She's stealing my life!

[OpenThatWindow]

4 years ago I moved 100 miles away from my hometown to start a fresh chapter with my DH.

It's a semi rural location in a very small village.

I have worked hard to create a great life here! I've made lots of friends, do hobbies, just loving it. I've worked hard to become part of the community.

My mother has told me she's going to move here, as she is lonely.

She's 74, hardly the right time to move into a rural area she doesn't know! She said its fine, she'll just come with me when I go shopping etc. And she'll join my hobbies - including somewhere I volunteer!

My mum has no friends or life really, due to her personality. She's very judgemental and rude. So I'm terrified she'll upset people and that will reflect on me.

AIBU to feel she's stealing MY life!

@OpenThatWindow She is viewing a house next week that's come up for sale in the village - a huge bloody 6 bed place. omg! she is buying a house for all your family to move into with her!!!! holy shit, run for the hills, now!!

YANBU. This has been my life and my worry.

The only way I have gotten around it is to pretty much ‘teach’ my parents through behavior what is acceptable to me and what isn’t. I think they had this grand illusion that we were going to be best buddies doing everything together. They initially treated my home like it had an open door policy. Now we arrange set times to meet up, if they want to visit they have to call ahead etc. and things have settled down to some sort of normality. My mother has since put the pressure on my sister to move here. I think this is because I’ve disappointed her and she needs another child to lean on 😂

Not everyone was brought up well by their mothers. Mine was a terrible mother, and it's caused me and my siblings a lifetime of consequential issues with forming relationships.

Now we are adults all in our 40s and 50s, she wants to be a mum, because we place no demands on her. We learned from a very early age that she wasn't interested in any aspect of parenting or children, and it wasn't until 4 years ago that she played any part in our everyday lives. And now she's trying to insert herself into the centre of it, and it's sad, because I can see that she is lonely, and that she wants the feeling of being a matriarch that she sees her friends having, and that adult-to-adult mother/daughter bond.

But it has no basis, no grounding, none of us know how to be 'mothered' even if we wanted it, and it's very, very uncomfortable. Moving close and inserting herself into our lives is definitely something I could see her doing if our Dad passed, as she doesn't have anyone else and it's her personality type. She imprinted on Dad so strongly, and we all just got in the way as kids. We stopped her doing what she wanted to do, so until we were in our early teens she openly resented us and told us many times how we had ruined her life and she wished she was dead, and then as soon as the oldest of us hit 14, she stopped being present all together and just left us alone for days at a time while her and Dad went away. Pretty much every weekend.

Anyway. Long way of saying, not all mum/daughter relationships are good.

Just tell her outright it won't be possible to join you on all the shopping trips or with the activities/volunteering. "I won't be able to provide that level of support."

Just keep saying it.

"Why?"

"Because those activities are my downtime and I like them just as they are."
"Because I need to go shopping when it works around my full-time working hours."

If it was just the working from home, I'd be less worried for you because you could literally just not answer the door.

The hobbies/volunteering etc is next level.

I have the same kind of mother and I would have the same reaction. I epild feel like my life would be ruined because she would ruin it.

It's a perfectly normal reaction

She will be helped by being encouraged to move somewhere where she can be independent.

I would wonder where I'd gone wrong if my DC were so callous and cold and uncaring.

Perhaps you would. But you are not the OP's mum.

OP is not being any of those things. She doesn't want to, and has no obligation to, surrender her life to her mother, when her mother is rude and judgemental.

Oh wow, I really feel for you OP, I have a very abusive mother and have been NC for a few years now. I feel stressed just reading your problem. Stick to your guns and tell her how it is. Don't let her disturb your peace any more than she already has.

No its not. Seems quite reasonable to me.

Also to add my parents obviously struggled to ‘read the room’… the last time I was dependent on them or lived within casual visiting distance was when I was 21 (25 years ago) and they immigrated to another country whilst I was still in university. They haven’t seemed to click that my independence and resultant success is a direct result of them moving away. Since that day I have never had a strong desire to live near my family. It’s not because I don’t love them, I’ve just always coped on my own without them as an adult. My sister is the opposite and needs them.

They struggle to understand why I haven’t been over the moon with happiness at their return into my life within a few kms of my home. They don’t understand that I wasn’t looking for a life change and I was perfectly happy the way things were. I don’t mind them being closer but it certainly wasn’t because I needed them to be.

25 years of being apart (besides for visits a few times a year) means that you don’t really know each other that well and I think that has been my mothera biggest eye opening… that her child isn’t the 21 year old she left behind.

I think she is being very unreasonable. It sounds like she never grew into an adult and now wants you to parent her. Inappropriate and not your job.

?? Really. How is that appropriate

This sounds really hard. Sorry, OP, what a nightmare.

How nuclear are you prepared to go?

If you told her the truth - that you don’t want her there because she will spoil the life you’ve made for yourself there, alienate all the lovely people you’ve got to know, disrupt your working day, expect you to be her taxi and later on to care for her when you have no intention of doing that, and generally suffocate you - what would her response be? Could you handle it, whatever it was?

If cried, tried to emotionally blackmail you, raged, cut you off - would those be things you could deal with?

I understand completely, I do, in your shoes, I would say anything to put her off.

Say your husband is getting relocated shortly. Say you are moving jobs to a different
country.
Say you have both become nudists.
Get scabies.
Get pet rats.
Start a heavy metal band.
Have prayer meetings 6 days a week.

Say whatever you need to keep putting her off, and visit her if you can on a set day/week and keep repeating this to calm her down.

That’s all I can recommend. I know it’s not honest and people with lovely reasonable mothers will think that’s awful, but you have to save yourself.

Good luck.

OP, could one possibility be that you sit down with her and explain that you are concerned that she would be bored and lonely - explain the lack of public transport and that you work full time so will not be able to act as her taxi/companion. Then when she is coming to view a house, invite her to stay for a week - and be really really busy - you can invent work meetings, go straight from a meeting to a social event so she can't tag along etc. Let her see that the reality would be that she would be stuck indoors on her own. You might have to sacrifice your own social life for the week if you can't stand up to her and leave her behind, but it could be worth it

Some people may see it as a joy to be with their parent constanly, most would not.
I'd be blunt and say I do my own things in my own time and if she was nearer and expected to be with me all the time I'd move away. I seriously couldn't entertain a person all the time and went back to work PT before my DC were a year old to keep the mix between different people (and I love my DCs, like children in general and kept PT until my youngest was 14).

OMG what a nightmare! I would hate this.

Easier said than done I know, but you really need to make clear to her that you do not have much time to spend with her and therefore she might be happier staying where she knows people.

If she is determined to come, I would also make sure your local friends know in advance what she is like so it is less likely to reflect on you (not entirely sure it would anyway).

Saying she is stealing your life is a slightly odd way to express it, but I do feel for you.

You are going to have a fairly blunt conversation with her and very quickly.
The biggest problem is that she is probably going to be 'lonely' wherever she lives due to her falling out with everyone so in her head she's thinking 'well, I might as well be close to DD.'

You need to make it clear that you will:
*be working the vast majority of the time
*not be a taxi
*not take her shopping
*not be a home help
*will not appreciate her muscling in to your social network

Reiterate the poor public transport / facilities around there.

If the above doesn't work you will have to use radical candour and make sure she realises the negative impact on people's relationships - harsh but true

I would tell her that it's not a good idea because if something happened to you, she'd be trapped there! Imagine how she'd cope without a car in the sticks! Is there somewhere nearby that isn't too rural, where she'd be fine alone using public transport with nearby shops?

Precisely.
Mine was very difficult, to such a degree that the most favoured dc went to USA for 8 years to get some life of their own.
Obviously many have great relationships with their mothers but some of us definitely didn’t/don’t.
I wish I’d moved many miles away when I had the chance instead of being used for many years.

What a nightmare, OP.

My mother is very negative and critical (and abusive) and even though we never had a nice relationship and it was clear she absolutely loathed me, she tried to hijack my life the moment I got married. The demands and neediness were endless, and she was only in her 50s and married at that time. I've been happily NC for years.

You cannot physically stop your mother from buying a house in your town or moving there, but you can be firm with your boundaries, and you must, from day one. I'd tell her that you can meet once a week, and be very guarded with your daily schedule and monthly calendar.

Could you put her off by mentioning that you "might" be moving soon for your husband's job?

@Bloozie what you write here is so insightful and exactly how I feel, particularly the bit about wanting to be a mum now because it places no demands on her:

Now we are adults all in our 40s and 50s, she wants to be a mum, because we place no demands on her. We learned from a very early age that she wasn't interested in any aspect of parenting or children, and it wasn't until 4 years ago that she played any part in our everyday lives. And now she's trying to insert herself into the centre of it, and it's sad, because I can see that she is lonely, and that she wants the feeling of being a matriarch that she sees her friends having, and that adult-to-adult mother/daughter bond.

I've had a very distant relationship with my DM for years, she wasn't a great mother when I was young, or even a young single adult who could have done with some support and guidance (lived in my Uni city for 17 years and she visited...zero times). Since her H died though, she wants that mother/daughter bond that she sees all her friends having and seems very puzzled and sad as to why it's not there and I'm not leaping to support her, visit more often or have her move closer. I feel sad for her, and I am kind, and keep in touch weekly, but the strong bond just isn't there. She wasn't abusive, just cold, emotionally immature, occasionally cruel and resentful most of the time, but she always says 'well I did my best' and thinks that makes it all ok.

Ah, we need our own thread. My mum always said she did her best too, and I'm like, really? That was really all you were capable of? Because you tended to Dad's every whim and need and completely gave up your own identity for him, so I know you have it in you to be selfless and put other people first.

Do you also feel sad for yourself for not having that bond with a mother figure? And how do you get on with your mother-in-law, if you have one? Mine is an absolute sweetheart and wants to be my mum, and it makes me want to run a mile... I find her (objectively normal and quite lovely) feelings towards me extremely smothering, to the point of it giving me the ick. I would rather be trapped in a lift with a cobra, than a woman wanting to pour love on me.

Maybe it's time for a white lie? Tell her that you're likely to move again so it would be better if she didn't move to your village.

You have to say "No" and you have to say it now, and repeat it. My mother tried the same thing with me when she was 72 or 73. It wasn't going to happen in a million years. And it didn't.