To find my mother quite disrespectful for keep making the same ‘mistake’?

[TheGrinch2024]

I had about a year relationship that ended a year ago (if that makes sense!), let’s call her ‘Lucy’. She ended up being a total c**t and treated me awfully, really really disgustingly. She wasn’t that involved with my family due to it being a long distance relationship but she had met them a few times.

I’m now in a really happy and healthy relationship, probably the best one of my entire life, with someone let’s call her ‘Emma’. Emma has met my family a few times, we’ve been together a few months.

Now for the AIBU part… my mother keeps calling Emma by Lucy’s name. She’s not old so she’s not just being forgetful and she wasn’t that involved with Lucy for it to be a legitimate accident. She does it and then tries to be ‘funny’ about it - like oh trust me to do that, look what I’ve just done again sort of thing. Because of the sort of person she is (she loves a bit of drama and stirring shit up), I have a feeling she is doing it on purpose.

I pull her up on it every single time - quite sternly - but she still keeps doing it. Emma doesn’t mind and wouldn’t say anything but it’s really starting to grate on my nerves now because I think it’s being quite disrespectful and I wouldn’t like it if the shoe was on the other foot.

AIBU and how would you handle this?

Annoying but I'd just calmly correct or ignore. Give it no air, no reaction.

I would go down the “mum I’m worried that you’re showing signs of dementia” route. The next time she does it get your phone out and tell her you’re logging all of her memory “incidents” on your phone as it’s getting concerning how she simply cannot remember your partners name, the time after that send her a link to Alzheimer’s/dementia NHS pages, the time after that tell her if she doesn’t make an appointment herself you’re going to contact her GP and tell them your concerns…

If you’re certain it’s deliberate then I’d make the consequence that you end the visit. If someone deliberately tries to embarrass people for their own amusement, you don’t have to continue sitting in their company - mother or not.

Did you miss this bit?

‘She often does things to get a reaction out of someone or make them feel uncomfortable and can be a bit toxic, obviously I do still have a relationship with her because I have children and despite being a crappy mother, she’s a good grandmother, but it’s very limited outside of that.’

Yep, she’s a baiting narc.

I'd be wearing a badge or sticker with my name on and ask my partner to do the same every time my mom is visiting us, until she got the gist. And every time I'd be making the "joke" "Given you're losing your memory, you being 75 years old and all (if she's 65 for example, or making up an older age than she is), we thought that would help".
She'll be stopping that stupid "joke" sharpish and will not like a taste of her own medicine.

Same here its incredibly frustrating. Ive developed some sort of name and face blindness. I know that I know this person but I cant identify who they are.
All my spelling has gone to pot, writing things phonetically, reading back Im getting common words and spellings all muddled up, something I would never do. I made a post on here the other day and wrote 'site' for 'sight' for example

and just now when trying to write the word wrote, I wrote the word 'wrong'.

And I keep writing 'rite' for write!

yeah, that’s baiting too.

If she is doing it for a reaction then don't give her one. The people saying to tell her how upset you are etc haven't been on the wrong side of a narcissist- it will be all 'I made a simple mistake and now everyone's being so mean to me, poor me!'

Instead, tell her how worried you are that she is getting dementia as you've noticed she keeps getting names wrong and ask her if she would like some more support to go to the doctors to get her memory checked.

See a LOT less of her.
Be busy and unavailable as her dementia makes you uncomfortable as she calls Emma by the name Lucy.
When people are tedious, avoid.

If you are sure she's doing it on purpose I would sit her down and say "This is difficult to say mum but we've noticed you are mixing up names and forgetting things that you know. I think it would be a good idea to make an appointment with your GP so they can do some tests of your cognitive function. I don't know whether you have been conscious of the decline yourself?"

My MIL did this, which was ridiculous since now dh had been separated for more than 10 years and MIL hadn’t seen his ex in all that time. We ignored it the first 20 or so times but in the end dh got cross and pulled her up on it. I said “oh mr one time, don’t get cross. Maybe it’s an age thing, she is obviously just forgetting, she doesn’t mean it”. She never did it again.

For crying out loud, pack this ageist crap in.

Have a serious chat when Emma isn’t there and say if it happens again you won’t visit/spend time together as much. Then stick to that.

My mum did something similar with my now husband. I never understood it but a very firm word did stop it.

"I pull her up on it every single time - quite sternly - but she still keeps doing it."

Time to change tactics, because that one's not working.

I'd suggest expressing concern that her memory is so poor, and suggesting that she sees her GP about possible dementia. Say the same to your dad, that you're worried about her and that he needs to press her to go to the doctor.

Let's see how long she persists after that.

Just start referring to her as "dementia Wombat" every time she does it.

Agree with this

Yes perfect. This is exactly what to do.