When you can’t be friends with you own mother

[Ewoklady]

Really struggling with guilt at the moment from taking a break from dm
for context, she has criticised and put me down since childhood (even remember being as young as ten and feeling like there was something’s my wrong with me)

for years I kept her happy by doing jobs to please her. Going to university was a huge positive step and I used to stay on during the holidays and work to avoid going back to the family home. As years have gone on I now cannot stand to be in the same room as her sadly. The dirty looks, the spiteful comments, the tricks she plays to get attention, the rude comments about everyone and the way she needs drama to sustain herself. I don’t want to live like this though (I just wish I had a nice mother) To be mean by not seeing her isn’t really the person I am (I am decent I think) but my father allows this to happen too.

I’m not looking for advice but I had to put it somewhere.

Get yourself over to the Stately Homes thread in Relationships. You are not alone. 💐

Thank you ❤️

I get it.

I get it too.

Your mum is a person who happens to be related to you. Strip the title away. Grey rock it. Low contact it. Life is too short.

Sorry your parents were and are so crap. Lots of resources on the stately homes threads!

sounds like you’ve made sensible choices for yourself such as low contact.

support can also be found in real life from friends and, if you can afford it, counselling. Bur avoid discussing it with anyone who doesn’t ‘get’ it or has a strong agenda.

That’s the thing .. when work colleagues talk about spending Christmas with their parents and I made a visit and was told that my father was sleeping so not to come down (Christmas eve)

but we visited because it was a plot so that she could say ‘we didn’t see our grandkids all over christmas’
stuff like that .. but I am quicker at seeing the tricks now

I get it too. My DF is amazing but DM I speak to as little as possible (they're separated). Sounds pathetic for a grown woman, but nearly all my friends say how there DM is their best friend and I wish I had that, but never going to happen

I would 100% consider counsellor if you can stretch to it, it will be so important for you to start to firstly unpack this and then start to heal from it and move away from the strategies you've probably developed to keep yourself safe from your parents. There is also a kind of bereavement you need to process when you come to terms with the fact you will never have the parents you deserve. I can't be friends with my mum either if I want to take care of my mental wellbeing. I have reasonably low contact with her (and my dad for different but similar reasons) and what we do have is very surface level. You put in the boundaries that work for you and then focus in on caring for yourself.

Thank you so much. I used to have a very close and loving relationship with my father and siblings but that has all broken down
my father makes out I have psychological problems and my siblings say I only care about myself but one is in contact a little (the one that used to say I abandoned them as a child when I moved away from home)

@Ewoklady

Stop feeling guilty about reflecting and thinking about how you feel about the way your mother and father toxic attitudes and behaviours has had far reaching ramifications on yourself

Your father is an enabler and very weak person he is a anything for an easier life along as it doesn't impact myself,

Make this new years resolution of putting yourself first it's not selfish it's called self preservation against the corrisive insidious effect of being a child of two people who should never really had children,

Seriously Consirder going no contact or extremely low contact for your sanity,

No contact would be much better for your emotional health well being, there is no doubt,
Maybe just gradually just step back from both of them

Stay strong and resilant and ensure robust boundaries inplace..

I appreciate your kind words so much
this issue is corroding away at my insides and I have a full and happy life now but this is spoiling it for me
my dm has got herself to a point now where she hasn’t left her bed for months which I feel so sorry for her about but I have moved on from supporting her as I never got any from her

Are you me?

This thread may give you some help op.
January 2024 - Well we took you to Stately Homes | Mumsnet

My "bitch grandmother" maternal side, was like this with me all my life, I cut her off in the end and she died a lonely old woman in a nursing home 70 miles away from me. Vicious, critical, tactless, rude, abusive, I put up with it all my life, until she threatened to kick off at my wedding in 95. Then I was done. Thankfully, my mum, who died before her mother, broke the mould and was the most loving and caring mum ever. She supported me fully in going NC and knew not to mention her... Sending hugs ❤

I’ve had therapy to cope with my now elderly mother. I remember once she asked me why I had counselling in a very disapproving way and I quoted to her;
’I have therapy because you don’t think you need it’. The arrogance!