Difficult relationship with mum

[toocrankytoday]

I have never been very close to my mum, I was one of 5 growing up and mum was completely stressed out with it.
She was always busy and even when I went to talk to her the default response was hang on please or not now.
As a result we don’t have much of a relationship.

I have seen her recently and we talked and she admitted she found it too much having us all and didn’t cope very well.
I asked her why she hasn’t made much of an effort since I was a grown up and she says it was because she had 5 children and the other 4 were easier to get along with so she just concentrated on those relationships.

I don’t really know where to go from here, I love her and she’s not the stressed out mess she used to be now we’ve grown up and gets on with my siblings so would you give her the benefit of the doubt or just leave it?
I’m not sure how I feel about her now.

I too have fairly strained relationship with my mother, i was the younger of only two children but my brother is autistic so he naturally got a lot more attention than me. He wasn't diagnosed til adulthood so it often felt like she favoured him and spent more time with him for no real reason. In my teens we were almost constantly at each others throats. It has become apparent in the recent past through new people in the family (my husband, in laws, her boyfriend) that even though we are now both adults she still heavily favours him but she will throw a tantrum and yell at anyone who points this out. I've learnt to live with it and depend on others (my husband and my in-laws) after 38 years she is not going to change and i just avoid talking to her. It's not no contact but low contact, its better for my mental health, i don't need the drama.

Sorry you felt like that growing up, it’s hard to imagine how a mother can do that.

I too am autistic but wasn’t diagnosed until recently, it was the other way round for me as it was for you and your brother.
I only have one child and I’d move heaven and earth to make sure she was happy so I don’t understand how anyone could simply write of one child because they aren’t as easy as the others but I guess that’s easier if you have so many.

Some of it maybe that we are very different people. It wasn't til i went to uni that I realised I had been living as who my mother wanted me to be rather than who I wanted to be and I came home a totally different person and she made it perfectly clear she didn't like the new/real me.