So today we see my narc mother, first time ds seen his gran since finding out he’s going to his first choice uni, she spent the whole time raving about ds cousin

[KnackeredCatsleepytime]

On and on and on about ds cousin

said congrats then swiftly moved the convo on to said cousin

after half an hour we left
no plans to return anytime soon

My mother favoured my youngest and only male sibling.
My younger sister is a selfish, hateful person.
She used to tell lies about us to the other. So odd.
It's meant that now, as adults, we are not at all close. I'd go so far as to say my sister actually hates me.
No idea why.
I guess I was the family scapegoat.
It started with the gc, too.
My brothers child is the favourite.
Both my dc are awesome. They've both done really well at school/university and are genuinely lovely people.
Any positive comment made by anyone about my dc is immediately mwt with what my brothers child is doing.
It's quite tiresome.

My Mum is just the same and will wittle on about the cousin while my two boys are just sat there twiddling their thumbs

She also had throughout her life has had best friends who have had the most wonderful daughters who she prattles on about. She's sat in my living room yabbing on for ages about Jaynies garden, "ooh Jaynie loves her garden, she's out there all the time" while she won't get her ass off the settee to walk 20 ft to see MY garden. Make me more cross than it should

And people look aghast when you say you avoid your Mum. Unless you have someone in your life like this they won't understand

When she is with the cousin is she likely to be praising your DS? Speaking from experience of this - a parent that only praises me when I’m not there

Yes it always that kinda crap

Yes highly likely

This is all completely familiar to me.

I have been NC with my mother for about 12/13 years now and it’s absolutely blissful.

I don’t understand why you think you have to keep offering yourself up on a plate for her to abuse you? You can have a separate relationship with your siblings and DNs.

If you do decide to see her again maybe try the tact “oh mum, are you struggling with your memory? You keep saying X and this is Y.”

Sometimes acting like it’s totally innocent and something she can’t control works. Mostly because the only option she really has then is to admit she knows it’s Y and is doing it deliberately 😉

God there are so many of them out there. My DM used to bang on about her Great Niece and Nephew that she'd never met. Massive portraits of them both as young children on her sideboard. I don't hold them any ill obviously but my child and her only grandchild should be first.

Your DMs golden grandchild better strap in because they can look after her.

I had an experience like this with a friend a few years ago. I don’t contact or see her any more because she spent an hour talking about her own son’s plans for his gap year while not asking me about my son even though they’re the same age and have grown up together. She’s also the world’s biggest victim and 15 years after getting divorced still harps on about it in the most boring details. Nobody is more hard done by than her.

You have to get these self absorbed people out of your life!

I was the child in this scenario, with my GM endlessly comparing me to a classmate, who was the daughter of a friend. My DM (the DIL in this situation) kept me from it as much as possible and I’m glad she did. You’re doing the right thing

My ds didn’t say much, kinda brushed it off, but I can tell it did hurt a bit
so glad I left

Yep there’s lots of them out there!

Yes it’s that same self centered behaviour

You know i did think to say something along these lines

she is extremely defensive if a dr or whoever implies she’s not as fit and well as she used to be
so anything that implied she’s deaf, slow or unable would massively trigger
her

sometimes it’s so tempting to fight fire with fire

Because i feel for me, going v v low contact, not share anything personal, grey rock
works better for me that full blown NC which would just cause so much drama which she would love
as then she’s the victim

I mean she went on and on for 20 mins, we left after 30 max
mayen actually less then that and im
in no rush whatsoever to go back and we are not in regular phone or text contact

We share the same mother 😁or is there a glut of women in their late 60s - 80s who are just like this?

Very entitled and no-one has ever called them out on their rotten behaviour - or when they do call them out get labelled a bully and awful/hard (like my brother has).

I have gone NC with my M after years of the drip, drip of corrosive behaviour.

Last year was the final straw when she did finally ask about my kids and when I told her how they were (for about 2 mins), she said "don't keep bigging them up TP" . Not a terrible comment, certainly not the worst by any means, but that belittling of them finally did my head in.

It’s so odd, isn’t it.

My nan used to do this. She did it to me as a teenager, but from what I’ve heard she also did it to mum when when she was growing up. She would constantly compare her to her cousins unfavourably.

But my mum continued the cycle, she was always pitting me against my brother.

Anyway, my brother and I had a large falling out around 10 years ago and haven’t spoken since. Can’t be in same room together so it’s really split the family.

Mum is devastated and frequently cries about it and it’s clear she really resents me for it (even though brother is the one who refuses to be civil), I just feel like “well, what did you expect? “

@ohyesiseethatnow Yes! M has done that too!!

My elder bro has an office job, good for him, seems happy. I as a single mum went back to Uni, got my degree, qualified as a teacher, yet "Mike is doing SO WELL! He was always the cleverest of you all" 😂

i had this in our family. Grandmother wanted a very close family but did everything to sabotage it. She had quite a sad upbringing and wanted the closeness she never had. Sadly all she did was talk about my cousins non-stop when I was there and I am absolutely positive she did the same with them. It unfortunately meant we had little relationship and given her behaviour at my wedding I decided to go NC. She died about 6 months later.

Yes it’s exactly this sort of shit
it’s just so bloody odd
it not even logical

If you didn’t have a dc about to go to uni I would think that you were my dsis talking about our mum.

Huge congratulations to your son.

it Really is batshit behaviour
i mean she bloody caused it !!

You lot are really
making me thinking this perhaps the time to just so sooooo super low contact or even just end contact entirely
I guess I could leave it six months or more or until the point i here from her, and then just reply oh I’ve been so busy

Also there’s an element of this seems like to planned to put you in your place maybe ?
knock you down a peg or two

or force some sort of fake narrative that someone that’s not the smartest is now the smartest

The problem is we want the DM we deserve and we are never going to get it. Whatever I achieved meant nothing to my DM as it must have been easy if I could do it. So raising my DS alone, working full time, getting a degree, getting a decent job, buying a home, sending my DS to a private school. Oh yes easy ...

From the woman who had a faithful husband with a decent job, who paid the mortgage and everything else, with no qualifications and only the rare part time jobs she was always sacked from.

And when she did try to do a couple of GCSEs because she was so clever, she failed them. One was so bad it didn't even have a grade.

Going NC was liberating.

She will never be proud of you or your DS, she is incapable of it.