Is it ok to not like your mum as an adult?

[Oceanswirl]

I find myself so confused about my mum. Everyone thinks she's a saint and so gentle and funny. Yet to me she was a dragon as a child. She was always mad, got annoyed if I was poorly, irritated if something made me sad etc. it made me such an anxious kid.

As an adult I still can't have boundaries. She gets extremely offended if I try to have even the smallest boundary in place and ignore them. If I try to speak up, which scares me to death, it's the end of the world and I'm just the rudest daughter. She's very passive aggressive to the point of exhaustion and has non or very slight empathy for me. If I talk to her about something I'm struggling with she makes it about herself and somehow makes me feel like I feel violated by her all the time but she acts like we're best friends. It's an enmeshed and toxic relationship that I can't seem to make better. Sometimes she's kind for the odd day but mostly it's this tension disguised under feigned motherliness. It leaves me cold, confused and she's starting to make my skin crawl.

How do you process a lifetime of feeling hurt? There's no way she'd ever understand how I felt and it would always be turned against me. I feel huge amounts of guilt about feeling like this too as she thinks she's the best mum. She'd be devastated without our relationship. How do you make small boundaries with this odd and anxious dynamic?

Ynbu. Yes it is OK to dislike whoever you want, including your mother. There's a board on here somewhere called 'But we took you to stately homes as a child' or something similar.

Basically you just go low or no contact.

Why would she be devastated without your relationship? If she valued it why would she then be passive aggressive to you and lacking in empathy when you seek advice? It sounds like she doesn't value your relationship but she wants to be seen by others as a perfect mother. Which she clearly isn't at all.

She may think she is the best mum ever but, unless you are actually telling her that then, from what you have written, she is deluded. She may have had a poor role model herself so while she did the best she could it was not good enough.

Someone can be a good friend to others (who never really depend on her for anything) but not a good parent to small children needing support. As an adult, if you can't get the support, friendship and mutual love and respect that you need from her then stop trying. Devote your time to others who you can build strong relationships with.

You can still see her from time to time when it suits you. Otherwise tell her you are busy, tired, have Covid etc. But if you now expect nothing from her and you will cease to be disappointed.

She would be upset but you're right she doesn't value the relationship as a mother and daughter and she has very little respect for my feelings and life views.

'Deluded' is a word that often comes up when my partner and I talk about it.

Yes her parents were very abusive towards her as a child and her elderly mum is vile beyond belief now.

It's the advice I'd give to someone else looking in too but when it's your dynamic it seems so much more complicated than that. She'd make damn sure I couldn't avoid her anyway. I've tried.

I think I'm looking to be polite but firm with boundaries. I just don't know how to do it without being triggered mid sentence and lose it. The last thing I want to do is give her ammo so she can be the victim.

I feel similar.
My mother has played the victim card for years now ( dad died 14 yrs ago ) she’s very needy and she has not left the house now for 2 yrs. She has said she will never go out again. I have pulled back a lot recently as spending time with her was so challenging. She was everything I am not as a parent. She was selfish and neglectful during my teenage years when I needed her more than any other time. I left as soon as I could. My daughter is showered with love and support where I had very little. I know she loves me deeply and I love her but I find it hard to forgive how she wasn’t there for me yet I am expected to be there for her. I feel like a bloody awful daughter and I really want to not be that daughter but I am still really sad and angry with her though I can’t tell her. It’s awful.

I have this with my mother OP. She genuinely thinks she was the best mother to us growing up and now when our experience of her is the exact opposite. I often wonder how she can think that and deluded is a phrase that I too use with her. She has no insight whatsoever into how she comes across. She’s older now but not quite elderly although I almost feel triggered knowing what’s to come as I know exactly how she will behave.

To cope I tell her nothing personal (and she gossips anyway) and keep it all superficial and avoiding as best possible the triggers for her nonsense although that can be impossible. If she tries to raise something to feed her tendencies I change the subject, make an excuse to leave the room (loo, cup of tea) and just deal with her purely on a surface level. If we have to see her and my dad we visit them so we can have control of how long we are there for.

I’d love to tell her what I think but I know it would never change anything and she has zero capacity for any criticism no matter how mild. It’s very sad but I focus on the other relationships that I have instead.

I feel a bit the same @Oceanswirl and I'm sorry it's been so hard. Mine isn't quite as hard work, but I identify a lot of the attitudes and behaviours.

Worth googling Fear, Obligation and Guilt if you're not familiar with it.

To cope I tell her nothing personal (and she gossips anyway) and keep it all superficial and avoiding as best possible the triggers for her nonsense although that can be impossible. If she tries to raise something to feed her tendencies I change the subject, make an excuse to leave the room (loo, cup of tea) and just deal with her purely on a surface level. If we have to see her and my dad we visit them so we can have control of how long we are there for

This advice from @Calmamongthechaos would be the best I could give you

Thank you everyone. I'm sorry some of you are having similar issues. It's not an easy one to navigate through.

Some great advice. I think you're right about keeping's superficial. I have to stop trying to let her in as that's when I get hurt.

I'll definitely Google fear, obligation and guilt thing. It sounds spot on!

I loved my mum, but I’m sad to say I didn’t respect her much. She seemed anti women; ran round after the men of the family as if they were gods and thought us girls should just get wed and raise babies.

When I was pregnant with dd1, I mooted going back to work after her arrival. It was made very clear to me that she would not be prepared to do any child care. I think she lived to regret that, seeing many of her peers have wonderful relationships with their grandchildren.

We learn much from our parents. I learned about how I would never parent girls; I make every effort to show them how valued and valuable they are, that they are capable of anything, that their respect has to be earned and that gender does not define them. I’m sure they will learn much about how not to parent from me!

I feel a lot of this. My mum wasn’t awful in childhood, but she was incredibly emotionally turbulent and it felt permanently like we were walking on egg shells. Just to echo a PP, I see a fair amount of her now, but it’s completely superficial. To listen to us you’d think we were acquaintances, not mother and daughter. I don’t want to cut her out as all her issues stem from the fact she is a chronic people pleaser to everyone but her family, leading her to have absolutely no self esteem or boundaries herself. But, as trying to help her would cause the utmost offence, I just stick to distance. It’s sad, but protecting my own mental health has to take precedence.

Oh OP, I could have written your post a few years ago! It resonates so much with me. You are describing my mother.

I had a long thread on MN a couple of years ago which helped massively. I finally realised how emotionally abusive she had been. In my 40s, I still hadn't really realised!

The past couple of years have been hell as I've put boundaries in place, with her constantly fighting against me.

The fear, obligation and guilt (FOG) that I suffer in enormous and often overwhelms me.

Taking MN-ers advice, I read Toxic Parents by Susan Forward, which I highly recommend to you. It's a long long road and I wish you luck.

I've said this many times on here op. When ds1 was born I recall holding him in my arms knowing my purpose was to love, nurture and protect him. In that moment I knew I could never hurt him, emotionally or otherwise and that he was part of the centre of my universe. I wept, knowing in that moment I had never known a mother's true love.

When dd was 12, she asked how I'd put up with her, coming home from a week at grannie's accompanied by constant digs and nag, nag, nag until she did what grannie wanted. She refused ever to go again. In that moment I realised it wasn't me who had always been inadequate.

I have learnt much on the Stately Homes threads. My mother is a classic narcissist. My father wouldn't enable her, step 1 wouldn't, step 2 had for the last 40 years.

My childhood appeared charmed. Beautiful house, wonderful holidays, stunning and "charming" mother who my friends were in awe of, even a pony. But no mother's love. Looking back she has fallen out with so many people and I still get Christmas cards from some of her close chums with whom she has not contact now. For years I was regarded as the difficult daughter. They know and I know that they know although never a word has passed about it.

My epitaph will read "she tried to please her mother".

I hear you op. Move on and away from her emotional grasp.

My mum is the same @alicew89 a people pleaser to everybody except me

My epitaph will read "she tried to please her mother".

That was me until about 48. At 48 I told her she had hurt me, she glossed over decades of casually labelling me paranoid. I forgive the past but strangely it was the glossing over it in the present like it bored her that hurt me. I told her. And OMG she has been a martyr since then. She is the victim of me. She has given me the silent treatment, stonewalled me, talked about me not to me, thrown a long list of other labels at me too, as well as the original ones. If I couldn't handle being paranoid on a regular basis then I don't know why she thought calling me abusive, detached from reality and entitled would help.

It is ok to keep your distance OP. Give yourself permission to do so. I did this, and it was transformative.

I hear ya. Sometimes I think my whole family are colluding in this fictional life to maintain my mother's belief that she was / is a great mum. In many ways she is / was, in others... my sister has been in therapy for years (mother just brushes that aside, says she doesn't know what she finds to talk to the therapist about). I'm less affected but I do know that extended time in my mothers company is really bad for my mental health, so I take steps to avoid this happening. I live abroad, only see them maybe 2-3 times a year. I definitely keep things superficial: she butts in with her 'helpful' advice on everything, so there's no point in giving her even more ammunition. She's actually OK one-to-one, in a family situation she's a nightmare though.

How close do you live to her OP? How much time do you spend together? Do you have siblings? I'm so grateful that my sister and I are close and on the same page regarding our mum: reassures both of us that we aren't going mad!

I'm very similar. I have no advice. It sucks. I can't even try to put boundaries in because she passive aggressively preempted that by saying "I'm so worried you'll try and boss me around one day"... even though I have NEVER done anything of the sort! So now any time I even consider saying anything other than polite chit chat, my head screams "don't be bossy". Sigh.

I think the reason you're confused is because you are both respectful and disrespectful of her feelings.

So, she judges you negatively/is passive aggressive etc, and you find those things unacceptable, but then you are still trying not to hurt her and feel guilty for judging her negatively.

The reason you're struggling to have boundaries is because it's impossible to place a boundary when you don't know where you stand. You're asking if it's ok not to like her; who makes the rules for you about what you are and aren't allowed to like? This search for an external set of rules about what you should feel is something you need to end. We can't choose how we feel. Imagine if we could! We'd all love the gym and we'd fall in love with people who were a good idea. We'd all choose to thoroughly enjoy work, and we'd all choose to be happy. Feelings are something you have to accept, and, if you present them respectably to the outside world, the world has to accept them too. You don't like your mum because she treats you unpleasantly; all that that demonstrates is that, internally, emotionally, you have good boundaries. Someone treats you poorly, and you don't like them, as a result.

Don't question your feelings. Work out what they're telling you. 'I need her not to be in my life any more'? 'I need to only see her once a month, tops'?

The only boundaries lesson you (or anybody else) need to learn can be put in one sentence: Stay away from people and situations that make you feel crap.

Don't let her make you feel bad because of your mother's abuse, and that's what it is.

No or low contact is the way to go.

As I got older I started playing her games back on her. So she would expect to be the first to be told any news so I would let other people know and let them tell her.

It amused me.

I also used to call out her lies, not to her but to others eg to my brother. When anyone asked if we were twins she would always say there was 18 months between us, but there wasn't.

At her funeral I just felt bored, until my cousin almost had me corpsing.

I am trying to unpick some of these issues myself. I have spent a whole lifetime confused about all my family dynamics. I gaslight myself all.the time and screw my head up trying to decide if I am making a mountain out of a mole hill or not.
I so relate to the pp who said their epitaph would be they tried to please their mother . In my case mother and father.

I have tried my utmost to raise my own children differently and I think I have not I still have no true sense if who I really am. it is such a drain on my mental reserves.
Ultimately I love my parents dearly so it is v hard to acknowledge any of this and confronting them would be pointless so I think I turn it on myself which is not helpful at all.

@Watchkeys I think you're right and highlighted the self doubt and lack of boundaries I've been conditioned to have as a child. I still feel like a child around her too. It's been good to have some fresh perspective on this and accept that this is how I feel about her and think about what I want to do.

Many thanks everyone.

The way you feel about your dm is not uncommon, sadly. It sounds like the image she portrays of herself is very different from your experience of her and that is confusing for you. I think you need to take a step back and fully accept who she is with all her limitations. It sounds like she is not capable of helping you with the things you are struggling with so accept that and seek the support you need elsewhere. Other posters have said that she will probably never recognise her failings and I think they are correct.

I would then think about what kind of relationship with her would suit you. How often would you like to see her and in what setting? She might not like the new status quo but she has less power over you than you think.

Perhaps you feel conflicted at the moment but over time it is likely that you will clearer about who she is to you and how you would like her to fit in your life.

Does she have a personality disorder? I’m almost certain my mother has borderline personality disorder.

Have you tried the grey rock method - it helped me with my mother..
www.healthline.com/health/grey-rock#takeaway

Also, i just wanted to share this poem as i wish my parents understood the idea behind it!

On Children
By Kahlil Gibran

“Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For thir souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness.
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He also loves the bow that is stable.”

This resonates with me, particularly the conflict between wanting a great mother-daughter relationship and not being prepared to know the other person well enough to have one. I think @vincettnoir said it well. Your feelings are absolutely ok but it’s not easy to untangle them in this type of relationship.

Early on in your posts OP you said she had a very difficult relationship with her own mum, and I think realising the level of damage she suffered can help, and help explain her behaviour as "damaged" not vindictive, uncaring, etc. - so it can feel less personal and hurtful to you.

I'd also suggest having some psychoanalytic psychotherapy with someone registered on BACP website. PP particularly looks into historical familial relationships and helps you to untangle them and find best ways forward. I found it really helpful.

And gentle distancing - not just in concrete things like visits, but mentally so you become less invested. But you almost need to do it by stealth so she gets used to the "new less" and it avoids "that conversation" over again.

I've found if I see my relationship with her as if she's my sister rather than my mother (so cutting out any expectations of a mother/child type relationship and becoming viewed as one of equals) it's subtly changed my expectations of the relationship for the better - and more accurately matches what she's able to give. And allows me to feel more able to distance when needed. It changes the "power balance".

Hi OP,

I could have written your post several years ago. Towards the end of our relationship, my mother made my skin crawl. I very much related to your line : "tension disguised under feigned motherliness".

When I did therapy my therapist told me my mother has narcissistic personality disorder. When I later did EMDR, the therapist told me that my mother was a sociopath.

We've not spoken in around 10 years and my life is better for it. I've spent much of my adult life picking up the pieces of a very damaging childhood and trying to heal the trauma. No way was I going to spend my life doing that then take care of her in her old age.