Is this 'Unkind and Unloving'?

[YellowPolkaDotBikini1980]

It's all kicked off.

It's not my situation, but a friend's.

Her relationship with her mother is strained. Friend says it was emotionally neglectful and a stately homes situation. Nothing bad enough for social services, but nonetheless, unhappy.

Her mother is now retired and relies on friend a lot, and out of obligation, friend does what is asked of her. However, the mum is very passive aggressive, and does petty, spiteful things that she will then deny.

E.g. if friend is washing up, her mum will walk past and drop in a dirty, greasy spoon into the clean rinsing water, and plop a mug with a teabag into the washing up bowl.

Obviously it could easily be a mistake, but those kinds of mistakes only happen to Friend. Mum won't drop dirty dishes if golden child sister is washing up, and the tea bag will go into the bin.

The mum also has a habit, when company is over, of telling nasty stories about friend, couched as jokes. E.g. she was so fat she got stuck in a slide. Or 'Her hair was so 'unmanageable' that one year mum just cut it off and everyone they encountered thought friend was a boy! Hilarious!'

Over the decades, friend has learnt trying to talk about things with mum gets nowhere. Mum is the type who 'doesn't believe in therapy' and 'back in the day we just got on with it', etc.

So what friend does is just write things down in a little notebook to vent. E.g. Today mum got into a huff because I bought Tetley's tea bags instead of Yorkshire. I told her you asked for Tetley's. She denied it then I showed her the text that said Tetley's, now I'm getting the silent treatment.

Well, on Sunday Friend's mum found the book. She was looking for a stapler and found the notebook in friends work from home desk drawer. Friend does not know how much she read, but mum was saying: 'If I'm that much of a burden I'll just go to Dignitas' and it's clear friend has no love for her mother, because if you love someone you don't make a list of how they annoyed you, quoting the bible 'love keeps no record of wrongs'

In this situation, who (if anyone) is in the wrong?

For attention and control.

No way was the mum 'just looking for a stapler'. She was snooping and she knows it.

If she was actually looking for a stapler, she would have had a quick look across the desk and not looked in the drawers as any idiot knows that's personal. Even if looking in the drawers had been ok, settling down to read all through a notebook is definitely not.

Above response of 'TBH Mum we haven't always been as close as either of us would like, I'm sure we both drive each other nuts sometimes but I've done my best never to let you know - now do you want my help next Wednesday or not?' was great.

I immediately thought of my ex MIL when I read that. I was just finishing the washing up when she barged in with the pudding bowls, put enough water in them to make the remaining cream runnier and put them on top of the clean dishes in the drainer. That was one of the minor things she did.

The point of these little things, along with the big things, is to make herself feel better and her victim feel worse. But mainly to get a reaction, so that they are then justified in claiming victimhood.

What @Gingernaut said, you can't win with these fuckers. I'm sorry your friend has such a mother

Because she’s nasty and spiteful. That’s it.

People like this are lost causes, they enjoy bullying and being horrible and often single out one child to be the butt of their nastiness. It’ll give her a little buzz when she does these things and make her feel powerful. Little things like that are called being passive aggressive as it is covert and sly, it’s not like she’s slapping you across the face and being overtly nasty.

Look up narcissistic abuse from parents OP, because I reckon your friends mum is textbook.

Just cut her off, don’t see her any more. You don’t have to be at the beck and call of a parent - you can be free. Imagine how nice that would be?

Yes, my mother does it. They are always deniable things, so you can't say anything as you know she will say it didn't happen, she did it without thinking or it was no big deal. I think it's a form of gaslighting.

I agree it's for attention and control. Very much a "don't you get too big for your boots" scenario. I've also learnt never to say that I don't like something as my mother will instantly do the thing continuously.

As a child my bed used to be against the bathroom wall. The bathroom had a pull string light so sometimes if people pulled it too hard it would bang against the wall which sounded very loud when my head was the other side. So I asked for people to try not to let the light switch swing. The very next day the light switch banged against the wall so many times that it was obvious it had been done deliberately. When I angrily asked who had done it no one said anything, but my mother just smirked. I eventually worked out (many banging light switch days later) that it was her doing it. But if I'd brought it up she would have told me I was being ridiculous.

Yes.

A family member does (did) things like this. With an oopsie, silly me, when called out on it. Break things that belong to the children, oopsie. Blocked a crawling baby's passage with their foot, and laughed as baby became frustrated. Offers to cut the label from your clothes but oopsie, cut the clothes as well, it was an ACCIDENT, I was only trying to help, why are you so ungrateful. I could go on.

We don't see this person any more. I expect they haven't changed.

Your friend needs to start being a martyr and step back. Preferably completely, but certainly to an LC position at least.

Just to clarify:

Friend doesn't live with mum. She was in Friend's house, looking for stationery and the notebook was open on the desk, not having expected her to go into that room. It seems not so much snooping, but having a legitimate reason to look for something, going to the logical place, THEN being tempted to look, possibly having seen the word ‘mum’ written down.

Also to clarify, I'm not religious. I'm not the one who said ‘its Unloving'. I was quoting the mum who was saying ‘the bible says love keeps no record of wrongs', so if you are keeping such a record, it means you don't love your mother.

I support friend, and think if writing everything down is what she needs to keep sane, then good.

“Her mother is now retired and relies on friend a lot, and out of obligation, friend does what is asked of her.”

Honestly, fuck this. I don’t understand what your friend is gaining from helping her mother? She gets no thanks, she gets insulted. She has no obligation to this arsehole of a woman who gave her an unhappy childhood. Her mother doesn’t deserve her help.

"Mum, I am sorry you read my private notes, they were not for your eyes but a form of therapy for me.

Everything within that book was the truth though, and you are the only person in this situation who has the ability to change that truth by changing their behaviour.

If you want me to write down how well you treat me, then treat me well, if you carry on treating me badly, then what goes in the book will be a record of how badly you treated me. It really is as simple as that."

I doubt the mum will change, but your friend is recording a historically accurate picture of events, if the mum wants to be remembered as a good person, she needs to do good things 🤷‍♀️.

Friend needs to get comfortable with being thought of as unkind and unloving and stop doing what is asked of her out of obligation.

Friend needs to walk away, let golden child step up. Why keep putting herself through this?

I’d be offering to fund her ticket to Geneva if it was me.

Yes. I was quoting 'mum'.

Her mother is a bully. Who the hell mocks their child in front of friends? Who the hell chops off her daughter’s curly hair because she can’t be bothered with it?

Your friend is still hoping her mother is going to turn into the mother she dreams of if she carries on being nice to her. It doesn’t work like that.

Unlikely that the mother will ever admit how awful her behaviour is so the best option would therapy for friend and stop being available as the whipping boy.

It’s her mother’s fault for snooping through her daughter’s things. And also for being an absolute dickhead.

In your friend’s shoes I would take a massive step back from helping and let the golden child pick up the slack (if they want to that is). My own mother is an emotionally abusive nightmare and while I’ve never managed to go NC with her for long, the main reason she has far less of a hold over me is because she can no longer make me feel bad about refusing to put up with her shit anymore. She gets put straight back in her box when she starts to throw her weight around. Took years to master.

Exactly this. I've seen the mum in action. If you were to say anything then YOU would appear to be the unreasonable one.

Oh aye, I bet she was "looking for a stapler". She was snooping and has now paid the price for being a nosy bitch.

If I was your friend I'd distance myself completely and let the Golden child carry the miserable old burden.

It’s considered to be a form of emotional fuel for narcissists. Some get their fuel by being praised or adored, some get their fuel by creating emotional upset and conflict.
Frankly your friend should just write it in her book, shrug and move on.

If her mum is doing those things then she’s clearly in the wrong.
I don’t think it’s healthy for your friend to write all those things down in a notebook. It means her mother is taking up even more headspace and causing her more distress. Since her mother has seen the notebook anyhow, now is an opportunity to tell her “I write down these things because it helps me to manage the hurt that you cause me when you treat me this way, I was too afraid to say it to your face. And if you don’t start treating me better, I will stop coming round and helping you.” Then follow through.

To those saying cut mum off, Friend is from a very 'Saving face' culture. Cutting off her mother would pretty much mean losing everyone, as they couldn't be seen to be 'associating with an undutiful daughter.'

So long May the silent treatment last. The abusive mother will not last long without her black sheep to beat up, metaphorically, emotionally. She’ll pull her back in soon, but your friend really needs to stop her in her tracks.

That is the point, they are so small and petty and hard to call out as they could be mistakes or accidents that it is easy to then paint the victim as being petty and over sensitive should they attempt to call it out.

You see it in here often, the OP being instantly told that 'ooh you sound like hard work'... when trying to describe the petty things done to them to undermine them and make them feel like shit that, without the wealth of backstory and history DO appear nothing of significance.

Sounds like a sad way to go through life

This actually made me laugh out loud