Who is in the wrong here. 16 hour argument.

[zebraprintxmasdinner]

Please someone give me some clarity as my mother is draining me and been carrying on this disagreement for 16 hours.

Bus strikes in local area, mum has to get to work for 8:30am, my partner has a car but had a GP apt at 9am, I text my mum and said I will get her an uber to work save her walking as she is 67, she refused plenty of times so I just left it. She couldn’t have had a lift off my partner as he needed to leave for his gp apt.

She has been in a foul mood with me, saying how hard work it was to walk, I said she should’ve took my offer of an uber, she responds with a tirade of how she wasn’t even offered a lift off me, she does me favours all the time etc etc and how her friend at work would’ve gave a lift if she had known.

This has been going on since yesterday. Please can someone clarify if I am the Arsehole of the year or not.

I would also never dream of asking someone for a drink in someone else’s house but I also wouldn’t start ww3 over it x

What’s that saying with kids?!
ignore the bad behaviour, reward the good behaviour. How you suffer this behaviour off a grown working woman I don’t know! Don’t feed into it if she keeps going on ignore it change the subject, if she sulks and goes NC embrace it 🤣 she behaves like this because she can, simple!
what does your hubby say about her behaviour?

That is horrrrrrrible behaviour. You must be very tolerant to put up with that.

@zebraprintxmasdinner You could have a look at the Karpman Drama Triangle. It might give you some insights on your mum's behaviour, and give you some ideas about how to step out of the triangle.

Basically it's a model of social interaction and conflict with three roles - victim, persecutor and rescuer. People generally have a main role they prefer but can flow between the others too according to what the other people in the triangle are doing. E.g., victims often enjoy the oppressed, helpless and hard-done-by role especially if they are being rescued in a way that makes them feel important. But when they feel frustrated with their rescuers, they either switch to seeing the rescuer as a persecutor, or switch to being a persecutor themselves. That might resonate?

Have a google, it might help you to get under some of this and help you with a way to manage it.

Who on earth carries on a row for 16 hours? !! Sounds like a very unpleasant environment to be in. Even if u could have driven her, you offered a taxi. Bloody hell what more does she expect!

I feel your pain-or at least can empathise.
My mum pulls this routine fairly frequently-or at least she did until recently when I initiated a no-holds-barred discussion about how she made me feel if she didn't get the attention she felt she deserved from me-even to the point of her being snarky & jealous about my spending time with my partner and/or my friends.
Clearing the air seems to have helped - there was no shouting or arguing, but some good, very direct feedback to each other. Since then-so far so good! If you can bear to initiate it, would that help your situation? I now feel much more appreciated by her, she seems now (at last!) to accept that I have a life totally independent of her. When we do spend time together now it feels much more 'grown up'.
Mums are precious so I didn't want to fall out with mine, and I sense you don't either. YANBU, you sound very caring, but some mums struggle with not being the centre of their child's world - even when they grow up it seems. However-you are not there to meet her every demand or whim.
I hope she can come around to seeing that she has a kind, sensitive and caring daughter in you!

Please start a thread!

Don't you dare apologise OP.

If she starts moaning, reiterate I offered to book and pay for an Uber.
Drop this conversation or I am hanging up/ you need to leave my house now/ whatever to end it and walk away.

Repeat until she stops.

YANBU. She has no right to drain you, give her a wide berth until she can behave nicely.

do not apologise as you have done nothing wrong! Next time she brings it up, just say “mum, give it a rest now” and carry on talking about whatever you were beforehand. Sounds draining!

Frank talk ahead of mum ...
"Mum , I love you but this type of thing has to stop. We offered you an uber , you didnt take it. Next time instead of arguing with me , ask or take what you need. I can't help you unless you clearly tell me what you need i can't read your mind. Neither can anyone else. My husband had a gp appointment and I reminded you every day. You said no. When you probably should have said yes. None of this is my fault. I offered to help you , mutuple times and you are an adult mum. Please stop messaging me about it until you have calmed down and reflected mum . You are giving me a hard time when I wasn't the 1 at fault.:

Your own daughter included? My family and good friends help themselves if they want something.

Please please please read the book "adult children of emotionally immature parents" it will change your life

The whole thing sounds unbearable.
Your mother is in the wrong in this argument.
1/ she expects you to offer her a lift even though you don’t drive
2/ she expects you to offer your partner’s services as a taxi?
3/ when offered a lift by you albeit in an uber she turned it down
4/ she complained about the fact that she walked, which was her own choice as she is an adult, working so capable of looking after herself and finding her own solutions, and you had offered a suitable alternative.
5/ from your comment about her expecting to be offered a drink in her own daughters house instead of just asking for it or getting it herself (and making you one whilst she’s at it!) it appears she expected you to say “would you like a lift from partner”, if a lift from DP was what she specifically wanted she should have said that at the point of turning down Ubers, then your DP could decide if he wanted to set off extra early for his appt (though it should not be an expectation) and she could decide if she wanted to get to work half an hour early!

has she always been this much hard work?

Not even close family? I wouldn’t ask for a drink at my mum’s or my dad’s, I’d just help myself! And at my best friend’s house.

Some people just love to be the poor martyr and adding the ‘doddery old lady’ act just adds to it. I have a relative like this.
Would not respond again until you receive a friendly message from her. Do you have any siblings?

No you’re not in the wrong at all . You couldn’t help with a lift so you offered an alternative and she refused . End of

That is very bad and childish behaviour on her part OP. I sense she’s been like this your whole life. I would say she’s treating you with a form of abuse behaving like that and causing you stress and distress. You went above and beyond to help her but she still wasn’t happy and now she’s making you suffer for no reason. You can control what you do (and you did everything you could) but you can’t control how she behaves. I would give her some space to get over it on her own and start looking after yourself, she can look after herself. (I have a sibling like this - reading about behaviour, bonding etc helped me a lot).

She sounds like a martyr. She is a grown woman - it's her responsibility to get herself to work not yours or your husband's. You very kindly offered to pay for her an Uber and she refused it. You've done nothing wrong!

Oh my I’ve only just seen this!!

So she WAS offered the lift she claims not to have been offered!

You don’t drive, and he had a doctors appt. (Something important and nigh on impossible to get in person, not that there is anything your partner really should have to rearrange for your mother) …
so what magical lift was she hoping to be offered?!

She has no logic. Just woe is her she walked (not had to walk - we know she didn’t have to!).

I would not engage. I also don’t see what she expects you to have to apologise for. You did what she is saying you didn’t.

She’s sounds very similar to my mum who I have rationalised as emotionally immature with a sprinkle of narcissistic/ victim / woe is me tendency (which comes from a very difficult childhood).

Your dear mum may have had a fairly conventional (and hopefully safe) childhood but I bet it wasn’t an emotionally open or stable one? These ways of relating to others, how to illicit help and doing relationships don’t often come from an emotionally literate and responsive childhood. And no matter how old we get we can get pulled into unhelpful patterns.

You are not being unreasonable at all I wish you luck!

I suggest you google Narcissistic Personality Disorder. See if what it says seems familiar. With you as the survivor of a narcissistic mother. x

Call her bluff this time and don't apologise. You offered to help. She refused the offer. She's in the wrong.

I know this phrase is overused these days but unfortunately you have a narcissistic mother. Read 'Adult Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers' for some clarity and help with setting healthy boundaries.

Parents like this will suck the life out of you if you let them, and they'll never change either.

My mum was just like this, the martyr routine, the selective memory when telling the sympathy seeking tales, the lot.
She went on a family holiday abroad once and kept complaining about the heat and she couldn't cope with it etc. Dad finally persuaded her to go have a lie down for an hour or so in their air conditioned room and got her a drink by the bed etc and she seemed much happier. He told her we would all pop out as planned but without her as she was suffering and checked she was fine with that.
Fast forward an hour or so later when the family returned from a quick visit to a nearby taverna to find mum sat on the stairs in the middle of reception, sobbing, with concerned staff fussing around her , having told them her family had all gone out without her and she had no idea where they'd gone .
She was in her early sixties and definitely showed no signs of dementia even up to when she died in her late eighties.
She just had a love of attention and always needed to be centre of it no matter what.