To actually not like my Mum

[Mrchubster]

I have always had a strange relationship with Mum. Although I don't doubt she loves me, since my parents divorce 25 years ago, it's like our roles have reversed. I'm the mother, she's the child.

Approx 10 years ago she moved 150 miles to be near us and as she was retiring it made sense. At the same time I was pregnant with DS and thought how lovely it would be to have her close.

How wrong was I?! She is massively needy with a big dose of passive aggression. Everything is "poor me". She has made very few friends since moving here and so her whole world seems to revolve around d me and my DCs. Trouble is I don't enjoy her company, we have nothing in common and she only talks about herself, doesn't want to put herself out. She can be very critical of other people which I find wearing.. I can tell her something quite important and it will go in one ear and out the other. She'll then phone 2 days later wanting to discuss the issue. Well, no thanks I've moved on!

If I confront her behaviour she gets all teary I'm on my own, no one cares about me" etc...

Sadly I alsoI find her embarrassing company to be with. At a recent family event she spoke over everyone, talked about me as though I wasn't in the room and generally lacked any social skills.

It's now at the point where I don't tell her anything personsal because she just doesn't listen. It's a standing joke with me and DH that no matter what you tell her, she'll change the subject! I look at her sometimes and wonder how the hell we're related!

I feel angry, sad and guilty in equal portions. Guilty that I encouraged her to move here ( although I have said if she wanted to move back I'd be fine), and because I shouldn't feel like that towards my mum.
Sad because I would so love a close relationship with her (am quite envious of friends who are close to their mums). Angry that she just doesn't get it.

Her whole life seems to revolve around me and the DCs which I find suffocating. I have given her info on the local WI, church, gardening clubs but she's not interested. She has made very little effort to make any friends.

Her health isn't good, mainly caused by poor lifestyle (which admittedly I'm not very sympathetic about) and so she's doing less and less, becoming more dependant. I feel such a huge weight of responsibility to be everything to her, it has the opposite effect of driving me away.

DB lives 300 miles away and keeps his distance for exactly the same reasons.

She's 70 btw. I know I should accept her for who she is and get so frustrated with myself for having any expectations of a close mother/daughter bond. Sorry to bang on

Bonbon....y y to playing the victim! Doesn't it ever get boring I wonder?

My mum was like this. It was completely draining me and my ability to enjoy life so I cut contact years ago.

Everything was about her. She was negative about everyone. She made me feel guilty by constantly moaning how lonely she was. And there was a subtle, nasty side to her too. Veiled criticisms and bullying.

My whole family is dysfunctional and she's kind of been the catalyst for a lot of it. It's so desperately sad really. You can't underestimate how important a stable, unconditionally loving mum is. The effects of a damaging mother ripple out and down, across and through generations.

I'm not sure how I got the life I did, because my father was a bully too. I have been affected but I have a good marriage and three lovely kids.

With no contact with family of my own, I have phases of anger and hurt but ultimately I focus on MY family and hope my children going forward will grow up more rounded people.

I feel for you all. It can be hell living with a mother like this, but at least you seem aware. I think a lot of daughters/sons just blindly repeat the same pattern

wow- what a bunch of Gonerils and Regans. The only good mother is a dead one it seems. Lovely examples you are showing your children how to treat you after life has battered you around for decades. Good luck-you're going to need it.

"When I told her I was concerned, her response was 'oh, don't be ridiculous I would never kill myself, I said it to hurt you!'"

Maki That just made my blood run cold.

After I had DS I really struggled to bond with him. In a moment of stupid, stupid weakness I admitted this to my mother. From that moment onwards she was constantly telling me how much she loved DS and how closely bonded she felt with him. She made me feel a complete failure as a new Mum.

Surely no normal woman/mother does that, do they I think that was when I started seeing her as she really was, and it broke something inside me and I have never felt the same way about her since.

8 years later she STILL talks about how I didn't bond with him immediately and wonders aloud if that's why he is so close to DH instead

(ps. I did bond nicely with DS after about 6 weeks and we have a great relationship now)

amarnai
LOL! You actually think Shakespearean references mean you're not being rude, don't you!

For the record, I do hope my children learn from the way I treat my mother. And if I ever, ever treat my children the way I was treated as a child, I want them to call childline. DH is also to divorce me and make sure he gets full custody.

HTH.

Are you my sister, OP? Your Mum could be my Mum, right down to the "poor me". I don't make an effort anymore. She lives in squalor, won't clean, but woe betide anyone who interrupts one of the million TV programmes she is addicted to. She comes over to see her Grandchildren once a month because I refuse to bring them to her house until she cleans it (I have cleaned it many, many times). She is able bodied, drives, and no mental issues. She is just bloody lazy, selfish, and wants to talk about herself all the time.

Life's too short, to be honest. I have my own family to look after, and I can't devote every second of the day to listening to her moan about the noise of the birds or the neighbour making noise. I have joined her up to local groups where she took over the group and basically told everyone she should be running the group, because she wasn't a beginner and she knew more about the subject than they did. Nobody is bothered with her anymore because she doesn't make the effort to go out. She won't even come and see us unless she's getting something in return - money for fuel, usually.

Just get on with your own life and realize that she is an adult with the capability of making her own choices. Mine makes me feel guilty almost every day but you know what - there's nothing wrong with her, she could be out and about doing things and keeping busy but she doesn't, she sits on her arse watching TV and eating rubbish.

My post is probably a bit bitter but I have tried to help so many times and had it thrown back at me, so I just think sometimes it's more important to move on and do your own thing. YANBU.

I hope my dc will learn from my relationship with my mother - they'll see how to put up healthy boundaries and not let someone continue to damage them emotionally.

Another one here! My M is very similar especially with the passive-aggressive hints dropping about how she is "fine, just fine, really. No, really, I'm fine. Well... no never mind. forget I said it. No, nothing."

I went no contact with her in February. It's been the most quiet and calm period of my life I can remember in years.

I feel bad about not really liking my mother. She goes on and on about how wonderful my brother and his wife are, has no interest in what I'm doing and is generally a wet blanket. Don't get her started on her many (genuine) ailments - she might have got a few problems but she thinks they make a fascinating topic for lengthy conversation. If I ask her to think about anything important she just gives a little chuckle and changes the subject. She was never a good mother to me when I was young, no fun, always going on about how risky every activity I wanted to do was, refusing to allow painting and messy play. She always told me I'd never amount to much career wise ( I became a solicitor) She would have been happier if I'd worked in Woolworths tbh.

It's women my mother hates. She especially hates female-dominated professions like teachers and nurses [my sister and I are both teachers and my husband and sister-in-law nurses, so that' super]. She warned DS 13 the other day that women are absolutely vile, VILE. He was

Another one here - feeling guilty about her relationship (or rather lack of it) with her mother

The annoying thing about mine is that she's always moaning that she's fed up with not being able to go out much or go on holiday when it's my dad who's got the life-limiting illness. Whatever happened to "in sickness and in health"?

I was at a funeral recently and remarked to my DH that the vicar seemed to be trying to make us all reflect on our family relationships. Is this guilt making me think this?

amarmai - it's true that my mother had a very difficult childhood. It's also true that for the last 53 years she has had no financial worries, has not had to work, has gone on expensive foreign holidays several times a year, had three children who actually have made an enormous effort with her and had five beautiful grandchildren. She has spent most of the last 53 years punishing everyone around her because we can't give her the unconditional love that she didn't have from her parents (and which she should have had). She doesn't see that this means that we didn't have that motherly love either. She was constantly shrieking about how she wished she had other people's children instead of her own, would hit us if we didn't do well enough in school, would threaten to walk out of the house and never come back, put down my father in front of us, sob and sob if our reports weren't brilliant. I remember her rocking backwards and forwards on my bedroom floor moaning about how I'd inflicted this heartbreak on her when she was an old woman (I got 7 instead of 9 as an overall mark in Maths, and she was 42 at the time FFS) etc etc etc. I would NEVER treat my children like that, and if I did I'd think that I was doing pretty damn well if they were still visiting. Call me Goneril if you want though - it just makes me think that you have no clue whatsoever about what it's like to be brought up in the household of a narcissist.

Nrft but it does rings bells with my relationship with my DM.

Didn't get on in childhood. I moved far away to get away from her. A few years later she followed me.

She has piggy backed on my hobbies and is more involved with them now than me!

She is handy for childcare (when it suits her) but I often wonder if it's worth the emotional cost to me. She does lots of things with my DCs I don't approve of (smoking/lack of safety etc) but I feel that I can't stop her from seeing them.

She has her psychological issues from her childhood, which I do empathises with but I wish she'd sort them

I wonder if amaramai has recognised herself from our descriptions?

wyrdsmith - your mother's treatment of you is really spiteful. Stupid thing is, I bet your son thinks so too.

Alan - do we have the same mother?? They sound exactly the same except sadly I end up seeing mine several times a week.
Their temperament is similar; any club she has joined she's had her nose put out of joint because she knows how to run it better than anyone else. She manages to piss people off in a matter of weeks.

Like many of your DMs yes she had a pretty rotten post war childhood, benign neglect coupled with random smacking/beatings; not allowed to stay on at college even though she was bright; a general lack of love or attention. Interestingly although obviously her DSis' had the same upbringing, they are far more accepting of their childhood and have managed to move on. Mine cannot seem to find closure (urgh horrid word!) and persistently regales us with poor me childhood stories. What she doesn't see is how that impacted on her ability to parent me or DB.

sally I think he's still too young thankfully to really notice.

I very rarely shop with my Mum and DCs because she constantly tries to undermine me with them. If I say no to an expensive gift (because they've just had a lot of birthday presents the week before) my Mum will side with them and try and persuade me to buy it for them. Looking as pitiful and pleading as my children do ffs.

If I stand my ground then SHE offers to buy it for them instead. Then I get cross and she acts all pathetic and goes 'Oh you're so irritable and grumpy'

Once or twice I have caught her quietly promising to buy the toy for my DS 'next week when Mummy isn't here' which really infuriates me

Needless to say, I very rarely shop with her now. She also used to visit several times a week, but now I have winnowed it down to just once. And that's plenty.

Strangely, my older DCS are now in their teens and just aren't that excited by Grandma coming over anymore, and tend to just say hello before disappearing into their rooms. She doesn't like this development one bit. She has started to become rather critical of them. Yet just a couple of years ago (when they rushed to open the door to her) I wasn't allowed to say a word against them in her hearing.

wordsmith. DS (9) is starting to back away from her as he too finds her cloying.

Appreciate what you've got. I really do not understand how people can post all this nastiness about parents. They have feelings as well and you never know they may be posting on Gransnet about you. If you have a grievance talk about it. Don't post it on here for everyone to see. I don't have real parents and my adoptive um is in another Country. Don't know what you've got til it's gone as the song goes. I would love to have any kind of family of my own .

Rosemary West was somebody's mum sugar

Having a functioning uterus is no guarantee of being a nice person.
Just saying.

Mrchubster yes, my mother had a fairly neglected childhood. Not materially though as she grew up in a leafy suburb and went to an all girls' private school.

But her own father was very distant, and her own mother appears to have been very narcissistic too. My grandparents also argued a lot and if was often violent which my Mum witnessed

Terribly sad for her, and I do sympathise. But my Mum is STLL going on about her childhood experiences 65 years later. She is still so bitter toward her Mum and pathetically yearns about her Dad.

Her twin sister is far more philosophical. She has forgiven her parents, and can recognise some of the better aspects of their personalities. She moved on from her childhood when she stopped being a child. She has lived a happy and fulfilling life with lots of friends.

In contrast in many ways my Mum is still that sulky resentful child.

Sorry to hear your news Sasha. I hope DH and DS provide all the comfort you lack from your DM.

sugar you have no idea what you are talking about. Some mothers are not from the pages of an Enid Blyton book, you know.

I have tried, and tried to talk to my Mum. It always ends in her resorting to tears almost straight away then sulking and silences for weeks afterwards. So we can never resolve anything.

Would you really love to have any kind of family? Really? Any kind at all?A mother who is spiteful to you. A mother who is deliberately rude to your husband? A mother who likes to humiliate you in front of others? A mother who takes a perverse pleasure out of your distress?

What is wrong with you sugar that you would actively WANT a mother who treated you like that?