To ask if you know anyone who turns any achievements into negatives?

Yep, my mother. She discounts every achievement I’ve ever had (and some of them have been pretty decent) as they don’t equate to the financial successes of my siblings. Weight was another one of the strings she liked to tug on occasionally to make me feel like shit about myself. I don’t speak to her anymore.

No often it was the working class suppressing the working class. As in the song "three nights and a Sunday double time" which slags off a bloke who's working all the hours possible to get on in the world, to afford luxuries like a car.

It comes from the "who does she think she is " school of jealousy. Because the blokes pissed all their money away down the pub.

My mil isn't quite as bad as the ops mum. But whatever my wife's achieved in life isn't commented on or acknowledged, like running her own business, running projects in the bank she worked for...yet her sister (who hasn't had a proper job since 1995 in the expectancy of a big inheritance from her husband's family) arranged some flowers in the church....You would have thought she'd won the Nobel prize.

Interesting accoridng to Dmum I can know nothing - whether it's how to nagivate where I live when she visits or how to use appliances I've owned decades.

IL can also be a bit like that - FIL always has to know best.

I can't work our if it's control or anxierty with Dmum - but when kids were younger both sets of DGP were bloody awful - constantly undermining. Now we live some considerable distance away from them both.

I find that my mother likes to micromanage me when I'm at home. If I'm going for a shower she will ask if I have towel ready, and as soon as i get out will start asking or if I'm making pasta will ask me did I boil the water first and pre-empt every step I take with questions like I'm a child. I don't know if she honestly does think I'm really thick or if it's a control thing but I've managed to have a shower and have 4 decades of organising my towel situation prior to bathing.

There's a similarity between my mum and the Death Eaters in Harry Potter - sucking the joy out of everything. Not sure what she got out of it at all.

Good way of describing it - I think they enjoy moaning and pissing on other's chips.

It does sometime feel like I can't be excited or proud of anything - then they wonder why they don't seem to know much about me.

It's partly why I read on a kindle without having to listen to everyone else deciding what I should be reading or should enjoy. You just stop mentioning things as don't want to hear the negativity then they get upset when you do and they had no idea.

Good for you for broaching it. I don't bother because any times I tried were absolutely catastrophic and it turned into a horrible character assassination. It was so stressful and upsetting. Instead, I moved far, far away and don't have to see her much but when I do there is such a lack of joy and life seems to be seen through the bleakest, most bitter lens.

My mum too.

First Christmas in my new home after abusive marriage and horrible horrible divorce and she walks through the lounge slagging off the mess of just-unwrapped gifts that I'd been saving up for a year to buy. That was a highlight. Oh, and at dds 18th where I made a comment about how I'd got both kids to adulthood mostly single-handedly, she commented that so had she with me and my sister (but she had soooo much more help from my grandparents, neighbours, my dad contributed financially and we stayed there eow, whereas my kids saw their dad maybe twice a year after horribly abusive marriage and divorce).

There's a similarity between my mum and the Death Eaters in Harry Potter - sucking the joy out of everything. Not sure what she got out of it at all.

Years ago, there was still an old fashioned 'know your place' attitude around, thanks to the British class system.

I think it's this with the IL - but it's so inconsistent they want best for DS and DGC but same time sometimes slip into negative - me it's more negative and put downs.

With Dmum well DH says every silver lining has a cloud mentallity - she constantly with everything see problems.

Have also had it with some ex freinds. One lot from DH childhood area they needed to dimish us to feel better I think - our educations were nothing they could have done that - anything good a put down - IL fawned over them calling their kids second set of DGC - so felt like our kids were put in unwanted competition. They dropped IL like hot stones when no longer needed their help with house babysitting - then broke up - and IL never see them or the kids which I think hurt them.

With some uni freinds felt similar but from opposite way they thought us beneath them and constantly needed us there - so very much with the Jones anything we'd done they had done better earlier type thing.

Unbothered and as greyrock is best way with family - friends well phase them out.

Yeah mine too, I've been trying to call her out on it as it's a worryingly toxic mind set to have and it makes it hard to enjoy conversation, she also likes to talk for ages and ages with no break while others have to listen, rather than a natural back and forth.

I dread seeing dog poo, a bit of graffiti or litter on a walk when I visit as I know I'm about to recieve a lecture, and I just say to her what are you changing by talking at ME about this?? Same with news, I'll never watch it with her. Even things like my sister telling her she was getting another cat, straight away with the negatives and list of reasons why not, when noone asked and it puts such a downer on things! Last time I visited I did have a proper talk to her about how it makes other people feel and that she's not getting the best from people or herself with her habit of being so negative and she didn't bite my head off like usual so perhaps it helped, time will tell.

A former friend. She is someone who is deeply competitive and deeply insecure. It doesn't do her any favours

Some choice comments;

• when I got my Masters degree she snapped; 'Well, of course its your DH who should be congratulated for supporting you'
• When she said she was desperate to go and visit a certain country and I sent her details from a family member who owns a travel agency and she said 'Well, I'll probably have to pay a single supplement'
• when the daughter of a mutual friend won a scholarship to study abroad; 'well, the panel clearly could not see past the pretty face and she's not that bright at the end of the day' (PS- said girl got a PhD and is now working at a Magic Circle firm)
• when I got DS1 into a preferred school that was perfectly suited to his needs (low-cognitive abilities, autism, adhd and tourettes) and I was tearfully joyous after years of stress; 'Well, it's in the next town so he won't have any friends, not that he would have anyway'.

I put up with it for too long. There were more, but those stand out as all the various straws.

It's about her and her envy. But thankfully I realised I did not have to put up with her poison any longer.

My neighbours are very much from the "remember your roots" area.

I think society grew like that as a clever way to prevent the poor from realising how exploited they were..

My MIL, ... I know! My daughter has completed a highly competitive degree and is now working in that area, however, she will say things like "it would be better if she did such and such" like what she does isn't good enough but she is doing amazingly well. Yet, the grandchildren of the golden child get praised for the slightest thing. I understand it probably comes from jealousy as my SIL's children didn't go to uni and are still finding their feet.

Years ago, there was still an old fashioned 'know your place' attitude around, thanks to the British class system. This could explain parents' attitudes then if they thought their child was reaching too far. But that's more or less redundant now thank goodness. It must be jealousy a lot of the time when younger parents speak like this, a kind of 'she's got chances I never had'. Distasteful.

My mum. I landed a job at Cambridge fresh out of my PhD and her first response was to tell me she was so sorry, she was sure it was a bad job and low paid too, and she knew I'd be exploited. When I got pregnant she told me I was far too young and too unstable (I was mid-20s, married, employed). I published a book; she told me 'I doubt anyone will read it!'

I have given up.

Don't tell your mother anything else that matters, OP. She probably won't notice.

Yep, mine too. She is such a joyless, joyless person. There is no safe topic. Everything is a contentious topic. Even the weather or a recent TV show seems like risky ground.

'Oh I watched that new show on Netflix. Did you see it?' Reply: 'Why on earth would I watch something about x/starring x? Do you think I've any interest in [topic/actor]??'

The conversation is constantly snapped shut. It's exhaustingly negative.

My grandmother did this. One of the things she said to me after I graduated was "if this is where a university degree gets you, I'm glad I don't have one!" I'll never forget that. It's because I wanted to move far away from her to pursue my new graduate life. She had abandonment issues. It comes from a place of misery, OP.

Yes, my mother.

She likes to take credit too.

This despite the fact we only talk about once or twice a year!

My mum. I think there's a pattern that people unhappy with their own lot find it very hard to celebrate the achievements/happiness of others and find a negative slant in response. My mum does it incessantly with so many people and can turn even the most innocuous comment into a litany of woe.

My mother

Yes, my mother too. She will, when on good behaviour, say the 'right thing' but it will be as perfunctory as possible and she will quickly move on. "Well done" or "that's good". I know that she is towing the party line but doesn't want to give me the satisfaction of saying anything more effusive.

She will regularly find subtle ways to criticise my looks and parenting. She absolutely loves it when my children do something that she can find a way to blame me for, and it's usually something like 'that's because you're far too strict/too soft/obsessed with healthy eating/give them far too much junk/etc'

In fact, how I parent my children seems to be the thing that sticks in her throat the most. Nothing i do ot who I am as a person ever seems to bring her any pride. I get the impression that she resents me, deep down but that she also loves me in her own weird, damaged way.

In the past I used to get very hurt by the comments she made but I've actually learned the trick is to be as unbothered and as greyrock as possible.

'Your face looks fat like that'. You reply, nonchalantly 'oh do you think so? It's funny how people see different things, isn't it?'

If she says 'I don't like that outfit on you'. Then you say 'oh don't you? I love it!' And just act as if you don't care what she says. I actually don't care what my mother says now. She makes her comments, I say 'oh right' and change the subject breezily and remind myself that she has a problem and it's not me.

My mother too. I think I could win a Nobel prize and she'd still find something I did wrong. Yet she gets upset when I don't tell her things. It's all very frustrating and you have my sympathy.

Sympathy op, it hurts worse when it's your mum. I have it from mine too. I was in the same low paid job for years and I had plenty of comments from her about wasting my education. So you'd think she'd be pleased when I got a new better paid job but instead she said it terrible I was letting my employer down by leaving! Its pure jealousy, and I wish I had realised years ago that's she doesn't have my best interests at heart