How do I stop blaming myself for finally losing it with my mum?
I’m feeling physically sick after a horrible argument with my mum today. I shouted and swore, then texted telling her never to contact me again. I feel terribly guilty, but this comes after a lifetime of feeling unloved and months of being ignored.
My mum has always been angry and emotionally unavailable. I can’t remember her hugging me or showing much affection. I was sexually abused by a family friend as a child; when I told her at 17, she looked through me and said, “There’s nothing I can do about it.”
She also regularly launches into racist rants despite me asking her for years to stop.
When my dad was terminally ill, I moved nearby to help care for him. She told me she resented this and wished I’d stayed away. On his final day, he was crying out in pain and I wanted to call a nurse for morphine, but she refused because she was tired of nurses coming into the house. We argued, and my older brother called me a cunt. There have been so many moments like this when I’ve considered cutting them off.
I feel like they resent me because I have gone down a very different path to them in life and on the surface have done much ‘better’ (I don’t see it that way, but because I went to a top uni and speak differently to them I think they think I’m a snob).
I’m now 40 with a one-year-old daughter. Becoming a mother has brought up enormous anger and grief about my own childhood, especially when I see other women being supported by loving, involved mothers. We have very little family help and it’s desperately lonely. I have also struggled badly with PPD and been under perinatal psychiatry. My mum knows this and has shown no care or concern.
The latest rupture began around my daughter’s first birthday. Mum had agreed to come to us, but my brother let slip that she planned to pretend to be ill to avoid it. Rather than confront her, I moved the celebration to her house, bought the cake and food, and prepared everything myself while she made no effort.
She also repeatedly commented on my daughter being a “big baby” and said she would lose weight once she started crawling. There is anorexia in our family, so afterwards I texted asking her not to comment on my daughter’s size. I said that if she couldn’t respect that, I might have to limit visits. I accept that the final sentence was strong, but I was struggling badly postpartum and felt very protective.
She never replied. She then stopped calling, although she had previously called every week or two. She responds briefly if I send photos, but hasn’t proactively contacted me or asked to see her granddaughter for months.
it’s made me so sad and angry, on behalf of my daughter. I feel so bad she doesn’t have a doting grandmother like my friends babies do.
Today I video-called so she could see my daughter. I raised the silence and said it felt as though she was punishing me for expressing a reasonable boundary. She said she had stayed away because she “didn’t want any trouble”, that all I do is argue, and that I should leave her alone.
i can be argumentative, especially with her, probably because there is so much built up hatred. And since my daughter was born, I feel like it’s almost hatred. I feel guilty and sad about this.
I know my own behaviour today wasn’t okay, and I’m ashamed of losing control. But I also feel that months of silence because I asked her not to discuss my child’s weight was punitive and cruel. Deep down, it feels as though my mum simply doesn’t love me, and I keep searching for what is wrong with me that makes this my fault.
How do I stop obsessing over this and blaming myself? How do I accept that she may never be the mother or grandmother I desperately want her to be? And have I behaved unforgivably, or is it understandable that I finally reached breaking point? I wake up every day and feel so shit about it. And guilty. And like an awful unloveable person.
yabu - you are in the wrong here
yanbu - she is and / or you should consider no contact