To not go chasing after my mum all the time!

[MotherIssues2025]

I have name changed for this as my problem is quite embarrassing really.

I’m mid 40’s and my relationship with my mother has always been quite superficial. She didn’t have a maternal bone in her body growing up and me and my sister never got shown any love or affection. We were pretty terrified of her really and it felt like we were always walking on eggshells.

About 6 months ago she was really quite cruel and petty towards me about something, and looking back on it her behaviour towards me was quite nasty acrually. She was in the wrong but she ignored me for days and days, and just generally made me feel really shit. Her silent treatment was her method of exerting her power over the situation and her power over me. Ultimately I went chasing after her and she had the satisfaction of knowing she had ‘won’.

Last week a similar situation arose, she was unnecessarily rude and cruel to me (ending up with her hanging the phone up on me) and we’ve had no contact since. We normally speak every other day but since her last ‘strop’ it’s now been 5 days.

I feel so infuriated by it and I know it sounds pathetic but AIBU for saying No More! and not go running after her??!

She has previously made a comment to me about how parents can speak to their adult children however they want and the ‘child’ (even though they are now adults) have no right to stand up to the parent.

She obviously thinks the strict parent-child dynamic I grew up in should remain until the day either of us die. I.e she believes she can speak to me and treat me however she likes and as she’s my mother I just have to take it.

Having lived within this strange parent-child dynamic for over 40 years is making me feel like I should go running after her, even though I have done nothing wrong, but at the same time I just feel so, so angry that she thinks she can keep behaving like this.

It’s just so immature of her. I guarantee that even if I do go chasing her she will make me out to be the bad guy…..then she’ll act as though nothing has happened….and then give it a few months and the same thing will happen again.

I’m in my 40’s FFS - how can my mother still have this hold over me, this level of control over me. Like I said, it’s pretty pathetic.

Thanks to anyone who made it to the end. I just needed to get it off my chest. I’m just so fed up of her manipulation and pettiness.

Agree
It might be devastating to listen to though ❤️

Well I remember how she used to bang our heads together a lot, and she hit us a lot, and she used to force feed us until we were sick. Therefore, even if I was told she locked us in cupboards for days on end I wouldn’t be particularly surprised.

Based on what you already know, your mother is a violent abuser.

Why are you exposing your own children to the risk of the same abuse?

Which one of your children are you going to put forward as the one to get pinned down and hit around the head by your mother?

It’s time for you to stop making excuses and cut contact for the sake of your children. You know what she is, and you’re putting your own children at risk as part of your appeasement strategy.

"It is the parent who demands most loyalty and respect who has done the least to earn or deserve it"

(Written in the 1880's.)

I don’t agree with that. Many people with healthy seal esteem will expect to be treated with respect.

Well I’ve spoken to my uncle and although he’s away at the moment for Easter he is going to come and see me the following week. I told him the reason why I wanted to talk to him and he almost gave me this knowing look, as if he knew the time was eventually going to come. It was strange. I have told him that I don’t want/expect him to talk about his relationship with my mum as I don’t want to open old wounds just in case he was worried I was going to move on to that topic too.

I just keep remembering things, like when I was 11 she had some kind of screaming episode at me and my sister one night at about 11pm. She went absolutely wild and incoherent. She was throwing things around the house, lunging bedroom items down the stairs, just behaving like a crazy person. Me and my sister were so scared. I remember her ringing our dad and screaming at him that if he didn’t come and get “his children” then she was going to kill us.

Me and sister just hid in her bedroom in our nightclothes, absolutely terrified until he turned up. It was horrible.

Why didn’t your father permanently remove you from the situation?
She treated to kill you

A lot of people make that threat towards a lot of people without actually meaning it. I quite often say, “I’m going to kill my neighbour if he does x/y/z again” but I don’t actually mean I’m going to kill them. I imagine it was assumed to be an empty threat because although we know it happens, nobody actually believes a mother would kill her children. We stayed with him for about ten days before we went back to our mum’s house.

I don’t know what happened in those days but the episode was never mentioned again.

Just leave it, OP. I suspect that she needs you far more than you need her. Wait until she makes contact then say whatever you need to say.

Your father knew your mother wasn’t coping / had mental health issues and he continued to let you and your sister live with her, he more than likely knew that she was abusive also as he left her
Your mother sounds awful but I honestly ( unfortunately) think your father had a part to play in this aswell
Parents break up an a mother is left alone to deal with everything, she clearly wasn’t coping well with the situation ( not excusing her behaviour ) but what did he do to help other than take you out of the situation for a very short length of time after she threatened to kill ye

There is a huge difference between saying you feel like killing Billy from next door for blocking your driveway, and screaming it about your children who are cowering in a nearby bedroom.
You need some help and support here as well
as trauma therapy. Giving her a bit of the silent treatment isn’t going to work in the long term.
Your mother appears to have driven everyone away in her life apart from you, and she gets her kicks from punishing you still. Because that what she is doing.
I also wouldn’t let anyone who had abused young children the way your mother did near any other children.
She appears to have no concern for your welfare or what she has put you through.
She could live another twenty years. You do not want to be in your mid 60’s, absolutely mourning the life you could have had, had you acted sooner.

she used to bang our heads together a lot, and she hit us a lot, and she used to force feed us until we were sick

You don't have to do anything for the person who did this to you. Doesn't matter if they gave birth to you. You owe them nothing. I think counselling would be a good idea for you to help you realise this and move forward

My parents divorced because my mum had about three affairs during the course of their short marriage. I only found out about this 10 years or so ago. I haven’t told either of my parents that I know the reason they divorced.

It seems like a lot of my family knew that something wasn’t right behind closed doors, but nobody seemed to have intervened, not that I know of anyway. It’s these kind of questions that I’m hoping my uncle can help me with.

This all happened about 40 years ago so maybe it was normal to turn a blind eye to parents disciplining their children back then? I don’t know.

I have never let my children be alone with her and never would.

Yes, It was possibly easier to turn a blind eye to it back then and I probably would have been fairly unheard of for a father to remove children from their mother

I still think your father should have done more, but unless you walk in someone’s shoes etc etc

I’m not even sure I would even want to know what your uncle would have to say about it as it might bring back horrendous traumatising memories and you may realise that even people who you thought cared about you stood back and allowed you to be in that situation….I think it would even scar me more possibly

What you’ve described already is very abusive.

I really would get some therapy to help you deal with what you’ve been through and why you feel the need to pander to her now.

She once tried to commit suicide (when I was about 13 and in the house with her) so I guess part of me is worried that if everyone walks away from her she’ll try it again.

i can understand that and it must have been a really traumatic experience for you but you can’t be responsible for somebody else’s MH or happiness. You really can’t. You could spend every moment of every day with your M and she might still not be happy.

Strangely it wasn’t traumatic. We didn’t have any kind of maternal mother-child bond, that type of loving relationship just wasn’t there, so I wasn’t fearful or upset at the thought of losing my mum. I was already detached from her by that point and so I didn’t really feel anything. Even when I look back on it now I still feel quite unbothered by it all. At the time I kind of felt like I was almost like watching a stranger do it. I didn’t feel scared. I just walked off and left her to it. She was on the phone to some guy at the time, screaming at him about what she was doing (downing pills) and she was also making me speak to him to confirm what she was telling I’m. It just felt very surreal. I have no idea what happened next as I just walked out of her room and went to bed and then the next day it was as though it had never happened. It was never spoken of again.

Your poor poor sister had an awful time of it. I'd spend more time with her and a lot less with your hideous mother.

Do not take your kids to see your mother either.

That is a terrible burden to carry

If you decide to walk away from her, I would do it gradually so she has time to get her head around it

It sounds like you had disassociated, not that you didn’t care op. It’s a protective mechanism.

That’s awful. My DH has a similar relationship with his mum. Google covert Narcissist.

My sister is amazing and I love her so much. All my favourite childhood memories are one I share with her. I was very, very lucky to have her, and we grew up like best friends.

She is a very closed book though….she keep a a lot of things to herself and never lets anyone in (including me) and I think our childhood has caused huge emotional trauma to her and it makes me very sad.

the precise phrasing made it clear that it's people like the power-hungry, all-consuming, entitled parents who demand by right loyalty and obedience. I was putting it in my own words, perhaps not very clearly.

Agreed that someone with a -healthy- self-respect will also expect to be treated decently and won't accept any less. But they also tend to offer respect to others too.