Mum calling my childhood bully "nice" and "respectful"

Assuming the bully is also in her mid-40s, like the OP, it’s perfectly possibly she has little or no memory of being 13 — I certainly don’t. School was miserable. I have forgotten pretty much everything until I hit university and got happy.

You’d have to wonder if it is about a tendency to victim blame/be quite dismissive of people showing any emotion about traumatic experiences or a tendency to identify more with bullies than the victims of bullying.

It is an interesting phenomenon. With MN being the size it is you will get a lot of people with both tendencies I guess.

There seems to be much more compassion, understanding and kindness from some posters for the bully rather than for the person who was bullied.

I could never be friends with dd1's childhood bully or her mum. I don't care if she has now become saintly, she still caused dd1 pain in the past and I'll concentrate my friendships on people who have never hurt my family members instead.

I was about to say exactly this. I was bullied and it still affects me occasionally now. Children have ended their own lives due to bullying. I couldn't put my son through what OP is putting her daughter through.

You are not 13 any more and neither is your bully. She’s likely grown up and changed. Explain to your mum how you feel, and while you cannot tell her what to do, you do not want contact with this person and you don’t want to hear about her … then get some help.

It’s irrelevant if this woman (previous bully) is now a nice reformed character, your Mother should be defensive of you no matter what.
I’m so sorry that you’ve experienced this OP, be gentle on yourself and perhaps take a little time away from your Mother.
Therapy will probably help, but I suspect that your mother may feature heavily in your sessions.

Exactly all this. 100%

How awful. My DS was badly bullied and I could never be friends with anyone connected to the bully

Tell your mum you don't wish to hear about her friendship with your childhood bully and if she keeps mentioning her reduce contact. Bullies don't bully everyone, they pick on one person. So it's not an achievement on your mum's part that the woman is nice to her. There are enough people in the world that we don't need to befriend people who bullied family members. Even if they may have changed. Doesn't mean we have to hang out with them.

Hi OP, I've a feeling that your response may have more to do with your mum and your relationship with her rather than the person that bullied you. Was she supportive and were you close growing up?

This. Your mother sounds like a bully herself.

JFC, the bullying was bad enough to cause a life-long eating disorder for OP.

Are you actually saying that the bully is the victim here because OP hasn't bothered to find out why this person 'bullied' her?

OP hasn't asked her mum to dislike her bully. She is upset that her mum is telling her how nice her bully is, which for most normal people, is a horrible thing for a mum to say to her daughter. Her mum didn't have to mention the bully and her opinions about her in front of OP, her DH and her children.

Your view on past events, including the use of inverted commas when you refer to the 'bullying' OP experienced, is victim blaming at its finest (or worst). I honestly don't understand posters like you. What satisfaction do you get by being so cruel and insensitive to someone who is talking about really difficult experiences and relationships?

Oh and just for the record not all bullies change and they are often very manipulative people, while of course especially teenagers have the capacity to change the teenager who abused my sister and I continued on doing it into adulthood so that is something to be aware of too.

It's more probable that she isn't a lovely person now. She is in regular contact with OP's mum but hasn't used that connection to contact OP to apologise for her behaviour when they were teenagers. She is showing no signs of remorse at all.

@Twinkletoes127 I don’t think the emotional immaturity on this thread is coming from @BeckyWithTheGoodBear. If a friend told you that someone had badly harmed them when they were younger do you think an emotionally mature response would be to say “oh I like that person she is caring and nice”.

It really is not. People have emotions about experiences they have, the emotionally mature answer is “God I hate that for you, that must have been extremely difficult.” ie a bit of empathising and emotional understanding of the person’s point of view.

You can then work on with perspective changing about someone being a child and the potential for change but you do not invalidate the person in front of you and their experiences as the first course of action unless you lack empathy and emotional maturity.

I'm sorry you went through this, really: I had a very similar experience. I'm afraid your mother is the bully you really should be focusing on.

There are women, now in their 60s, who were vile to me as teenagers. I don't care whether they have changed, or how much, the damage was done and I wouldn't have anything to do with them. My mum would have my back.

You are allowed to feel upset about this, but if this was over 30 years ago, and your mum has only recently become friends with the mother and through her met the bully, I suspect she has trouble connecting the two. Sure she was a bully at 13, but she's 40~whatever now, a different person.

I'm probably explaining myself badly, but if you haven't dealt with this to the point you're crying all evening about it, then I'd hazard a guess you weren't completely open with your mum about how much it hurts (maybe it hadn't even occurred to you until your mum brought it up?!). Unless she knows it's still an issue, then it's easy to pass it off as teenage shenanigans, especially if the ED wasn't linked to the bullying (by your parents).

I am sorry this has upset you, and I do think your mum could have been more tactful, but I also think this is something you need to make your peace with, both with a frank and open conversation with your mum and maybe some therapy to help put those feelings to rest.

I don't think I could ever have a good opinion of someone who had bullied a family member, but it seems that all too often disclosure results in a first reaction of disbelief. Its a classic that victims of family or close friend child abuse may not be believed when they disclose to their family as adults. Not to defend your Mum but I suspect the disbelief can stem from guilt. Having said all that you need to do what is best for you right now.

I still have some bitter feelings against my old school bullies and some of them were teacher.
Which led me to not be keen on teachers and not trust people.
30 year on still have these feelings.
My school years were just awful.
Ans like you op my mother never believe me.
I cut her off completely.

I really feel for you.

My brother did something similar to me and it caused me real pain. I think people seem to think they can sit on the fence but when someone has caused pain to someone else it is right to actually get off the fence!

Anyway, your feelings are completely legitimate. And I also have childhood bullying I haven’t dealt with. It would be good to know what the best thing of therapy would be to heal those wounds.

If my daughter told me she was bullied like this I would be heartbroken and I would confront them asap

Yes. It is bad enough to get bullied, but then later to have mum shrug her shoulders…not great. I’ve never quite understood why people think bullying is Ok if enough time has gone by.