Does anyone else have a difficult mother?

[Enfys1982]

I should start by saying my mum isn’t a bad person by any stretch of the imagination and I never really wanted for anything growing up. But she’s also very difficult. She’s very sensitive to any kind of criticism and will massively overreact react to any kind of perceived slight with bursts of anger, screaming, rage, sulks and silent treatment. She struggles to manage any kind of stress and doesn’t seem to understand that it’s a part of life for everyone at some time. She’s also very self absorbed and has with hindsight never really shown any interest in me. As a child I’d feel like I was walking on eggshells around her.

Ive recently been having therapy for depression and anxiety and I’ve realise everything wrong in my life seems to come from her and her parenting of me. Is anyone else in the same situation.

Oh thanks! I got so caught up on the thread topic that I forgot that it’s actually exciting news!

This happened with me too. My mum developed dementia when my DC1 was a tiny baby - I had a dreadful few months shuttling back and forth to her home (over 100 miles from my own) trying to sort out home carers etc. When she finally moved into a care home I was so relieved. Not just that she was being cared for 24/7, but that from that point on, when my phone rang I knew it wouldn't be her calling to rant spitefully at me and tell me what a disappointment i was (as she had done for years).

Still took a long time for me to not get the jolt of fear when the phone rang, though.

Yes its hard for sure. I keep visits short. The negativity is tiring. My friend was away with her mam overnight. Some families are so easy to deal with.

'My friend was away with her mam overnight.'

I find it a bit mind-blowing that some people have genuinely close relationships with their mums, where they honestly love spending time together, and the relationship is fairly straightforward. I get it, and it's lovely, but it's just a million miles away from how I feel about my mother. I used to feel very angry and bitter about other people's healthy family relationships, when I was in the depths of grief. I don't anymore, I'm glad for them, but I just can't really imagine having that situation in my own life

How I dealt with mine was to not tell her anything personal . Just need to know basis. I just let her talk and let my mind half wander somewhere else .

I got a new job 6 months ago. I haven't bothered to tell my mother because it's simply more trouble than it's worth because she wouldn't just say "well done" (actually she probably wouldn't say "well done" at all) but would want me to spend several hours explaining "why" and even then she'd likely disapprove on principle that nothing I do can be good.

Easier to talk about the weather and how her garden is doing.

Yes.

We are very close in a way, but she allowed me to be abused (not sexually) by her ex husband and she participated in it. She was also very controlling for many years and can have bizarrely thin skin.

I know that she has worked on herself a lot and she's much better than she once was, but I have to follow certain rules to avoid her ire.

'I got a new job 6 months ago. I haven't bothered to tell my mother because it's simply more trouble than it's worth because she wouldn't just say "well done'

It's so sad, isn't it? We're not asking for much, just some basic decency and some interest in our lives and who we are. It feels like begging for scraps though so like you, I just stopped.

A therapist of mine years ago said 'it sounds like your parents can't even be decent to you'. I found that quite a shock at the time, but he was right, and it was a wake up call for me. It's just very sad and tiring managing your own expectations, even when they're already on the floor

Can relate. When the doctor in hospital talked about a dnr for my dad, I welled up - my mum (furious I was upset as she’d waged a war all my life to make me see how awful he was as she hated him) said to the doctor “ she doesn’t understand “ doesn’t understand what I’ve no idea doctor came round and put her arm around me and comforted me.

when he was in a home he suddenly lost consciousness obviously dying. When I dropped my mum off at home after visiting ( she needed to get home for the dog) her parting words were “don’t ring me if he dies in the night”.

I'm so sorry. Is it worth it, having contact with her?

I have my hard hat on.

Currently parenting a teenager who on occasion appears to think that I am to blame for everything. (Including aftermath of the pandemic and the cost of living crisis).

I get really fed up with it. My own mother died around fifteen months ago - some would have described her as a difficult person but as I grew older I found much compassion for her and the hardships she must have gone through in parenting me -

I feel there is a lot of truth in the expression 'mothers are to blame for everything'.

Not many people at all praise us for what we do RIGHT, or the hardships we overcome. Sometimes as we do things and not even tell anyone we are doing them.

I think it is partly a male/female misogyny thing. No one seems to blame fathers in the same way they blame mothers.

My comment above does not apply to liberty bonds post. In the case of the abuse which they have suffered, I would definitely go no contact in such an instance. Sorry you have experienced this lb.

@Forestfriendlygarden I get that teenagers are hard. I’m sure I was. But my mum used to say to me, repeatedly, that I had ruined her life. She told me time after time that I was horrible. She still does.

As hard as your teen is I hope you wouldn’t do that to her?

You are making a lot of assumptions there K. Please stop projecting.

I don’t think I’m projecting? I’m just responding to your post that seems to say we shouldn’t blame our mothers for anything. I’m saying that how my mother treated me isn’t at all on the scale of a normal or acceptable reaction to a difficult teen.

I'm not aware that I said 'we shouldn't blame our mothers for anything'.

What I did say is to point out that fathers, absent, neglectful, lazy or just average - don't come in generally for anywhere near the amount of bashing that mothers do.

And that we should show more compassion for mothers generally. That excludes the serial killers and child abusers of course, that goes without saying.

And I did have what some would say was an extremely difficult mother. But I loved her and and she loved me. I now see how difficult certain things were for her and I'm grateful she stuck with it. I do have compassion for her suffering. And she did suffer. I know that. And often didn't get the support as a mum that she should have had, and deserved.

Last time I challenged my mum on why she treats me like shite, but my brother can do nothing wrong, her reply was "well, they say we hurt the ones we love the most." Of course..... her awful behaviour is actually her way of saying she loves me. 🤣🤣🤣

Difficult mothers are common lots of Mother and Daughter relationships can be quite fraught. My friend insists that his wife and her mother have the most difficult of all mother daughter relationships and that everyone else's issues are just minor then proceeds to describe the usual stuff, not even that bad really.

I think most women I know I have issues with their mum even if they really love and respect their Mum as I do. I studied psychotherapy for a while and there was some theory that mother's have much greater difficulty separating from their daughters than their sons and often identify too strongly with the daughter and as a result they can have quite strong feelings and reactions to what their daughters do in life which in turn causes conflict.

Mmmm I've been around those theories too, I generally point out that people who comment on mother daughter relationships don't say the same things about son - father relationships. I tend to think and feel they apply different standards and judge these relationships differently i.e mothers are supposed to be caring all the time - and fathers are not...mothers are supposed to be present all the time and fathers are not...

..i feel there are a lot of gender expectations in there..

@Forestfriendlygarden I think the idea, perhaps an outdated Freudian one now but perhaps not is that a father and son would never have quite the same intensity of connection as a mother who had carried her children and / or been primary care giver, that women's connection to their child as a part of themselves mirrors the infants sense of connection to the mother as a single entity as in many cases at one point they were prior to birth. There is also the changes to a woman's brain during and after pregnancy. While a father has some brain changes it is not to the same extent as women experience so there is I think some biological basis for these differences.

The theory is that as a boy grows up his being male allows the mother to more easily separate, not that she loves him less but she is less identified with them. A daughter being female can allow that identification to remain. There is quite a bit of research around this over identification and the development of eating disorders in teenage girls for example.

OP has described my mother to a T. Narcissistic Personality is very trying .

I was in the middle of writing a response to this earlier when i was interrupted.

I've spent a lot of time with Freud, especially over the past few years, having visited the Freud Museum and studied psychology myself, also DD going on to study it at uni.

Obviously I recognise his contributions as an important point in history. However there are many feminist psychologists who came after Freud and criticised his theories and practice.

So, yes I would say your statement is outdated. As far as brain development is concerned, that is very much uncharted territory. Vast swathes of the impact of physiology on women's bodies have been left unstudied. In particular Menopause and Post menopause and impact on brain re attachment.

So no, I wouldn't say this in comparison to men, and in any event cultural conditioning plays a large part in this as it stands. As do many other factors including socio economic circumstances.

It’s astonishing how many of us with mothers around the same age have similar experiences. I could have written half of these posts. The narcissism, the lack of emotional stability, the outbursts, the sulking, the refusal to acknowledge any bad behaviour…

I really recognise the over-identification as well. I think a lot of my mum’s resentment and dislike of me stems from the fact that we are total opposites, and she just doesn’t get me. She sees me being calm and assertive rather than hysterical (sorry, hate that word) and manipulative as coldness and lack of caring. She see me having boundaries and refusing to ignore terrible behaviour as bullying.

What I find really fascinating though, is that people are saying these traits are the result of the way Boomers were brought up by war-traumatised parents. But the crazy Boomers’ kids- us- seem pretty normal and capable in spite of the fucked-up mothers. But OUR children (not mine, I haven’t got any) are reportedly the most emotionally unstable, lacking in resilience generation ever- because of the overly-indulgent and protective way they’ve been brought up. So that has to be our fault. So we really are fucked up, we just can’t see it.

Every generation blames the one before…

I really agree with this.