Bitter, resentful mum. Anyone else struggle?

[RudeDogAndTheDweebs]

Does anyone else struggle with having an unhappy, unfulfilled, bitter and resentful mum? A mum who, despite loving you - in the way that most mums love their children, seems to envy and begrudge every single moderately nice thing that you've ever had or experienced? Someone who thinks she's been 'unlucky' in life, while everyone around her has been 'lucky'.

Some of the ways in which I've apparently been 'lucky' include:

• "Not having to worry about my weight" (her words). Reality, which she's aware of: I watch what I eat at every meal and have maintained a regular exercise regime for 20 years.
• Doing well at work and getting a couple of promotions. With the last one, instead of saying 'well done', she mournfully sighed "you'll be retired at 50". (WTF, I'll still have a mortgage then and what the hell would I live on for the next 35 years?!) Reality, which she's aware of: I've put myself through professional qualifications, done jobs I hate, done jobs that have made me ill, suffered anxiety for a decade, taken risks, put myself through a 'fear of public speaking' course to treat a phobia that was at risk of ruining my career. I'm also 40 and have been plugging away at the same thing for 20 years by now.
• Living in a nice enough house (nothing amazing though) in a beautiful area. Reality, which she's aware of: DH and I have spent 15 years doing up houses, honing what started out as utterly shit DIY skills and getting a hell of a lot wrong along the way. And we live in a beautiful area because we took a huge risk and relocated to somewhere where we knew absolutely noone and had to work really hard to build a life here for ourselves.

I could go on and on, but won't.

I'll never confront her, so please don't suggest that I should - its totally unrealistic within the dynamics of our relationship. I've built a life away from her which I love. It's just painful to have a mum who seems so bitter and unwilling to be happy for her own daughter - and god forbid she ever suggested she was a little bit proud of me.

Can anyone relate? How do you rationalise it and find peace?

Yep. Therapy. And a painful realisation that if I didn't check myself and my bitterness I was going to become her. It is still sobering on a daily basis. I can't change her I can only change me and my own reactions. Our relationship is better now but only because I have done a lot of work on my own resentment and rage.

My sibling is like this. Second going to therapy.

1. Smile and say thank you, I work hard for my health.

1. Smile and say thank you, I work hard at my job.

1. Smile and say thank you, I worked hard for my house.

Thanks for your replies. I've also had a couple of rounds of therapy, and it really helped. I just worry that as I keep working on myself, she keeps getting more and more bitter and resentful with age - so it sometimes feels like a race that I can't win.

It's an awful thing to say but I feel like I've got this dark cloud looming over me, sapping my joy, and occassionally want to shout "Will you just fuck off with your gloomy fucking attitude and your resentment and your unfulfilled dreams that you've done fuck all to make happen. It was YOUR choice to have kids, YOUR choice to get divorced - these things didnt happen TO you and you arent a tragic victim of circumstance".

My father is like this. Thinks everyone has had everything handed to them and he's been unlucky all his life. In reality he has a chip on his shoulder, can't bear authority and has never been able to hold a job for five min!

I just smile and nod now

raises hand me too

It's their insecurities. It's not you. They pin wasted chances and regret onto you, a person thats easier to deride, than it is to blame themselves and their choices/circumstances. Keeping you in your place rather than lifting you up and celebrating you. It's shit, it's not acceptable either and you don't have to accept it.

The way to deal with it is to continue being awesome 😁 (it's fantastic that you can list everything you've achieved, and that your self esteem still exists. Keep hold of it, you'll be needing it) and gradually build boundaries. I wouldn't choose to see much of a friend that makes me feel shit, so why would I choose to waste much time on family who's supposed to love me, but ACTIVELY CHOOSES to make me feel shit?!

Therapy helped me massively, because of course we still love our mums and we've been conditioned over our whole lives to submit to their crap behaviour and lack of joy and care for us, for who we really are.

But you have reached the point where the cons outweigh the pros.

Just call her Eeyore. Ring her and say How's your day going Eeyore? Give her a copy of Winnie The Pooh.

If I ever share any of that with her, she either zones out or brings the convo back to herself and her problems.
So, even when she can't play the 'you're so lucky/I'm so unlucky' card, she's still not happy! This really resonates @BrianBettyGrable

In the last couple of years my dad has had cancer (thankfully managing it well now) and DH has lost his job and had to retrain withiut warning. She's never once asked me how I am. It's like even THAT would be indulging me too much.

I have a boring weekly call with her where, because she can't bear to hear about anything I've been doing, we're stuck on what's good to buy in Aldi.

If I say I've been to the gym that day: "Mmm".

If I say I met a friend for a coffee: "Mmm".

If I say I've had a busy week at work: "Mmm".

And her favourite, asking about our dog (we don't have kids) to avoid ever having to acknowledge anything exciting or nice that I've done.

"We went to a hotel for a night in that town we've been meaning to visit": "What about DDog?" Well she came with us, didn't she.

"We had fun this weekend, we went kayaking for a couple of hours": What about DDog? Well, we obviously left her at home.

Yes I've had a good week, I cycled to Tumbuktu: "What about DDog?" Well obviously we had her looked after, didn't we.

I attended an awards ceremony where I won a Nobel Peace prize for my humanitarian work: "What about DDog?" She stayed home.

She has never perhaps and will never meet your entirely valid need for care and love. Go back to therapy to get that need met and accept you weren't given the mothering care that you needed. Rage about the fact that you have taken yourself to therapy and she probably never will and how bloody unfair it is that you need to do this work in the first place. I can not stress enough what a mess we are in until we realise our own unmet needs. All the anger you feel is entirely valid but you are hitting your head against a brick wall as she is never going to notice you.

Yes, sounds very familiar to me too.
Anything nice I do/announce is met with a 'oh, I wish I could have done that too/oh well, it sure must cost a lot of money/oh are you sure it is safe there... etc.
It is like she begrudges me for having anything nice. And the stupid thing is that she COULD have done all of the nice stuff with us when we were kids, but they never did. They've had plenty of time (mum being a stay at home mum, dad working an ok job but retiring already when he was 45) and sufficient money to do that, but they always prioritised other things.
What irks me most is that she gets super annoyed about anything that shows my good relationship with my kids. For instance, I like to go for shopping trips with my daughters and that really annoys her for some reason. Yes I know, because you never did anything like that with me is what I want to say, but then she would turn on the waterworks and claim it was all so much more difficult then.
At the same time, if her neigbour - who is my age and also combines kids with a full time job - does anything it is so nice, so lovely, well-deserved etc. Anything that I do is criticised, but if neighbour does it it is absolutely fine. And I hear more about neighbours trip/job/etc. than mine. In fact, I'm pretty sure that she knows better what job neighbour does than what I do. If I were to explain it (again) she would just show no interest.
It's infuriating. I agree.

My DM hasn't left the village she grew up in, just took shit jobs, lived in the same house, only drove to the supermarket and leads (for me) a totally unfulfilled, unchallenged and uneventful life. Much like @RudeDogAndTheDweebs everytime I tell her I've got promoted, going abroad or doing something exciting, she asks if I've done my washing, been shopping or what I'm cooking for tea.

In fact, I'm pretty sure that she knows better what job neighbour does than what I do. If I were to explain it (again) she would just show no interest.

Yes @whatamidealingwith I've explained my job to my mum in very simple terms, several times. The job title is self explanatory - anone could hazard a guess. All I get is a resigned "Oh, I don't know"
No, you don't WANT to know.

In the end I stopped telling my mother anything nice or good that had happened to me. If she didn’t ask, I didn’t need to to tell her. I became the most boring person. I even tried competing with her on who could moan the most about trivialities!

It still meant having to endure weekly phone calls of an hour and more, but I took to doing other things when talking to her and just mmmm in all the right places.

Over the years the calls went from weekly to less often.

I think they have to have that mindset the world is better for other people, because they’d otherwise have no-one but themselves to blame for being unhappy.

your mother sounds like a narcissist. She will never change. There are support groups for daughters of narcissistic mothers. it’s very difficult to accept a mother who is so unloving and unlike other moms. The trouble is when you internalise her perceptions of you and her unloving feelings towards you as something to do with you. I struggled with this for years, actually, most of my adult life, thinking things like what’s wrong with me? why isn’t my mom proud of me? I’m a good kid. I have a very good male friend who once said to me, why doesn’t your mother like you? Then he said, you’re like the perfect kid. You never been in trouble. You worked really hard in school. You have a great job. I really don’t understand why she is so awful to you. This made me realise that she was the problem, not me. I sometimes wonder what kind of person I would be if I had a mom who was loving and acted like she was proud of me. it really can turn into a lot of resentment and bitterness. I feel that I’ve been deprived of what would be considered a semi normal childhood and beyond that, a decent relationship with her. But I’ve made my peace and accepted that all I can do is try to look forward to my future. I also take hart and the fact that I will never act like this towards my own daughter.

Same @Harvestfestivalknickers - one job, one house, one relationship (that she ended and never tried again). And that's fine if it makes her happy, but it plainly doesn't.

She's been chipping away at her small life even further by saying she doesn't like driving in the damp/dark/cold, doesn't like to go down certain streets because of the parking, only goes to shops at certain times to ensure they are quiet and she can have "her" parking space, won't have any nice experiences because she begrudge paying £1.50 to park, doesn't want to fly again (but then gets jealous of holidays). I mean, I don't like flying either, lots of people don't, but we just crack on.

I'm really sad for you OP. Glad you've had therapy. Second the thank you, I've worked really hard for...

@Imgoingtobefree yes I'm doing the same - telling her less and less about my life. She was a bit put out recently that I hadn't told her that we'd replaced our bedroom furniture a year ago (I've been visiting her rather than her visiting me for the last year - my choice). Im waiting for the pity party when she realises that our new bed is a Superking size (which she has ample space for herself, should she ever want one!)

I cannot even imagine for a second what a miserable existence these mothers must live if they cannot find it in themselves to be happy for their children and have an interest in their lives.

My own poor excuse for a mother was always very jealous of me. Even as a teen she would make nasty comments about my appearance especially if someone had complimented me. She just had to knock me down a peg. I bought my first home in my early 20's and I was so proud. Invited her round and she grabbed me by the arm and says "this doesn't mean you're better than me". I knew then that I had to step back massively. She never ever had my best interests at heart.

In the years that followed I'd keep low contact and if she did insult me I'd call her out on it immediately. But honestly these kind of people just love being the victim and it didn't help me at all.

She passed away when I was in my late 20's and she didn't change at all.

Therapy has helped me a lot. My therapist got me to remember back to a time I felt very jealous of someone, that horrible feeling you get that makes you so unhappy and miserable with your own situation. Then just remember this was how your mother felt everytime she saw you happy. What kind of a person does that?. A self absorbed nasty person imo.

@RudeDogAndTheDweebs

You don't have to confront her your mother i get that

I would seriously look into putting into boundaries to protect yourself from her,
such as limiting time spent with her to the minimum interactions can get away with,
etc,

Your mother is clearly too messed up dysfunctional to appreaciate you and blessings in her life

No matter what you do or and what things she accumulated in her life she would never be happy or appreaciate it,

That's her issue her problem
Not yours
You are your own person thankfully

Don't let your mother who is Toxic messed up individual
or
anyone else who is messed up toxic,

"Fuck up your emotional wellbeing in any way,

I know it's easy for a random stranger on her to say that,
I know the feeling only too well,

I came from extremely shitty background
You don't need her your mother to validate you,

Is there anyone or other people who are good for you quality people from your family or and friendship circle etc?,
who you could lean into more,
as in spend quality time with such as in a cafe , taking stroll in the park visting interesting places,
You visting them and they visting you type of thing,

I would get good effective therapy to address emotionally abusive sapping energy You have to contend so long that just drips out of your interactions with your mother,

Also make a list of things you have accomplished in your life and proud no matter how small they are,

Count your blessings on things every day such as having reasonable health the sounds of nature the birds
Being a loving supportive relantship

Changing of the seasons
even that bargain you had from the supermarket food wise ect etc,

It might feel a bit quirky weird at first ✍️ writing your accomplishments or and counting your blessings but will soon feel more natural and become a much needed habit too,
in a journal or and these things acknowledge this 🤔 in your mind.

@ABwithAnItch great post, I relate to all of it.

@vidflex I bought my first home in my early 20's and I was so proud. Invited her round and she grabbed me by the arm and says "this doesn't mean you're better than me".

DH and I bought our first flat when I was 25. Of all people to know we did it without help, it's my mum. Being from a working class family, I was so proud of this huge achievement. I couldn't wait to show mum. She walked in and I said, big grin on my face, "So this is the living room". Her response, in the flattest tone, was "Yes, I can see that". No further comments, no 'well done'.