Shit-stirring mother.

[FrostyChocolateMilkshake]

My mum seems to love to shit stir and make me out to be a horrible, selfish person.

I don't have kids (out of choice) and my mum constantly makes digs at me about it. Tells her friends at work and other family members about my decision not to have kids, is very disappointed in me etc.

I am meeting my mum for a walk tomorrow and she has told me my brother and SIL are going to be there, with their child. Mum told me she is worried about me being there too because I "get jealous of the attention the child receives". I have no idea where this has come from. I am a 30 year old woman and certainly not jealous of a 3 year old child! I'm anxious now with what my mum thinks of me. She's always shit stirring and making me out to be a villain.

I'd love to go NC sometimes and move away further from her and cut her off completely.

Sorry for the rant...I guess my AIBU is am I being precious/oversensitive? Or does my mum need to stop being a dick?

This isn't an isolated incident btw. She has been constantly nit-picking about everything from my looks to my boyfriebds to my career choices throughout my life.

X does this for her mother. I said oh I couldnt care what they do!!!!

Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Does she try to play you and your brother off on each other? My mother is like this and it took 45 years and some counselling to learn how to deal with her. Very limited contact and offer her no information on my life at all. Good luck, you will feel so much better.

Yes it is but you know what, I am actually grateful for the experience in a weird way as it's made me a resilient person who has sought to heal myself of the trauma through therapy and consciously making better choices. Both of my 'favoured' siblings have issues and lack self awareness. You have tried to make things better which makes you the bigger person. Perhaps some therapy to allow you to move away from the dysfunction. Hand on heart the best thing I ever did.

@FrostyChocolateMilkshake

All your comments are so overwhelming. I could cry. I've been made to feel I am ridiculous and stupid and immature and jealous and spiteful but your comments have made me realise what she is doing isn't normal and our relationship isn't normal. She is not supportive of me whatsoever and never has been. The killer is, even if I had kids, she'd find a way to pull me down.

Do look at the current Stately Homes thread OP, you don't have to read all the previous ones. Essentially, mothers like this have a lot of traits in common and you will see that on there and you can also notice it on this thread.

My behaviour is not normal apparently, and I''ve only just realised that I am not actually a liar: she just calls anyone who disagrees with her a liar...

Ultimately, she won't change: you need to change your responses to her. And you absolutely can.

Everyone, honestly I'm overwhelmed with your kindness. I am going to start with keeping her at arm's length. I need to stop letting her bring me down mentally so much. I need to accept that nothing I do - no job promotion, no buying a bigger house, no losing loads of weight, no coming into a lot of money- will make her proud of me. I am a failure to her and always have been, always will be. I cant change her. May as well deal with it and just take a massive step back from her.

Do a lot of parents have favourite children? If so would you make it known?

Honestly I have dealt with this for years. I feel your pain. The criticism. Ignoring anything you do well in but pulling you up on anything to make you feel negative. I gert 'such and such is a great daughter' a dig I am not. So I just pull away. I cry every now and then but I am tougher than I was.

The golden child/scapegoat dynamic is all about her and her needs. Nothing to do with you.

Wait until you start reading more on that and NPD, you will be 😳😳😳😳😳 will all be so familiar.

I have a cousin who did this to me for years and it ground away at my self-confidence. When I was about 28, I just decided I didn't want her in my life. I went NC and never explained myself to her. She hounded me - rang, left emails, voicemails, wrote, sent letters recorded delivery (which I never accepted), turned up at the house (I didn't open the door). Eventually she gave up.

I am so much happier without her in my life. I never think about her.

@Woodlandbelle

Honestly I have dealt with this for years. I feel your pain. The criticism. Ignoring anything you do well in but pulling you up on anything to make you feel negative. I gert 'such and such is a great daughter' a dig I am not. So I just pull away. I cry every now and then but I am tougher than I was.

I think we are the same person. Your mother is meant to be the one person in our world who loves us no matter what. Looks like we've both drawn the short straw

Both of my parents do this to me, and I am in my 50s. It's really tiresome. They labelled me as 'difficult' as a small child and even now whatever innocuous comment I make one of them will roll their eyes and say something like oh, here we go!. It's massively frustrating. I would love to go NC with them, but they are in their 80s and I would feel guilty.

But I have had a lifetime of being criticised, put down, labelled as 'awkward' if I dare to have an opinion that is different from them. Whatever I do or say is not good enough. They are never proud of me. Everything is always my fault. I loathe going to see them because I generally come away feeling shit about myself.

I think counselling would be a revelation for you. Don’t tell your mum you’re doing it. Use it as a little piece of yourself that she doesn’t have access to, and can’t put down. Slowly that part of you will grow bigger, and those grey rock techniques will seem altogether possible (and actually necessary).

In the meantime, find one short response to use with your mum whenever she ventures into the territory of veiled-vicious comments. It needn’t be words. I used a kind of shocked/amused laugh sound. It drove my mother bananas. I used it like a broken record, every time, without explanation. I’d quietly and without drama untangle myself from the conversation or visit if she did it more than twice.

Mind you, with your mum I’d be tempted to snap back with ‘Why would I need kids around, when I have to deal with so much toddler behaviour from you, mum?’ Not saying it’s a mature response, but a slap-down every now and again isn’t the end of the world!

When I was in my 30s...and even in my early 40s, the reality that I'd always meant it when I said I wouldn't be having children finally seemed to sink in with my mother...she also could be quite vicious about it, and was always going on about her best friend - who had had 6 children, who had gone on to start having children themselves very young - comparing her daughters to me (only daughter). She made it pretty damn obvious that I was a disappointment to her. She has no grandchildren as my two brothers haven't had any either...and we are now all in our 50s so that ship has definitely sailed.

My solution was pretty drastic and wouldn't suit most people - I moved to the other side of the world. That was more than 20 years ago and in that time I've seen her twice, for a total of about 4 months. I call her on average every 2 months. I'm bipolar and my mental health can't cope with her for anymore than that.

I'd start cutting the contact with her right down.

@noirchatsdeux good on you for making such a bold decision. You're stronger than you realise.

I don't understand why some mothers think it is their decision whether their kids procreate or not. It is no one's business but yours. I think some mothers think they have ownership of their kids?

My dm prefers boys to girls, she admits it.
She prefers all of my siblings to me.
She told me once that nobody likes me.

I'm in my 60's now and dm is elderly

I have wasted my life letting her treat me badly.
Luckily for 36 years we've lived away from her.

At Christmas I didn't get a Christmas present, again. My siblings get lovely presents.
My df , who is split from my dm, makes up for it though.
We bought a new home 4 years ago in a place my dm loves to visit so her behaviour has improved somewhat because she relies on us to fetch her!

My db, who is the golden child, rarely visits or does anything for dm, but you would think he was Jesus Christ himself the way she talks about him.

Your dm will never change op.

What you decide to do now is important because you're still young and I can say from experience the feeling of unfairness gets worse over time not better.

I hear ya, OP. The shit stirring is something else - they make the tabloid newspapers look benign. Before you know it you're given emotions, characteristics, actions etc that aren't who you or what you are. Growing up with that is corrosive. If they're covert then you only find out later what's been said.

They're never accountable for what they're saying so you can't have a decent discussion about it. In effect, it removes your voice and autonomy in family situations.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/4182916-March-2021-Well-we-took-you-to-Stately-Homes-thread

This is the Stately Homes thread some of the others have referred to.

I heard a wonderful quote recently about mothers: something like,
‘It’s no wonder that our mums know how to press all our buttons, they installed them after all.’

I would agree with this, but it is up to us, as adult women, to learn to pull the power plug that lets those buttons affect us. Just because the buttons are there, doesn’t mean we need to keep them synched to our self-worth, mood, outlook.

Pull the plug, and let them push away until their spiteful fingers drop off, I say!

The trick that I learnt to do this (in therapy) was to look into and implement ‘the inner observer’ status in myself. Switch my brain to a mode where I’m hearing/seeing my mother’s comments as an outsider would. Like, a doctor, or a stranger would. Then I can assess it for what it is, and ignore or call it out, without just letting it ‘in’ and affect me. It took time, but I can do it nearly every time now. With other people in my life too. Very liberating.

Op you got great advice here. I can only control how I react to her. My dad used say we were like an Eastenders fight deceased now. Always makes me laugh. I found counselling great

life is too short to be feeling as you do . i would make plans to a fresh start in another town if you can ,try to speak to your mother about how you really feel before you go . best of luck

Sounds like you need to step back from your relationship with her. She sounds exhausting and determined to make you the fall guy for her shitty behaviour.

When you are around her, do you call her out on it? For example, are you planning on making a loud joke in front of everyone tomorrow about her ridiculousness of suggesting you would be jealous of a 3 year old? I'd have to. At the end of the day, when using you as a pawn she's involving you in her game and if you're involved then you get to play!!

Do you have a lot of contact with her now? If so, maybe just start ignoring her calls or saying you're too busy then just texting or ringing once a week. If she's a bitch during every weekly check in I'd reduce that to fortnightly and so on.

At the end of the day you are both adults. She is choosing to be a bitch but that does not mean you are duty bound to take it.

@NovemberR

Both of my parents do this to me, and I am in my 50s. It's really tiresome. They labelled me as 'difficult' as a small child and even now whatever innocuous comment I make one of them will roll their eyes and say something like oh, here we go!. It's massively frustrating. I would love to go NC with them, but they are in their 80s and I would feel guilty.

But I have had a lifetime of being criticised, put down, labelled as 'awkward' if I dare to have an opinion that is different from them. Whatever I do or say is not good enough. They are never proud of me. Everything is always my fault. I loathe going to see them because I generally come away feeling shit about myself.

All this resonates. Down to the fact that I was labelled 'difficult' and not allowed to have any opinions of my own and nothing was good enough.

They're both dead now, but although they can't hurt me any more, the fact that I've never had a loving parent still hurts me. I've also been drawn to uncaring people who have compounded the hurt.

OP it's v hard. But now I've learnt so much that I didn't know when I was younger. Mn is a brilliant resource in how to deal with narcissistic people. Also YouTube has some great ideas too. It helps you to feel that there's nothing wrong with you,, it's them who are damaged.

I am a failure to her and always have been, always will be

Now put that phrase on her, not yourself. She has failed you and then in effect victim blamed and made you feel it’s your fault.

It’s not about whether or not you have a successful career, or children, or a great house. It’s about her trying to feel better about herself by denigrating you. Nothing you do, or don’t do, makes a difference to that. She will never feel for you what you are longing for (and deserve) so all you can do is stop her being able to get to you so easily.

NC would do it, or a lesser step of grey rock and emotional distancing.

My life started to look up when I started to pity my mother. It gave me perspective and distance. I wish she had been able to be whole but she couldn’t. Eventually she died, and I emigrated and started to heal. Eleven years on she still appears in my dreams sometimes and even there she is no different.

I wish you distance, I wish you healing. Do it for yourself.

@Nitpickpicnic

I heard a wonderful quote recently about mothers: something like, ‘It’s no wonder that our mums know how to press all our buttons, they installed them after all.’

I would agree with this, but it is up to us, as adult women, to learn to pull the power plug that lets those buttons affect us. Just because the buttons are there, doesn’t mean we need to keep them synched to our self-worth, mood, outlook.

Pull the plug, and let them push away until their spiteful fingers drop off, I say!

The trick that I learnt to do this (in therapy) was to look into and implement ‘the inner observer’ status in myself. Switch my brain to a mode where I’m hearing/seeing my mother’s comments as an outsider would. Like, a doctor, or a stranger would. Then I can assess it for what it is, and ignore or call it out, without just letting it ‘in’ and affect me. It took time, but I can do it nearly every time now. With other people in my life too. Very liberating.

"...learn to pull the power plug..." that has been the most difficult because we're brought up with this all around us. The emotional, visceral response to rejection, the flip-flopping, negativity, instability etc becomes almost hard-wired. It took me a long time to define my emotional response because i'd lived within it for so many years.

You aren't a failure @FrostyChocolateMilkshake. Your mum is the one who is a failure. She is a failure as a parent.

I'm disappointed that your husband doesn't stick up for you. Sometimes staying out of it isn't the right thing to do.

Definitely go low/no contact. Is your father still around?

You're not allowed to meet up with three households, surely? Even outside!

There’s always one.