Would you feel offended?

[Lovelysunshine]

I just want to keep my story short, but hopefully make myself clear enough. My mother (who is a bit narcissistic btw) bought some clothes for my DD when she was a baby, 3 items. She sent them from abroad where she lives. They were cheap and cheap looking (with poor finish and shiny colourful stuff on them) but I thanked her and kept them in our wardrobe.

Now she’s outgrown them and last summer the weather was so hot, she would not have worn them anyway. Last night my mother is asking me online if my DD is still too small for those clothes and I told her she’s outgrown them already and she didn’t get a chance to wear them. She said: oh, that’s a shame.

Now, almost 24 hours later she is writing me an attacking email that she spent one and a half of her pension (a total lie as I know how much she’s paid) and I decided not to use them, she is totally offended and picking a a fight. I am gobsmacked. AIBU?

You buy so many clothes that your child doesn’t wear 15% of them? That’s daft.
I get you like “upmarket” shops. But that doesn’t mean you act like a complete snob and spitefully inform someone their gift went completely unappreciated.

I tend to agree that a white lie would have been a better policy here, you must have known how your DM was likely to react; I don’t understand why you wanted to upset her so unnecessarily? You only needed to dress your DD in the outfits enough times to take a few photos to end to your DM.

I meant ‘send to your DM’.

You can drip feed all you want.

Your comment to her was still unnecessary.

I’m keeping everything at the moment as we are planning baby no 2

There's your solution, OP. Tell her you forgot to say you were keeping them for DC2 so they'll definitely get used. And thank her again.

I was clearly a bit insensitive-lesson learned and thanks to those who shared their opinion in a civil manner.

But the amount of people judging me and lecturing me on my insensitivity by calling me all sorts of names?! I think that says a lot more about yourself than it says about me.

You post on AIBU and expect not to be “judged” in any way?
Perhaps stop accusing others and look at how your behaviour made her feel?

I expect to be judged not to be called names and lectured on insensitivity with completely insensitive comments but hey, that’s MN.

The thing is though, Sunshine.
If being told you're wrong and coming up against criticism bothers you. Then Aibu isn't really the place for you.
I'll hold my hands 'I won't admit when I'm wrong, nor do I like people telling that I'm wrong. Partly because I'm never wrong. Well there was the one time that I thought I was wrong, but
"I was mistaken".
Therefore I've never started a thread in Aibu.

@Awwlookatmybabyspider - I asked for honest opinions and it definitely made me realise I made a mistake. Never ever again, whether it’s my mother or anyone else.

But I don’t understand name calling and angry comments and all sorts of other things that are barely related to my question.

Yeah, you should have just said that she wore them. It's quite rude not to. I can see why she's a bit hurt. I've had some awful stuff bought for DC but they'll be wearing it at least once when the gift buyer comes round

But fwiw I think people are being unnecessarily awful to you.

@pigsDOfly- unless you’ve had the misfortune of having a narcissistic person (mother) in your life then you wouldn’t even question this.

Going back to OP- you were being unreasonable! You should’ve said ‘yes she wore them’ and left it as that! I’m sorry you have a narc mother (I do too) so you KNEW she’d throw her toys out of the pram and mention her money and plead poverty. That’s what narcs do!! And you know that x

So you said she probably wouldn't wear them when you received them, and then recently said that dd had indeed not worn them? You do need to learn to be gracious when you receive a gift.

@SecretsInSpitalfield I know I’ve made a mistake. I honestly do now. My DH said the same, I should have lied, should have dressed her in her dresses and took some pics. Not sure that would have been enough for my perfect mother though who could get paranoid that the pics were taken just for her and would probably question whether she genuinely wore them. I never win with her and never know what to expect, it sometimes shocks me what she comes up with, so I decided a long time ago I’ll tell the truth and that’s it. I have no energy sometimes to fight.

But yes, I’m not perfect, I have lots of flaws. Not as perfect as some of the posters here who seem to nail everything and know exactly what to do in every situation and therefore feel entitled to call other people names and be aggressive in their communication. What’s your secret people?! I’m willing to learn.

SecretsinSpitalfield I don't really understand what you're saying to me in your last post, but people tend to throw the word Narcissistic around without any actual diagnosis of what is, a fairly difficult to diagnose, mental illness.

The OP described her mother as being 'a bit Narcissistic'. Can someone have a 'bit' of an illness?

@pigsDOfly she’s never been diagnosed, or I’m not aware of it. She did go to a psychologist a few times but not sure what the outcome was. She played the victim all through I would expect knowing her, and interpreted everything in her own way, that she is perfect as always and has no faults. Just a few examples: she used to beat us up as children until we fainted, she once beat up our dog in anger until she died, right before my shocked eyes. The dog who was a puppy attached a chicken therefore needed a good beating. My sister has epilepsy since a small child. Despite the illness she used to beat her up for whatever reasons, she wasn’t a bad child just a child who dared to say no sometimes. Now she is a completely damaged individual, never got married and is not ok mentally, she’s 45. She does challenge my mother though which upsets her as she thinks she still should listen to her mother and let the mother decide for her.

Everyone wronged her in her life and she suffers because of that. She has a very sharp tongue and gets hysterical when she doesn’t get her way and says the most hurtful things, however the smallest thing anyone says hurts her so bad she’ll remember for decades, yes, decades.

This is not relevant to my original post obviously. I shouldn’t have mentioned that in the first place.

@pigsDOfly I simply meant exactly that. Unless you have had a narc for a mother you wouldn't question or down play the OP and her description!
Saying someone is 'a bit narcissistic' is just a figure of speech imo!

And for the record no one gets 'diagnosed' with narcissism! A narc will never admit to being a narc (for that wouldn't make them a narc!!)

OP- she beat your family puppy to death??!!! Evil nasty old witch!! You still sound like you're in her control and pathetic strops even though she is abroad and you're a grown adult! I completely understand and it's sucks! Please understand that she is the problem not you. Plus you've broken the narcissistic viscous circle as you see her for what she is and you're making sure you're never like that for your dc. That's the main thing! I'd forget about the clothes (and HER!) x

Well all this additional information OP, does put a very different light on your thread.

It's gone from her sending you a few iffy clothes for your child and getting upset because you didn't use them to someone who sounds completely unhinged and frankly incredibly dangerous. She sounds like a completely different person from the woman you talk about in your first post.

Why are you accepting gifts from her? Why are you even in touch with her?

YANBU. If you told her that DD wore the clothes she would only buy more shite. Tell the truth. If she wants to pick a fight she will
anyway, she’ll just choose another subject.

Bloody hell that escalated!

Your mother beat you and your siblings up as a child and attacked and killed a puppy ?

Why the hell are you accepting gifts from this person!?

You don't need opinions from strangers op, you know your life, we don't

You seem also to be playing the victim in this scenario, do not engage

Well, I didn’t mean to escalate it so far. It’s certainly not the point of my original post but I thought I’d justify why I called her ‘a bit narcissistic’. Why I’m in contact with her? Well, I’m in low contact now. I had periods with no contact, but she always crept back in. Also about 10 years ago I decided to forgive her and try to work on the relationship. I wanted to have a mother, but unfortunately having a healthy relationship with her never worked. Keeping low contact has been great but then she always finds something to create a drama. I still think now I should have just lied to her about the clothes just to avoid any opportunity for more drama. I screwed up.

Like some of you said, I know my own life and I should not ask strangers for advice. I won’t, going forward.

In future just say she has outgrown them, you didn’t need to mention the fact they hadn’t been worn. Her scathing email was OTT though.