AIBU to still feel hurt by mum’s behaviour around my birth?

[TheVividPlayer]

Good morning,
this may be a long one .. but curious if it will ring true with any other mums/ daughters and also.. would be grateful for some words of advice ♥️

let me set the scene, 3 years ago I had my 3rd pregnancy and my mum offered to come over from the UK and watch my other children ( we live in a beautiful European country but do not have a family network here) / she offered to do light housework ( at the time we had a daily cleaner for floors etc) and babysit and just general be around for a month for the last weeks of pregnancy / first weeks of baby’s life.

we happily accepted , mum had her own bedroom ( private area of house) own bathroom and the house is in a very pretty location, big garden, lovely village and is a popular holiday destination considered relaxing and picturesque.

all was going well, until my pregnancy unexpectedly progressed to 42 weeks. After 7 days of being ‘overdue’ the behaviour of my mum inexplicably and noticeably changed. She turned from
being warm and friendly to being very sharp with me, uptight and quite simply ..unkind. She would slam doors, refuse suppers we were cooking of foods she previously liked and when we were late to pick her up for a coffee out after a heart monitor appointment (at the hospital) went overdue she stormed out the house without saying a word to me. Causing me to start to feel very stressed and on edge ( especially as I was swollen and overdue). I also felt really embarrassed in front of my partner as they were rightfully so confused why mum
was storming out on me.

up until then, the tasks my mum was helping with was essentially pick up kids from school bus at gate in afternoon , prepare them a snack and relax with them for a couple of hours ( with me present as well) and my partner would cook supper for us when home from
work. After my 7 days overdue appointment the midwife asked me to stay off my feet more and with them raised.

the following day, I was home with my mum, she had been out for the morning and had been out for shopping/lunch in a restaurant in the village and had been relaxing while
kids were at school, I had been
home resting, partner at work.

My mum got in from her lunch, collected kids by the gate and they were watching a cartoon while I was in another room with laundry. My mum came in and asked me if she could help, at which point I indicated the pile of clean clothes on the table and said ‘please
can you fold these? My ankles are swelling and I would love to go on the sofa with the kids’.

my , previously kind, mum spun around and looked my straight in my eyes and said “….( my name).. you are such a fucking bitch”.. without wanting to get too ‘emotional’ about it I can tell you quite simply I still feel the sting of confusion and humiliation thinking about it at the distance of years.. there I was, overdue, exhausted and with my children in the next room.. and here was my own mum, staying for a few weeks as I had no regular support network, and she was calling me names. I felt so shocked and hurt I burst into tears ( not usually like that but heavily pregnant so felt vulnerable) and went to my room.
she later apologized, without explaining why.. but was still bizarrely unkind and difficult until my baby was born the following week, lots of weird atmosphere and silent treatment. Essentially, my being overdue had inconvenienced her as she wanted to be there for cute baby time
and was annoyed that two of the weeks were ‘eaten up’ by me being heavily overdue and needing to keep going in for tests.

recently, on instagram I have seen some really lovely videos ( not posed or influncer
type ones- just normal looking ladies / mums) sharing really sweet videos where they are being cared for by their mum/ mum in law alongside their partner in the days post partum. Seeing these videos ( that I love to see btw) has made me realise that the week of being overdue and then coming home post partum after a long birth, whereby my mum unfortunately restarted after a day or two to be very difficult and unkind ( lots of ‘little’ but significant things but all aimed at
me and mostly when we were alone ) I have realized I am still really hurt by how I was treated and the eggshells I was walking on with a newborn, genuinely left me weeping and stressed.

AIBU, do I need to suck it up, it was years ago?

or

should I bring it up again with my mum ( I did once and she was defensive and not apologetic ) explaining that in a sensitive moment being treated unkindly and unpredictably by a close relative has caused an unfortunate wound I cannot seem to get over ..I have really tried to forget it but it even pops into my head uninvited, it’s like it made me feel really unlovable like a seed was planted in those vulnerable weeks ..

has anyone else been treated badly by their ( otherwise mostly kind) mother post partum? Does anyone have any insight into why she may have done that? There was never any reason given and the atmosphere in the home was a relaxed and kind one so I am racking my brains for it.

f what it’s worth my mum is not elderly and does not have any significant health issues, or money issues. So there were no such stresses at that moment that could have been influencing behaviour .

thank you and sorry for the length! Grateful
to anyone that can answer so I can try and stop this returning to my brain uninvited

Do you think she was very worried about you being overdue and thought you weren’t making more effort to get yourself checked out?

Was she scared about you being overdue due to the risks associated with it?

She should have just said what was wrong though.

Have you thought much about what her side of this might be? Would it be totally different?

Just musing. But with my own dd, when she was around 14/15 she would demand this/demand that/strop around (not saying at all that you were doing particularly that) and then every hundred things or so, I would just snap. She would claim I lost it over something absolutely minor, but actually each time it was a straw that broke my back.

also, and I’m not saying this shouldn’t be offered /the norm for every pregnant women, but you had a much more supported ride than most. A cleaner, a mum doing more cleaning and looking after your other children, a husband coming home and cooking the dinner. You just had to lie down. I would wager it is only a tiny percentage of women who get to do that. I wonder if that was so so different to her own pregnancies that she was getting frustrated?

just playing devils advocate because I believe it’s always good to try and think about the other persons perspective.

Sorry this has happened, OP.

My mum never lashed out like yours did, but she had a habit of insisting quite forcefully on helping me - she would become offended and indignant and hurt if I tried to turn down her offers - and then resenting the shit out of me for the help she’d foisted on me without my even wanting it.

She’d go on and on about how she never got to do anything for me and just wanted to make my life a little bit easier - and then when the time came for her to do whatever she’d insisted on, something would turn around in her mind and she would become sullen and hostile and behave as though I was an exploitative brat taking the absolute piss out of her.

In her case it was that she felt locked into people pleasing, so that her only possible worth or value came from doing things for people. So she’d forcibly insert herself where she wasn’t wanted or needed, intrusively insisting on ‘helping’, when at best she was getting in the way, looking for reassurance and detailed instructions all the time, and at worst she was shitting all over everything with her sulks and hostility.

I wish I had some suggestions about how to deal with it - but in the end I had to accept I couldn’t have a close relationship with my own mum as her own self esteem stuff loomed so large in everything. The only way she could relate to most people was through angry servility.

This is exactly why these threads can be so important, you have opened a new perspective for me here.. you are right, she didn’t have that kind of support when expecting me ..
I wonder if seeing me in relative ‘supporting hands’ / ‘comfortable home’ was in someway triggering to her … even if not intentionally. Which then caused her to sabotage it a bit for me..

I am glad you have got some really helpful and kind answers here OP.

I suppose it's not really the point, but did you ever find out why she called you a bitch?! I mean, it doesn't make sense apart from being unkind!

She says can I help with something, you say yes please and then she lashes out. Very strange.

Sorry if you have answered this but has she ever been quite so nasty since then and how long ago was that?

Thank you for your lovely message and for sharing. You also make a brilliant observation… and yes she has in the past been a really .. almost obsessive- people pleaser. Less so in the last decade or so, I wonder if she’s kind of having a push/ pull on people pleasing … even if almost aggressively offered .. then resents the help offered half way through.. I have a lot to think about here.

seems like there are several potential reasons , including stress caused by offering help and resenting it, stressed caused by the overdue ( or ‘emergency aspect’ ) and perhaps also even a resentment about the ‘special moment’ that she perhaps feels was nicer than hers.. I hindsight I do remember her saying a few times ‘ no one ever made me dinner when I was expecting’ that kind of thing ( btw was my partner making dinner each night ) but almost like seeing me with help bothered her ? :-/

Thanks for your lovely message. No she never specifically explained it. I have always wondered if she had a big glass of wine at lunch that day when out at the restaurant ..

honestly it was almost funny how out of place the ‘fucking bitch’ was .. like wtf, where did that come from :-O

she was unkind in the days after birth before going home, just ‘smaller’ things but still mean.. like sighing and rolling eyes angrily when I was in early labour in the bath and I asked her to close the door ..

she hasn’t sworn at me so directly again, but when we took her on holiday last year she randomly swore nastily to my partner one day after a beautiful day in the beach, again was really out of place and really put me on edge .. but that time she apologized after. That day I know she had a glass of wine at lunch so perhaps she gets in a ill temper after.. I don’t really know x

My DM was really off with me and DH when DC2 was born. Sulking, not eating meals, snippy comments. Sort of wish we’d made other arrangements rather than asking her to look after DC1. It left a nasty taste and spoiled a precious time. Never did get to the bottom of it - DM never apologises either….

Exactly like mine, she sulked, didn’t eat meals and made an atmosphere by doing things like wrinkling up nose when we said what we were planning for supper ( instead of just saying like , oh no I fancy this or that instead) amazing how such little gestures can really make an atmosphere after a while.

did yours do it other times or was it more noticeable particularly in that special and precious time? Thank you and sorry you had that too xxxx

She behaved appallingly but you say she's normally a nice mum? And it was many years ago?

Id just leave it.

Been on eggshells with my mum all my life @TheVividPlayer. Her tiniest gesture can set off emotional waves for me - I am hyper sensitive to her moods. I’m in my 50s now, but imagine what the impact must have been for a little girl, it must have felt catastrophic.

I haven’t seen her for several years and we are VLC now - I call her a couple of times a year and she sends bland Christmas and birthday cards. It’s sad it’s ended up like this.

My MIL is like this. In her case she wants to see herself as lovely, involved and helpful but in reality she can't cope at all with stress and is essentially a massive child. She complained about how little I'd involved her in mine and DH's wedding, so when DH's brother was getting married, his wife to be (who is lovely) very kindly made an effort to include her. MIL has a lot of expertise in flowers so SIL asked her to help choose and arrange the flowers. It was quite a low effort job, but a very nice way to make her feel part of things. MIL went silent for a while, SIL thought she was working on it, then MIL took SIL out to lunch at the wedding venue and laid into SIL, saying she found being involved with the flowers very stressful, it was too much to ask, she felt SIL was very inconsiderate, blah blah blah. SIL was totally blindsided and very upset, plus she was left dealing with the flowers very late on in the planning.

MIL has a lot of trauma from a very weird childhood and has a constant need to be validated and feel useful. She offers and offers to help, as a way of making herself feel better - it is this strange sort of altruism that is totally self-centred. Get this though - this is the most annoying bit - if you give into her pestering and ask her to do something she absolutely 100% will not do it, guaranteed. She will always always do something else. It is so bizarre. For example, when the kids were little, she'd offer to help out around dinner time. Great, I'd say, could you look after the kids so I can get on with cooking. Despite loving the kids and being fantastic with them, she absolutely would not do as I asked. She'd hover around the kitchen, offer to peel carrots etc while the kids get more and more irate about how she's ignoring them. I couldn't stand it any more so I told DH to deal with it. Picture the scene. DH and I cooking dinner, kids going mad. MIL comes along - 'Can I help?' DH says, 'Yes mum, it'd be great if you'd take the kids out in the garden for a bit, let them run around before we eat.' MIL: 'Do these potatoes need peeling?' DH: 'No mum, best to just occupy the kids, we'll get on with food.' MIL: 'What about the carrots?' DH (who in 20 years has never once raised his voice to me or even said a cross word): MUM I ASKED YOU TO LOOK AFTER THE KIDS COULD YOU DO THAT PLEASE???' Cue his mum looking all hurt and poor DH being the bad guy. Still, better that than me strangling her with teatowel.

My guess OP is that your mum has a long history of difficult behaviour that goes beyond the incidents you mentioned, it's just that you're usually more able to manage her and you couldn't when you were pregnant so you got the brunt of her complexes and neuroses.

"My guess OP is that your mum has a long history of difficult behaviour that goes beyond the incidents you mentioned, it's just that you're usually more able to manage her and you couldn't when you were pregnant so you got the brunt of her complexes and neuroses."

I agree with the above.
Similar experience, always making a stressful situation even more stressful, high drama, all about her, the poor victim of everyone.

It's understandable that this is still upsetting you. It was a time when you were very vulnerable and wanted support, which she offered and effectively withdrew. That is a betrayal of your trust. You mention an incident from Student days... well it seems like its been going on for years. That's an upsetting realisation. She's a resentful parent for whatever reason and takes it out on the closest person to her. But that is NOT YOUR FAULT!!!

I think you might need someone to talk it through with and to give you strategies for how to cope with it.

It's understandable that you had too much on your plate to deal with it at the time and now its coming back to you. It's also because you are looking at your children and finding it hard to imagine ever treating them that way, so why did she do that to you.

Personally, I'd be inclined to write down some examples of what she did and how she made you feel.. particularly the bitch comment. Then I'd think about whether to challenge her on it. Its probably true that she will deny and get angry, but I'd still feel that she should know the hurt she's caused. I never did and I sort of wish I had. However, I don't know how that would have turned out and its really a personal decision for you. Maybe writing it down would be enough and avoid a massive drama.

Moving forward I would lower lower lower my expectations of her. She is not someone you should expect or ask for support from anymore, and as pps have said... draw up a list of help to solve general problems, so that she's not your last option, because I think it could start up again if she was. Also, Consider how much/how often you want to see her, organise it so that you are not cooped up together for long spells and perhaps so that its where you can calmly leave if she displays aggression or meanness towards you. It means a more superficial relationship but it would be calmer one. Its sad, but it will be less hurtful to you and it is her loss really.

ATM, my girls are teenagers and I want the best for them at all times. Better than I had. I believe my mum was the same about me.
and then, at some point there was a switch. For me, I think it was when I got divorced. Because he wasn’t good enough for me, yet he was far better than her husband who she couldn’t divorce, wasn’t really an option then. I think at that point my mum must have switched to ‘you spoilt brat’ kind of thing.

i do think that’s what’s happened here. Your lead up to birth was so much ‘easier’ than hers, she’s consumed with jealousy.

You say unexpectedly overdue, were you overdue with your first 2? Were you being pressured to get an induction but refusing?

Just a thought but if I’ve read you right, your Mum had some sort of heart episode whilst being away from home serious enough to warrant a hospital appointment, and you were late picking her up from that? Could she maybe have felt a bit taken for granted and uncared for at that point and lashed out?

You’ve misread it. OP was in hospital having her baby’s heart monitored and as a result was late to take her mum out for a coffee.

Ah fair enough, apologies- long day!

I suspect that for much of your life you have learnt to work around your mother's emotional disregulation, and have almost unconsciously become skilled at not 'setting her off'; you deflect, back down, appease, make sure everything is to her liking because you know the result if you don't.
But when you were heavily pregnant and exhausted you didn't have the physical or emotional energy to devote to keeping her on an even keel and she went off kilter.

I also wonder, considering you live abroad and your later update about her swearing at your DH when you were on holiday, if she is very bad at dealing with unfamiliar environments, some people are not at all adaptable and are quite rigid in their thinking about how things should be. In other countries/other people's homes we need to be flexible and go with the flow (the uncertainty about when your baby would be born would also play into this kind of unadaptability)

Anyway, I think she behaved very badly and I'm not surprised you are so hurt. Like others, I don't think she will ever accept her behaviour was bad, but I hope you can move forward, you can reduce contact or you can take her as she is and accept that she will make unpleasant remarks from time to time. then you choose whether you turn a deaf ear, or you say to her 'that's not on Mum we don;t talk to each other that way, you need to stop it.'

I would focus your energy on your own lovely family, and rejoice in the fact that you can be a much better mother to your own children. The one advantage of disfunctional parents is that it can help us know what we definitely won't do in our own parenting.

Like others I’m guessing there’s a pattern to this and the only reason it doesn’t happen more frequently is due to you managing the situation. I’d focus on now you are more aware of it how are you going to manage it? Are you going to put boundaries in place? Call her out?

I’m not surprised that you still feel hurt. Tbh if I was called “f* bitch” in these circumstances by my parent it would be the last time they would see me. In my book your mum could be grumpy, moany, uncooperative she could have said that she had enough and wanted to go home but this choice of words was way too much.
I wouldn’t forget it and wouldn’t trust her again. Im suprised that you took her for a holiday together. I wouldn’t.

I couldn't imagine not sending 30 pounds so my child could eat until their student loan came through. I mean I would feel sick at the thought of either of my children going hungry when I had ample money to help. And the fact that you went hungry for two days rather than risk asking her again when your card was stolen overseas is appalling. I am afraid I would find it very difficult to have anything but the most minor involvement with her in future. She is not kind. In fact, your mother sounds like a mean drunk.

I had ample support when I had my first baby. I actually convalesced in a delightful private hospital wing set up for new mothers with midwives available 24/7 to deal with the little cherub (including overnight) and an a la carte dinner menu. They also set up a very nice afternoon tea for visitors to see the baby. The most energetic thing I did was going through some post partum exercises with a physiotherapist who turned up to set up an exercise program to get my stomach muscles back in shape. My husband was also very involved and took six weeks off to help with the baby. We had a nice house for me to return to with enough space for a sofa in the nursery with a professional nanny already employed. Despite all of this my mother showed no sign of wanting to abuse me for my good luck. To be fair I too was born in a private hospital but it was a financial stretch for my parent in a way it wasn't for me and my mother had a dreadful labour giving birth to the biggest baby in the hospital when she was one of the smallest mothers. She had the house sparkling when I returned home with the baby. She didn't begrudge me my c-section or any of the care I got.