To think these small comments from my Mum are actually quite mean?

Mins’s the same. She’s 89 now and still throws in something about my hair/ weight/ clothes nearly every time I see her. I have withdrawn emotionally almost totally, but it still makes me feel sad, both for me and ultimately for her, because I can see the unhappiness behind it.
When she’s dead I’m going to have a shit ton of therapy.

Definitely consider not telling her too much about your life or what to get up to. It all ends up as ammunition.
I echo the pp who mentioned to watch out for daughters in this scenario, if they can’t get a source out of you they will go after someone else!

@allatseawiththis omg the “have you given up” thing. I thought my mum was the only one who does this. Wtf is that about.

It's absolutely, jealousy, of their younger , attractive, intelligent and successful daughters.
It's narcissistic- and completely demoralising for the daughters.
Call them out on it every time.
Low contact and tell them nothing
It's short sighted of them and they lose out big time

Read this one again - it really is fabulous

I think you are right. They are deliberate put downs. And probably your mum is jealous of the life and opportunities you have, the number of friends and supporters you have.

Mine is/was similar. I withdrew a lot. Refused to acknowledge or comment back. She is 89 and the comments continue. Often criticisms of my parenting. She has 2 children - 1 of each sex. I (f) am not the golden child. She clearly prefers my male sibling but they do not have a great relationship. He does more for her now than I do - but he doesnt work, have a home to care for, relationship, friends. children, pets or a garden. I do/did! He needs the inheritance for his retirement years. I don't. So can be much more willing to step back if the pressure and comments become too much.

I throw my mum little tidbits occasionally. Took her to a concert recently, out for lunch for DGC's birthday, take her to appts. So we are not NC, but I move to LC quite often. And I refuse to be her social secretary or taxi firm. So boundaries which will get opposed are very impt for your mental health.

I feel for you OP, you could have been describing my own mother in your post. It's utterly draining and knocks your confidence.

When I met my partner, she hated that he thought I was amazing and would say terrible things, it was as if she felt she had to knock me even more because someone else thought I was worth something.

I remember breaking down once because she'd made me feel so down. She had the cheek to say 'this is typical you, you've never had any confidence'. 🙄 Actually I felt perfectly fine, but for her being a bitch.

She was very unhappy with her own life which I think played a big part in it. I actually went NC with her (lots of other reasons too) and had therapy to deal with the impact she'd had on my self esteem.

💐

Yes I do. I'm so sorry OP. Your mum has something wired wrongly inside her which means she doesn't know how to mother a daughter in a healthy way. Something is twisted in her feelings so they are mixed with something else. Either jealousy, or more complicated, a feeling that you are part of her so she can't be positive about you because it means being positive about herself. This issue will run very deep in her and unless she recognises it and seeks help with it, she won't change. I think your options are either to let it flow over you, challenge her telling her it hurts (she will deny it and say its you being over sensitive) or create some distance.

She is narcissistic. Try reading will I ever be good enough. It’s emotional but worth it

My mother with (diagnosed) covert narcissism makes comments like this. No need to armchair diagnose but perhaps look it up and see if anything aligns, it’s helpful because then you can research ways to interact with her to avoid this type of conversation.

Grey rock is a effective technique. Lean into being boring and don’t give any information about your life that she can make nasty comments about. If she’s anything like my mother you can’t pull her up on the nasty things she says or she plays the victim and you’re “ too sensitive”.

I’m no contact now. Finally had enough around Christmas.

The first time my mum paid me a compliment I was 32 it was said in a sarcastic tone my brothers girlfriends she is all over and thinks they are great . Stood up to her for the first time aged 50 she hasn’t spoken to me since am enjoying it

My mum does this and I think of it as jelly fish stings (brighet Jones?). Anyway, fucking hard to deal with. I feel for you x

Watch they don't do it to grand daughters too.

I have 4 DDs and in the past my mother has had digs at them and tried to use them to manipulate me as well. They are all old enough to laugh about her now, but my youngest was taken aback a couple of years ago when my mother kept on about how incredibly pretty DD's friend was.

It's the only one of DD4's friends she's ever met. She used to do the same to me though. Bang on about how incredibly pretty all my friends were .... 🙄

Mine was the same. I got a really fabulous job a few years ago, one of my friends said “Oh you must be so proud of Aydel.” She sniffed a bit and said “I think she could have done a lot better with her career if she had put her mind to it.” She also constantly compared me to my cousin, who was “so slim, bubbly and outgoing, always nicely dressed. I like to think of her as the daughter I never had.” I gave up at that point.

This sounds familiar too. Mine was very much “not like the other girls” 😒

I agree it's narcissism, jealousy. Bitterness.

AlertCat · Today 19:42
Narcissistic mothers need to put their daughters down because they see them as competitors.

Yep. Took me years to see it in my mother as well, but her raging jealousy as i got into my late 30s and travelled a bit, lost weight, divorced my xh and moved house to somewhere lovely almost choked her.

She never finds one nice thing to say about anything, ever. DH and i honeymooned in Sorrento and Rome. My mother's only comment? ''I think you'll be disappointed in the Sistine Chapel ...''.

This is from the woman who hasn't been anywhere. By choice.

My daughter is amazing, why would anyone want to diss their own dd.
However my dm thought the sun shone out of my dsis’s arsehole, not so much me!! So I can see how some ppl think.

Yes! My mum claimed to be a feminist and did very well in a male dominated field. However will always say things like 'silly girls' and everything is the woman's fault. It's infuriating

She sounds like a nasty horror.
Stop spending time with her.
Be busy, be unavailable.
Say whatever you feel comfortable with, but being around such a horrible person does not do your mental health any good.

Some mothers see their daughters as an extension of themselves and if they think themselves as fabulous, then they’ll usually think their offspring as fabulous. Of course there a flip side to that too, she sounds insecure.

You need to lay some boundaries or she’ll irredeemably destroy your self esteem, because we tend to see ourselves through our parents eyes. Maybe her mother treated her similarly.

Haha, I did not say I was on the dm side. People always default to jealousy being the cause but I read the OP and I get a sense the dm is a bit snobby and is comparing.

Narcissistic mothers need to put their daughters down because they see them as competitors. Mine used to praise my sister to me, and unbeknownst to me, praised me to my sister, which effectively drove a wedge between the two of us and meant that she was the person who could go between us. The important one. She also said similar things particularly to my sister but also to me. Designed to belittle us or make her the more important or the better one. Covert narcissism is very hard to see; my sister still doesn’t see it and I only realised in the last couple of years; I’m in my mid forties. It’s really damaging. Some of the suggestions for dealing with it sound good- I hope you find a way that works for you. But it isn’t you- it’s definitely her.

Mum? I didn't know you were on Mumsnet...

Charming.

I really recognise in my mum too (in fact, in both my parents). It almost certainly stems from deep insecurity, low self esteem and zero tact for my mum. I think she also felt threatened by us (two daughters) in some way - I did languages at uni and once she literally raced me to look up ‘sputnik’ because my dad asked what it meant and I said I didn’t know. So bizarre.

She doesn’t like other women and we grew up with her commenting on women’s appearances etc even if they were just on tv. Watching rugby once, she declared she ‘couldn’t stand that woman’ (the TMO) because she was ‘putting words in the (male) referee’s mouth’. She was literally doing her job as a TMO 🤷🏻‍♀️

So I think there’s an (un)healthy dose of internalised misogyny there as well. Even recently I was describing a neighbour to her (‘you know, she has glasses, short dark hair’) and mum goes ‘oh yes, the dumpy one’. 😒

I’m also regularly asked if I’ve ‘given up’ hobbies rather than how they’re going, which seems such a weird perspective. Why would I have given up?

Sorry so many of you have similar mums! Solidarity to you all 💐