AIBU to just tell my mum her judgement is pushing my brother away?

What is she hoping it will achieve if you talk to them? Is she genuinely expecting you can have a quick chat and they will move house, the wife will get a job and they will instantly cease all hobbies?! I can’t believe anyone else is indulging her. I wouldn’t want to spend time with her if I were them

I think you should shut her down as an example to your children that everyone is different and there is nothing wrong with that.

I would just say "Mum you've had your chance to raise your kids how you see fit now it's Malcolm's turn"

Assuming you mean that they are intelligent OP😃

It's difficult because you don't want to cause drama or upset anyone, which is understandable. It sounds like your mum sees you as the Golden Child and there's some parental triangulation that's happening, which I've experienced from the other side. You can't change your mum's behaviour or the words she says (if anything that will become more entrenched as she ages). What you can do is support your brother and SIL and be an ally for them. If they (and you) learn the grey rock method of communicating, it's likely to break the cycle to some extent, if your Mum has narcissistic tendencies (which it sounds like she might!). For me, it was (and still is - every day is a school day) about not encouraging or feeding the reaction. Staying as neutral as possible and keeping that guard up, for self-preservation.

As PPs have said, you can't choose your family. Your SIL will hopefully be in a lifelong marriage with your brother and they both sound great. Maybe you could look into things like narcissistic parenting and understand your brother's position better, so you can give him some resources to read (e.g. grey rocking, setting boundaries and feeling confident to go lower contact). The kindest things you can do is to be an ally to them (him mainly as your sibling) and to let them know that you have their backs. In my opinion, that will be a lot more impactful than anything you say to your mum or dad directly. If you give your brother the tools to manage it and give him the validation that you believe him, it will mean so much more in the future.

I agree with others that being clear about boundaries, communicating (again, with a very neutral tone) about what you do and don't want to discuss and staying consistent with it will also help.

She sounds a bit like my MIL, who is an absolute know it all, thinks her way is just always the way everting should be done and her failure to understand other people have differing perspectives never ceases to amaze me. And that comes hand in hand with having zero ability to self reflect or accept criticism, it's just one enormous defensive wall that goes up at the first hint of push back.

So if that's what she's like, although it would be great for you to point this all out to her, you may well find you do so at risk of your own relationship with her. It's a shit situation because you either tell her how you feel and piss her off, potentially to the point of being pushed out, or she just continues to live in her ignorant, self righteous existence. There's no winning for you, but on the odd occasion I tell my MIL (politely) that she's being a dick, it makes me feel wonderful.

Me too.

You need to tell your DM that it is none of her business or yours and that you do not want to keep hearing it. Every time she starts, shut her down.

I think you need to be pretty blunt and say that you don’t want to hear anymore about what she thinks is wrong with your brothers lifestyle.
I wouldn’t appease her by saying you’ll have a word and then not following through because the next thing out of her mouth will be ‘and your sister agrees with me’.
My own DM said this to my brother over a family matter, I hadn’t agreed with her but I had tried to appease the situation by not really getting involved and not really saying anything.
The next minute I’m getting messages from my brother telling me how disloyal I was and that if I had a problem I should talk to him directly, which then got me riled because he knows our Mother has a history of half truths, misremembering etc
TBH our relationship is not what it was because of it, our DM has forgotten all about it now but things are still a little cooler between us siblings, probably because we are both stubborn and hurt that the other would think the worst of us, which has made things awkward for the siblings not directly involved.
Now if my Mum says anything I shut it right down and say it’s none of my business and none of hers either. She gets a nose out of joint for a while but now I don’t really hear anything about my siblings through her.
Your Brother and SIL are living a great life by the sounds of it, your nieces/nephews have a present parent, Mums are replaceable in the work place but not at home, sadly most of us have no choice but to work.
I don’t think any of her points are valid if they are as you have stated, and your loyalty should be to your brother in this case who isn’t doing anything wrong.
Your Mum sounds like she would prefer them to live a house in another area, both working all the hours to pay for things and no hobbies…. She is bonkers…

Id actually just say every single time she comments

You want to be judgemental, if he didn't live like he does what would you have to complain about - leave me out of it though Im not refereeing.

If she come back with
"You must agree with him"

no I disagree with you being judgemental, but you are and we still love you

I would tell her if she carries on your brother will eventually go no contact and that is all on her. Miserable cow.

Show her the zombie apocalypse thread, and divert her attention into preparing for that possibility (stairs an advantage, wielding a tennis racquet as a weapon also an advantage, not panicking when the stakes high - distinct advantage) 🧟 🧟 🧟

What a dreadful woman! I’m surprised they see her at all! I would say very clearly, “I do not want to hear you criticise my brother or his wife any more. You are pushing them away with your awful judgement.” And then every time she starts, interrupt and say “I told you I don’t want to hear it and if you don’t stop I will leave/ask you to leave”.

Your DM sounds very controlling and may well be jealous of your brother and his wife and her family. Good luck OP

I’d say you don’t want to hear any more criticism of them. You won’t be speaking to your brother about his lifestyle. I’d say if she carries on she’s going to alienate you all. If she starts I’d just have a phrase and stop her, eg Mum I don’t want to hear it. I’d also let your brother and wife know you’ve spoken to her. They sound very patient with her.

Try another angle? My parents used to complain about my brothers a lot, my brothers used to complain about my parents. Guess who was stuck in the middle? After another moan, I told my parents that it was getting me down, hearing all of it, constantly negative. And also some of their moaning was unfair on my brothers and their expectations out of whack. My dad wasn't known to be reasonable but on this one he was. Both my parents stopped moaning.

It's not your place to say anything whatsoever and if you say anything to your brother you run the risk of ruining your relationship when in reality he has done nothing wrong and you sound fond of him. But you can ask your mum to stop using you as a sounding board.

She probably does! (If my mother is anything to go by, she definitely does!)

I would see her as little as possible, she sounds thoroughly unpleasant.

I'd tell her that you're not getting involved and you don't agree with her on this, and if she thinks that you have all let her down then that's on her, and you'd like her to drop the subject before she drives everyone away.

Refuse to get involved or to talk about it. Tell her that it's your brother and you support him

Yes! You should talk, but not to him, but her. Tell her if she does not stop this shite, she will lose you and your brother too. Be stern. Why did you not nip these conversations in the bud at the start? Why? You are too nice, that is why. I would have understood if his wife was an alkie, a druggie, but he clearly married up, her parents helped them live mortgage-free in London!!!! close to parks!!!! I think she is a nasty old bat, I am sorry.

I saw a friend's marriage destroyed like that, purely because of her mother - she felt poorly, they moved her in, she did not appreciate all that was done for her and started eating away at their marriage by constantly criticising son-in-law and giving advice. Unlike my other friend, whose family thrived with the arrival of a mil (but mil was Greek and left son-in-law alone) to live with them, this family was destroyed, all because of their kindness and even meekness vis-a-vis mil. Don't let the old bat ruin things. Enlist your dad's help to shut her up.

My guess would be she sees herself as the family matriarch. Her husband backs her, she wants her daughter to do as she says.

Because her son isn’t dependent on her in anyway she struggles being happy in that relationship because she has no authority and way to be in charge. The staying in a hotel is a way of her trying to exert herself.

I would think she resents the wife and wife’s family for enabling him to be independent of your parents and her loss of control

I would tell her that you don’t remotely think your brother needs sorting out.

Someone should be sticking up for your brother, your dad clearly won’t, so I’d be protecting your relationship with him by saying something to her.

I had to completely lose my rag with my mother over this kind of thing. She didn't ask me to intervene in my brother's life, but she moaned about it and made (I think false) accusations about him all the time.

If I'm honest, his lifestyle and his decisions were far from mine, and we had little in common. But filial loyalty and affection won out and I ended up giving her a mouthful. She didn't do it after that.

You really do need to do something similar.

I’d be asking her if she’s so openly bitchy and judgemental about my brother, what is she saying about me behind my back?

I would ask her to consider if she continues she could lose your brother permanently.

Is she jealous his wife is wealthy and paid off their mortgage - or sees her as competition for your brothers attention?

Id tell her she was being ridiculous and to pack it in! Who the heck is she to be the decider of how people love their lives? Small minded to the extreme.

God she sounds tedious.

I'm not surprised they don't want to see her. I'm surprised you want to see her. In your shoes, I wouldn't have been able to listen to her nastiness for four minutes, let alone four years.

Your brother and his wife live a life - a very nice life, by the sound of it - that is far removed from the life she's lived, she can't understand that and she's angry and bitter that they've moved so far away from her idea of what constitutes 'normal' life.

And I bet in her eyes it's all his 'horrible' wife's fault. Taking him away from his own mother and the life he grew up with.

Don't, as some pps have suggested, say you will talk to your brother and pretend to your mother that you have. That would just be encouraging her and perpetuating her idea that she's right when she is clearly completely wrong.

By just listening to her rants, you and your father are enabling her. Someone needs to tell her to keep her nasty, bitter opinions to herself. Unfortunately, I suspect no one will and she'll just carry on like this for the rest of her life with everyone around her nodding and smiling.

My mother was like this: she criticised everything about me to my sister, and vice versa. (Obviously we compared notes!) At some point I noticed that if I ever mentioned having seen a friend, she harrumphed "I never liked him/her!" and when asked why came up with random invented reasons. Sometimes she had never even met them. So I started making people up and she had never liked them either. When I called her out on it, she said I had always been a liar.

All you can do is ignore it and have as little contact as possible. This will leave her free to have a go at you instead!