To ask what your Mother/Daughter relationship is like with your Mother

[RachelRagged]

Hi

From as long as I remember me and Mum have not got on. We get on on the whole, I love her, she loves me, but .....
Example. Friday she came over and brought me some provisions, which I am grateful for . Some was fruit So "Where is the fruit bowl I bought you?" By the TV Mum said I.. Next thing its been moved elsewhere in living room ! She also gets irked at my pets, my children and my garden . I just feel like saying "Its my home, my pets and kids and MY GARDEN!" However she tends to turn things round like she is the victim !

Another is she has to be in control at all times. She sees it as "caring" , I see it as suffocating . I am 48 years old not 8.

On her plus side she is kind, generous and very giving ... I just don't see it getting any better as everytime I pull her up I get "Oh I won't bother anymore then, get on with it" . I would LOVE too "get on with it" but not allowed ! Its starting to get to Me . .Even my Dad and Sister have fallen out with her over her control kind of issues in the past.

Anyone else have issues with Mum?? Or Dad I guess ,, but my Dad is laid back, minds his own and is generally all together different to Mum . So as not to drip feed I did feel sad Friday , Group of us went out and when we got back I said I am much more like my Auntie, Auntie agreed.. My Daughter said I am completely different to Mum .. Mum said "You are kind like Me" then added "Come on , there must be more" There is not :( :(

Oh and if anyone's thinking "therapy? Just bloody talk to her!", I tried. I asked her if we could sit down and talk through our issues and she said no. I asked why not and she said "because you'll cry." and then just walked off. I was

II've read some of you on here are distance or don't speak to your mum, I suggest you don't make my mistake. It's a hole I will never be able to fill. sad

I had to stop reading the comments after this. It's projection and it's unhelpful. My life is not your life; my mum is not your mum.

My mum expected me to just ignore my dad's violent tantrums and laughed off his abuse, gave me no emotional support, ignored my suicide attempt and told people I didn't want to talk about it (I did), once left me stranded in a doorway as she forgot about me and went to France instead, said nothing at all after I gave a statement to police about attempted grooming but expected me to just get on with it... I could continue. When I tried to talk to her about my childhood she said that was a very hard time for her but she gave me a lot of lifts. She sounded quite indignant.

It's really offensive when people project and tell me not to make their mistakes. My mother laughed and shrugged when I told her about my dad refusing to feed me properly. The only mistake I could make is to let this kind of BS guilt-trip me into breaking NC.

I dont have any relationship with my parents anymore and haven't since my first was born, when I actually realised what love between a parent and child should be.
My mother was emotionally and physically abusive, I suffered neglect and was sexually abused by her sisters husband and when I needed a mother she refused to believe ne and told ss I was a liar.
She's the most manipulative,self centred nasty women and I'm better off without her.
I would adore a real mother even if she moaned at stuff.

My mother is not a happy woman or a mentally healthy woman. She took out her misery and neuroses on us and was emotionally very abusive.

Her viciousness and determination to bring me down to her level, and squash any sense of innocence, happiness or optimism resulted in a one woman campaign of hatred throughout my childhood. It's taken a very long time to be able to even understand the damage she did and maybe to a certain extent why.

Since having my own child it became very clear wuite how disturbed and foul she was, and how I wasn't to blame. People say you learn how to forgive your parents when you have your own, but in my case it made it clear quite how shocking and disgusting her behaviour was.

I think the mother / child relationship is so idealised in our society that it's very difficult for many people to grasp how massively fucked up it can be in some families.
I'm 35 and I'm only just coming to terms with the fact that what happened wasn't ok and wasn't my fault.
My mother was physically, emotionally and sexually abusive. The legacy has been enormous and it's affected me in so many ways - but it's in the past and I'm safe now. The previous poster is absolutely right in that it's a "hole you can't fill" but I wouldn't ever have got that filled by her, no matter how I'd treated her.
To tell people that they should stay in touch with their mothers no matter what is misguided at best and very offensive at worst.

I love my mum and she loves me, but I don't especially like her, and this is something I've only recently come to realise. She is not that nice. It's been a revelation, I can tell you.

She is the most negative and bitter person I have ever met.

Apart from my DF, me & my family, and my DSis and her family, she has no one and nothing in her life.

On the surface, that sounds sad, but it's taken me years to realise it's downright lazy and bordering on selfish. My Dsis works nights, which means that she often can't call her for fear of waking her her up, so I get double the calls.

She used to call me up to 8 times a day, and if I didn't answer, and she couldn't get hold of me, she'd get really pissed off, and I'd have to explain where I'd been, and reap her wrath and disapprovement.

She drains me, if I'm honest. I will never let myself be a drain on my DCs, and I don't think it's healthy for your adult DCs to be the centre of your universe, with absolutely nothing else in your life.

UglyBugaz Or some of us who have been abused by their mothers or their mothers have let people abuse them think 'I can't wait till the bitch is dead' If someone is NC it's usually for bloody good reasons.

She was so special to me. My df died when I was 19 do she was my only parent who saw my wedding, birth of dc etc. Sadly she died in 2011 but I miss her dearly. I am beginning to realise how lucky I was as some have strained relationships with their parents.

She criticises everything I do, I try very hard not to say anything and sometimes I fail spectacularly.

I love my mum and I know she would do anything for me, and I would for her. But I spend a lot of time going on the other end of the phone. I honestly can't think of a single adult woman I know, whose mum is still alive, who has a completely straightforward and uncomplicated relationship with her. My MiL is great, I get on really well with her, but my SiL is driven mental by her. Same with all my friends and their mothers.

Arsenal that describes mine perfectly.

I no longer waste head space or time trying to fathom my mum out. I used to visit her out of obligation and guilt, but none of my siblings bother their arse, so neither do I any more. If I'm unfortunate enough to receive a visit from her, I now don't let her get away with the lies, bitching and bulldozing she seems to live for. She's just an irritating old biddy, whom I happen to be related to, unfortunately. I used to feel angry, but now I feel absolute zero.

Wow. I'm clearly far from alone in having no relationship worth mentioning with my mum. Completely dysfunctional family. She is my children's grandmother, nothing more.

Uglybugz, I'm sorry about your mum and your regrets now that she has died. But no one person can reconcile a broken relationship. It takes both sides and I have tried so many times with my family over the years, they lie and cheat and stab me in the back at every opportunity. They have made it clear that they think very little of me and have zero respect for me. How many chances would you suggest I give them? We can't change other people's behaviour.

My mum is the type of mum I aspire to be.
She is warm, kind, funny, knows when to step back and let me fuck up, and she always, always has my sister and me at the heart of things.
I love her so much it burns.

Mine didn't bring me up, but was involved so things weren't as damaging as they could have been. She didn't seem to register the depth of a mother / daughter relationship until I was approaching adulthood, by which point it was too late for the role she suddenly wanted. The friendly relationship that we'd always had would have been more appropriate then, but that was the point that she wanted to mother me.

Her life is dominated by a catalogue of baggage of real and imagined slights. Like other relations, there has been a lot of imposing guilt. Several of us have gone for minimal contact.

She has a vile temper and has erupted at family and significant occasions. I hate my graduation photo as I know my smile is fake, and I was holding back the tears after she had a tantrum in front of my lecturer as I saw him for the last time. She's said many vile and unpleasant things, yet it's always others in the wrong. She hates DH as he's the current scapegoat for our lack of relationship. She's never credited me with an ability to form my own judgement.

I have minimal contact these days, and the easing of guilt from when I stopped responding to her demands was amazing.

Mine is a narcissist control freak. I was comforted to see that other posters have realised that they love their mothers but don't like them. That's how I feel.

Mine could flip from being affectionate, solicitous and generous to being vicious and determined to hurt the object of her resentment (usually me; my younger sister is the golden child) in seconds, usually when I refused to do exactly as I was ordered. She'd tell me that there was something wrong with me, that I'd never have friends, and that I was horrible, wicked etc. In fact, I was always top of the class, perfectly behaved at school and helpful at home. Nevertheless, I believed for a long time that I was fundamentally a bad person who didn't deserve friends.

We lived in a small house, and the phone was in the middle of the living/dining area. She would listen intently to all my phone calls, demand to know who I was talking to and would tell me after the call - and sometimes during!! - what I should have said and why what I had said would make people dislike me.

She still tries it on now. A couple of years ago I took her and my dad (who is lovely, but a coward, and won't stand up to her) out for dinner with the extended family. She started giving me driving orders - to a restaurant she'd never visited, in an area she didn't know - from the back seat on the way to the restaurant. When I said, very calmly, that I'd probably manage better without backseat driving, she flew into a rage then cried and sulked all the way through dinner, casting baleful looks in my direction. It was horrendous.

I'm NC at the moment. I never spend more than two nights with them. I know from experience that if I'm with them for any longer, she'll have a go at me over something ridiculous. I love them, but I won't be ordered about, subjected to sulking and spoken to with contempt for defying the orders of an 80 year old woman who knows very little about how the real world works.

She won't change now. She wonders why I won't tell her much about my private life. She can't understand that I need some distance from her. In her mind, she is a perfect mother with an ungrateful daughter.

We have a relationship, of sorts.

I am the eldest daughter (although have four older brothers) and am therefore the Designated Carer. This is because that is what I was born for.

She is an arch manipulator, still (after having been divorced from him for 36 years) has great, vocal bitterness about my dad. She has no friends, as they fall away when they fall prey to her moods and paranoid imaginings.

Any illness/misfortune that befalls me, she will make about her ('It's made me feel so awful'). Any happy occasions she will do her utmost to ruin by, again, making it all about her ('I hope yer father isn't going to be there, I can't cope, it makes me feel so awful')

She doesn't seem to like me very much, and when I was younger didn't worry about using her fists on me (probably part of the reason I took up karate- I never wanted to feel that utter helplessness again). She has never, ever, paid me a compliment regarding my looks or personality(which I believe was a major cause of my extreme lack of self-esteem when I was younger).

Two of my brothers are NC with her. At any given time, at least two out of the six of us will be NC with her. I last the least amount of time, because ultimately I feel sorry for her. She has ruined her own life by bitterness, paranoia and generally unpleasant behaviour. She, however, believes (and will tell us or anyone who will listen) that she was an amazing mother.

That said, there are a few times when she doesn't insult me or try to guilt trip me into doing things I don't want to do, and then we can have a good gossip and a bit of a laugh.

And at least she gave me a role model of how NOT to be a good mum.

It's shit, she is dead, has been since I was 27, my Dad 33, fucking enjoy them unless they are really evil.

She is generous, warm, sweet, funny and loving. She can take a joke and laughs at herself. Doesn't care about materiality.

The thing that irritates me most (small thing in a big picture) is that she goes off at an irrelevant tangent when you chat, particularly on the phone and it makes you think she isn't listening, more waiting for her to turn to speak about her own thing. E.g. 'hi mum, yes I'm fine, been having a stressful week at work..' 'are you love, well I went to the bingo last night'. OK let's talk about that then.

She gets on great with my husband and my children adore her.

my mom loves me and love her but we've never had that ideal closeness of the mother-daughter relationship.

-She is a queen of one-upmanship

-She is always waiting for her turn to talk....she sometimes (often) cuts me off mid sentence.

-She and I have little in common and she can't even pretend to show an interest in things I enjoy (even as a child)

-She is very negative, poor-me like.....this has been true as long as I can remember. very victim role orientated

I have lots of faults too of course, but these are the main barriers and points of frustration for me. I feel like she won't allow our relationship to evolve to on between equal adults either - always giving unsolicited advice, never just showing an attentive interest and having a laugh.

My mum is judgmental and interfering if I tell her anything, so I don't anymore. So now we only have light chit chat and not really talk properly about anything.

I sometimes feel jealous when I see close mother/daughter relationships and I work hard to have a better relationship with my own DD than I do with my DM.

I'm truly sorry for those who've lost their Mums, especially when young
It must be a great loss

For those of us who feel to whatever degree that their relationship with their DM is lacking however there is a different sense of loss which has to be coped with too. With my own DM the relationship is pretty good in many ways, but I do have some sense of not really being listened to, a lack of real interest and concern for what's going on in my life. The sort of things you were talking about FixIt She just isn't fully there for me like I hope I will always be for DD.

I know much of this comes from her own experience of being parented - from childhood. Some from her attitudes about daughters and sons.
I guess hopefully we're moving forwards with the generations.

I say all this not just for myself but because I can see that other posters have similar feelings but even more challenging relationships

But I'd still like someone to turn to, especially in hard times. Someone I could lean on for a bit.
Of course as our parents get older this becomes less and less likely. In the natural course of things there comes a time when they need to lean on you.

She used to call me up to 8 times a day, and if I didn't answer, and she couldn't get hold of me, she'd get really pissed off, and I'd have to explain where I'd been, and reap her wrath and disapprovement.

THIS.

Though she isn't wrathful when she finally gets me on phone. But its "Where have you been?" wtf ?? She messages my children asking where I am and am I on Facebook ?! She puts it down to worry (I do have depression), I put it down to obsession.

fabby40 Mon 29-Jun-15 21:01:57

She was so special to me. My df died when I was 19 do she was my only parent who saw my wedding, birth of dc etc. Sadly she died in 2011 but I miss her dearly. I am beginning to realise how lucky I was as some have strained relationships with their parents.

x