To think these small comments from my Mum are actually quite mean?

[55j5]

My Mum is someone who comes across as so lovely, but sometimes she says things that I find really cutting and painful, even though they are small comments. For example, I went shopping with her and when we went for some food I was talking about the clothes I had just bought and saying how I really liked them, and she replied 'But it's not like you have anywhere to wear them as you never go out'. They were just casual clothes; I admit I have quite a small life, but they are just basic everyday clothes.

Another example is she is constantly gushing to me about my friends or her friends' daughters who are around my age. She is never positive about anyone else in the same way, only other women around my age. She will talk about how slim and gorgeous they are, or how bubbly and fun they are to be around, or how much money they make. It is completely over the top.

She also gives off the impression that I am just an unlikeable and easily forgettable person. An example is I was mentioning I was going to an old workplace of mine, and she said that my old colleagues wouldn't recognise or remember me as they didn't know me, even though I worked there for 2 years and it had been less than a year since I had left. When I emailed my university tutor for a reference, she said she would have forgotten who I was - she had been my tutor for 4 years at that point, and I had had weekly 1:1 meetings with her for months when she supervised my dissertation, and I had only graduated a few months beforehand. If anyone does anything nice for me, she implies it's because they feel sorry for me, or they have some underlying motive for doing so.

AIBU to think these kind of comments are said intentionally to be mean?

My mother is a lot like that. Low self esteem, zero tact and absolutely never thinks before speaking. It's weird. She has all these concerns and fears for me failing that I don't particularly. I mean I'm not arrogant but she'd regularly ask 'have you failed (an exam)' for no reason and provide assurance it was ok to drop out of my course when it's going well. A huge, damaging amount of criticism growing up.

She also yammers on a lot about random peers' children. She had a favourite that I knew everything about who I realised didn't even know what I did for a living. I felt a bit creepy! That aspect might be latching onto something to talk about that has some element of commonality with you.

Call her out. Make her think about the impact of what she's saying.

I expect she wants to make you feel worthless so you spend more time with her. She can then be the only person that is willing to socialise with you and she won’t ever be abandoned. Pathetic behaviour.

Yep, horrible behaviour. I agree with PPs who suggest asking 'why are you saying that?' every time she does. You could get into a pass agg loop by playing her at her own game but then everyone's just being a bellend.

it's like she wants to keep you downtrodden and under her thumb.

Do you live at home ?

When wedding dress shopping with my mother and soon to be mother in law my mother told me not to phone her in 3 years telling her my marriage was failing. That's hilarious mother. I phoned you when my marriage was over from my abusive ex who I had a young child with. Hilarious mother.

As other people have already commented, I would think her behaviour comes from:

• jealousy
• low self esteem
• wanting to keep you dependent on her approval.

It took me quite a while to realise that some of my mother's comments were about being controlling/manipulating, rather than wanting the best for me.

She regularly said undermining things like:

• 'don't wear shoes with straps they make your ankles look fat'
• how I needed to watch my weight (although when I see pictures of myself at the time I was a very skinny)
• making not so subtle comments about me ending up an 'old maid'
• making clear that I was not pretty. I remember once I was trying to get seen by someone at a company's reception and afterwards she said they would have been more interested in my query if it was 'a pretty woman' making it...

I would say make it clear you will no longer tolerate the undermining and spend less time with her.

I think this can be true.

Mine was so openly disparaging of me that her own mother (my gran) pulled me aside when I was a teen and said 'I don't know why she treats you like this but the problem's her not you'.

To this day I think it's the most important thing anyone's ever said to me. My mother was so unhappy with herself that I got the flack. Very sad but it's a definite pattern.

I really recognise in my mum too (in fact, in both my parents). It almost certainly stems from deep insecurity, low self esteem and zero tact for my mum. I think she also felt threatened by us (two daughters) in some way - I did languages at uni and once she literally raced me to look up ‘sputnik’ because my dad asked what it meant and I said I didn’t know. So bizarre.

She doesn’t like other women and we grew up with her commenting on women’s appearances etc even if they were just on tv. Watching rugby once, she declared she ‘couldn’t stand that woman’ (the TMO) because she was ‘putting words in the (male) referee’s mouth’. She was literally doing her job as a TMO 🤷🏻‍♀️

So I think there’s an (un)healthy dose of internalised misogyny there as well. Even recently I was describing a neighbour to her (‘you know, she has glasses, short dark hair’) and mum goes ‘oh yes, the dumpy one’. 😒

I’m also regularly asked if I’ve ‘given up’ hobbies rather than how they’re going, which seems such a weird perspective. Why would I have given up?

Sorry so many of you have similar mums! Solidarity to you all 💐

Charming.

Mum? I didn't know you were on Mumsnet...

Narcissistic mothers need to put their daughters down because they see them as competitors. Mine used to praise my sister to me, and unbeknownst to me, praised me to my sister, which effectively drove a wedge between the two of us and meant that she was the person who could go between us. The important one. She also said similar things particularly to my sister but also to me. Designed to belittle us or make her the more important or the better one. Covert narcissism is very hard to see; my sister still doesn’t see it and I only realised in the last couple of years; I’m in my mid forties. It’s really damaging. Some of the suggestions for dealing with it sound good- I hope you find a way that works for you. But it isn’t you- it’s definitely her.

Haha, I did not say I was on the dm side. People always default to jealousy being the cause but I read the OP and I get a sense the dm is a bit snobby and is comparing.

Some mothers see their daughters as an extension of themselves and if they think themselves as fabulous, then they’ll usually think their offspring as fabulous. Of course there a flip side to that too, she sounds insecure.

You need to lay some boundaries or she’ll irredeemably destroy your self esteem, because we tend to see ourselves through our parents eyes. Maybe her mother treated her similarly.

She sounds like a nasty horror.
Stop spending time with her.
Be busy, be unavailable.
Say whatever you feel comfortable with, but being around such a horrible person does not do your mental health any good.

Yes! My mum claimed to be a feminist and did very well in a male dominated field. However will always say things like 'silly girls' and everything is the woman's fault. It's infuriating

My daughter is amazing, why would anyone want to diss their own dd.
However my dm thought the sun shone out of my dsis’s arsehole, not so much me!! So I can see how some ppl think.

I agree it's narcissism, jealousy. Bitterness.

AlertCat · Today 19:42
Narcissistic mothers need to put their daughters down because they see them as competitors.

Yep. Took me years to see it in my mother as well, but her raging jealousy as i got into my late 30s and travelled a bit, lost weight, divorced my xh and moved house to somewhere lovely almost choked her.

She never finds one nice thing to say about anything, ever. DH and i honeymooned in Sorrento and Rome. My mother's only comment? ''I think you'll be disappointed in the Sistine Chapel ...''.

This is from the woman who hasn't been anywhere. By choice.

This sounds familiar too. Mine was very much “not like the other girls” 😒

Mine was the same. I got a really fabulous job a few years ago, one of my friends said “Oh you must be so proud of Aydel.” She sniffed a bit and said “I think she could have done a lot better with her career if she had put her mind to it.” She also constantly compared me to my cousin, who was “so slim, bubbly and outgoing, always nicely dressed. I like to think of her as the daughter I never had.” I gave up at that point.

Watch they don't do it to grand daughters too.

I have 4 DDs and in the past my mother has had digs at them and tried to use them to manipulate me as well. They are all old enough to laugh about her now, but my youngest was taken aback a couple of years ago when my mother kept on about how incredibly pretty DD's friend was.

It's the only one of DD4's friends she's ever met. She used to do the same to me though. Bang on about how incredibly pretty all my friends were .... 🙄

My mum does this and I think of it as jelly fish stings (brighet Jones?). Anyway, fucking hard to deal with. I feel for you x

The first time my mum paid me a compliment I was 32 it was said in a sarcastic tone my brothers girlfriends she is all over and thinks they are great . Stood up to her for the first time aged 50 she hasn’t spoken to me since am enjoying it

My mother with (diagnosed) covert narcissism makes comments like this. No need to armchair diagnose but perhaps look it up and see if anything aligns, it’s helpful because then you can research ways to interact with her to avoid this type of conversation.

Grey rock is a effective technique. Lean into being boring and don’t give any information about your life that she can make nasty comments about. If she’s anything like my mother you can’t pull her up on the nasty things she says or she plays the victim and you’re “ too sensitive”.

I’m no contact now. Finally had enough around Christmas.

She is narcissistic. Try reading will I ever be good enough. It’s emotional but worth it

Yes I do. I'm so sorry OP. Your mum has something wired wrongly inside her which means she doesn't know how to mother a daughter in a healthy way. Something is twisted in her feelings so they are mixed with something else. Either jealousy, or more complicated, a feeling that you are part of her so she can't be positive about you because it means being positive about herself. This issue will run very deep in her and unless she recognises it and seeks help with it, she won't change. I think your options are either to let it flow over you, challenge her telling her it hurts (she will deny it and say its you being over sensitive) or create some distance.