my nosey mother.

[andnowthewait]

i need tips on how to tell my mother to butt out.
Im a grown up. Im 32 fgs. Yet she seems to need to know exacally where i am at all times. This seems to be worse when my child is with her dad. eg: she tells me ill call you later, i say no dont ( because if i dont tell her that, she will call landline/mobile constantly before racing round thinking something has happened)
So, ill say, no, dont call im going out. To which i get: who with/where/what time/what are you wearing.
Just out i say.
she gets huffy that ive not told her.

It is doing my head in.

I asked her to babysit this friday as i was going round a friends. She did and had my child overnight at hers as its easier for her as she likes to go to bed at about 9.30pm.
But since i picked her up ive been constantly harrassed about where i was and what i was doing.

My sister even called as mother had called her and asked her if she knew what i was doing.

It does my head in.

diddl - Obviously I don't know for sure that the OP's mother has an anxiety disorder, she could be just a very controlling manipulative person. I don't know anyone who is so controlling so I can't tell but I do have a very close family member who suffers from an anxiety disorder and a lot of what the OP wrote sounded familiar to me. In my experience someone with anxiety will worry about things obsessively and will seek reassurance to help reduce the anxiety. CBT works in part by trying to get people not to seek out the reassurance and to confront the anxiety. Through time this will help reduce the anxiety. Because the OP's sister and brother will not reassure their mother I feel she has moved her complete focus to the OP as the OP does reassure her. As I said I could be wrong but the fact the OP's mother would not cross a bar in case something happens would seem to back this up.

Regardless to wether it is an anxiety disorder or a desire for excessive control I don't think our advice to the OP differs.
Set boundaries & stick to them

Can't you just approach it honestly with her, without assuming she has a personality disorder? Maybe because you always try to get her off the phone, and say you can't talk, that she thinks that you are trying to hide something? I'd approach her like an adult and just say she needs to ease off a bit. She'll probably get defensive but she'll understand.

OP, this sounds so difficult for you and must be driving you mad!

I just wonder if your mother is religious at all or has very old fashioned views on single women? I ask this because a friend of mine had a similar thing with her father (who was quite religious) after she got divorced. He would always just be popping by on her day off work with some food, phoning every hour on her daughters nursery days, if her DD was at her dads then he would insist friend would stay at her parents home for the night and if she said she had other plans he would start the "where you going, who with, male or female, what time". etc.etc

If he couldnt get hold of her then he'd be ringing round the family and she'd be told he needed to talk to her urgently - she'd phone and it would be nothing!

In the end she confronted him and it boiled down to the fact that he thought that she was shagging every man who came into contact with her! Her answer was "chance would be a fine thing" (didnt go down too well!). She was also quite insulted that he didnt see her as adult enough to make her own choices in life ie regarding men.

She basically told him that her life was private and that she would not tolerate it anymore and that he would have to respect her wishes. He wasnt happy but had to accept it.

So I just wonder if you could maybe meet up with her and ask her why she does this? and get to the root cause of it. Maybe she cant accept you have grown up and imagines that all sorts of things could happen to you.

I do hope you manage to sort this out as it is not good for your sanity either.

I really feel sorry for you OP as my mother is like this (I am 45!!!) but not quite to the extent as yours.

For example, I book to go to a concert with some friends. Instead of her saying "oh that's nice bella" she would say "how are you going to get there and back, you are not driving are you?"

I have to ring her on a Tuesday and a Saturday (I work too) and she will ring me at say 10.15 on the Tuesday morning wondering why I haven't phoned her. I am usually running around trying to tidy the house first, getting dinner prepped, getting my shower etc... or if it is a Saturday, I might go into town on the morning and she starts ringing before lunch to see where I am .

I find this with my mum. It's like being a teenager again; yes-infuriating. I think that it's a control thing. She has a little bit of power over you again as you are relying on her as a babysitter. I HATE it too.