To ask about your relationship with your mum

[bettydaviseyes1]

I might be being unreasonable to ask such a personal question and I'm sorry if it offends but I'm going through a bit of a tough time with my mum, feel like I'm the worst daughter in the world and nothing I ever do is good enough. I dont feel myself when I'm with her and feel like I'm walking on eggshells. I love her to bits but it's such a complicated relationship.

So I'm wondering, how often do you call or see your mum? Do you live close? Go on holiday together?

I wonder if I am an awful daughter because we dont have that close relationship or whether i have unrealistic expectations of what a mother/daughter relationship should be. I'm 28 years old and she still puts the absolute fear in me!

I did counselling huge help.
Im late 40s. I tolerate her but has a nasty streak if things not by her way. She tried to say on my night away what hotel was it. I got a 2nd text to say she got no reply to her message. These replies oh she your mum drive me mad. I keep visits minimal.

My mother is a narcissist. I have no contact with her. My life is much better.

Buzzingthebee
Narcissists so draining. I dont do holidays with her. Then major mood if me and siblings away. Its beyond exhausting now. She mid 70s

I’ve been really struggling recently as this lockdown made it even more obvious how distant my relationship with my mum ( and dad) really is. We live 250 miles apart and my parents just don’t visit at all. We go once a year. We FaceTime once a week ( however it has to be a set day and if I don’t call then we sometimes go for a couple of weeks without)
We were fed and dressed at home but raised v old fashioned as children should be seen not heard! No emotional support or hugs etc
Only now my children are growing up I’ve started to reflect more on my childhood. It hurts so much my parents aren’t interested in me. They chat to my children but it’s not a grandchild/parent relationship at all. No support as in babysitting as “they’ve done their bit” and we decided to have kids so...
My mum didn’t have a good relationship with her mum but I can’t understand why she would want to repeat that? She never talks about her youth or herself, she’s like a stranger to me really. We just chat about v general life, about what the children have been up to but nothing too much. I can’t talk to her like a daughter could. A few examples I said last year I’m joining a gym. Reply why would you want to do that for? Is it because everyone is doing that?
Another example: if I mention I go out with a friend, she replies women shouldn’t go out with their husbands?!? It’s very stifling calling her and it hurts me she doesn’t want to get much to do with her grandchildren.
A few weeks into lockdown she asked me if I’m not getting bored not working at all? Uhm no I’ve got kids and homeschooling, household etc!
Women with messy houses are lazy women according to her so always feel guilty when my housework piles up!
I read all those fb posts about families reunited after lockdown etc and it really hurts 😢

she's done a right number on me, currently quite traumatised. She is oblivious to this

EdersonsSmileyTattoo
your Mum sounds amazing.

My mum is dead now. She was very kind and loving but incredibly repressed and couldn't express herself about anything that really mattered.

So we would have naice conversations about art/culture/the weather/pets/my career. And she was genuinely interested in those.

But if we ever got onto topics like sex/money she would visibly shrivel up and run for the hills screaming. I was never able to talk to her about my emotions and she never prepared me for puberty or sexual relationships at all. Although I knew she cared, I was always terrified of approaching her on those topics.

She was a SAHM after having had a very fulfilling career earlier in life and although she never expressed this directly, it was very clear that she was extremely resentful of what had happened to her life and although she loved her children, she was bored stupid by being a housewife and massively unfulfilled.

She left me with a horror of the idea of having nothing to do other than be a wife/mother and a very clear sense that its vitally important to have your own money at almost any cost.

Which is partly why I'm a workaholic and would never depend on a man financially, I think. So in many ways she did me a favour. But I would rather have had the closeness.

Very superficial relationship, medium to low contact. The way my mother tells it we are all very close but she couldn’t tell you anything meaningful about me if she tried. She’s only really interested in anything she thinks makes her look good and her views are very old fashioned so brother getting married and her becoming a grandmother were big deals...me being very successful in my career in a high profile role not so much. She’d have been prouder if I’d sacked off uni, married someone rich and stayed home and produced some babies 🤔

I phone my mum most days as my father died recently. She lives a 5-10
minute drive away but doesn’t drive. She basically brought my niece up 16 months older than my DS but she has had little to do with my two. She will ask on the how are ‘the children’ today (she isn’t posh and hasn’t got dementia. Its almost she can’t remember or be bothered to say their names. The relationship is very one sided, if I offer to do anything like say before lock down like taking her into town, inviting her around for a meal, birthday cake, day out etc. I was usually met with ‘I’ll not bother/won’t bother’ and I often had to phone up in advance to find this out or turn up to pick her up and find out. It often always felt like she was doing me the favour by agreeing to come or go somewhere with me. But I think an hour or two would be the most time she would spend with me. We haven’t been on holiday together since I was 14.

She still prefers my brother and sister to me and sometimes tries to play us all off against each other (but I try bot to get sucked into it). She is 78 so I still try. Her mum my grandma was lovely but her father my grandad wasn’t and although she is a much milder person than him they do share common traits.

I'm right there with you and only a year older. We've never been particularly close, I always felt I was on eggshells as a child as she'd blow her top if anything wasn't to her liking. I was never encouraged academically and my mum would spit at me, "You'll end up in the corner in a dunce's hat". I was never made to feel validated about how I am as a person - it's only now I'm an adult that I am proud to be a sensitive, quiet, anxious person. That is me and I'm proud of it. We've had issues whenever my mum tries to tell me what to do and I say "No". "No, I'm not doing that, we're doing this because..." She does not like that at all and throws her toys out the pram and refuses to talk to me. To make matters worse, I'm very close to my MIL which causes unwarranted jealousy from my mum even though I try to include her, which she retaliates with anger and bitterness. I'm not playing games any more, I've had enough. I've had enough of the mind games, the emotional blackmail. I'm so sad we won't be close because she's got so many good points, she's generous, she's kind, she's funny, she's good to talk to. But she seems to be hell-bent on pushing people away by acting like a child when things don't go her way and I can't do it any more. It's hard because at the back of my mind, I think I only get one mum but I can't help her behaviour and I'm not responsible for her

I have a great relationship with my mum. It was just the 2 of us when I was growing up as I'm an only child and my dad wasn't in the picture much. We often go on days out together and we went to New York together last year. She's a wonderful grandmother to DS also.

Mu mother lives with me.

We don't like each other much.

Hmm, I get on fine with my mum. Will have the very occasional trip out together. It's never something she instigates. I feel love from her but she never ever offers to help me out with kids etc. Even when they were younger.
We speak a few times a week, possibly I go and see her every fortnight, but again she never says, oh we are passing can we pop
In for a cuppa.
It's fine. I don't like living in someone else's pocket, and know lots of people who are 'too involved '

Detached. I think she was quite a warm parent when I was small but she seriously struggled with the teen years. I was offered very little in terms of support or advice and was just left to flounder my way through (badly). I can’t talk to her about anything personal as she always, without fail, makes it weird. I had a miscarriage in 2014 and she doesn’t know, although I’ve told my sister and some friends. We’re very different to people - she has outdated, or sometimes downright bizarre, views on numerous topics - going beyond small talk with her is very difficult.

She is not a bad person (at all), but I still struggle to make any sort of meaningful connection with her. I feel guilty. My sister struggles too. My dc love her and they have a good relationship - I have to really try and sometimes do better than at other times. Lockdown has been hard as speaking on the phone with her can be excruciating.

Never had a close relationship with her, a lot of over thinking and self analysis has brought me to conclusions as to why.

Now she's in a nursing home with dementia and I feel nothing about her, everything I have to sort out feels like a heavy obligation.

I have a bit of a nothing relationship with my mum. Any interaction I have with her is purely based on well I suppose I should and she kind of expects it.

She caused me a lot of pain as a child and made it clear I was very much down her list of priorities. We are very very different people.

I spent a lot of my adult life trying to please my mum and get approval.

But I’ve learned that I don’t need her approval, I’m happier now. Sometimes I yearn after what I see with other people and their mums but I’ve accepted that it’s not to be. Your relationship with your mum is what it is, it doesn’t need to measure up to anyone else’s. It doesn’t need be the best relationship in your life.

I've been NC with my mum for 4 years. She was emotionally very cold when I was growing up, and she, (and my dad who died in 2008), favoured my sister. When my sister and I both had children, it became very clear the cycle was starting again and she very obviously, favoured my sister's children.

There was no way I was going to let my children suffer the same way I did as a child, watching her blatant favouritism, so went NC. Life is far less complicated without her in it.

Sad reading these but yes they not easy people. I had accept there be no changing her now. Dont bring her places because of this.

I’m 29. My mum and I clashed a lot when I was a teenager but I think because were very similar and have always been very close. I adore her and she’s a fantastic granny.
We live 10 mins away and I see her every other day or more. We go for lunch once a week (pre-covid) and chat on the phone once a day usually.
If she puts the fear in you, I assume it’s something on your mothers side. You shouldn’t feel you aren’t a good enough daughter. Is your father around and if so, how is your relationship with him?

My beloved Mum was inspirational, loving, giving and so courageous. My sibling and I adored her and she adored us in return. She died many years ago after a long and painful illness about which she never complained. I miss her still but thank God she is at peace

THis makes for some interesting reading- regarding the "Mother wound"

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I went to live with mine when I was ten. She's eccentric and flawed and her standards and expectations were ridiculously high given I was a child who'd been through considerable trauma prior to being adopted, but she's a great Mum. She and my Dad loved me to the ends of the earth but were also tough with the boundaries they had.

We grew closer by far when I had my own DC - she was there from the moment they were born and has adored and cherished them in a way that (I think) has healed her heartache over not being able to have biological DC of her own. I'm less of a dick than I was as a teen, she's less of a dick, we're good, and we've owned the fact that we were both dicks, which has meant we can both move past it.

The most interesting part of my relationship with my Mum has been watching DH and his Mum - MIL is the polar opposite to mine and she's the most difficult, distant and critical person I've ever met, and DH tiptoes about her trying not to make her cry. My Mum and I take the piss out of one another, laugh and have a relationship based on honesty and kindness. I believed for so many years that we were fucked up because I was adopted - it was only seeing DH and MIL that made me realise all families have their odd ways, and that ours wasn't any better or worse.

Over the years DH has absorbed more of my family traits - he's very tactile with our DC and has been determined never to be critical of the DC in the way MIL is with him. It's happened by osmosis, but he's picked up the very best traits from my Mum, I think, and although it's always going to be a painful topic for him, she's taught DH what a Mum can - and should - be. I love her for that, and for how much she adores my children, more than anything.

I'm 31. I have a great relationship with her now but it was full of disagreements when I was a teenager.

We speak most days and phone/FT once or twice a week. I normally see her a couple of times a month - she only lives 40 minutes away. I'd see her more often but although she's retired, she does a lot of volunteering and I work, so it's not always easy to fit it in!

So I'm wondering, how often do you call or see your mum? Do you live close? Go on holiday together?

I have a very poor relationship with my mum. She lives about 3 hours away from here. I wouldn't want to go on holiday with her. I did once (foolishly) accept an offer for her to take me, my ex and the DC on a holiday to Disneyland Paris. It was very generous, but (as always) came with the expectation that she could control everything we did and ended up being very stressful. I ended up properly ill and my ex had to put his foot down over some food-related decisions which she decided was evidence of him being evil. So never again. Ever.

I haven't seen her since Boxing day, or spoken to her. I've exchanged a handful of messages with her in that time. She messaged me at the weekend asking if she could come next weekend. I didn't respond until she'd sent me another message this morning basically demanding I respond to her request. So I lied and said I was ill and just put her off. I have some specific reasons why next week is not good anyway (I'm due to have a baby on Friday - but I haven't actually told her about the pregnancy yet for a range of reasons; I'm pretty sure DS1 has told her, which is why she's asking specifically about this weekend in a passive aggressive manner).

Thing is, I just don't trust her. She's very overbearing and controlling (albeit often in weird ways that look from the outside like generosity). As I've gotten older and further away from her I've had time and space to recognise this properly and reflect upon all the ways that it can never be a great relationship. As a teenager I endured what I can know recognise as emotional abuse from both my (divorcing) parents who were determined to alienate me from each other, and generally just fuck me up. My dad was actually just the less effective manipulator, so I went NC with him years ago (so my mum decided she'd 'won'). But actually, my mum was just as bad; she's just smarter about it all, and plays the victim better.

Similarly, she's always been the sort of person who makes a huge show of how wonderful and helpful she is. But actually, it's all just about control. If you're doing what she wants, she'll be so generous and nice (but will tell the whole world all about how wonderful she is etc). The minute you make a decision that she doesn't want you to make, and she's no help at all or outright obstructive. For example, I had to give up a place at Cambridge university and go to my local university because she absolutely would not help me (financially, practically, otherwise) to take it up because she wanted me to stay at home. She was delighted to tell everyone about her smart daughter who 'turned Cambridge down' though.

The current dire state of the relationship definitely isn't helped by the fact that she's purposefully cultivated a really weird relationship with my eldest son (now 20) where she basically has claimed him as her son rather than grandson. It's weird, creepy and unhelpful (to me and him, but I literally can do nothing about it now). It also doesn't help that she's regularly a total dick to DH either (but in sly and passive aggressive ways). I think this is largely because she realises she can't control him, and he's a significant barrier to her controlling me.

Despite this, DH is utterly bemused that I haven't told her about the pregnancy. But we've been in lockdown (so it hasn't been a necessity) and, more importantly, I just don't trust her not to be a complete arsehole and ruin yet another pregnancy. She behaved appallingly when my DS2 was born and caused enormous amounts of stress and upset. After the birth she briefly saw him for about 10 minutes and then I didn't see her again for about a year. I just refuse to give her any opportunity to do anything of the sort this time around (and, let's face it, the whole virus thing has made being pregnant pretty crap anyway right now). I have now realised that I won't ever be able to forgive her for what happened last time. I'll tell her once the baby is born, but who knows how she'll react about the just not saying anything.

My sister is very close to my mum, and I've never been close to her (we're very different people). I haven't told her about the pregnancy because she's already made it very clear (when I first met DH) that she thinks we should have no more children. She was enormously judgemental about it - but I don't care about her opinions. She's judgemental about just about everything (but is on thin ice in most of her judgements anyway).

Call a few times a week usually. Two to three. But then some weeks we're both busy and we don't. Outside lockdown we saw each other a few times a month. We live relatively close and get along.