to cut my Mother out of our lives?

[thatisall]

This is a bit of a post about a post (sorry). 2 weeks ago I posted, with a different name about my upcoming wedding and wanting my Mum to act like a Mum just this once. I got some great advice: Have her at the wedding, don't let anything she says or does or doesn't say and doesn't do upset you and get over it, she will not change and its not your fault. It was good advice and for the most part I followed it.

I did have a little cry on my wedding morning when the hairdresser asked if my Auntie was my Mum, because my Mum didn't get in touch with me at all that day...or the day before or at all in relation to my wedding or anything else really.

At the Church she sat right at the front looking very entitled and took photographs. She didn't speak to me or my dh all day and left without saying goodbye. My photographer instigated MOB pictures as he is a good friend and said I might regret it if we didn't have them.

She has done ALOT of bad things over the years. Allowing abusive partners into my life, abandoning us all when I was 14 and the oldest of 5, behaving as though I'm not even her daughter. She openly admits that she has little to do with me because she's 'done her bit'. She acts like she's jealous of me, when I just want her to be proud.

I had an outburst yesterday when I saw that my friend had been tagged in her wedding pic album on facebook. My Mum will not be my friend on facebook so I can't see the rest of the photos of my wedding. My friend assures me that there weren't ANY of my dh and I anyway; though this actually made me feel worse.

She hates me, she clearly hates me. In the last 7 months while she has barely been speaking to me, she did not see my dd. She says it is my responsibility to bring dd to her as she is too ill (my mother is prone to inexplainable illnesses - that sounds mean but i mean it...one nurse even joked with me that she needed an exorcist) and takes no responsibility for the fact that she didn't even pick up the phone.

I am not blameless. I'm stubborn, I find it hard to forget all the shit she did or allowed to be done when I was growing up and everything she does feels like the last straw. I do retaliate. For example, she didn't get in touch on my birthday so a couple of days ago when it was hers, I didn't bother getting in touch. I should be a bigger person than that.

I'm allowing all of this to change me and make me into a nasty bitch.
I think I want to cut her off. Not make a big show of it, but just stop trying or allowing myself to be drawn into family meetings about it. Time will pass and eventually she will have been away from us for so long that it might stop hurting. But...

...I know of so many people whose parents have passed away that would do ANYTHING for their parents to be alive and I feel like such a bitch.

I want to protect my dd from this person but i feel like a bitch for denying her a relationship with her grandmother.

MNers are fiercely protective of rights to access and relationships and so am I, but I'm hurting so much that I'm worried my judgement is cloudy.

I need to know honestly...would I be a bad Mum for cutting off my Mum?

^I cut my mother out due to her shit and drama. She died - I don't miss her. When she died I grieved for the mother she should have been rather than the person she was iyswim. Only you can make the decision but if you do, do it quietly and have a great life.

NotEveryoneHasAHalfWayDecentMotherTiggaxx^

I couldn't have put it better myself, DawnTigga :).

My mother died nearly 20 years ago. I didn't have a brilliant relationship with her, but she was generally a good person. My toxic relationship is with my father who is now over 80. He's a controlling, bullying alcoholic. He's caused so much trouble in my life in recent years. I've tried very hard to cut him out of my life, but I'm just not strong enough to sever the relationship entirely and he keeps causing me grief and misery. DH says just to keep minimum contact with him as it's easier than severing contact, and he deals with phone calls etc where he can as it just upsets me. My father has spread lies about me to family who now don't speak to me, and don't want to have any contact with me. He also told lies about me to his friends who, sadly, are our neighbours and they have been particularly vicious in their attacks on us.

All in all it has been pretty hellish having a toxic parental relationship. I say that, if it was DH, then I'd have divorced him and moved on, but you can't do that with a relative :(.

You would not be unreasonable to cut her out and it is not your fault. You have your own family now who will love and support you. It's hard to accept that you will never have the mother you wish for and you that deserved as a child. However, you can give your own DD the love and support you never had and focus on that relationship instead.

You are not denying your DD anything if you cut your mother off, she has the love she needs from you. With my own mother, I reached a point where I realised she is just not capable of caring about anyone other than herself. When I looked at it that way, it was easier not to feel angry. It's not that she chooses not to love or to care - she just can't.

I cut my mother out our lives 3 years ago, well I say cut I just started making as much effort as she's does (none).

She did nothing for me, she would phone once a week and try and make me feel so down. Never had a good thing to say about me or anyone else really. Yet if you spoke to my aunts she was full of praise for me. I had counselling and believe she has done sort of NPD and mothers singling out a child usually a daughter to apparently hate is very common. I think she was jealous of me, my brother is her darling child.

I've lost nothing by cutting her put well apart from the nasty phonecalls.

sweetkitty when all this nonsense with illnesses really kicked off (including TEXTING me to say she had cancer - which she didn't) I did some research online as to her behavioural symptoms. Looking at munchausens etc and narcissistic personality disorder was something I read about and thought...that's her.

NPD...right up to the overly sexual behaviour (snogging my friends while their asleep and even my friends husband, boyfriends Dad, whilst drunk - all married), using illness as a way of distracting from their behaviour, needing to be babied and 'looked after' and always making themselves into the centre of attention...whatever it takes...ie trying (very hard ) to upset me on our wedding day.

Potentially if I do have a 'meeting' with the Aunties and Uncle, that is one f the things I plan to disuse. i think she needs help. One Auntie has tried to talk to her about it but has been vilified and is now regarded with the same contempt as me. What Im basically saying is 'look, your sister/daughter is literally driving me mad. I am walking away. You might want to point her in the direction of a psych ward.'

you guys are so supportive, we ll have some shitty Mums!! I hope and pray that I never make my dd feel this way, that none of us do.

Im lying it was histrionic personality disorder that I thought best matched her behaviour, though NPD did come up

Oh we've had the illnesses thing and the cancer scare. My mother had some period type problems (prob the menopause) but she had googled it and it was a cancer scare! She seemed to always have bad food poisoning that kept her in bed all Saturday or Sunday (hangover), arthritis and anything else she could of. It was all a sort of feel sorry for me ploy.

Last year my brother phoned me and said that she was in hospital but as she knew I still spoke to my aunt she didn't want my aunt finding out and rushing home (my aunt spends 6 months in Spain) this is just her, oh look at me I'm in hospital but I'm a martyr and don't want my family rushing hone to care for me. I did nothing. Why should I? She didn't care when my 2 year old was rushed into hospital.

I just refuse to get involved in it all now, sometimes it gets to me when I hear she's babysitting for my Dnephew but then I think there is no way I would leave my DC alone with her and actually feel sorry for SIL and DB leaving their child with her.

omg are you actually a long lost sister...that is my MUM!!!

is she a serial comp claimer too??

the drinking has started again too. New bloke prob not helping but she has to take responsibility for herself someday.

On the park with the whole family on Easter Monday and the two of them were drinking out of bags in the rain at 1pm!!! Honestly we aren't that kind of family....and with all the millions of tablets she reports to be on, should she be drinking at all?

Everything is my fault, I was a know it all madam who thought I was better than her even as a child (her words) what little girl isn't a know it all madam I have 3! I have always made her feel like she was beneath me (WTF) and she never had the benefit of a uni education! How can a child make you feel you are beneath them? I think she hated the fact I was smart and independent. She also has this weird misogynistic thing going on that men are better than women, that you aren't a true woman until you can give birth to a son. You must obey your husband and never earn more than him, whilst having the previous son of course. I think I thought sod this fruit loop in thinking for myself!

My mum actually said those words to me...you aren't a true woman til you've given birth to a son....just after I four out I was infertile and would only ever have my dd.

Wow.

They both really are sick with the same illness.

The other thing she's good at is taking credit for stuff. if I bake a wedding cake for a friend...she taught me to bake and they should see her cakes etc etc

I once met a new guy and telling her about him i was saying how much he seemed to like me and all the nice things he said (this guy is now my dh), her response to hearing how much he loved my attitude, found me attractive etc was....'yeah well he hasn't met your Mother yet....why would anyone have you when they could have me'

Thatisall - I think we are long lost sisters for sure

Once my mother started making the comments about my DDs then I knew it was time to cut contact, if I ever pulled her up on a comment she would either deny it or say "sweetkittys on her high horse again" and of course the nasty things she saved for when it was just me and her. I used to meet people and they would go on about how proud my Mum was of me, how I have a big house with 3 bathrooms (I don't) as if she's the best mother ever.

The irony is I have a DS now and she's never met him. She gushed about DD1 a bit disappointed she wasn't a boy, when DD2 & 3 came along she practically ignored them well apart from one visit every 6 months to take photos.

Yes she used to also make comments about DP to try and make me insecure. She made my life such a living hell that DP ended up taking a crappy job so we could move in together.

Do you have siblings? What's she like with them?

I have 4. How she is with them depends on hers and their mood. dsis kinda clings to her whenever she's nice and so just forgets the shittiness and though she's almost driven one dsis to harming herself (no exaggeration) the same dsis is her bussom buddy right now. i think if your starved of niceness for s long, you'll accept it whatever the terms.

Dbro is the golden boy and sometimes he hates it as he knows it upsets his disasters sometimes.

But ALL of them agree that I get it on a whole different level and in ways that they have never experienced.

I was the unplanned 1st child you see (how dare I!?)

I have different hair and eyes and I look a bit like my father.

Ah I see there's only me and my brother, he's by far her golden boy she mothered him more as he was lazy and would allow her to do everything for him plus he's not as clever as me.

The cleverness thing is a big one, she really resents me for it but on the other hand loves bragging that I'm the only one in the family that has stayed on at school past 16, been to uni etc but then that reflects on her parenting doesn't it and how wonderful she is.

She hated me having more DC than her to again its this I beat her at something. I had a mc between DD2 & 3 and she said it was for the best, 3 DC would be too expensive, DP would leave me with the stress of providing for us all!!! She hated it when I got pregnant again the month after the mc, and totally ignored DD3.

The wedding thing I can relate to that, could see her doing that turning up not speaking to me but getting the photos to brag about.

It's tragic when you can never remember your mother hugging you, telling you well done or you even look nice.

I would get comments about my weight, skin, hair, she even hated the fact I was a bigger bra size than her, she refused to believe a bra she found was mine (a 34D hardly huge) and said that I would end up big and fat with droopy boobs.

I look at my DC now and I realise how messed up she is, everything I do is for them and I love hugging them, telling them how great they are etc I think that's one of the things when you become a Mum you realise how crap yours is.

your comments sums it up really: "i think if your starved of niceness for s long, you'll accept it whatever the terms.

you deserve better

maybe dont make a massive song and dance about it, as it wont feel like such a big deal. But from reading, I think you are ready to move into a life without her

good luck x

sweetkitty the similarities are unbelievable!!

The competitiveness about number of children she does that with my Grandma!!!!

Again she was furious when at 22 my boobs suddenly grew.

The big problems for me started when I had dd. Every milestone, every breath; I am proud of. Now she is 9, i obviously have memories from that age and when I compare my treatment with the way I raise dd, it's Worlds apart and it hurts even more.

Growing up, I always thought we were so close, now I realise we were only close because I belonged to her and because I had never achieved anything greater than her yet.

As an adult you remember things that you put to the back of your head for years. When I bring up such things about my childhood she says she can't remember.

One such thing was the day I asked her to step in with me and my step-dad...her response.....'I know you're unhappy but when you're older and you have children you'll realise, sometimes you'll do anything for a quiet life.'

You are ALL right, she actually isn't safe to be around my precious little girl.
I tink Im grieving right now for the Mother I wish I'd had. What a sad, sorry woman the real deal is.

Yes I know exactly what you mean, I don't miss her but I miss having a Mum in my life.

All she has done with her life is raise 2 children, she's inherently lazy, hardly worked a day in her life and if it hasn't happened to her or my cousins it hasnt happened. I remember when I told her we were going to New York when I was pregnant with DD1, she said I wouldn't be allowed I said why I had checked with BA and it was fine. Oh no she spike to my cousin and "they" wouldn't allow me on the plane, I shouldn't fly when pregnant it wasn't allowed!! It was as if she was so jealous of me going to NY that she tried everything to make me not enjoy it. I have dozens of stories like that

What we have to do is concentrate on our little families and doing the best we can for them.

OP, while your mother is being a twat, she does not have to take any blame for the way she has treated you. She will keep this chirade (sp) up, as it voids her of any blame. She knows that while she is treating you like crap, the last thing on your mind is having the past out with her. She's used her bitchiness as a protective layer. You need to have it out with her and then tell her to do one.

Can I just say...I know its mean but I feel quite empowered by all the twat and bitch comments on this thread...makes me feel like I've got a gang lol

Good to know not all of us have amazing mom's! Even though they are soo perfect! ROLLS EYES

mothertomany I'm not sure what you mean by that

It sounds like she means the ones that think they're perfect, thatisall - I have one of those. Although she's a mum, not a mom.

oh...for a sec I thought, "your mums are terrible and you're al soooooo perfect."

I panicked a bit...thought my Mum had joined Mumsnet and acquired an accent

My DF was an alky - and when he wasn't drunk was a foul tempered, miserable, self-pitying git.

For some reason we all put up with this behaviour throughout my childhood.I suppose because my mother accepted it. Now wonder if we were nuts to live in such an uncomfortable, anxious making environment and would advise anyone with a nasty parent to kick them into touch straight away. Forget the coaxing and trying to please them. Get away and stay away.