To not want my 80 year old mother to speak to me at 50 as if I am still a child

[Bretonbear]

My mother and I have never been particularly close but recently it has become a lot worse.

The thing I'm noticing more than anything is that now with her daughter as a 50 year old woman with her own children, she still texts me and speaks to me as if I am still her small child who she can control.

She texts me to say that however upset I am she is 'twice as upset'. She says that I need to let things go. She says she is disappointed in me. She says she is sorry for the things I THINK she did wrong.

Is this normal? Should she still talk to me like this? Why does she never accept blame? Why is she 'twice' as upset? What does that even mean?

I am so confused about all this and just want to know if at 50 my mother should be talking to me like this.

I agree with the pp who talked about transactional analysis. It talks about "games" and how we all play them outside of our awareness. I stepped out of the one my dm and me played for 48 years. It was bloody awesome. I will never forget her "oh" when she had the wind taken out of her sails.

It sounds like your mum is in "child" when she is doing this and wants you to be the "parent". What you do is stay in "adult." That means being aware of runberbanding. This is when you suddenly feel like a child, to the point you may even change your body language or voice. Those feelings belong to the past, not to the here and now. Stand upright and start an "I" statement, such as "I am upset about blah blah and it would be nice to have this acknowledged by my mother." You are ok, fundamentally ok so do not need anything from her really BUT you have shared your feelings. Trust me it is empowering. Whatever she says or however she reacts? Her shit to deal with, not yours. Don't engage and stay in adult.

Good luck.

My mother still speaks about herself in the third person to me and uses the language of a mother to a small child, eg "Your mummy was a very busy girl today!" I have no idea why she does it. I'm in my 50s!

Actually the DM sounds like "critical parent" and Op "child" in this scenario.
Op cant do anything right, always the CP will use guilt tripping - FOG ( fear, obligation and guilt) to get their own way.
The ideal is adult to adult.
She wont change Op so you have to if you want this dynamic to change.

You can’t control her, but you can control you reaction to her.

At the age of 50 should you still be letting this bother you (much)? And having what sounds like a lot of contact with her?

This is going to be a very entrenched situation for you, so I would find a counsellor and do a few targeted sessions to get a plan to manage her - or alternatively Google grey rock and reduce contact gradually over 6 months

I get this. She won't change now like others have said. It's frustrating.

Speaking from experience, my own 'mother' had to have control. I think she really enjoyed speaking to me like I was below her. Then she really amped up her game when I cut contact completely. It just made me realise how much she craved that control and hated the fact I'd turned into the individual, self thinking adult she didn't want me to be.
At least I know what not to be when my kids are older.

Your mother won't change, it's your reaction and interaction that has to change op. I've had to do the same with my widowed father who thinks I'm still a teenager that needs telling what to do. I've recognised it's his issue not mine and I simply don't engage in it anymore. I don't respond to his ranting I just change the subject. He tries to tell me what I should do I let him speak and then do exactly what I was going to do l anyway. The control is yours to take back op.

"She texts me to say that however upset I am she is 'twice as upset'.

She says that I need to let things go.

She says she is disappointed in me.

She says she is sorry for the things I THINK she did wrong."

From the examples you've included in your first post, it doesn't sound as though she is talking to you like a child, that's certainly not how I would speak to a child!
It does sound like you have a bad relationship though, and that neither of you communicate well.
Have you ever considered counselling? Sometimes it's good to let historic anger and frustrations out.

Look up the parent -adult -child thing. It's called transaction analysis.

Your mum is stuck in parent mode. However you do not have to stay in child mode. Just operate as 'adult mode' continually and she may change to match you. You can but try

My mother is getting to a similar age and over the past few years I've grown to realise some of the things she says or does are objectively not very nice. Before I would have blamed myself, but now I can see that they're not things most people would say or do. However, I had to ask myself, is she going to change? Most likely, no. So the only thing that can change is me and my reaction. I call her out more, but I mostly just acknowledge to myself internally that it's reasonable that I'm hurt by the things she does. The other choice is to limit contact, but that isn't really something I can/want to do, so I just focus on my own thinking.

"She texts me to say that however upset I am she is 'twice as upset'."

Sounds very narcissistic to me.

To the few posters who have told me I'm 50 and I should get over it. I AM getting over it (just wish it hadn't taken me so long to see it).

I started this thread to see if others had experienced this too and for those who replied with empathy and understanding, thank you. Lots of food for thought.

Yesterdays corker from DM "Do you need to use the loo before we go out?" I reminded her (using my talking to an idiot voice) I'm nearly 50 years old and have had control of my bladder since I was potty trained by her many years ago so no longer need the Q thank you! 😘 😁

She texts me to say that however upset I am she is 'twice as upset'. She says that I need to let things go. She says she is disappointed in me. She says she is sorry for the things I THINK she did wrong.

This doesn't read as if she's talking to a child to me. You could say all this to an adult.

She won't change. My parents are awful for this - my dad's always explaining, slowly and seriously, the bloody obvious. I've taken to looking puzzled and replying 'dad ... you do know I know this, right?' and he invariably gets cross, but I'm tired of pretending to be hugely enlightened by a lecture on why you need to get an MOT every year/ how turning up the heating will make the room warmer but use more heating oil/ what phonics means and what DD will be learning in school.

Either smile and nod, or take the sting out of it by making a mental bingo card for conversations and ticking off her predictable responses in your head.

OP, the most difficult thing about having a toxic mother is trying to explain it to those who don’t have a toxic mother. They will blame you, or say you’re old enough to get over it, or should have dealt with it years ago, or shouldn’t let it affect you. There is a huge backstory to your relationship with your mother. A kind mother (friend, sibling, colleague) would never say such nonsense to you, or treat you like an incompetent child. Point is, her behaviour is that of an annoying old bag, and she isn’t the mother you’d have liked. I know since I have one too. It took me having children to realise how bloody nice other peoples mums could be (& what a lovely relationship I have with my own kids). Fwiw I don’t talk down to my kids and they are still children (10 and up)! You want to empower your kids (or I do), and I have no idea why some mothers are so nasty to their own kids. (Well, I do have an idea - I think often they’ve been through their own childhood trauma, but sadly never worked on themselves, for whatever reason, including the fact that they were traumatised and their brains are just not quite right…). Anyway, solidarity.

@Bretonbear
I’m 54. It’s only in the last few years I’ve understand and accepted the impact my childhood has had on me. It’s taken me years to pick up the scattered pieces of myself and fit them together in more or less the right place. Years.
Listen to and accept your feelings.

This is a very difficult issue. I don’t have direct experience of this - but I wonder what I’d likely to happen if people like are confronted directly? The pp who said that her mother thought her late furniture delivery was more important than a teenager’s mental health stress and GCSEs made me wonder what happens if you reply directly- ‘mother are you expecting me to consider your late delivery to be more worthy of my attention than my daughter’s health’? What kind of response do these people tend to give? Would a direct response make them reflect? Should their daughters stop being polite and be very direct? Or do these people just lack any ability to consider other peoples situations? I am so lucky not to be faced with this.

What is likely to happen, that should read.

This - stick to one thing at a time.

She says she is twice as upset - mother you can’t say that - your emotions are not more important that mine and you need to acknowledge you Have caused upset to me - it’s not a competition. But I need to listen about the effect you are having else we will have to reduce contact or I will have to finish the call.

she could live 20 more years - start today and grey rock and put boundaries in place

I’m wondering in what context she said those things to you. You say that she won’t accept blame. Were you attempting to discuss the difficulties in your relationship with her? It was insensitive of to say that she is twice as upset as you rather than listen to your perspective but I don’t think she is likely to change much at this stage and if she felt attacked was probably being defensive. I think you will find quite a lot of people who have a similar experience to you. People in their 30s are often very frustrated by it and there’s still scope to change the relationship. By 50 many people are confident in themselves and find that they are just mildly irritated or it’s water off a ducks back. Perhaps it would help to emotionally detach a bit and keep the relationship more superficial?

You're 50 and she's 80. Bit late in the day now.
I would accept it. You ARE her kid no matter how old you get.
You'll miss it when she's gone.

You’ve saved me the effort of writing this! although it was my mother that I had to deal with.

I think the other thing is just to step back and think ‘blah blah blah’ . I wouldn’t agree with quite lot of it, but I don’t ‘argue’. The one or two times I did actually challenge or make my disagreement known, she was oddly abashed, because it was unusual.

Unless you are actually living together, you just have to think of it in the same terms as managing a not terribly easy boss or colleague, and then just leave it at the door.

I never had to do any of this with my father, though, he was a star, the kindest man ‘I’ve ever known.

Also this.

My parents are likewise - in their 40s when I was 7 etc telling me how annoying children are and that with hindsight they never had them as it ‘kept them back’ in their careers.

In my 20s telling me I would never be as successful as them etc and they worked harder then me that’s why more successful not the fact they had no student debts etc

In my 30s telling me what an awful mum I am as I don’t discipline the little ‘bastards’ hard enough for them - eg boundaries but respect and kindness

In my 40s telling that a waste I was and a disappointment and how I caused them stress and illness (don’t know why) if I addressed anything I was told I was too sensitive or emotional or that their feelings trumped mine

you have to grieve for the mother that everyone wants and craves - the roots, unconditional love and support. She is a sucker a dementor sucking joy.

one fact at a time.

it’s hard wired so she might not get it but drop the rope, disengage.

mine refuse contact - why? Because I call them out on boundaries - you will not call any of us (me or my children stupid) names.

Oh my mum did this to me!

She would do it in front of my kids too, who thought it was hilarious.

There's not much you can do about it really, except limit contact. I didn't do that though and I'm glad now. We were very close before she died.

I noticed that she did it much more after my divorce, as if I lost "status" in her eyes.

Totally agree, mine is my father though not mother, I completely get it OP.