To ask if you know anyone who turns any achievements into negatives?

[PinataHeeHaw]

I just told someone a recent achievement and she immediately came back with how I was snappy and irritable at her during the time I was working towards it. She does it every single time I tell her good news.

Yep. Had a ‘friend’ exactly like this. Can’t believe how long it took me to see it and realise I should have pulled back from her a long time ago. Or confront them calmly and directly and ask why they’re behaving like your enemy not your friend, and if they realise that’s quite an odd way to react within a supposed friendship? Do they understand that they sound quite envious and spiteful, and is that how they’re intending to come across?

(Having said all that… were you snappy? Does she have any legitimate reasons for feeling a grievance?)

My mum! Every time I achieve something she manages to turn it into a negative. In my rational moments I see how it’s hard for her as she’d have loved a good education and a career but these weren’t things within her reach, so I think a lot of it is pure jealousy. But it massively irritates me. I just got a promotion at work and didn’t even tell her as couldn’t face her finding some form of negative comment to make about it.

My mother too. Infuriating.

My mum also. She can turn anything into a negative and disagrees at random with things I say, and then turns around the next time that topic comes up (no matter what it is!) and gives the opposite opinion entirely.

Oh goodness yes, my MIL. She cannot say a good word about anyone who has achieved something, or if somebody praises someone else in her earshot she immediately puts them down. Even her own grandkids (who aren't my children.) She's jealous of anyone who has done anything. I blithely ignore.

It's my mum too. I was snappy and irritable but she's so negative and controlling and so I was sticking up for myself when I was behaving like that. She's appalling at times. Not how a mother should be. She treats it as an attack on her and so I told her my achievement she said repeatedly about my behaviour.

Oh yes, an ex-friend of mine would invariably say something along the lines of "that's great, but don't let it go to your head" 😬

Same ex-friend, when I told her my partner had a cancer diagnosis, said "don't make it all about you". I've phased her out. Harder to do with mothers though.

Sympathy op, it hurts worse when it's your mum. I have it from mine too. I was in the same low paid job for years and I had plenty of comments from her about wasting my education. So you'd think she'd be pleased when I got a new better paid job but instead she said it terrible I was letting my employer down by leaving! Its pure jealousy, and I wish I had realised years ago that's she doesn't have my best interests at heart

I'm sorry to hear that. At such a difficult time for you, too.

I wondered if it's jealousy. My mother will comment on my house (always usually clean and tidy) but there's always something she'll pick at.

She regularly comments on the way I wear my hair up. She says it makes my face look fat. I've told her time and time again I don't care what anyone thinks of me. I'm just me.

She criticises how I spend my money. I spend it on travelling, days out and good food. She thinks I should save it. For what, I don't know.

My weight. This was my achievement this week I told her about in the op. I do think it might be jealousy as she's overweight and despite that always going on about my weight and other peoples. I think she's the reason I started to overeat actually.

My mother too. I think I could win a Nobel prize and she'd still find something I did wrong. Yet she gets upset when I don't tell her things. It's all very frustrating and you have my sympathy.

Yes, my mother too. She will, when on good behaviour, say the 'right thing' but it will be as perfunctory as possible and she will quickly move on. "Well done" or "that's good". I know that she is towing the party line but doesn't want to give me the satisfaction of saying anything more effusive.

She will regularly find subtle ways to criticise my looks and parenting. She absolutely loves it when my children do something that she can find a way to blame me for, and it's usually something like 'that's because you're far too strict/too soft/obsessed with healthy eating/give them far too much junk/etc'

In fact, how I parent my children seems to be the thing that sticks in her throat the most. Nothing i do ot who I am as a person ever seems to bring her any pride. I get the impression that she resents me, deep down but that she also loves me in her own weird, damaged way.

In the past I used to get very hurt by the comments she made but I've actually learned the trick is to be as unbothered and as greyrock as possible.

'Your face looks fat like that'. You reply, nonchalantly 'oh do you think so? It's funny how people see different things, isn't it?'

If she says 'I don't like that outfit on you'. Then you say 'oh don't you? I love it!' And just act as if you don't care what she says. I actually don't care what my mother says now. She makes her comments, I say 'oh right' and change the subject breezily and remind myself that she has a problem and it's not me.

My mother

My mum. I think there's a pattern that people unhappy with their own lot find it very hard to celebrate the achievements/happiness of others and find a negative slant in response. My mum does it incessantly with so many people and can turn even the most innocuous comment into a litany of woe.

Yes, my mother.

She likes to take credit too.

This despite the fact we only talk about once or twice a year!

My grandmother did this. One of the things she said to me after I graduated was "if this is where a university degree gets you, I'm glad I don't have one!" I'll never forget that. It's because I wanted to move far away from her to pursue my new graduate life. She had abandonment issues. It comes from a place of misery, OP.

Yep, mine too. She is such a joyless, joyless person. There is no safe topic. Everything is a contentious topic. Even the weather or a recent TV show seems like risky ground.

'Oh I watched that new show on Netflix. Did you see it?' Reply: 'Why on earth would I watch something about x/starring x? Do you think I've any interest in [topic/actor]??'

The conversation is constantly snapped shut. It's exhaustingly negative.

Don't tell your mother anything else that matters, OP. She probably won't notice.

My mum. I landed a job at Cambridge fresh out of my PhD and her first response was to tell me she was so sorry, she was sure it was a bad job and low paid too, and she knew I'd be exploited. When I got pregnant she told me I was far too young and too unstable (I was mid-20s, married, employed). I published a book; she told me 'I doubt anyone will read it!'

I have given up.

Years ago, there was still an old fashioned 'know your place' attitude around, thanks to the British class system. This could explain parents' attitudes then if they thought their child was reaching too far. But that's more or less redundant now thank goodness. It must be jealousy a lot of the time when younger parents speak like this, a kind of 'she's got chances I never had'. Distasteful.

My MIL, ... I know! My daughter has completed a highly competitive degree and is now working in that area, however, she will say things like "it would be better if she did such and such" like what she does isn't good enough but she is doing amazingly well. Yet, the grandchildren of the golden child get praised for the slightest thing. I understand it probably comes from jealousy as my SIL's children didn't go to uni and are still finding their feet.

My neighbours are very much from the "remember your roots" area.

I think society grew like that as a clever way to prevent the poor from realising how exploited they were..

A former friend. She is someone who is deeply competitive and deeply insecure. It doesn't do her any favours

Some choice comments;

• when I got my Masters degree she snapped; 'Well, of course its your DH who should be congratulated for supporting you'
• When she said she was desperate to go and visit a certain country and I sent her details from a family member who owns a travel agency and she said 'Well, I'll probably have to pay a single supplement'
• when the daughter of a mutual friend won a scholarship to study abroad; 'well, the panel clearly could not see past the pretty face and she's not that bright at the end of the day' (PS- said girl got a PhD and is now working at a Magic Circle firm)
• when I got DS1 into a preferred school that was perfectly suited to his needs (low-cognitive abilities, autism, adhd and tourettes) and I was tearfully joyous after years of stress; 'Well, it's in the next town so he won't have any friends, not that he would have anyway'.

I put up with it for too long. There were more, but those stand out as all the various straws.

It's about her and her envy. But thankfully I realised I did not have to put up with her poison any longer.

Yeah mine too, I've been trying to call her out on it as it's a worryingly toxic mind set to have and it makes it hard to enjoy conversation, she also likes to talk for ages and ages with no break while others have to listen, rather than a natural back and forth.

I dread seeing dog poo, a bit of graffiti or litter on a walk when I visit as I know I'm about to recieve a lecture, and I just say to her what are you changing by talking at ME about this?? Same with news, I'll never watch it with her. Even things like my sister telling her she was getting another cat, straight away with the negatives and list of reasons why not, when noone asked and it puts such a downer on things! Last time I visited I did have a proper talk to her about how it makes other people feel and that she's not getting the best from people or herself with her habit of being so negative and she didn't bite my head off like usual so perhaps it helped, time will tell.