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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To hate that my mum writes a paragraph about me, gives personal details and sends to hundreds of people that she hasn't seen in years

92 replies

jdoe8 · 20/12/2016 13:27

She's told them all about a medical issue I had earlier in the year (that I haven't told many of my friends about) and she's said the company and job that I started this year and the name of the place I've moved to.

I'm really very private. AIBU to not like this at all? She never sends the text for me to approve.

I've only found out this year what she sent as I had a family member send me a card and comment on it.

I've repeatedly asked her to not be so personal but she never listens, one year she gave away a client name that I was on a secret project with and it could of lost me my job. She goes on about "it's a private letter to her friends" and imply s it's not my business. But I dont see it as a private letter as its something she prints the same to hundreds of people, many of whom the only contact each year is a card.

OP posts:
aginghippy · 20/12/2016 14:35

YANBU to hate it. IIWY I would operate on the basis that everything I tell her is going to be shared with all and sundry. Only talk about your work in the most general terms.

My mum tells her friends things about me that is completely fictitious. She makes the stuff up. Maybe she thinks my real life is not interesting or prestigious enough. Hmm

PinkSwimGoggles · 20/12/2016 14:42

my mother would add a paragraph that I give her and just add her own anyway.

Liiinoo · 20/12/2016 14:52

I have learned the hard way (with friends and family) who I can trust to be discreet and who is a blabbermouth. And I tailor my conversation accordingly particularly when discussing other family members and friends. You need to do the same OP

I also have a job where confidentiality is a professional prerequisite so if I really, really feel the need to unload on my very nearest and dearest, I will change salient details to ensure that my clients privacy is protected. To reveal names/numbers/details would be unethical.

Jaxhog · 20/12/2016 14:56

Don't tell her your private stuff, but do tell about some (made-up) amazing stuff you do/have experienced e.g. you being accepted for astronaut school despite having recovered from pioneering leg transplant surgery. Very soon, no-one will believe what she says about you.

MikeUniformMike · 20/12/2016 14:59

I do wish people wouldn't confuse IVF and AID (or the terms test tube and sperm donor). I find it insulting to those people who have undergone IVF and AID.
When I was single and out of work, a -thick- friend suggested I have IVF as I'd be less bored if I had a baby to look after. Not sure how that would work.

Liiinoo · 20/12/2016 15:00

PS I love a good round robin. We particularly used to enjoy my husband's boss' one. It was a pack of lies from beginning to end - 'Toby had a trying year where his professional ingenuity was stretched almost to breaking point ' should have read 'Toby spent most of the year on the golf course and in the wine bar letting other people cover for him but managed to blag a good bonus by lying his arse off at Year end'.

SnugglySnerd · 20/12/2016 15:05

My mum does it too and it drives me mad too, she also includes photos of me, DH and DD.

Phillipa12 · 20/12/2016 15:08

Ah yes the lovely round robin email to distant friends and family. My dad phoned last week just to check on the progress of my divorce so he could keep people informed..... thing is they all already know!

Namechangeemergency · 20/12/2016 15:10

My DM misses out on anything significant in my life because I cannot trust her not to make it her news.

She told the world that I was pregnant (very early and I was in my 40s) at my GM funeral. I only realised because people were coming up to me and congratulating me at the fecking graveside.

She did it to draw attention to herself.

Thank God she doesn't do a Round Robin.

She once told everyone that I was training for the clergy Confused
I am also still getting cards with my DC4's name wrong on them (DC is nearly 9) because she made up a name for him.

So YANBU.

Its a shame but you can't tell her anything.

SukeyTakeItOffAgain · 20/12/2016 15:22

I don't tell my mum ANYTHING about my health because I know she'd gleefully tell her friends, revelling in the drama. I suggest you take a similar approach.

CrumblyMumbly · 20/12/2016 15:24

My mum's the same so I don't tell her anything confidential anymore, sadly. I think people literally have nothing else to talk about in their lives so just pass on all your stuff. You could always make up things for a laugh and watch it appear in 'the news'!

AutumnalLeaves38 · 20/12/2016 15:25

Next year :

  1. Offer to save her hassle by mailing all of the cards when posting yours.
  1. Steam open ones addressed to the worst gossipmongers.
  1. Insert pre-printed "update" of your choosing, recounting a few gems of fictional yet very believable nature. Alternatively, overshare indiscreetly some of your Mum's private details? (Obviously either option to be written in her usual style).
  1. Enjoy everyone looking at you with renewed interest, and your Ma never again daring to override your reasonable request for privacy Xmas Wink

However, I agree with PPs that she can only ever share what you've told her in the first place, so...

MiddlingMum · 20/12/2016 15:27

Don't ever tell her anything again, except for possibly minor things like what the weather is like where you are.

My parents missed out on whole chunks of my life for this very reason. I could never say anything in confidence. I did once, when I was about 8, only to discover it had been an amusing anecdote at a coffee morning the next day. So they never heard anything else ever Sad

littleprincesssara · 20/12/2016 15:36

A lot of my work projects are legally embargoed but it's always been totally accepted that you can tell your family.

TotalConfucius · 20/12/2016 15:40

My MIL is like this. Lulls you into spa false sense of security by making you think she really cares, with all her little questions and sympathetic head tilts.
Till you find it was all just fodder for the next U3A lunch club, or something to occupy the mahjong ladies during sherry break (usually 9.30am).
I got the measure of you MIL. You wait till Xmas dinner when my dsis's friend asks you how your piles are doing. It's all arranged.

FearandLoathinginLasVegas · 20/12/2016 15:48

my DM does this. She told all her friends I was in fertility treatment when I hadn't even told some of my closest friends. I was so furious and then she has the cheek to say the same as your DM 'its a private letter to my friends'. I bump into her friends on occasion and they know all this stuff about me that my nearest and dearest don't.
I have stopped telling her stuff and ultimately we are less close.

TheCatsMother99 · 20/12/2016 15:55

I'd stop telling her anything and then when she asks why explain it's because of these cards.

I wouldn't want my private stuff told to strangers (who probably don't care anyway) and I completely understand the job part as my DH has a lot of confidential stuff with his job that he'd be sacked over too, so I get it.

GoneGirl1234 · 20/12/2016 16:03

My only experience of this a woman who would send these round robin type emails, not just at Christmas but after big events in her life (turning 30 Hmm , getting married, having a baby) and I found myself cringing with second hand embarrassment while reading them.
It was the painful level of detail e.g. The post-wedding update had about 2 lines about the wedding and 8 paragraphs about her husband's chest infection, that they decided not to TTC on honeymoon because (her words) "he was taking antibiotics and we didn't want a mutant baby" (?!?!), the terrible bout of diarrhoea they both suffered towards the end of the holiday etc etc etc.
And she sent it to virtually everyone in the company, including various directors and the CFO. Just no.

Foldedtshirt · 20/12/2016 16:10

Not a round robin, but how do you deal with relatives with no boundaries? I'm thinking of a long divorced couple (30 years ago!) I'm in touch with both and the ex wife will ask the most direct questions and then repeat and repeat if I ignore. The husband is ill, so 'can he dress himself' if I answer it becomes 'folded was saying that poor Geoff can't dress himself anymore'
Withholding information is one thing but I had to be really blunt when she asked that a third time recently. Angry

MargaretCavendish · 20/12/2016 16:10

Ooh, gonegirl you just reminded me of an amazing birth announcement that a friend once got from a colleague. It was written by her husband and sort of sweet, in that he kept talking about how amazing his wife was (though that did have Confused elements, since it went on at some length about her 'yoga-honed flexibility') but also completely horrifying. The level of detail about the birth was... extraordinary. It went out to around 200 people in the company, some of whom would have barely known this woman's name.

Original poster
jdoe8 · 20/12/2016 16:17

she has the cheek to say the same as your DM 'its a private letter to my friends'

That's a really fucking annoying line. I know I'm to blame for telling her anything. But come June next year I'll forget about the round robin and tell her something else to make conversation and that will probably end up being broadcast.

Looks like I'm not alone on this, I just need to keep remembering this feeling every time I talk to her. It's annoying and I'm really embarrassed, I;m sure lots will be laughing at my life. I don't know what the full letter contains, but I don't think I want to now. It's too late and wont change anything.

OP posts:
GoneGirl1234 · 20/12/2016 16:19

MargaretCavendish the "yoga-honed flexibility" line made me cringe - Ugh ugh ugh. I suppose at least he didn't send round a video clip too!

scottishdiem · 20/12/2016 16:25

Yeah. I have relatives who have similar boundary and sharing problems. No real thought goes into what is said and where. I have had to teach myself not to tell them what are actually important things which is sad. OP is not being unreasonable. I hate it too.

stopfuckingshoutingatme · 20/12/2016 16:28

I would go a step far and actually draft an NDA between you and her moving forward, honestly! the gall!

diddl · 20/12/2016 16:28

" I did make this clear to her, but she didn't listen"

Perhaps the fact that you had to "make it clear" should have been a heads up.

Still, you'll know for the future.