Open to honest answers … my partner dislikes my relationship with my mother

[Rosieposey91]

Bit of background information… my parents separated when I was 3 years old. Super close bond with my mum. Best friends as well as mother and daughter.

my partner is a jealous type. Since the beginning of our relationship, hasn’t understood our closeness and would get aggravated if I text her when we was out together or if she checked I am ok etc if it was getting late.

we often speak several times a day. He is off work at the moment and he gets so angry when she calls or I call her. He calls me a baby and says I’m weird. I am not changing for him, I’ve always been like this with my mum and she has with her mum and I know a lot of families from my area who are the same (eastenders). He isn’t from the same area and he isn’t close with his family.

he said it’s affecting our relationship. That he wants me to cut back the time I speak to her. That we never even finish a film without her calling me. Why can’t she just wait until the end etc. I do get this point as sometimes I will say I am watching something and she still calls me before I’ve let her know it’s finished. Although she will say it’s only a quick question or that it’s late and she is going to bed. Then I feel stuck in the middle because I understand it’s frustrating for my partner when she can’t just wait until I’ve let her know the film is finished.

i do have some health conditions so she worries about me but she has also been able to just call when she wants regardless if I am watching a film etc I’ve never had a problem pausing it to talk to her. Am I in the wrong? He will sit there sulking and then not speak to me the rest of the evening and go upstairs and sulk without eating any dinner etc.

just wondered if people
could give some advise and whether I am right to not change my relationship with my mum? He also says she speaks over him but sometimes he talks for ages and admits he goes on and when she was over she wanted to ask something so she did. He then says it’s rude and no manners. I’m finding it all really stressful and because I’m used to my mum I don’t want to assume it’s him being funny when maybe I do need to put boundaries in place?

i am happy with my relationship with my mum. So it’s only my partner who is annoyed with it despite it not being his relationship and wants me to change even though it’s not affecting me.

thank you xx

Some people have been quite rude to the OP. Including you.

He’s a gambling addict displaying all of the the behaviors that come along with addiction.

Weird that you would think he would be a good match for anyone.

@mikulkin Great advice.

To me, anyone who stays and types 3 pages of responses on mumsnet has issues they need to resolve especially when you s already concluded you’re right anyway, it’s a desperate cry and need for validation.

If you want to maintain your relationship with your mother go ahead and he can also decide if he wants to continue with the relationship or continue to roll his eyes and you can then decide if you can’t tale anymore eye rolling and leave, it’s all your decision so I don’t see the need for this debate on mumsnet.

I have a really close relationship with my mum. We speak on the phone every day. I usually face time once a day so she can see the kids (we live 300 miles apart so we only see her in person every 6 weeks or so) and we text a couple of times a day when I'm at work. She never calls or texts after 6. 30 in the evening because that's when my partner gets home and that's our family time with our kids and time for us to enjoy together. If I text her to say goodnight she would probably laugh at me. Your relationship with your mum does sound suffocating to me but then mine with my mum would be suffocating to other people.
Your partner sounds like an arse. Your mum thinks he's an arse and you think he's an arse. So I would say your relationship with him is probably on the way out regardless of what goes on between you and your mum.

Hi OP, it sounds as if you are really trying to figure out is if your partner is abusive or not?

Why don't you google Why Does He Do That by Lundy Bancroft, you'll find a free online book to read. Read it and you will find that sulking and silent treatment does actually fall into the Emotionally Abusive category and you'll have your answer there. This is the one book that is always recommended on MN, read it, it's a mind opener. Good luck and best wishes.

To me, the OP's partner sounds aggressive and unpleasant at best. However, I'm also quite aware that we're only getting her take on him. He sounds like he's thoroughly nasty to the kids. But it may be that she's overindulgent, they're spoiled, and he's made the mistake of trying to correct that by being way too strict. Either way, the conflicting parenting that she's described won't be good for them.

Plus, if he is as bad as she says, I wonder if the root of the problem is her relationship with her mother. If your prime relationship is with a parent and is co-dependent or enmeshed, any relationships that follow are not going to be great either.

The main difference here is that you obviously care about how your behaviour affects your partner, and have mutual respect in your relationship, which to me is how it should be and how me and DH are, but it doesn't read to me like OP cares about any of that, and she's unwilling to work on it.

She's arguing the toss with everyone with a different viewpoint and now only responding to people who agree with her, so really she's not interested in an objective viewpoint, she just wants everyone to tell her it's right that she's completely disregarding her partner.

I used to speak to my mum most days, see her once or twice a week, and even now she's gone, while I miss her and wish I could have more time with her, I don't wish I could go back and call, text or see her more, she raised us to be independent and it set us up for a life without her. I know someone like OP in real life.. I fear for her when her mum is gone, as she is her whole life. I personally don't think parents should encourage this extreme level of dependency, it's selfish and cruel.

Well, a boy's best friend IS his mother.

OP, if I were your partner, I would find this completely suffocating. He may be expressing it badly, but he has a right to expect you to prioritise him over your mother. When we are adults, we need to learn to distance our parents, to a greater or lesser extent.

On a serious note, OP, you are living with a man you do not love and much prefer the company of your mother. I suggested at the beginning that you should move back in with your mother and everything indicates that you should. But if you want to have another partner in the future, you would need to limit the phonecalls and texts with your mother to something more reasonable.

We're kinda like the Walton's in that we all live nearby, open door policy no appointment needed here. We don't phone each other at night but share on what's app. Some think it strange but it works for us. We are a village of related adults raising children and grandchildren. We're in Wales so it's not as unusual.

I know we're lucky to be living close together. It's not always possible. When younger my children worked around the world from the arctic circle to Africa, the middle east, Caribbean. My youngest is living with a Yorkshire lass her family three generations all live in spirit distance of each other too.

So I'm not knocking the OP. When I was growing up we rarely saw grandparents, aunts uncles cousins because of my father's job taking us all over. I attended eight different schools in all. My children two. I don't have lifelong friends and miss that connection

YABU seems a bit OTT for adult children to have to speak to parents several times a day unless there is a crisis, illness or circumstances that require an update.

i guess just to let her know I’m in bed and ok. Maybe it is too much, but it’s not harming anyone. I have ocd so that could play a role, my mum worries about me because of my health so she likes to know I’m ok and she doesn’t trust in my partner to support me really. It’s hard to convey all in messages on here but I appreciate that maybe the texting and call isn’t needed and has just become a habit and reassurance for my mum that im ok. It’s been hard on us all since my diagnosis.

She's anxious, you have OCD. I think it's far more likely to be this than some Eastend cultural imperative and that you love your mum more than anyone else does.

If you both need to check constantly and feel anxious and unhappy if you don't, do you see how that is OCD/anxiety behaviour? It's textbook. And it ramped up after illness. Also textbook. If it 'works' for you, fine. And your relationship with your partner is dead anyway so why bother. But the denial is the disorder speaking. The anger when people disagree is the disorder speaking. The pretence that it's all completely normal is the disorder speaking.

Bear in mind that these behaviours don't reduce without work and you are training your DD particularly to also anxiously check constantly. You were trained, please let your DD decide herself when kind of relationship she wants.

you’re not called Zoe by any chance?

I agree that this is OCD/anxiety (and I've been there so I'm not judging) because what happens if either of you doesn't answer for a day? I imagine you'd be beside yourselves, it would be traumatic. Because you're completely codependent which isn't typical of mother & adult child relationships these days. It must be exhausting. One way to find out would be to conduct a poll of friends/ people to see how often they speak to/text their mum.

Exactly this. Her mother has passed on this dysfunctional, anxious, codependency and what's worse the OP is clearly trying to pass this on to her own children. God knows how she'll cope if they grow up and want to enforce healthy boundaries.

I feel for you in a way OP, you've hot had healthy, adult, emotionally mature relationships modelled to you but trust me, this behaviour is not normal and it's not based in love.... it's based in anxiety.

It sounds like you have an unhealthy co dependent relationship with your mother. I always think it’s weird when people describe a parent as being their best friend. I don’t blame your partner for being annoyed.

It's not a healthy relationship.

Most teenagers push back a bit at parents, as part of their self-development and becoming independent.

By the time they are 30, they have formed (if lucky) a close relationship with a parent. But they don't prioritise their parent(s) over their partner, day to day.

OP please consider that more than 90% of posts here are saying the same thing. That this is not about being 'caring'. It's about fear and anxiety.

My DD is older than you. I'd be horrified if she called to say goodnight every day. I'd think something was seriously wrong with her and our relationship.

Being an adult should mean you and your parent have some separation but still love each other.

It really isn't an 'East-end thing'

It's a 'your family thing'

I speak to my family and they me a lot.

But if you split up from your partner (and clearly you should) there aren't a lot of men out there that wouldn't be fed up with all this too

Really though, ask your east-end friends if they text their mum good morning and good night every day. You asked us for honesty xx

I understand you wouldn’t do that with your sons, but daughters are different. I wouldn’t expect my son to want to text me good night and good morning but I know my daughter will most likely want to. It is a different relationship although I am equally as close to both my babies, a daughter is naturally more close to their mum in that way.

I know this is from pages ago, but it is such bollox, and quite an offensive thing to post.

You love your mum more than anything, so all the behaviour is acceptable to you, as you see it as an extension of that love, a way for the love to be played out.

Well, if she does 'love her mum more than anything', there's something wrong with her priorities. OP's very young children are the ones she's supposed to love more than anything.

And ideally a spouse or partner would come after the children.