I know this isn't very nice but I can't help it ...

[retroginglass]

I live very near my mum. I go and see her on a Saturday and phone ever day. Without doubt she will moan about not sleeping a wink (almost every night - she is a medical marvel), not feeling well or something. It is constant. She is now nearly 80 but this has been going on for as long as I can remember. I am so tired of listening to the constant moaning. My grown up children all visit her all the time so she is not lonely. They also phone her nearly every day. If we go out for lunch she will invariably moan about the place, the noise or something. Her latest gripe is politics and honestly the ranting and raving is getting me down. If I say I'm feeling under the weather she is ten times worse. I know she is attention seeking and my kids can just about bear it she is driving me mad. Any advice?

The posters saying we should be grateful as one day the parent will be dead are missing the point. These people likely had more dynamic relationships with their mothers, had mums who, while complaining about health mixed this in with their genuine care & concern for their kids.

I'm sure will mourn the grandmother figure & all the missed wonderful conversations we could have had when she wasn't dominating conversations about her various ailments. But it's a bit patronising & arrogant to assume that everyone should put up with being spoken at constantly with no opportunity for a 2 way conversation.

Also as someone else said, it becomes a case of crying wolf - so when they do actually take seriously ill you've lost the capacity for compassion & may also not take these health issues seriously, as according to them they've been on their death bed your whole life anyway!

I think the growth of popular psychology has seen new generations of people questioning our thinking and communication styles, how we realate to others, how we raise our children.
This highlights the negative communication methods that other use- we can cast an objective ear over what people are saying and how people talk.
My mother is a half empty glass peson, ful of criticism and negative words- she walk like that when I was a child and she was in her 30s.
So a day to day narrative may have been " sit here and have your hair brushed, it is ugly like rats' tails" instead of " let me do your hair, it looks so shiny and soft after a brush".
Many of us realise the benefit of positive parenting, and it works in other relationships too- we are far more likely to get a child or employee to comply when we use encouraging words with an expection of a desired outcome.
A child is far more likely to help in a supermarket if he is given the opportunity to feel responsible and organised rather than if he is being bribed or threatened to comply.

Seeing the positive in things extends far more than language.
I live with my mother in an idyllic spot, surrounded by woodland and wildlife. It is a genuine treat every morning to throw open the curtains to see the weather, the ever changng scene. Bright skies, mist, rain, changing colours.
Every morning without fail my mother has a moan about the weather.
"Too hot," too cold" " I hate the mist" "Can't stand the wind" " not rain again"- she has no idea of the shrapnel and shards she is spraying around- without even thinking. I have thick armour now. She berates her friends to me, pastors at her church, shop keepers and bus drivers.
The sad thing is she doesnlt even knw she is doing it.

I think about 90% of posters have said 'oh yes my mum is like this too.' Therefore, the odds are that - for whatever reasons - most of us will edge into this too at some point. Then we will at least have the answers about why they do it, because we will be doing it ourselves!

IMO this is common as people get older - and I don't think it's ageism to say that, and I know anecdotally that it doesn't happen for everyone of course - because often people are dealing with physical pain, insomnia, loneliness (even with a daily phone call, they are mostly alone), and the knowledge that their lives are receding behind them.

I guess we think we know what it will be like, but we don't. A bit like the arseholes who criticise your parenting until they have children themselves and realise how hard it is.

I think she will not change now and telling her she's miserable is unlikely to yield positive results, so managing your response to it is probably the best way to deal with it - calling while doing something else, changing the subject, jollying her along, humour.

It may seem patronising to say suck it up coz they won't be around forever but in actual fact its the truth. You only get one mum (unless you're very lucky and have 2) so even if our mums, dad's or whatever moan its normal and we all do it x

You’re not going to change her now. She’s very lucky that people talk to her at all. I would try and zone out and just placate her. Make a joke of it to yourself and try not to take it to heart . My mum is the same but she has bi polar and if I challenge her she tries to hurt herself (or worse) so I just put up with it. Since I’ve become a mum I just have her lower on my list of priorities which has helped a lot. I would just switch off and try and enjoy yourself in-between visits. Look after yourself. She is.

I think it is worth remembering that people who complain are really sad and unhappy.

I suppose you could blame them for not doing more to help themselves, or for feeling helpless about their situation, but I've always thought people reach a point where they probably think that they've tried every pain medication but their back still hurts, and they've tried every trick to overcome insomnia and none of them really worked either, and they know they should join some groups to make friends but it's just too scary.

Fundamentally, she's sad and the things that are hurting her - whether we get it or not - are all consuming and at the forefront of her mind at all times. She knows no one cares about these things, not really, but desperately wants someone to genuinely hear her and realise what she's coping with, just like her husband used to, or her good friends before they moved away.

I often think people living alone and unhappy could do with a good therapist for a weekly moan to people paid to care.

Unfortunately you can't simply list all of the things she has that others don't have, all the things she should be grateful for, because sadness doesn't work like that.

And you shouldn't wonder why she can turn on the charm for people outside the family, because we are all at our worst with the people we trust aren't, when we can be ourselves without the public mask - it's why children are sometimes angels at school but awful at home.

Just grin and bear it. Only give as much of yourself as you can. Remember that she loves you and doesn't want to be a burden, and will be gone soon enough. When you are her age you might understand her better.

It may seem patronising to say suck it up coz they won't be around forever but in actual fact its the truth. You only get one mum (unless you're very lucky and have 2) so even if our mums, dad's or whatever moan its normal and we all do it x

No. We don’t all do it. Not every second of every phone call or visit. And if you do, you need to stop and think how you are making others feel. My friend felt suicidal at her mums behaviour. And what made it worse, she’d bump into her mums friends and they’d all be talking about what great company she was, and how she cheered up so and so at church etc.
These mums so often seem to save it up their children. Or even just one child. My brother got none of it. He got a mum who asked him questions about his life and engaged with him. I put her on speaker talking to me a few times and he didn’t recognise this moaning misery on the phone.
So anyone that tells me I should have just sucked it up can just fuck off.

I love my mum dearly, but honestly only talk to her once a week, sometimes more. I have a very busy lifestyle and sometimes it just works that way.

But never the less she is my mum. She can be moany, not so much about aches but more people and general things. That is just her, many things I detest many thing I love. But the best thing I find is when she goes into one of those moods, kinda take a smile and wave take omg she never, and what did you do. At the end of the call if there is anything important hold onto it the rest let go!

These mums so often seem to save it up their children. Or even just one child. My brother got none of it. He got a mum who asked him questions about his life and engaged with him. I put her on speaker talking to me a few times and he didn’t recognise this moaning misery on the phone.
So anyone that tells me I should have just sucked it up can just fuck off.

This is so true. Usually daughters.

Christ, I hope we don't get like that, our children will be moaning about us on here in a few years.

You shouldnt have to suck it up. Respect is 2 ways. She dragged me down and I stepped away. People on here dont get it if their mums are easy. My sister only saw it lately how my mother spoke me not the others. I do minimal visits now since this

I do remember my gran though, she was a bit of a gossip & used to slate people regularly - one of her charms. But as she got older she'd forget who she was talking to & be bitchy to their faces. I was there once when she told her neighbour that she called her 'miss never had it' behind her back. The neighbour said 'wait that's me!'.
By that point she just didn't really care. I don't mind this sort of ageing!

I’m finding this thread so fascinating - and actually bizarrely reassuring in that my relationship with my own late mother was so unique.

It wasn’t until quite late into her life that I felt she could quite possibly could have had NPD. Until then, I could never make sense of her behaviour. Everyone else thought she was such a witty, entertaining and fun person and how lucky I was to have her as a parent. In private, she could be vicious, bath verbally and physically. As I child I was beaten for the slightest misdemeanour and she loved to tease me by telling me terrible things that weren’t true then when I became distressed, deny she had ever said anything and I must have imagined it. Even when I became an adult, she still tried these games. Luckily, my DH and my children saw her ‘off duty’ so knew exactly what the real person was.

Even her ‘friends’ that were so gushing about her were bitched about behind closed doors, She was incredibly judgemental about others and tended to be drawn to those that fed her ego by complimenting her and telling her how marvellous she was. If someone said something positive about me, in front of her, she would turn it around to how it was because she was my mother therefore I must have inherited my looks etc from her

She was very good at the stinging remark. I have to laugh now but a couple of examples; She once surprisingly complimented me on a dress I was wearing and asked where I bought it from. I thanked her and said, Next. Her reply was, “Oh. I thought Next only made clothes for slim people?”
I was a size 12!
When my DD was a self conscious teenager and finding her own style, mother said to her, “How about I pay for you to see a stylist to get you some decent clothes and get your hair cut properly?”

Her fallback phrase whenever I bit back was, “One day when I’m dead, you’ll regret speaking to me like that.”

She is, and I don’t.

It is soul destroying and drags you down sooo much.
I have an older sister 73 and she is exactly like this.
I just change subject and only visit for very short periods at a time.
Fortunately all my family have same opinion of her so we can all vent to one another.

As others have said and in particular 'get your happy head on mother' is the way I would go.

A thing that endlessly frustrates me with my aunt is her unsolvable problems. But the fact is that most of them are eminently solvable. She can’t find a decorator (I found one in 0.3 seconds), the doctor’s surgery was closed (no it wasn’t), she can’t get a delivery slot (I booked one for her straightaway) and the next week she’s going on again. If I’ve sorted the problem, it’s slightly adjusted so that the decorator didn’t answer his mobile, or could only come when it was inconvenient, or that the delivery slot was after 6pm, or that it was at the wrong supermarket….

Back to the refrain of moany young people become moany old people, I suppose we could identify future moaning minnies from the multiple threads where a poster says “I can’t……” and bats off every single suggestion on the thread.

@Lentil63

Spot on.

I do hope my mum is not seriously ill.
We were not planning to visit until the end of November when we were going to bring her back here to accompany the whole family ( 14 of us) on the Seaton Tram Polar Express.
We have just had a new grandchild last night so once the dust settles I think we will be off to Mum's.

To all these people who say:
You only have one mother
Suck it up
You’ll be sorry when they’re gone
I’m glad that you haven’t had the mother I have had. There is a big difference between moaning because your back aches & being an emotional hoover.
I wonder what you would say if it was a husband belittling, gaslighting & being emotionally abusive to a wife? It’s not okay in any relationship.

@NoPaintedPony

To all these people who say: You only have one mother Suck it up You’ll be sorry when they’re gone I’m glad that you haven’t had the mother I have had. There is a big difference between moaning because your back aches & being an emotional hoover. I wonder what you would say if it was a husband belittling, gaslighting & being emotionally abusive to a wife? It’s not okay in any relationship.

Absolutely spot on!

I’m only completely free of the emotional abuse now she’s dead.
My conscience is clear because despite her manipulative behaviour, I never cut her off completely - which she definitely deserved, but I pathetically felt as an only child, I should ‘do the right thing’ I ensured she was cared for in her later years and took charge of her affairs in a business like manner but refused to play the loving daughter.

The hardest part has been when others tell me what a wonderful, unselfish, Christian woman she was. I just smile sweetly and don’t reply. They can interpret my response anyway they want to.

NoPaintedPony

I totally agree.

No one should put up with abuse. Whether it if from a mother, father husband.
Being a mother doesn;t give the right to treat people badly.

@TakeMe2Insanity

It’s an age thing.

I disagree. There’s no reason at any age to behave boringly and negatively, and to be selfish. I used to work in day centres for over 60s and it was very much a mixed bag personality wise. I suppose we all moan more when we are unhappy though. She needs to be told to stop but also try to get an idea of why she is so miserable. ?

@DottyHarmer

Ok, ageism, but people’s personality traits do become more pronounced as they age, so a nasty or moany young person becomes a nasty or moany old person, except worse.

I also think living alone makes things worse. Those people I know who live alone, be they young or old, unfortunately do dwell on things - their health, the neighbours, perceived wrongdoings by others - and chew it over and over inside their head, and then, as a pp said, “emotionally vomit” on a captive listener.

I think because something has been preoccupying them for days and days they become obsessed and truly believe that you too are fascinated by the bloke at no.7 starting his car at 6.30am.

Also does anyone else experience the desperation of (usually) dms to tell you the whole life story of Beryl’s cousin’s next-door-neighbour’s third cousin, whilst showing zero interest in you? I could have said, “Dm, Elon Musk has chosen me to go into space,” and dm would reply, “Hmmmmm, Joan’s great nephew is doing a space project at school. Apparently his Mars poster yada yada yada….”

Jesus. I'm either going to become an utter twat if I'm not already or a soppy twit talking to the birds and insects and animals.

Just as well no bugger's going to be phoning me for a chat. Mainly because I won't be able to hear them by that point.

to all those struggling with their mothers.

To those inclined to feel that we should always feel grateful to have our mother around - before you speak, imagine saying the same on a thread about women struggling with their husbands behaviour. Would you tell them to suck it up? I bet not.

Add tips, add helpful comments, but please don't try to make us feel we should be grateful or guilty.

On a lighter note: how many here have to play the ''guess who's dead'' game every month or so? The grandkids crease up about this one which keeps it bareable.

A variation of this is trying to stay focused during a VEEEEEERY long story about someone who gets on the bus's neighbor's vet's daughter's husband's mother (or similar) including minute details about what the nurses said to the doctors and vice versa every day for 4 months while they were in hospital 2 months ago .... culminating in ...... They're Dead!!

No good trying to jump in early and shorten it all a bit with
''Are they dead?''.
It only causes a slight pause before the steamroller of info. trundles on to it's painfully distant goal. Which will indeed be that - yes - they are indeed dead

My Mum is the same. She is exhausting, continually criticising everything and everyone. It is hard to think what to chat to her her about. Even small talk about TV, I say did you see Our Yorkshire Farm and she will criticise everyone, the woman’s make up, clothes. Then she will tell me how awful some of the Gogglebox cast are. She will bitch about anything and anyone. I had a long hard day at work today, and just could not handle phoning her and listening to the daily moan.

I know eggs it really is draining. One eve I called and she had food but I had ate. Its kinda mind games at times! It has improved but Im always on my guard. And this talking down to people. Im 48!

I think we all know someone a bit like this OP! It’s honestly quite depressing. I feel your pain. Just try to be a bit more honest and blunt.