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.

Wow so many similar stories, I’m sad to add mine but it’s not that different - I know she loves me, and in her way tries to please me but she has no idea who I really am or the part she’s played in making me that way.

She’s had a tough life but fails to recognise how some of her choices have affected me and DB - completely refuses to even acknowledge it. When I tried to broach the subject once she just told me to see a counsellor - which ironically I was and she had suggested trying to talk to my mum 🤦🏻

She’s incredibly needy, tactless, falls out with everyone, plays the frail old lady but is tough as old boots underneath. My ex DH couldn’t stand her and it definitely contributed to our marriage breakdown.

I tolerate her now, try and see her as little as I can get away with but she’s always there in the background - like others I have techniques to maintain some boundaries like always having my phone on silent (which isn’t always convenient but means I have a chance to gear myself up before returning a text or call).

I dread her getting older as I know she’ll expect me to care for her and I just don’t want to. I know it’s not intentional but she has messed up my life so much and I don’t feel like the loving caring daughter I should be and that she thinks I am.

Yes. Why? Did you want her?

Yes, I've realised over the years just what an impact my mother's anxiety has had on me, making me into a highly anxious person myself. So I try hard every day to be as positive as I can and to project happiness and positivity. It doesn't always work but I do want my dd's memories to be more positive. Now, she is starting to lose memory, so there's that to deal with as well.

Have you considered the possiblity that she has done her shift now?

You are grown up!

Why should she 'get who you are?; Surely she has her own life to live now?

And how do you know she expects you to care for her. Have you asked her?

Yes, I've never felt close to my mum. We are very different and have never really understood each other. As the years have gone on she has become increasingly negative and competitive and it can be quite draining to spend time with her - although she doesn't often choose to spend time with me anyway. I relate to one of the posters who said that their relationship was superficial. We can discuss the issues she has going on with neighbours and building etc but we would never discuss anything on a deeper level.

i’m another one recognising the description of a difficult mother whose mood dictated the household, I walked on eggshells waiting to have my flaws pointed out. CBT was a game changer for me. It silenced my inner critic that I had taken from my childhood home and I find I react differently to her now.
with my daughters, I made sure they know my love is unconditional, as this was something I never felt.
i don’t and have never really challenged her, although I was NC for 2 years. She isn’t going to change now.
the therapy I had has meant I have changed how her behaviour affects me.

My mother is very similar to op but she is probably undiagnosed autistic spectrum.

Not any more! My Mum can live as long as she wants, in the way she wants because she is no longer a part of my life.

Thank Christ for that.

Yep. For me it comes down to very very clear boundaries. I'm very direct with her about what I will and will not accept and I've left the house when visiting and she's refused to accept the boundaries. It took consistency and me following through on 'consequences' but we have a better relationship now for it. When she reverts into that childish mentality then I remind myself that I'm an adult and while I can't control her attitude I can control how I react to it. It's funny because she's much more careful now with what she says and does around me than my sister who just accepts that's what she's like. I realised through counselling that I probably went into an abusive first relationship because I couldn't see the warning signs having grown up with them demonstrated by her, but as I've got older ive also been able to see how her mental health and resilience are really poor due to trauma and I work very hard to make sure that I'm doing the work to parent in a way that will break that generational trauma. I just wish she'd known or felt able to do the same for us but I think there's much more awareness of the need for self improvement now which I'm thankful for. Certain things do suck though, like important moments when you hope she'll show up for you and she doesn't do make me really sad that I don't have that mother daughter relationship that my friends have but I just have to work on accepting it for what it is all over again then.

The professional advice for difficult parents is often to keep it light: see them at birthdays, pop round at Xmas but that’s it.

Avoids a feud, no drama for them
to maximise, but it keeps you pretty safe.

I’d add - see difficult people in company with others, never at your home and always, always somewhere you can leave in 5 minutes if nec. Outings to cinema are great cos they can’t talk.

I'm confused about my dmum. We were fed, clothed, had treats, holidays and lovely presents. But we were never allowed to be upset or angry, always have to be positive even now.
She's never been able to support us through anything bad. My dbro split with his wife and I remember her saying to him "Cheer up! You'll be fine" not an ounce of sympathy. She can only deal with happy feelings.
I've had to learn empathy and learn to allow myself and other people around me negative feelings as a result of being bought up like this.

@Forestfriendlygarden not sure why you chose my post out of all of them to pick holes in, it’s not very sensitive on a thread where people are talking about something that makes them feel awful is it.

Maybe my post doesn’t explain it very well but it’s not me with the expectations, she has always expected more from me than a daughter should have to do - this isn’t the place for details and you can’t be expected to know but it’s annoyed me that you felt the need to imply I’m the one in the wrong.

I think there is more focus on mothers, as those of us who are mothers try our best to be as supportive as we can to our children. And we don't intend for that to cease when they're adults.

I looked back on my mother's life (she died around eighteen months ago).

There was a time (around sixteen) - when I did and said things I now regret. I understand now how much mothers can worry.

I took time to look at her life and the overwhelming feeling I have is that she was an amazingly, incredibly brave woman. And I'm really glad that she was 'difficult' until the end. And amazingly feisty, and she never, ever gave up. She was very clearly labelled as all kinds of things when she was alive.

She was raised during the war, in really grinding poverty. The war started when she was around eight, which also meant that she missed out on anything but what they used to call 'elementary' education, so no 'O' Levels, raising four kids. At aged eighteen she was on the first ever NHS ward for a serious illness which she recovered from.

And she was not defined by all of that. She had four kids - and when the last one was on their way to secondary school, she went to college and got her first English O level. It was not commonplace then for a woman aged forty to do that at all and it must have been difficult. She then got herself a job.

I can see how she was discriminated against in her life for being a woman, for being a mother, for trying to live her own life in the way that she wanted to.

I am so glad that she fought for what she knew was right, and I know she would be so proud of myself and DD and would have understood exactly our journey through the pandemic and out of the other side. And I am even more glad that we never became estranged from each other or stopped contact.

So onwards and upwards to 'difficult' women! I fully intend being as 'difficult' as she was going forward (especially in my 'old' age)...😀

Room for me in here?

I've just realised at 33 that my 63yo mother is a child.

She screamed and swore at me 2 weeks ago down the phone because I forgot to call her whilst dealing with a sick husband.

I've realised my life has been peppered with verbal abuse, guilt trips, dependent behaviour, tantrums and insults from her. She hasn't called me she's waiting for me to crawl back because being related excuses verbal abuse... no longer :(

Not as bad as yours OP, but hyper-hyper sensitive, taking offence at the tiniest thing, deciding to sulk and have a ‘face’ on for days at a time. We often had to tiptoe around her on eggshells. It could often make childhood miserable, though she was fine when in a good mood.

One thing I can never forget, was a day when I was maybe 12, when she was in this ‘mood’ and had that ‘face’ on. I walked well over a mile into town and spent my very limited pocket money on some flowers for her.

She took a brief look and said (in ‘that’ voice) ‘I don’t want them’.

TBH I was more angry than upset. I took them straightaway next door and pretended I’d bought them for their old granny.

My DM later asked where they were (DF had probably had a go at her) so I retorted, ‘You didn’t want them - I gave them to Mrs P!’

Then she was pissed off about that - probably worried in case I said I’d bought them for her, but she’d spurned them, which would make her sound awful.
Which I hadn’t.

In many ways she could be very good, though. She’s been dead some years now, but I still think of that incident now and then. I could never in a million years have behaved like that to dds.

My mother is relentlessly ‘happy’ too. The problem is every so often the mask slips and there is a raging angry woman in there. A spiteful, jealous woman with so much repressed rage. It’s directed at me. No one else. She’s lovely to my siblings.
She was sent to boarding school at 8 and hardly saw her family again. She once said she decided to appear happy because that’s what everyone expected. So sad.
She doesn’t know who I I am , how I feel about anything or much about my life. She keeps trying to connect with me through things like gardening, sewing, painting. None of which I’m interested in. She can’t relate to her grandchildren. It’s really very sad. I’ve learnt not to let her in at all as she turns things back on me or throws them back in my face. She’s never been supportive to me . I realised that I relate to her as a distant figure to whom I know I’m related but have no relationship.

The theory I have to explain my mum's behaviour is that she is inherently misogynistic. So in her mind she is below my brothers in status, so she can't have a go at them,. As a younger woman, I am the person she thinks she gets to lord it over. So I get the brunt of all her bad moods, manipulation and mind games.

I remember realising that not everyone had to walk on eggshells at home and being amazed.

I don’t think she chose to be like this and with hindsight and trying to be kind, perhaps this was as kind as she could be? Her childhood wasn’t easy, but as others have said too, it left her quite childlike in her behaviour. I am proud I have broken the pattern and have happy confident daughters. This is only possible due to the therapy I have had.

Yes and she's still difficult at 100 and counting. But dementia is calming her down.

@Nomoreheroics yes my mum often tries to connect with me as well, but the truth is we don’t really have anything in common. We are very different people. I’ve discovered as an adult that I’m actually quite outdoorsy and love walking. On occasions she’s said she liked to come with me and then moaned and complained the whole time about how hard it is, how sore her legs are, how tired she’s getting, tells me I’m walking too fast etc. I’m like why did she even decide to come if she’s only going to moan and complain. She then sulks like a toddler for reasons that are unfathomable to me.

How old is your mum?

What is the age gap?

Does she have some kind of physical disability/

It can be difficult for example with arthritis in the early stages. And later.

I wonder if she has an undiagnosed disabilty.

If so, it is potentially an incredibly difficult life change and just 'going out for a walk' can bring all sorts of really difficult issues.

If you are much younger than her, and do not have issues like that it may be something you have not encountered.

I've had it from my own daughter, actually. She suggests going out for a walk, but doesn't realise I'm in pain and I can't do what she is suggesting. Doestn' mean I can't do ANYTHING, just not in the way she is suggesting.

i relate to many of these stories, and my biggest problem is the fear that I am replicating her parenting! in so fucking scared that myimbalanced upbringing has made me an imbalanced mum. does anyone have any reccomendations of books or resources to help with this - specifically for being a parent yourself?