How the hell do you cope with your mothers?

[itseasybeingcheesy]

I seriously need some tried and tested coping mechanisms to help me manage my fractious relationship with my mother.

She's domineering, over the top, critical, dislikes my husband, idolises the children, is self centred and is a perfectionist. Despite all of that I very much want to continue having her in our life as when she's calm she is lovely and my children adore her. She's very difficult to actually keep in that sweet spot though.

We see her approx once a week or every two weeks. She criticised me in a "helpful giving you tips" kind of way all day and overrode me with the children but I tolerated it and kept the peace. She picked arguments and got impatient and irritable towards the end of the day. I broke up a recurring argument between my two DDs and finished it off by throwing out the item causing the dispute and putting one child on the time out step who was misbehaving beyond limits.

My mum reacted to this by literally gathering her things and shouting "that's it I can't stand this, your poor children, I'm leaving" and stormed out. The kids ran after her saying "you haven't said goodbye nana, don't go yet" and she ignored them and stormed away.

Now my children have been really well behaved all day, this is the only time I've had to discipline them, she just hates that I give them any discipline - yet is scathing about anyone who doesn't discipline their children. She simply expects us all to be perfect.

These type of incidents are common and she is like a simmering pot ready to flip into crazy mode at any given point. How the hell do I manage this????? Not wanting to drip feed but also not wanting to write my memoirs so don't tear strips off me please.

Advice desperately welcome.

Mine is rather similar, I limit contact to once a month or so. No way I could deal with seeing her every week, are you able to be a bit less accommodating?

Keep the visits shorter - you said she gets worse towards the end of the day. Tired but no excuse for her behaviour.

Try and have the visits at her house. You are in more control there in that, the minute she starts interfering ... you say your goodbyes and leave.

If it has to be at yours then tell her the visit is limited to 'x' hours as you have things to do later.

It is possible that she is looking for an excuse to leave (earlier). Better for all if she only stays long enough for her to remain mostly pleasant.

Mine 'worries' (drinks) every time I have something going on in my life. It's why she doesn't know about my mental health, breast scare or recent fibroid op. MIL, on the other hand, knows everything and has been a pillar of support.

I'm not sure that I can limit visits to once a month, she makes quite a big deal about wishing she saw us more etc, if I start saying no more often she will realise I'm pushing her away. I don't really want to see her less I just want to be better at managing her behaviour.

She's also a "worrier" doesn't drink with it, just lays the guilt and drama on big time.

I do like it better when we visit her, it's easier for us to leave that way too you're right, it's just harder as there's very little to do her way and we have three kids to occupy and she likes going out shopping etc.

I moved many years ago and now it works wonderfully. We are a couple's hours drive away and it's enough that my mum knows little of my life so can't judge.

I had an awful relationship as a teen with my mum and moving was the absolute best thing I ever did.

You do need to distance yourself, it's the only way.

Not the point i know but... you threw out one of their toys?

Urghhh, I feel for you, been there and sometimes I thought it was mum needed the telling off and time out!
I can vouch for putting some physical distance between you - I moved a few hours away and it's perfect. However, i am a very bad daughter for doing that and it's gone from seeing her a few times a week to being completely ignored because I defied her by moving away - I'm nearly 50 FFS.
Sorry - not much help BUT having raised my kids in that situation of constant undermining, criticism and just not being as perfect a mother as her (her opinion obvs, not mine!) distance and being ignored has saved my sanity (until the FOG descends).
Keep visits shorter, meet on neutral ground, keep reminding yourself that you are right and don't let her constant needling come between you and your DCs.
Hope things improve for you, it's very tough.

Issues with my mother differ a bit but I have now found what works best is for us to meet somewhere neutral (kids can run off energy, we can leave when we need to), trying very hard to get it down to twice a month, and keep visits no longer than 4 hours.

I also ignore/give short responses to manipulate texts in between but longer replies with kid photos when she is pleasant

@Onesnowballshort it was a deflated ball the size of a small apple, I had warned them repeatedly that if they didn't stop arguing over it it was going in the bin (it was fit for the bin anyway).

I wouldn't have thrown out anything if it wasn't already fit for the bin. Usually if I take a toy it's temporary and they get it back but not in this case. They've got lots of other balls to play with.

@Doyouthinktheysaurus

I live a 30-40 min drive down a motorway. The kids are settled in school now so relocating isn't in the cards for us. I do admit though that our lives would be simpler if we lived further from her, albeit I would miss having her around even though she can be a nightmare.

I'm seeing a pattern though, we definitely need to get out of the house and be in a neutral place more often.

That would definitely prevent her from tearing my house apart to make it more pleasing to her.

She literally moves the furniture around when she visits. I have to tell her to stop reorganising my house and that it doesn't matter if she doesn't like the way things are because she doesn't live here. She thinks things should look like a country living magazine. She also criticises the amount of cleaning I do constantly.

I might get her a Nat Trust pass for Christmas and only meet there from now on

She sounds a bit like my MIL - she can be lovely, but also awful and can get all overwrought about something (once it was a new piece of jewellery my husband was wearing) and storm out.

DH's relationship with her is also fractious and TBH, what's helped a lot was seeing her (and FIL, who he can also clash with) a bit less. We used to have an almost weekly date with them, but DH and they realised about a year ago that actually both sides thought they were obliged to have this meet up for the other, and now they've stopped doing it things are more relaxed. So maybe less often will be better - perhaps phrase it to her as you honestly think you'll all get on better in shorter/less frequent bursts because you keep upsetting each other, though you do love eachother and the kids love her.

With difficulty at times, I frequently think about LC.

But she's elderly and I guess does the best with what she has

God, this brings back memories of my mother saying ‘I can’t stand it’ and flouncing out of the room. Because dc2 was crying for a few minutes. At four weeks old. The first time she’d actually met her .

I totally agree with everyone who has said short visits on neutral territory work best. Everyone is on best behaviour because it’s public, you have more control over when you leave and it’ll likely be a shorter visit than if it was at your house.

Interestingly I also do the message thing a pp does, if dm has pissed me off I don’t reply to her messages for a couple of days, if she’s being nice I reward it with faster responses and photos/videos of the grandchildren. It gives me a feeling of some sort of control over what can be a very fractious relationship. She’s basically like my toddler with the poking boundaries and tantrums so I treat them fairly similarly

I can't offer any advice as I'm in the middle of a horrible episode with my own mother, but coming into the thread for company and ideas.

If i had your mother, I'd deliberately see a lot less of her.

And you can't manage her behaviour any more than someone can manage the behaviour of an abusive partner.

@gower4 it's tricky - one of my friends lost her mum and she was crying down the phone about how she'd lost her best friend, which started me off crying as well as I felt for her and couldn't help.

I wouldn't feel like that if I lost my mum but it would feel strange and painful. I've found she's better tempered if I compliment her on her strengths.

What is happening with your mum?

Have you visited the stately homes thread in relationships? If not i'd pop over and read it, i think alot of things on there you will be able to relate to. Your mum sounds exactly like mine! Its quite scary. I'm slowly distancing myself from her. You have FOG (fear, obligation, guilt), theres a website about it. Maybe take a look at that too

@gower4 sorry to hear you're having mum bother too. Want to offload?

It's so hard to stay rational about any of it I think. I always feel like I'm walking the line between thinking that she's toxic or I'm just an intolerant daughter.

@Jinglebells10 I'll have a look at that. Fear obligation and guilt does sound about right. She can also be quite scary too she has quite a repressive rage thing going on and is has a cracking temper. She can feel wronged by pretty much anything or anyone.

I have a problematic DM too but in different ways

I have felt like her parent since I was 19 really

She asks for your opinion when what she really means is "agree with me and make it sound better" any criticism is taken as an affront and she gets really sulky and defensive

Massive busybody who seems to positively revel in the misfortune of one my childhood friends who she sees quite often

Cannot to the point of must be mentally incapable, keep ANYTHING to herself EVER unless its something SHE wants to keep secret

Hasn't yet retired and will cut you off regularly mid sentence to waffle at length about her job down to word for word he said then she said conversations. You will forget what it was you meant to say til after she's gone, but no matter because she really doesn't give a shit about what you've got going on but expects you to care massively in the reverse.

Aaaah, that feels better

Solidarity OP

Yea my mum also can be scary and has a wicked temper on her. So I know how you feel. I've done alot of work on myself to feel able to start distancing myself. As the FOG disappears it becomes easier to see what they are like.

@VanyaHargreeves oh the job talk is terrible!

Actually she's horribly bad mannered in general. She will cut you off in the middle of a conversation to spend half an hour or more telling you the minute detail of a story from work where invariably she has been slighted by someone, has saved the day, or has been the best person ever employed by that company in the world. Ever. I find it soul destroying because a lot of the time she's just bragging or describing herself being a real cow to someone.

She'll also talk over the kids whilst they're speaking to me and I have to stop her and explain that I'm trying to reply to one of them and can she just wait a second. Who's the child there?

I suppose that's where I need to get better at coping with her. Things like that. I need to learn how to adapt the conversations so everything is less orbiting her and more focused outwards on the whole family.

Is there anything that can be done with integrating mum and DH? On both sides? Surely she must realise he played a part in producing her much loved grandchildren??

@Frownette it's very tricky because he can do no right in her eyes. I think deep down she's angry at me for being married and happy as she raised me alone with very little input from my father from me being very young. She has no trust in men and a very low tolerance of them in general. They're mostly lazy, idiotic drunks (not that DH drinks often) as far as she's concerned.

We're actually a great team and do a good job of parenting three kids, have a strong marriage full of life's normal challenges and are overall really happy and we are kind of the opposite to her life with me being a single parent of me an only child and I think she resents is for it a bit.