To think dm would have got the message after 19 years

[SEmyarse]

I moved out of home 19 years ago. Dm is very controlling, but I can handle some contact if I keep her very much at arms length.

Until recently, there has been nothing specific that is an issue, but we are very very different people, and I find myself climbing the walls after about a day in her presence. She doesn't appear to notice this, and I do feel guilty that's how I feel, but there we are.

I love my life (mostly), I work full time through choice, spend what I consider to be plenty of time with dc and dh, have hobbies, not many friends but that's how I like it. But every single time she phones she'll angle the conversation to how I should move back near her, and that will solve all my 'problems'. So I end up dreading even the occasional phone calls we have.

Apparently if I lived in cornwall I could give up work (don't want to), let her look after dc ALL the time (don't want that), have time to take up things like sewing and homemaking (what, no way!!), buy a house (not a clue where she thinks I'll get the money from), join her church (just no way). She just doesn't seem to know me at all. I'm female, married and straight, but from her perspective I may as well be a bloke. I work in a male industry, play sports for leisure, have zero interest in appearance of either myself or my home.

It's the complete lack of acknowledgement of me that infuriates me. Mostly I'll be subtle, and just dodge questions, but occasionally i'll get really annoyed and explode when she tells me again that she's seen a job and house for me, and she's all ready to have the dc 24/7. I tell her I have no interest in moving when my life is fine, and then she'll phone up a month later, won't mention it, but will come straight in with 'SEmy, I was thinking, when you move down here, I think I'll teach the girls how to knit.'

And now I've discovered that one of my brothers was abused by my dad, and it seems almost impossible that she couldn't have known about it. In fact she says 'I think things happened that shouldn't have done, but it wasn't abuse.' I have no way of knowing what she did know for certain, but I do know that she left all of us in very dangerous situations, which she agreed she did. But all she does is look sheepish, say 'I'm really sorry I was a rubbish mum' and then in the next breath ask when she can have the kids.

why does she not understand? For years I've been frustrated by her thick-skinnedness, but now I'm starting to get really angry.

She doesn't understand because she doesn't want to. Is thickskinned cos its the only way you could live with yourself in the circumstances. Distance sounds good.

I'd keep away too, distance is good with families.

But you'd think she'd want me at a distance too? I keep bringing it up at the moment (I've only spoken to her 3 times this year though), and pointing out how she left us at risk. And she always seems shamed but then carries on with her plans for me to live in her pocket.

Why would she want me there all the time when I can't stop arguing with her?

I read the first bit of your post thinking she just sounds a bit old-fashioned to want you to enjoy being a home maker and living close to her again.

Then the last bit was rather chilling. Your gut instinct has been telling you to put distance between you for a while. She doesn't respect your choices so don't spend ages in her company or in the phone. If she dismisses what happened to your brother or tries to gain sympathy about it, those are very unhealthy reactions and you are right to want minimum contact.

You are totally entitled to live where you want and bring your children up your way.

If you don't want a showdown then just take an age to call or visit and in the meantime perhaps you (and your brother?) could investigate sone professional help to give you some strategies to hope with her. Best of luck.

I don't know op. It completely mystifying.

She probably never listens to people and talks over them.
I find this can only change if such person wants to change.

I think you can't do much about it other than pot greater distance in not telling her much about what's going on in your life.

She probably doesn't really expect you to move closer (she's not really listening to you after all) but us desperately shoring up a fantasy and keeping guilt about the past at bay. You can't stop her doing it but listening to it seems very unhealthy for you. Time to consider whether you really still want to speak to her at all?

I literally never call. It's her that calls me. And even that's odd, because she'll call, moan she's not been able to get hold of me because I'm always out, ask when I'm going to be in (last time I said sunday evenings) so she said she'd call every sunday and (happily) didn't call for 2 months. But when she did call, literally launched straight into 'when are you going to get on the housing ladder? come to cornwall you can do it on tuppence'. I'm quite happy in my council house.

Ironically, I would LOVE to move to cornwall, but can't while she's there. I have every intention of retiring down there one day.

I'm wondering if you need less or no contact with her. It's also pointless to engage in arguments with her, you might as well jsut end the conversation and hang up when she does this.

Given her response to your brother's abuse, you would have no reason to feel guilty if you never spoke to her again.

I would cut her out completely but my older brother who made the revelations doesn't want this, and I know he would feel guilty for creating an even bigger rift in the family, even though it's not his fault. I have to respect the fact that he wants to deal with things quietly in his own way, and I don't want to derail things by making a massive distracting statement.

I also want to stay in contact with my younger brother who still lives with her.

You refer to what happens after a day in her presence. Does that mean you do visit occasionally? Because really if so I'd suggest that that stops. It doesn't sound as if she is ever going to stop being thick-skinned, and I suspect Denzel may be right in that she is doing it because she can't admit to herself the reality that she did not keep her own children safe. I'm afraid that unless you go NC you are just going to have to put up with this.

It's tempting to suggest you set up a recording that you can switch on as soon as she starts harping on about moving to Cornwall so you can just go away and get on with something else. It could say something like "I am very happy with things as they are, I am not going to come to Cornwall, and you are certainly never going to look after my children," on a continuous loop.

Again, complications with my brothers. The only way I can see them is if I stay at mum's which I do about twice a year.

The revelations are very recent, and I'm certain that my brother would not want the consequences to be that we stop visiting all of them.