To be upset that my mother is not in the 'if you can't say anything nice, keep your mouth shut' camp?

[OLGADEEPOLGA]

My mother never seems to realise how things she says can really hurt. I can remember numerous times I have thought she is going to say something nice or complimentary and then my heart drops as she says something horrible.

A few recent examples - I bought her a bunch of flowers to be delivered to her house, she called me after they had arrived and said 'I got the flowers and they were awful ' - they were from John Lewis as an aside and v expensive. Why couldn't she say thank you , the flowers were lovely? Apparently the colours were not to her liking.

Next example during lockdown my hair has grown and I've not been able to get to the hairdresser, I sent her a photo of me and she replied 'I like your hair shorter' - that's it, nothing else. She also text me yesterday to ask if my hair colour was natural on my whatsapp profile pic, I replied yes it is. She replied 'I prefer it lighter' . I've never dyed my hair lighter at all so basically she doesn't like my natural hair colour?!

Why would someone always do things like this? She always comments on slight gains in weight too as if she is some perfect supermodel without any flaws.

If this was you, would it get you down? And I KNOW there are bigger things in life to worry about but I just can never imagine myself speaking that way to my daughter so apologies if this seems a silly pathetic concern, I just would like to know if it's normal.

My mum is like this too. Shes never going to change sadly.

My mother is a little bit like this....although she would be horrified and would deny it were she to hear me say it! It’s not that she tries to be rude/negative (I think!) - she just lacks the normal filter, or doesn’t try as hard to apply it to me. I just find I tell her very little of a personal nature now, which I’m sure she finds sad - but I’ve reached the age where I CBA to deal with/stress about it anymore. As others have said, the “ok, well I won’t do that anymore” when it comes to complaints about things I’ve done to help her tends to yield the best results....

She's showing you who she's is and you're not listening.
She doesn't like the flowers you send, so don't send them.
She doesn't like your hair, so don't share photos.
She comments on your watts app photo, "oh really, I get so many compliments on my natural hair colour, I'll go with the masses. Your memory must be going, I've never had it lighter"

Instead of flowers, send links to research articles on increased risk of covid for the aged

My Mum was a bit like this - I spent most of my adult life NC with her. Dead now.

Same. She's never hugged me, said she loves me. Nothing I do is ever good enough and I'm fat and ugly. I'll never find a man, I spend too much time alone and my tattoos are awful. Oh and she hates I wear glasses
She has dementia now and everyone keeps saying it's changed her, it hasn't, it's just brought out exactly what she was all along and she has no interest in me whatsoever. I don't know why she bothered having me to be honest

@EveryDayIsADuvetDay I rather like that idea! That should cheer the old bat up!

Mine thinks she's being a character I think but actually she's just being unkind. I've just had my hair coloured with a reddish tone and she just kept saying " oh it's very ginger" I just snapped back " good! I paid a lot of money to make it that way!"

You know the critical internal voice you have in your head? Mine is her voice.
Criticising my body, my weight, my hair, my clothes etc etc

I cannot imagine EVER saying to my children the things she has said to me over the years.

I have completely emotionally detached from her now and I dont care what she thinks.

My mum has been like this as long as I can remember. Not an age thing at all. Just negative, victim, negative, victim negative negative negative!!!

The only thing that stopped her behaving like this with me was cutting contact for a number of years after me making it clear I was sick of her poison. Once we got back in touch after a family member passed away, she is grateful to have me in her life and she fucking behaves herself!

It's miraculous.. She can absolutely help it with me as she knows I will fuck off again. She's still vile to my brother.

I'm not suggesting cutting contact as that's obviously last resort but I hope you can find a way to put boundaries there. Shut her down every single time she starts, tell her you're not dealing with her constant negativity and mean it. Or she will never ever stop

I sent both dm & mil identical flowers for one Mother's Day. My dm & I do not have the best relationship, but she was thrilled, & always has been with any gifts. When we visited mil I got "now don't be disappointed when you see your flowers" (insinuating they were awful). She had hacked long stemmed freesias, roses & spray carnations down to approx 4 inches & shoved them into a block of florists foam "to try & make the best of them". I never sent her any again.

Why are there so many of these threads?

Why are so many mums belittling, rude, lack no filter?

Why do so many of these mothers say things to their daughters that we can never imagine saying to our own daughters?

What is the reason for it?

I have lived with this all my life. It's heartbreaking but you learn from it. The

I am once again nc with my mum for the same reasons.

Thinking about it, I can only ever remember her telling me she loves me twice in 40+ years. I cannot think of a single positive thing she has said to me, never compliments any of my achievements (installed a new kitchen, mostly by myself, took weeks and had taken years to save up for and plan. "Did you see the (miniscule) scratch on the hob?". She's like a dementor from Harry Potter. I feel so much lighter in myself since nc. Flying monkeys sent away as recently as yesterday.

Mine’s the same. Started talking about the hairs on my dds back as a newborn and how she hoped they’d go as dd wouldn’t like them.

I got therapy, had a period of nc. She changed drastically because of it. Now loves the cheaper, less thoughtful presents I give her. Has something positive to say when she used to grunt grudgingly at the latest £100+ gift. I remember painful experiences such her looking down her nose at the latest gift I bought to match her recent bedroom scheme (from the same shop) more than 15 years ago when she delighted over the £10 gift Sil ran and got from a local shop an hour before it closed on Christmas Eve. In hindsight she doesn’t see any use for what I bought. But that’s the point. It was frivolity. She always wanted to be frivolous with herself but struggled so I tried to give her that gift. Big mistake. Huge....

Why are you in contact with her?? I would definitely reduce the contact. And have you ever said to her how it makes you feel?
My mother is in the 'honest' camp but sorry, your mum sounds pure nasty! And to her own kids....

My best friends mother was like yours OP.
There were many times that I would think, bloody hell I'm glad you're not my mum!.
The most memorable was when I was a bridesmaid for her ( my best friend ) and when she was finally finished and ready to leave ( she looked gorgeous and her dress was stunning ) her mother actually said ' you look like a sack of spuds'.
I could have cried for her.
Disgusting excuse of a mother!

Check out covert narcissism. They might not be a Donald Trump style show-off but everyone else is still worthless. But it’s all projection to cover the fear and shame they feel about themselves - when she says “you look like a sack of spuds” (WHAT a cow @SummerPoppies btw) it means “I feel so bad about how I look I can’t stand it and have to cut you down because the comparison with you is so painful to me, I hate myself let’s lash out to make myself feel better”. When I read about this so much of my mother’s behaviour finally made sense. It’s not you, it’s her being awful

@AyeCorona1

I am once again nc with my mum for the same reasons.

Thinking about it, I can only ever remember her telling me she loves me twice in 40+ years. I cannot think of a single positive thing she has said to me, never compliments any of my achievements (installed a new kitchen, mostly by myself, took weeks and had taken years to save up for and plan. "Did you see the (miniscule) scratch on the hob?". She's like a dementor from Harry Potter. I feel so much lighter in myself since nc. Flying monkeys sent away as recently as yesterday.

This thread is just so sad and especially the lack of being told “I love you”. I tell DD I love her every day without fail, several times a day more often. It’s just how we speak to each other.

I hope that for those of you with DM’s who fail you in this way, that you have others in your life telling you they love you. I really do hope that for you all

@Comtesse

Check out covert narcissism. They might not be a Donald Trump style show-off but everyone else is still worthless. But it’s all projection to cover the fear and shame they feel about themselves - when she says “you look like a sack of spuds” (WHAT a cow *@SummerPoppies* btw) it means “I feel so bad about how I look I can’t stand it and have to cut you down because the comparison with you is so painful to me, I hate myself let’s lash out to make myself feel better”. When I read about this so much of my mother’s behaviour finally made sense. It’s not you, it’s her being awful

This is totally my mum.

@SummerPoppies

My best friends mother was like yours OP. There were many times that I would think, bloody hell I'm glad you're not my mum!. The most memorable was when I was a bridesmaid for her ( my best friend ) and when she was finally finished and ready to leave ( she looked gorgeous and her dress was stunning ) her mother actually said ' you look like a sack of spuds'. I could have cried for her. Disgusting excuse of a mother!

Fucking Hell, that's awful. Your poor friend.

When me and my best friend were small, we used to go to the church in our village to watch the lovely brides go in. Then have a discussion about our own weddings and future husband's.
I was dead set on marrying Eric from the bay city rollers, she was dead set on Les. 😂 My mum must have been laughing her head off.
When my daughter got married I thought she looked beautiful and told her so. Her father actually said ' you could put all the supermodels in the world in here, and you would knock them all dead', then went off to the loo for a quick pee ( sniffle more like )
Sorry for the derail.
I don't understand why anyone wants to deliberately cause someone they're supposed to love upset and hurt.
It's like when your child comes dashing out of school proudly bearing a model. You look at it and think..
A. What is it?
B. How long do I have to keep it before I can sneak it into the bin?
We think it, we don't say it. Why would we want to crush our children?
Horrible self centred people.

@Winter2019

Why are you in contact with her?? I would definitely reduce the contact. And have you ever said to her how it makes you feel?
My mother is in the 'honest' camp but sorry, your mum sounds pure nasty! And to her own kids....

^This. My DM is very much like yours; she's the sort who can upset people by being too honest. But she doesn't do it to be unknown; I've never doubted that she means well, hence why I persevere with her.

The OP's mother just sounds plain nasty. There's a very big difference between the two.

My mil was like this. I showed her some alliums in my garden and she said "they are awful, I hate alliums, they smell of onions". Years later I saw some in her garden that she'd planted. Then last week I said to my sil how I'd ordered some more and she commented "mum loved those". So why she said it, I will never know. I can only guess it was to be spiteful, or she was jealous at the time.

Oh dear, that was supposed to say, 'she doesn't do it to be unkind'.

My mum is like this and I do pull her up on it. But then says I’m the one being sensitive and acts the victim, all hurt. She says that I as her daughter, she should be able to be completely honest with me. I point out that she doesn’t have to say anything unkind to anyone, ever! She’s generally a judgemental, bitchy person and it’s very tiring

My own DM isn't like this but she made a conscious effort to do better than her parents . My MIL on the other hand is shocking to my SIL. Nothing she does is good enough. She criticises everything. If she spends money on anything she is wasting money. Her hair is never nice enough, her nails look stupid. I get so pissed off on her behalf. My DH sticks up for her and tells his mum off every time he hears it.