To uninvite my mother for Christmas?

[IsThisYourSanderling]

She will probably end up coming anyway, as we already invited her, but oh how I wish she wasn't.

Reasons she should come:

• We had a baby in September, it's her first grandchild and his first Christmas
• When he was 8 days old she travelled up to help us on short notice (when I realised we were completely out of our depth) and stayed for nearly three weeks, doing laundry and other less than fun tasks. It was a lifesaver.
• She'd have a shit Christmas if she can't come here.

Reasons I don't want her to come:

• She has extreme paranoia issues that make her very difficult and often miserable to be around, you have to creep around on eggshells and she'll still find something to latch onto as proof you're conspiring against her.
• Her main thing is to accuse me of betraying her, conspiring, talking behind her back to relatives I haven't seen in years, etc. She brings it up whenever we're alone and won't believe me no matter what I say or do. When she was last year I had to leave the room with my newborn attached to my breast because she'd started attacking me about my supposed contact with my grandmother and uncle (I'm not in contact with either more than a card at Christmas, not that it should matter). She proceeded to follow me to my bedroom to keep going with the accusations. It's like this every time she visits, but I didn't expect to get chased around the house while breastfeeding a three week old.
• She's a pathological liar. These vary from extreme and damaging lies I won't ever really forgive her for, to silly ridiculous lies aimed at saving face, to lies that allow her to effectively pocket the occasional tenner here and there. It's a terrible bore and if you call her out you'll always regret it.
• Her latest thing is this: I suggested my husband and I get her a railcard so she can travel up to see us more (long train journey). She replied to say it wasn't like me to make practical suggestions and that I must be being coerced (she's always been obsessed with the idea of me being brainwashed/ coerced - even though I'm now in my thirties, have a PhD, a husband and a child, I still apparently am being brainwashed and marshalled against her by influences I do t understand...). So, friendly offer of railcard = getting accused for the millionth time of being coerced. Fuck that.
• She never, ever apologises for anything ever, and so me asking for an apology has been met with silence. What will happen now is that she'll refuse to acknowledge me for a while, then send a breezy text pretending nothing has happened so as not to endanger her Christmas up here. So far she has been giving us the silent treatment since Wednesday evening, when I asked if she would apologise or if she still thinks I'm being coerced into handing out railcards. She hasn't asked about her ten week old grandson once. She hasn't looked at his Instagram page (set up so she and in laws could see pics of him regularly) because she'd have to use the library computer and is too suspicious of the librarians, who must be spying on her. Her delusions and paranoid suspicions are more important to her than her only grandchild (and much more important to her than me).
• Her expectation will be that I shut up about the coercion thing, pretend it's fine that she withheld interest in my and my son as a punishment, and go ahead with our jolly family Christmas. I don't want to. I don't like being around her. But the guilt of telling her she's no longer welcome is pretty huge, because it means her having an absolutely shit time at her mother's (she lives with her mother and they hate each other)

So yeah. WIBU to uninvite her?

Forgive typos. I tapped out this entire saga with my thumb whilst breastfeeding.

You know what OP, whatever you decide is going to have consequences for you and for your mum. You can't win really. I really feel for you. In these circumstances, I think just for one year I'd not have her over. It doesn't have to mean she never comes again.

Do you think if you just continued the current hostilities she'd simply turn up on Christmas Day? Or would she not come? If it's the latter, I think I'd do my best to continue to be upset with her until then. When she sends her breezy text, reply telling her you're incredibly annoyed with her and need some space.

It's not your responsibility to set yourself on fire to keep your mother warm - thank you, that's the most accurate description I've ever read of what I've been doing throughout my adulthood.

To those asking about how come I put up with her easily during the newborn weeks but am too selfish to now - two things. It wasn't easy or comfortable in the newborn weeks (did you miss the bit about her chasing me round the house making accusations, with a newborn attached to my breast?) but as she has seen to it that I have no other family except her, and DH's are overseas, I as indeed desperate and I acknowledge the hypocrisy in displaying there. I was recovering from a C section and totally desperate. Also, I wanted for her to have a nice relationship with him if possible, so I naturally wanted her to meet him. She is, as I said, the only family I have (again, she has arranged for that to be the case). I haven't had so much as a card from anyone else in my family acknowledging his birth. The second thing is that this have escalated since I invited her for Christmas. She is now accusing me of being coerced by my husband, for literally no reason other than the friendly offer of a free railcard, she is giving me and my son the silent treatment now, checking out of showing any interest in him all of a sudden - this does not bode well for him, does it, if she can withdraw affection so easily. And she is intercepting and vandalising my mail. She seems to be deliberately sabotaging our relationship, which is baffling, but she is choosing her symptom over us.

So that's the answer I guess. Desperation plus good intentions on my part have been eclipsed by an escalation in her damaging behaviour. I expected some difficult decisions regarding her relationship with him, but I didn't expect to have to make them so soon. She couldn't even hold it together for nine weeks.

Again, forgive typos, hope it's intelligible!

It's not the relationship sabotaging that's baffling in itself btw; I'm used to that. It's the fact that she's doing it now, putting her jolly Christmas in jeopardy. She usually saves it up for a big January backlash once she's gone home. It shows how deep her condition runs if she really cannot contain it for her own sake for a few weeks.

If it's just you, DH & baby for christmas, can you uninvite her & tell her that DH is taking you away for christmas to a nice little country hotel? Then either treat yourselves to just that or stay at home & screen all calls!
ps. congratulations on becoming a new mum!

I'm so sorry. I share your pain.

As my dad says: "she bites the hand that feeds her"

I'm finding this thread quite hard precisely because the comments are more insightful than is sometimes the case. And the mum's described are closer to mine than is often the case.

to all of us.

Myro - I sometimes tell clients/friends that mum has dementia. It's easier for folk to understand than the complexities described here.

OP/others affected: does fantasy play or has it played a big role in your mum's life?

OP, of course I have no idea of how your mother has sabotaged your relationships with other family members, but do you think you might be able to re-establish relations with the decent ones? There often is a way back in friendships and family relations.

I still think that your mother will be miserable anyway at Christmas, because that seems to be her default setting, so why should you ruin your Christmas just out of filial duty?

eye Yes she's a complete fantasist. I'm guessing yours too?

Janice I strongly suspect she will turn up for Christmas whether invited or not, yes. From that point of you my question about whether to uninvite her is entirely academic...

Sanderling, yes, for 10 years she had a sort of fantasy alternative family. So you would sit down for a meal and hear what Kate, Bob, George and Hattie had done that day....

it's still quite hard to talk about. It went on for a long time - most of her 40s.
It did stop eventually.

I think that you have to take back the invitation for the sake of yourself, your son & your husband.

If you stomp off when someone is trying to talk to you they're not necessarily pursuing you if they follow. It sounds like her concerns are valid in her eyes and she feels majorly rebuffed, which could lead to a lack of contact quite naturally. Especially because her unfounded fears were for your welfare.

From her POV being 'pursued' for an apology for feeling concerned about you is probably very hurtful. From the way you talk about her I would also look for some other explanation if you suddenly wanted her there more after years of avoidance. It's unlikely that your Dp is in her inner circle in her mind or ever could be. The capacity isn't there.

I don't think a grandmother is punishing through lack of interest unless you're talking about a number of months with no contact - it's obvious she wouldn't have the capacity to sustain a relationship where you're constantly in touch.

She has not deliberately isolated you from family - it's clear that her paranoia leads to avoidance in a way that has affected you coincidentally. Even if it had been deliberate, it's highly unlikely that you have any other family who would have been prepared to drop everything and pitch in as she did. That does count for a lot - you do owe something. She hasn't been deliberately hurtful and she's done a lot more than many parents albeit with a screw loose. Not everything will be her fault, either.

She has not deliberately isolated you from family

Well you're the expert, humphrey

Lol at 'if you stomp off while someone is trying to talk to you'. Listing the ways in which in im betraying her by being in secret conspiracies against her with various people I haven't seen in years, for the nth time over x amount of years, no matter how many times I deny it, is not 'trying to talk' to me.

How unpleasant. Please disregard OP, this poster has form.

Sorry Sanderling, cross posts there.

I am on the fence. Mainly excuse when you found yourself put of your depth with Yorkshire baby. You called her. She came and helped. But now you are deciding to limit contact with her grandchild. That seems quite unfair. My mum has mental health problems. I am not unsympathetic to your it just seems a double standar

Yes. I agree. My beloved mother died in our local psychiatric hospital, my husband who Im separated from after 40 years is more than likely a psychopath, and my son has the most horrendous learning difficulties and problems affecting his mental health.

Ive tried to understand the OP, and the very kind explanation given by 'toomuchtooold' but I'm just not getting the OP's mum being worth her weight in gold after the baby was born and now the person not fit enough to be in the house at Christmas. Rightly or wrongly I have an image of a loved up OP wanting Christmas to be just her, her partner, and the baby.

MrsPeelywally I tried to explain as best I could in a post above, acknowledging my hypocrisy, but explaining how the situation has got worse since she was here, thus making me question whether she should come. It's got absolutely nothing at all to do with being loved up.

I get it with the walking away. Imagine a 5ft 5 toddler whose mh condition prevents them from accepting your good attention and so prefers to get your bad attention rather than what they most fear which is losing you.

OP do you ever feel like you've caught a brief glance of the person she could have been? Like the mists clear for a minute, an hour, even a day? But then they descend again.

It is deeply tragic.

For example she's intercepted my mail before but never actually cut it up. It's unpredictable behaviour that makes me, I think rightly, question what else she thinks it would be OK to do. I suppose I find it a little bit scary, without wanting to sound too dramatic, as chopping up someone's mail and sending it to them suggests that the madness has actually won. She didn't stop to ask herself how it would look.

Yes eye. She has good parts of her character that just get shouted down by her bad and mad parts. It's knowing that that makes me feel so anxious, sad and guilty about it all. Because the good side of her must really be suffering.

Sanderling, I really am trying to understand this. Honestly. And Im sorry if what Ive posted has come across not well at all.

I try to coax the good side out as much as possible, but clearly not very successfully.

I feel for you. This is my first Christmas since my Mum died this year but I haven't spent the last 3 with her for various reasons. She was 'very difficult ' , paranoid and a huge liar - most of this came to light when her house was being cleared when she went into a Home eventually with Dementia (loads of paperwork there) but according to my Aunt the lies had been going on since childhood.

Over the years I've found sidestepping worked to a point and if it were me we would all be contracting Norovirus about 5 days before hand and the GP would be advising we don't see people over Christmas. I'd also write a letter to her GP to get this on record with a view to self preservation in the future. So sorry you are going through this

You know what - just stop I mean it nicely, but stop

You cannot be the daughter she wants or needs. Even if you were/could be/had been she would forget or turn it around as suited. Whatever you do is never going to be enough.

And now it's not just you, it's your precious baby who is going to be manipulated, hurt, confused. Whatever you did to get by with her when it was just you, will not work now you have a child, and so you have to stop. It's just not fair on him.

OP do you ever feel like you've caught a brief glance of the person she could have been? Like the mists clear for a minute, an hour, even a day? But then they descend again.

This is such a good description. My mum has short periods in which she is sharp, funny and very good company. There's even an element of warmth and you find yourself thinking "oh she's not so bad, maybe it really is us, maybe we really are ungrateful children who don't appreciate her". Then the cloud/reality descends again - it's like I, her child, have had a rug sharply pulled out from under me and I'm floundering again, and no one who has not experienced a toxic parent can understand. It was always like this.