To think my mum is jealous of me?

[PennyDreadfull]

I really hate feeling like this. Please bear with me.

For context, my dad was killed in an accident when I was 14 and since then my relationship with my mum has been strained to say the least, due to the fact that for 15 years she refuses point blank to talk to me and my younger sister about it. She is a "stiff upper lipped, I never talk about my feelings and I hate it when people dare to show their emotions" person.

Anyway.. We have an awkward relationship. I do enjoy spending time with her though, and vice versa. She does send me sweet texts etc, like "missing you sweetheart" and things like that occasionally.

Over the last couple of years she's been making constant digs, snide comments, all negativity dressed up as a joke if you get what I mean.
For instance I will mention that I've arranged a fun day out with my DH at the weekend, and she'll say with a gleam in her eye, "oh it's supposed to rain that day!" and kind of look smug while she's saying it.
Or I'll jokingly say that I've been invited to a karaoke event, and I'm quite excited because I like karaoke.. She'll put on a sneering expression and say "you sad sad person" then laugh like it was meant to be funny. I actually think that this is quite rude.

Then there is the way she tries to "up" me whenever I tell her of any plans or something I've bought.
"DH and I have booked a weekend in Paris in the summer, I can't wait!"
She will smile (just about) comment that she's been there dozens of times, and two minutes later she'll be telling me her plans for two weeks in Egypt in the autumn.
It's almost constant, and it's getting to the point where I'm sick of seeing her.

It's more the way she says things, always with a sneer, always with a put down, and then she'll follow it with a little laugh so it comes across like she's just joking.

Is she jealous of me and my sister (she does it to her as well) or am I looking too hard into this?

What's black dogging?

Did your DM have a 2nd husband after your dad died who also died (sorry I wasn't quite sure from your post.)
Trying to give her benefit of doubt - that would be two very big losses within 15 years. Maybe her thoughts / actions are a bit skewed by that?

Penny, I looked it up (FGS don’t google). It might be if someone has a black dog, theirs is blacker. It might be. But the google stuff brings up an entirely different subject.

ChasedbyBees, OK thanks I will take your word for it!

I too have a mother like this. She is only interested if something is going/might go wrong.

I have stopped telling her most things and our contact is lessening. She’s just really fucking weird. She’s in a very unhappy marriage of many years to an awful man but she has become like him. Though she’s always been weird she’s got worse.

She delights in others misfortune. It makes me very sad because I’ll want to tell her good news about whatever but I already know she’ll be snide about it.

I won't bother typing out what I was going to say, because @ElderflowerWaterIsDelish has said it all 👍🏻 very sensible approach

You're probably right that she finds it hard to hear about all the lovely things you do as a couple when she doesn't experience that any more. You indicate that she's never spoken or dealt with her grief, so she may be really struggling to process and cope with this so I think she needs some empathy actually. Maybe suggestions for moving forward with counselling or similar could be helpful.

Black dogging is when you tell someone you have a black dog and they reply saying there's is much more black.
Sorry to those who googled it and got shocking images or site recommendations!!!! Haha. Was quite innocent and unintentional. I thought it was a well used saying......but maybe just in my world.

@beckieperk Im going to be using it in every group chat I have on my WhatsApp from now on, in the hope they all google it! Then I shall play innocent with your blacker dog story

It's actually black catting ie, my cat is blacker than yours. But black dogging sounds much dodgier

My mum’s the same, always has been. It’s annoying and like others I just don’t tell her stuff. We live in different countries now and only communicate by email so it’s easier, she seems to be able to contain herself better when it’s just an email.

@mydog suppose you could use any animal or coloured object/anything in the world, we've always used a dog. Dogging is a relatively new concept/ though isn't it?
Sorry to change the subject of the thread slightly op.
I do however think there are some very good suggestions re your mum, however it depends what kind of person you are as to what approach you take. Or combine a few of the ideas and see which has the desired effect.

Can you talk to her about it?

Sockunicorn
You wicked thing

Beckie
Brilliant. Thanks for the laugh!! Was going to google. No need now though. Think I get the picture....

My mother is exactly the same. For her it’s doom and gloom stuff. Competitive illness. Well I won that one btw, but who would want to win that dubious prize?? Competitive pregnancy - ie all she did is go on about hers of almost 40 years prior during my pregnancy. Eg I couldn’t say anything about my crippling pain (now chronic pain) and being on crutches for her to talk about her back - not on crutches or constant pain killers during pregnancy btw. Competitve tiredness. I have ME so I win that one too. Great eh! . Competitive poverty against people, who are actually poor. She lost that one in the 60’s. More precisely before she was born. Completely disassociated from reality. And often really nasty to me.

She sees anything shining the limelight on me as bad and is jealous of it. Why?? Her son otoh. Golden boy. Held in massive high esteem. Hugely successful didn’t you know darling? Massive emotional issues, violent to me his whole life and sees nothing of being violent to his chronically ill sister (moi). Married to a very unpleasant woman. Fucking up his kid.

Keep your mother at arms length. You can try confronting her. However, do be aware she may not want to change and may actively enjoy the dynamic because it means she doesn’t have to confront herself and her feelings toward herself. I did this with my mother several times. It made her worse each time. How can her ungrateful daughter attack her in such a way when she did everything for me and gave everything to me? Ummm. Maybe because you’ve been treating me like your emotional crutch since I was a baby! And the one thing I really needed I didn’t get: UNCONDITIONAL LOVE.

Has anyone else posted to discuss it with her??
Next time say ‘ you know what, Mum, it doesn’t matter what I tell you I am planning to do but you come back with a sneery , negative comment. Every single time. ‘
Use an angry tone of voice , don’t whine, and say nothing more, just leave it hanging.
She sounds so in the habit she possibly doesn’t realise she is doing it. Either way that should stop her.

I would sit down over a cup of tea or glass of wine and have a frank chat with her. I tend to agree that she might miss being part of a couple, or perhaps she is just a really negative person. But don't let it fester, talk it through with her.

What do you do when she does it? I would pretend I hadn’t heard and ask her to repeat it. I do this with DH when he’s claiming to be unable to do some everyday task and it seems to work. It’s too embarrassing to repeat it when the attention is fully on you somehow.

My DM is jealous of me but it's taken me years (and other people) to see it. I suppose I thought that nice mummy's aren't that way... sigh.. but never believed it until I really couldn't miss the signs. I bought a designer handbag -> she bought exactly the same handbag (which she really couldn't afford and I've yet to see her use) I'd buy clothes to which she'd be on a mission to buy exactly the same thing, even asking me if she could 'just have it' when she'd exhausted all the shops etc given we're different sizes, they wouldn't even fit.. I just didn't get it. It goes one step further when she finds out about trips or holidays I'm going on that she can't be happy for me, despite her having been on some truly once-in-a-lifetime adventures of her own a few years back.

My aunt (her sister) said it's because she wishes she had the life I'm living and by having those things, brings her closer to living it, iyswim? She does live in a bit of a fantasy land, where she imagines things to have happened that haven't and I can only assume it's some sort of protection from having to face the realities of daily life.

I guess there's many reasons why people behave like they do but with a similar outcome. It's hard to work out in my mum's case because (as with a pp's mum) she's always had money, hasn't had to work for money since 1967, has had various nice houses and was happily married to my dad for 40+ years. (Her behavior pre-dates my dad passing btw). She has friends and a voluntary job doing something she enjoys as a hobby.

She's funny about anything fun or positive i do - losing weight, holidays, change hair colour, move house, ect. Wont mention it or wont hear about it. The big things over the years like having kids and my divorce and re-marriage she's been so cats bum faced angry about that she's blurted out utter tripe at times. I left home at 19 and I've never leaned on her for any support - so it's not as if my life even impacts her much. And i'm an only.

As i've aged i can see how manipulative she was when i was young, and as she's aged she's got worse at being subtle with her attempts to undermine and manipulate. It's not a recipe for harmony! My older kids can see it and tbh they've made it possible for me to laugh about it.

She's more or less a habitual liar and exaggerator about anything and everything these days, mostly the most trivial everyday stuff Her lies are so plentiful and clumsy and pointless that none of us actually believe half the stuff that she says. What a strange and stressful way to live! It's too late to address any of it with her now she's 80.

Sorry for the ramble!

My Mum and sister are the same with me.
They are never happy for me, when I got an amazing promotion, when I bought my first house, when I got married, even if I just book a holiday.
They just ignore what I say, act as if they haven't heard me and change the subject.
It's hurtful but more a reflection of them and I've lived with it for so long, I just distance myself from them now and I've learned not to tell them anything anymore.
It's sad really.....