More of a what would you do

[Whattodonowaye]

Long time lurker first post. I am 18 and not a mother but i love mumsnet and will be grateful for any replies.

Well my mother and I have a very strained realtionship and have done for as long as I can remeber. She is mostly a lovely person but we are very similar and often clash over certain things. She's been very off with me for a few days and today we had a massive argument and she kicked me out, we were both in the wrong because we shouldnt of lost our tempers but i dont see a way on how we can fix this. Ive been moving in and out since i was 14 and i just want us to be ok with each other again, I would elaborate further but she is a mumsnetter herself and would know it was about her. Basically how can i repair this relationship, she is very headstrong and stubborn and does not like to apologise i really dont knwo what to do

My DS is only a baby so I've not got much experience of teens - except when I was one myself. Hopefully someone can come along and advise you soon, but I just didn't want to leave you unanswered. I used to argue loads with my mum. It finally got better when I was about 23, and had been away form home for a bit, and we have a good relationship now, that's (almost) all in the past now. She didn't throw me out, though, I left.

Most importantly in the short term, where are you going to stay?

if you have somewhere adequate to stay - maybe your relationship would be better at a distance.

if you haven't got anywhere adequate to stay

then in your shoes i would question your mothers motherlyness and wonder why she let me sleep in a shithole.

Poor you - it is likely that things will cool off if you can stay away for a bit longer. Are you staying with friends/family?

My sis and I both had troubled relationships with our mum when we were teens, my sis left home (was partly pushed) when she was 18 as well and it worked out fine in the long run.

I think (cod psychology) that it is often partly to do with you now thinking you are an adult and wanting to be accepted and treated as such, and your mum still seeing you as very much her little girl who should do what she's told - I know that was part of the problem in our case.

Try and look at things from her pov as well - have you been unreasonable? Then I would write her a letter with an unequivocal apology, even though you KNOW she was in the wrong too, just apologise for your part of it without mentioning her part. Ask if you can discuss with her how you 2 could get along better, in terms of living together without battering against each other all the time. See if you can find a way to change YOUR behaviour that would help your mum to accept your new-adult status a bit better. You can't change your mum - you can only change you - but from experience I can tell you that when YOU change, your mum probably will too because she will react differently to your different behaviour.

Hope that helps!

The things which made it better between me and my mum were -

1. Living apart - I'm not saying it's the best thing for you (and I was 19 when I went) but for us it certainly helped.

1. I realised that the ways in which she hurt me didn't come from a bad place - she didn't hate me. Instead, the ways she treated me badly came from failings in herself which she couldn't help. No one's perfect, she's only human and actually she'd done her best.

1. She said something which made me realise she did actually appreciate me. Until then I had no idea, I just felt in the way I guess.

I have no idea if any of those things are relevant to your relationship, but maybe they might help?

Actually the one thing I really regret is that my mum did suggest family counselling when I was about 13 (we'd already been arguing for years at this point). I said yes, but we never got round to it. I wish we had. I think it would have been a really good thing.

Does anyone have any experience of family counselling? The OP says she wants to repair their relationship - could this be worth a try? How would she go about finding out about it?

haven't done family counselling but I have had counselling myself, which helped me to realise that Mum did the best she could because it was all she knew to do. Couldn't ever get her to see that she had done anything "wrong" though - in her eyes, she hadn't, and perhaps she really hadn't, she had just done the best she knew how (even if it's not what I would have done).

Certainly personal counselling helped me to sort out my relationship with my mum, which then affected the relationship as a whole, in a good way, because I was no longer reacting to her as a sulky teen (I did that until I was nearly 30 ) - so she stopped reacting to me as though I were a sulky teen and started seeing me more as an adult in my own right.

I have been to family counselling to sort out problems with my stepfather. Unfortunately for the whole family it wasn't hugely successful - BUT I wouldn't let that stop anyone from trying it, I think it depends on the personalities and the counsellor. I was much younger when I went and so much more unreasonable. OP seems much more willing to try and mend relationship so I would have good hopes. Counselling is a good place to get everything out with a 3rd party to help mediate. I would suggest looking into in your local area, family clinics and local health centres should have something about it. Even if you don't try counselling I hope you manage to talk to your mum and get your relationship back on track. Good Luck x