that gap when I am relaxed to push my boundaries.
I've read all the toxic parents stuff and daughters of narcissistic mothers. Sometimes I forget it all, especially when she lays it on thick with how ungrateful I am and what a fuss I make, it makes me want to default to apologetic mode and think there must be something wrong with me. But there isn't, is there?
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AIBU about my mother?
20 replies
Lewinskylakinsky · 27/04/2017 03:30
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