Feeling left out of the family.

[suzieseal]

I have always been close to my mum as her only daughter but I am very poor and have learning difficulties so I struggled at school and now only earn minimum wage and live in social housing, I do have have a husband and 2 children and drive which at one point were all things I thought were out of my reach.
My parents have a lot of money and so does my brother who has a good job so they all eat out at nice places and go on nice holidays, wear nice things and live in big houses, very unlike my lifestyle.
Ever since my brother met his stb wife I feel like my mum has just moved on from me, she spends all her time with them, going out for meals and fancy things.
They are all really well spoken and especially my brothers stb wife who’s very well educated which brings out the posh voice in my mum so she now constantly talks with what was always just her telephone voice.
We met up over the holidays and she spent the whole time talking to her and my brother while me and my family felt invisible, my mum seems out to please her and do everything her way and there seems such a divide in the family as them with money and us left behind.
I never thought my mum would do this as we’ve been close up until now and now I just think she’s ashamed of us.
We haven’t seen them for a while due to distance but they meet every weekend for lunch and we travelled all that way to spend time with the family and nobody spoke to us, we went out for the day and mum lagged behind talking to her all day, when we stopped to look at anything everyone else carried on so we had to keep up or get left behind but when she stopped to look at anything everyone else stopped and didn’t walk on until she was ready and every suggestion we made was run by her and done her way.
I was upset for my family, my children were ignored while her child and my brother’s kids got all the attention and we’d driven hours.
I didn’t recognise my mum, she planned a day out with us all and we felt like we were intruding, we were, ignored, talked over and just felt invisible, nobody listened when we spoke even when I talked to my brother he interrupted me to speak to them.
It was such an uncomfortable weekend, it’s as if mum knows we’re not her type of people so she pretended we weren’t there.
I don’t know what to make of it.

You have a choice. Either tell your mum how you feel. Or try to arrange to be just your mum and your family. Or simply don't bother again.

You're clearly doing ok yourself as you can afford to travel but aren't as wealthy as your bother or mum. That's ok. Life is like that. But your mum should appreciate that you have come to visit and also acknowledge your kids, her grandkids.

Personally I wouldn't bother again. I'd wait to see what reaction, if any, you get from not being in contact. I'm an only child and my parents died over 30 years ago. They both had lots of siblings....I didn't hear from any of them from one year to the next (apart of one aunt and uncle on either side). Their loss not mine.

I don’t know what I want to do about it, she will be different if it’s just her and us but when we go down for Christmas or occasions it will never just be us.
She has only changed since my brother met his partner which was only just coming up for 2 years and everyone has changed since.
She seems to have dominated the family and looks down on us.
I’m glad to see my brother happy but it has changed the dynamics of the family, it’s like my mum is trying to prove to her that she’s as good as her and I don’t fit into that so she just stuck with her all day and we were that other family over there that weren’t really part of them.

That’s really really sad to hear op. You should definitely speak to your mum about it. She might then say you are imagining it, or making up issues or something but at least she knows you are aware of it. Did your kids notice anything?

I have spoken to her about it this evening, she said she just likes to keep the peace and thinks it’s my brother that’s tripping over trying to please her and she was just going along with it so not to rock the boat and make things awkward.
I couldn’t say much more because she got upset saying whatever she does is wrong and she always ends up upsetting somebody whatever she does so I couldn’t really discuss it further.
She has ditched our family to prove she is more like them than us but she’ll still be nice in secret.
I will probably just get on with my life and leave them to it. My kids aren’t less than the others and they deserve better.

This 100%.