to not want a reconciliation with my mother

[Hod]

I have had a long running fall out with my mother and rarely see her. In fact, I tend to think of her as dead. Not hate, just think of her as no longer with us. I have a feeling that there is going to be some sort of reconciliation attempt. Thing is, I love not seeing her at Christmas and Easter most of all. The very last thing I want is to lose my excuse not to go there. I have toyed with the idea of murdering her myself, but I don't drive and I think a car would be essential. I have tried hard to love her but I have failed. On a bad day I can still smell her.

So the prob is, I don't want a reconciliation because I find not having to see her a luxury. Last night in bed I was reliving every awful moment of our 'family' Christmases; the shit food, the tension, the tweeness, the beady-eyed disapproval of EVERYTHING. I don't want to go back. I don't care how much she apologises, I TREASURE my divorce from her.

She is a cow and I am not going to her funeral. I look at my friends now who have daughters and go to all sort of lenghths to make them feel good, not giving them issues with their weight and body image. My mother never ever told me I was pretty, told me I was fat, told me I was anorexic. Picks fault in everything. She used to hurt my ds and he complained to me, and I told her and that was another mistake. She is utterly toxic and I would do anything to avoid being part of her foul food and stupid, bitchy, negative conversation. Don't make me go there.

Expect to be flamed, but feel better for getting it out.

... bottom line is, it is your choice. I may or may not agree with it or think I could do the same, but only you know what you can live with and that's what it comes down to. If you are not abusing somebody in the process of your decision would be my only caveat.

Crap cooking and bitchy conversation sound possibly more misguided/unhappy mind than malevolent to me but I appreciate only you have lived through this!

Possible middle point might be to say you would be interested in accepting the proffered olive branch but you feel things will end as they did before unless the two of you can attempt to alter the way you engage. Eg, she avoids hurting your DS (not sure if you mean physically/verbally here) with examples of what hurt him; you don't want to ever discuss your weight again. You would have to be open to hear what she considers unacceptable from you though.

Last Christmas I was all on my own. Ds went abroad for a fab luxury time with his Dad. Dp wandered around the country visiting his relations. I stayed here, ate what I liked, read, watched tv, practised my Italian, but mostly hugged myself in glee at avoiding the whole xmas shebang. My blueprint for a lovely Christmas. The very last thing I want is a group hug that would mean I had to engage with her. The fall out we had is a very convenient smokescreen for me to avoid her altogether. I can't describe how toxic she is. She used to repeatedly tell me that I was, 'a bit broad on the beam', a typically her phrase that meant that I was fat. That was when I was 15. I have been v slim all my adult life and that got her on her anorexia spiel. My friends who have daughters are so impressively aware of not saying things like that.

Since I have not seen her, my weight and general health have improved no end. I am now around 9 stone or a bit more and 5' 8'', which is right in the middle of the healthy zone. In the past I have been told so often by ma that I am anorexic that I have done a lot of reading about anorexia to see if I am, or was. I decided that I wasn't because I didn't think I was fat. I knew I was underweight and I tried disgusting powder drink from Holland and Barratt to put on weight to get her off my back. Just getting away from the stress of even thinking about her has been so lovely.

I am so pleased that everyone is so aware of anorexia/bad body image on here.

Thanks for replying. She has her glasses in a chain around her neck and she used to hug him tightly so the glasses made and imprint in his chest. This went on for years. She just does barmy things. She once pinned me against the fridge by the neck. She seems like an anti-social toddler who can't bear not to be the centre of attention. For example, we were washing her and Dad's car for them, having a lovely time with the hose, and she came tearing out, yelled at my ds about wasting water, made ds cry, made dp describe her as 'pathological', ds still uses this as an excuse not to see her. She does see ds, so I am not stopping her seeing her gs, but I want to be counted out.

My only brother has felt the same way about her for more years than I have. He just avoids her and avoids speaking to her. I used to think he could make an effort but I don't anymore. She is in her 70s now.

Shut up hod and go back to your usual name.
Not seeing her is such a bonus to my life, my happiness and my health. It is a luxury that I refuse to give up. I would be dreading Christmas even now if I didn't have this lovely, lovely luxurious fallout with her. Save me from family reconciliations. Anything but that. The dividend is my bliss. I am not giving it up.

I totally understand and well done you for taking the stance you have. I wish I had the courage to do the same.

Your problems around her seem very much to be focussed around food and your weight. Can you think of themn as issues SHE has rather than you? If she says you're anorexic try not to justify your weight to prove you're not (which you're doing in your posts by the way...). Your own knowledge that you're a healthy weight should be sufficient - or do you need some sort of affirmation from your mum that your weight is fine? Hope you don't mind me suggesting this but some sort of counselling to find out why her validationis so important might help you detatch?

What were the issues ypu had with her treatment of your ds?

What makes you think that an attempt at reconciliation is on the cards?

Only you have lived your relationship with her. So try not to be swayed by other people's perceptions of how it could/should be.

As long as you are sure that, if anything were to happen to her, you would not regret your stance.

Or, you could hear what she has to say, and be calmly civil, but continue to keep her at a distance. Do not engage with her.

I sympathise!

It's not just weight, I just used that as an example. It's childrearing, housework, gardening. Could I encapsulate her in one small anecdote. She came to visit us on one of her awful critising visits. We drove through my village past the war memorial. She complained for the whole journey that the war memorial was very very well maintained, and whoever had time to look after it so well just showed that they had 'nothing better to do'. Of course, if the war memorial was tatty and neglected she would have complained about that. I just carried on driving, counting the hours til she left. I just thought, only she could look so hard for something to criticise and come up with the disgracefully well kept war memorial.

Also, she is incredibly bitchy about other people who I don't know. She has been very very lucky in her life; no money worries, no health problems, doesn't appreciate that a lot of that is luck. She looks down at anyone who is divorced.

She started once about someone I don't know, saying, '4 sons and none of them married', obviously wanting to start a good old bitch about how superior she is. Every conversation involves some sort of 'hook' like that.

Her cooking is foul. ds and I eat before going there. She is very proud of it and talks about it endlessly. She has this stupid fantasy that it is smashing. And you get about 2 sprouts as veg; very unhealthy and truly yucky.

Thanks to the person who said, well done. That is the great thing about our fallout, I have a reason to not go. The last thing I want is a reconciliation. I am clinging to our fallout for dear, dear life. It is liberating.

I had a maternity nurse for the birth of my ds, paid for out of savings, because I couldn't bear the thought of her ruining everything with her subtle carping. Couldn't afford it but had to keep her away.

Just because someone is related to you by an accident of birth doesn't mean you have to have them in your life if they don't deserve to be there.

And you don't need excuses, or reasons. Don't need to justify it in any way to them or anyone.

Just a simple "I want nothing to do with you."

That is your right.

Please remember that she has no power over you. It doesn't matter if she wants a reconciliation because YOU don't and there is NOTHING she can do to compel you. You sound so upset and I think bringing her back into your life will do you no good at all at this point. Hope you don't mind me asking, but does your ds want to see her? Personally I wouldn't let someone who hurt my child anywhere near them. If you and you ds did want to make a complete break don't feel you have to let her see ds just because she is his gran. Everything that happens in your life is up to you

I have thought about her death but it doesn't change anything. I don't intend to see her again. I wish I had got rid of her years ago. She critises everything and she smells, quite badly, and neither I nor anyone else mention that.

The most important thing is that I must never accompany her on a lonely clifftop walk. Only one of us would come back and then I would really feel guilty.

Am I being unreaonable to have pushed my mother over a cliff?

That's how warmly I feel.

Ds tolerates her better now he taller than her. He does seem to always get ill in her care, or have a big bruise or some injury. I'm quite sure she manages it on purpose so she can yet again be centre of attention with 'silly me, poor me' crap. He used to be full of indignation and tell me that she is a liar, in that indignant 4 year old way.

She is a complete martyr. She talks all the time about the good works she is doing. Like Timothy's mum in 'Sorry' but without the humour.

I have been moved to tears on mn, reading about how carefully mums care about their daughters. I can't imagine what it is like. My dp thinks that as eldest daughter i am some sort of threat to her and that is why she carps so relentlessly. Would it sound odd to say that I have only realised in the last 5 years how attractive I am? Because I don't suffer the dripdrip of you're too fat/too thin/anything negative you name it?
My teenage years were a misery. I genuinely considered myself terminally ugly. I have counselling qualifications myself. She is a toxic parent.

On a bad day I can still smell her.

She also says 'sorry' constantly. Ds and I used to play a game which involved us both counting the number of times she said it. It kept us both going on our awful visits. We would mouth the number she had got to to each other.

I got on with her mother very well, but, to be honest, she was a bit mad too. She used to burn share certificates in front of me. She didn't like any of the men her daughers had married and so she used to tell me she wasn't going to leave them all her money and then she used to burn her share certificates in her open fire in front of me. I was about 7 and didn't know what a share cert was. She also used to break valuable things for the same reason. My parents would pick me up after my stay and ask why such and such object was broken. In retrospect it is clear to me that she had been on the sherry. As a child I just found it v odd.

From the outside my family look as though they have had all the luck going, which I don't mind but I don't want to participate. Both parents doctors, big cheeses in voluntary work/school governing/Churchy/fairtrade/world peace...

This has been very helpful for me to get it down.

I'm glad. It can be very useful to write it all down.

I think you are doing the right thing by keeping this door firmly closed!

It sounds like there is so much wrong about your relationship that to get it right, or to get to a point where you are able to forgive her her shortcomings or move on from them in some way, you would need some kind of intensive therapy or help with it...and to do that you'd have to actually want to reconcile. It doesn't sound like you do, and therefore you probably shouldn't.

If you ever do attempt a reconsiliation, perhaps if you were to change your mind in the future, I'd hope you'd consider perhaps a weekly session of private therapy to "debrief" after each session. It sounds like you really need debriefing from a lifetime of dealing with her.

If you draw a line under it and never go back, is there someone you can talk to about it? Dont bottle it up, it sounds like you have a lot of dark thoughts still circling around but hopefully these are healthy and working their way out of your system. It will probably take time.

Good luck, you are very brave.

Oh Hod, I don't see my mother either - she's nasty nasty nasty.

Good advice you've been given here.

Sod her.

Thanks Kuala. She really is dead in my mind. I never read the narcissic threads on relationships because I think I might get sucked in. Also, reading back, she is very very bitchy about her friends/fellow parishioners etc. It is a sort of constant invitation to bitch ifkwim. She is an upstanding member of the community.

V grateful for the advice. I wouldn't have minded being flamed. I would love her to read this.

I'd move on. I'm glad the rant has been cathartic but please don't let your more contented future be tainted by constantly revisiting a past that you cannot influence.

Hod, you can choose your friends but not your family

I keep my own parents at arms length for similar reasons - they have a poisonous interdepedent marriage which neither of them can leave for religious reasons which means that they like to share their venom with their numerous children non of which they have a positive relationship with. Just because they are your parents doesn't mean you have to love them. Just remember that your responsbility is to break that destructive chain with your own children. I try really hard not to repeat my parents mistakes and so far so good. I don't miss them as they never behaved like parents anyway.

Thanks. There is a thread on chat at the mo about someone's daughter confiding in her mother that she had slept with her boyfriend. Things like that make me weep. I simple cannot imagine anything like that.

In emotional terms, that lady is living in a serviced Manhattan apartment and I am a slumdog iyswim.

Yes, I must stop imagining myself pushing her over a cliff, it is not healthy.

You need to get her out of your head to be truly free of her influence. Stop fantasising about murder and concentrate on enjoying your own life and building the strength to politely rebuff any overtures of reconciliation if you decde that this the route you want to take.

Well said, vulture. It has been nice though, to find out that other people have divorced their mothers.

Remember Hod that it was her that was the parent, her that was the adult, she should have done better, she didn't. She blew it, not you.

Don't ever blame yourself for any of this. Let her and all the baggage just go. it'll be an enormous relief to you.