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.

I just did……and it sounds very, very similar to how my mum is. Part of me is so incredibly angry that she’s like this, and the other half is desperate to understand how she came to be like it. Something must have triggered this kind of behaviour from when she was young. People aren’t like this for no reason are they? And then I go through the stages of thinking that if something bad did happen to her, then it’s not fair of me to blame her and I should instead be helping her, or just putting up with it.

It’s so confusing and my conflicting feelings go around and around in my head constantly.

Some narcissists are made - bad mistreatment as a child, or else being treated like the centre of the absolute universe. Unfortunately in some cases it seems to be inborn.

When thoughts go round and round your head like that, it's a sign that something is very wrong in yoru life and your inner desire to survive is shouting that things need to improve.

It sounds like you're going to have some hard weeks and months ahead, re-assessing your childhood, your mother and your current situation now. It takes it out of you, but on the other side is clarity and a more accurate sense of self-worth.

Please take it easy, lovely. Take some exercise if you can, take some time for yourself, and don't drink too much alcohol. It's a false friend when you're facing a painful reexamination of yoru life. Do you have any trusted friends you can talk to?

Your childhood was traumatic and utterly terrifying due to your mother's often violent and abusive behaviour. Yet despite your trauma, you have still managed to parent your own children with love and kindness.

There is absolutely no excuse for how she treated your and your sister. She bears all the blame and you should not put up with any of it any more.

I do genuinely think that since having my own children, and knowing how I feel about them and how they are my absolute world, that is what has caused me to step back a little and think, how could my own mother have treated me like she did?

I don’t spoil my children but making sure they are happy, and that they know they are loved is the most importantly thing to me. I don’t want them to have the childhood I had. When they are older and no doubt with families of their own I want them to be able to look back and say, “My mother really did love me.”

It’s all such a mess.

It’s been a week now since me and my mum had the fall-out and I haven’t heard anything, and when I think about being in a similar situation with my children, I would never have spoken to them or treated them like my mum did to me last week, and if I ever thought I had upset them I would be doing anything and everything to make it up to them.

Whereas my mum doesn’t seem to care and is just continuing with the silent treatment. I can’t understand it.

You don’t have to go NC if you’re not ready. But do put in some boundaries. The important thing to be aware of is that you actually hold all the cards in this situation because she clearly needs you a lot more than you need her. Just make up an excuse to your kids and don’t go and visit the new pet. Wait and let her come to you for once. You don’t have to go scorched earth, just baby steps of exerting control. You can do it.

@MotherIssues2025 trying to be nice here/ I dont get why you just dont say to yourself, right, thats it. i have had enough of this. not going back. after all, she has not been at all loving to you all of your life. you need to just step right away and let her cope by herself instead of getting yourself all upset. she honestly isnt worth bothering about. I kid you not, once you step back all the stress you are feeling about her will disappear and you will become a happier person.

She doesn't have any friends because she's a horrible person. My mother is in the same boat. My brothers went NC decades ago. Myself 18 years ago. Only her sister at the other end of the country still talks to her. She's baffled by how my mother has always treated everyone because she was a much loved daughter

@MotherIssues2025 stop trying.

@MotherIssues2025 oh mate. No matter how many times you try to understand and rationalise this, you likely never will and you'll drive yourself nuts doing so. Trust me, I've been there. And to keep going back, hoping that it will be better this time, this time, surely this time..... well, didn't Einstein say that insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?

It's hard, but you have to do something different. An old teacher of mine told me once (when I was crying to her about my own horrible mother) "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got." I ignored her at the time, but bugger it all, she was right.

Drop her. Please, walk away and do not go back. Your life, your sanity, is worth it. So bloody what if she's lonely and alone. That's on her.

Yet you said she was never violent with you. All the above is violence OP. Your definition of things is skewed and you're minimising a lot.

There's a quote on the women's aid website. Some kind of list. Including things like, if your partner has ever slammed doors, punched a wall or thrown something (even if not at you) in anger, or if he's ever pinched or pushed/shoved you for whatever reason, you don't need to consider whether he'll become violent in the future - he already has been.

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

And you want to put another burden on her? Mother's MH is not OPs responsibility. She doesn't have to stick around being abused longer and risk being drawn back in again, all because mother might commit suicide if she goes NC suddenly. It's not on her if mother does that. Mother can go to the GP for help, like anyone else can who feels that way. If she does it, it's because she's chosen to and is nobody else's fault.

OP can't realistically keep herself safe if she's going to base her actions on what's best for mother, living in fear of what mother might do to herself. OP needs to put her own wellbeing first.

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.

That's a manipulation attempt not a suicide attempt. Maybe she threw the pills back up or she was taking something that she knew wouldn't kill her.

Sorry, I should have been clearer about the violence. She was towards both of us when we were young children (in the ways I wrote about in my post) but it dropped off when we were about 8 years old. The regular screaming outbursts didn’t stop though and she made sure we were still scared of her.

Although she didn’t hit me (that I can remember) she would still hit my sister though definitely not as frequently as when we were young children, but she did it until my sister was about 16-17 years of age.

It was paracetamol she was taking but I don’t know how many she took and you’re probably right, I imagine she did make herself sick afterwards or didn’t take enough to actually kill herself.

Im feeling a little bit calmer today, I think spending some time with DH’s parents yesterday helped. The children were all over them and sucking up the attention which gave me a little parenting space so I could fully digest everything that has been said in this post. Husband is back at work today though so no doubt the kids will keep me on their toes and the distraction will help.

@MotherIssues2025 its really awful and incredibly hard to deal with someone like this. She has really caused us so much uncecessary grief and stress over the years. Obviously im the DIL but I've finally after almost 20 years said I can't handle it anymore and I'm going NC. I will however support my DH and DC to have a relationship as long as they want to continue to.

My DH is exploring family counselling options for them and I feel this is a good start. I've also suggested he perhaps has counselling on his own as I fear his DM won't acknowledge or accept a counsellor's opinion and perhaps he should consider how he can better handle the situation and put in boundaries to help himself.

Please don't blame yourself! You are not responsible for your Mum. She has made your childhoold unbearable and yet you haven't chosen to repeat that cycble on your own children so don'tt accpt that this may be an excuse. Try to look after yourslef OP.

She does not deserve a good daughter. In order to deserve a good daughter, she would need to have been a good mother, and she wasn’t and isn’t. You owe her absolutely nothing.

It great that you’ve taken some steps in talking to your uncle. Do please look into getting some counselling. There’s clearly a lot you need to process.

I understand about the fog op and I have had therapy for ten years, and I am still not completely free of it. I am low contact with my mother, and no contact with my very abusive father and brother. I did this at the time mainly for my children. I could see my dc were being lined up to be their next victims of abuse. So I stopped all contact to protect my children.

As a by product I had the space to understand and question everything about my upbringing and conditioning. I noticed I had normalised abuse and neglect - and just didn’t ‘see’ it as that. Our relationship was not built on love, trauma bonding is not love (worth researching) and I was stuck in a cycle of abuse.

My mother would be nice for a while. Tension would build as she wouldn’t let me speak or expres my feelings or say no. I would eventually say I was feeling hurt as gently as I could, and she would then either explode in a torrent of abuse or use silent treatment for months at a time. Until I would cry and plead for us to talk as I felt so abandoned and missed her. This carried on for years.

The grip was loosened with knowledge. Understanding that my crying at the silent treatment was a triggering reaction to her behaviour from my childhood, not my adult reaction. The child in me hated being constantly rejected and abandoned, by her or threatened with it.

That no one should be able to inflict such damage and pain deliberately on another. That her behaviour is cruel and dysfunctional, and no mother should behave this way.

I thought she was perfect, and lovely (conditioned and brainwashed) and it was my fault, for years. That I was mismanaging the relationship somehow or being ‘too much’. I was the problem. But we are not the problem op.

I am now feeling guilty because it is Easter, and I won’t be going to see her. The guilt is because I know she will be alone with my dad, and miserable. It’s always been my role to cheer her up, make her happy - ‘rescue’ her in some way. So I am finding it tough not to go and appease her. The adult part of me reminds me she could come here (she never does) and she has other people she could see and she has chosen this life.

That it’s not my job to keep her entertained, when she has caused me so much harm. And continues to do so. She stood by and allowed me to be physically abused for my whole childhood.

I don’t actually want to see her this weekend, or at all really. Its just the fog that tells me I should.

I am just trying to highlight that you are not alone. The conditioning is very hard to break, like a cult level of brainwashing has happened. But you can start to see it, challenge your beliefs and truths about your family, your role. I found asking questions really helped.

Would you ever do that to another person?
How would you feel if that happened to a friend or your child?
What would a neutral outsider say?

Your mother, like mine, is an adult. They can take care of themselves. They have free will, resources, free choice to behave well or otherwise. It’s not our job to make their life better. It’s our job to make our own lives better, to look after our own needs.

We have never had a mother in the real sense of the word, so maybe it’s time now to mother ourselves and put ourselves first for a while. Someone has to and it’s sure as hell not going to be them!

Just try doing things differently. Experiment not doing what you always do. Observe as a third person. What happens when I do x,y and z. What do I want to do this situation? With this day? How do I feel? Is this making me feel good? Is this environment good for my well being? Etc. Try to start asking your own self what you would like to do. I found this really life changing eventually, once I got the hang of it.

It’s okay to be on your own side op, and learn to put yourself first.

🙏🏼

@Livingbytheocean - thank you for your so well thought out and articulate response.

I feel awful saying it but the last 9-10 days of no contact has actually felt quite nice. Obviously (as this thread demonstrates) I’m still thinking about what happened, but I don’t feel any sense of duty or obligation towards her. I feel so cruel saying that.

Over the last few months she had started making comments about how my family should move closer to her, under the guise of it being less of a journey for us to travel to work (which is true), but what started off as a light-hearted jokey comment, has now become a topic of every conversation we have.

One of my friends keeps teasing me over it and says that my my mum will be asking us to go and live with her soon (her house is certainly big enough to accommodate it) and although I laugh at my friend’s jokes, in my heart I have this feeling of dread that one day my mum will suggest it.

Please try not to feel a sense of dread over her asking you something like moving in with her. I know that might not be easy but rationally, she may never ask.

Even if she does ask you could have a couple of answers ready like “oh I think we’re happy as we are Mum” and then change the subject.

This is worth a re- read.
You can’t treat your kids like s*t and expect them to put up with it.
new flash - they will never, ever give you the validation you crave.

She'll only get worse with age. This cuddly old person stereotype isn't always true. Or if it is to the outside world, certainly not true to the nearest and dearest.

Also, a clear indication of a bully is inconsistant behaviour. They know what they can get away with and with who. They will go for weak spots too.

You obviously value contact with your mum, otherwise you wouldn't speak to her every second day. So, going no contact will be hard for you, if you go down that route. But you need to figure out how to put boundaries in place. Or, you will be in the same place in the future, but with the knowledge that you are letting her.

It's rubbish isn't it? She was an abusive mother, but you are the one that has to still carry the emotional burden. I hope you get through this.

@MotherIssues2025.
I feel awful saying it but the last 9-10 days of no contact has actually felt quite nice. Obviously (as this thread demonstrates) I’m still thinking about what happened, but I don’t feel any sense of duty or obligation towards her. I feel so cruel saying that.

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well done op you are finally seeing things as they are.

keep telling yourself/ ‘ you are a good mum , a good sister , hell a good person and you do deserve to feel quite nice’ as much as you like.
laugh about it.
enjoy the feeling of peace.

my dad is similar to your Mum OP.

it's very unsettling when you suddenly realise how awful everything was, and how abnormal your childhood was.

I wonder if you have been waiting for you Mum to realise that she has hurt you or treated you and your sister badly. She won't, ever. There is something wrong with her personality, the personality problem has been lifelong from at least when she had 3 affairs aged 20, up to now. She won't suddenly realise how wrong all her behaviour is, she isn't capable. She will make up reasons why she is right and everyone else is wrong, and won't accept any blame. Its a bit like voldemort, realising what she has done and regretting it will be too painful, she will protect herself mentally by blaming everyone else.

You are not responsible for sorting her out, its not even possible. You dont have to go fully no contact, but dont call her, dont apologise when you havent done anything wrong, and keep your boundaries. Parents like this make you feel like you alone can make them happy and sort them out, they are trying to create that feeling in you so you meet their needs, as for whatever reason they cant meet their own needs or communicate in a normal way. You don't have to do it.

You can still be polite on the phone and take her to the garden centre every so often, just tell her not to be rude or silly if she starts and leave. She will soon learn you won't be meeting her intense emotional needs and will move on to someone else. If she rejects you, thats on her, and its not a rejection of you as a person, its just her realising she can't suck you dry so you aren't useful to her.

i've been where you are and it gets better, you will feel ok about it after a while xx

I just looked out my window and happened to see my mum driving away from my estate and when I went outside I found a bag in front of my doorstep containing 4 Easter Eggs, I’m guessing one for each of the children, and one for me and DH which obviously she’s put there.

How on earth am I supposed to respond to that? Is it an olive branch?

Not easy op. Silent treatment not nice. One time it dragged for weeks then I texted. I def have better boundaries now. We have remind her at times we grown adults now. Re eggs maybe just text to say thanks. Families a nightmare!

You don’t have to respond at all. What do you want to do moving forward? Do you want to go NC completely? Do you want to have a relationship with her but more distanced? This is where I think counselling could really help you decide. You don’t have to do anything for her sake, she doesn’t deserve it. Think only of what is best for you and your children. What I would strongly advise against is engaging in any sort of discussion with her about your relationship. She will play the victim and try to twist everything round to make it your fault. Personally I think it would be better for you to go NC, but I understand you might not be ready for it. You could send her a message to thank her for the Easter eggs. You could send her a message to say you have decided that it is best for you and your children to not be in touch with her any more. You could do nothing at all. Just definitely don’t actually discuss it with her because she will turn into into a huge guilt trip and gaslight you. If you have decided to go NC I think it is probably best to tell her, though people with more personal experience of this may think otherwise so listen to their advice.

About a year ago I ended a long term friendship when I finally realised that the person simply wasn’t nice and that I didn’t have to put up with being treated like that. I tried just drifting away, but she kept chasing so in the end I sent a message saying I was not prepared to be in touch with her anymore. She did keep chasing for a while after that, but eventually gave up.

Whatever you do, I think your mum will keep chasing. If you go NC, she will keep trying to contact you directly, and I expect will also try badmouthing you to other family members to try to get them on her side. (From what you’ve said that won’t work so nothing to worry about there). If you try to maintain a more distanced relationship she will keep testing your boundaries and pushing for more, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you ended up going NC eventually anyway. Whatever you do, she’s not going to take it calmly and will probably step up the abusive behaviour for a while. But it won’t last forever.

It’s up to you what you do. You owe her absolutely nothing. Do you want her in your life at all? Think for your sake, not for hers. There is nothing to feel guilty over. Do you want a relationship with her? You are allowed to say no. You are also allowed to say yes, or that you’re not sure. Just think about what is best for yourself and your own family.

Trying to reel you back in more like. Maybe she has realised that she needs you more than you need her and that she has pissed on her chips for the last time. I thought she didn't drive (or maybe I've got that wrong, sorry). I wouldn't do anything immediately. If the kids haven't seen them yet, put the eggs away for now. Quite honestly I would feel like taking them back to her house and dumping them on her doorstep, but I think you should talk about it with your DH first.

She's given you the easter eggs so you have to text her to say thank you. It's a power move to force you to reach out to her, to say thank you and apologise.

It's also a way of saying: 'You were coming on sunday but I imagine you aren't coming now (poor me)/ i dont want you coming sunday unless you apologise.)

just leave it and wait for her to text to see if you got them. Also if she can drive why are you doing so much for her?!

No, it's a passive-aggressive attempt to get you to contact her. If she genuinely wanted to extend an olive branch, which would be completely out of character, she would have either contacted you directly to apologise and to tell you that she had Easter eggs for your family and to ask what would you like her to do with them, or she would have knocked on your door and apologised in person.

Apologising and admitting that she was in the wrong just isn't in her vocabulary.