my nosey mother - again.

[andnowthewait]

shes bloody done it again.

She said she might pop round yesterday afternoon to get something out of my garage ( for which she has a key so i dont need to be here to let her in) i told her that i might not be in and to help herself.

I was in, but literally on way out of the door, she came running up just as i was getting in my car.

She got all huffy with me because i was going out and wanted to know where i was gong. Just out, was, apparently not good enough.

I told her i had to go, else would be late, but to help herself. I tried to call her last night and she not picking up the phone to me and is ignoring me. PATHETIC.

worst still was friday i had a friend over. brother was storing some stuff in my garage and had to come get it out friday. couldnt come any other time. Oh shit thought i, as person visiting is new boyfriend type person.
So, i asked brother what time he was coming and how long he expected to be. I then got totally interogated by both him and my mother about what i was up to and that, as i wasnt telling them i have something to hide.

I had to tell my brother, that yes, a man was coming round, but not to be an idiot about it. Hes 23.
Friday night came, man managed to get in without being seen. BUT just as brother went he was knocking on the door, calling up. So i had to answer ( stuck my dishelved head out of the bedroom window. it was obvious what i was doing) while basically my brother embarassed me.

I do not get why my family are like this to me. Its not acceptable.

because i thought life was too short, and she told me she had changed.

Interestingly enough , her opion on how this happened is totally different to what actually happened, what DID happen is she sent a small present for my child and asked my sister to ask me if i would see her.
The way mum tells it is very very different, in that i decided i finally needed my mum and it went from there
she even tells me this, like i wasnt there to know what actually happened.

Sorry, but I think you're giving her mixed messages here.
You didn't have to phone her to "check she'd picked up the stuff from the garage OK."
She said she was coming, she has a key (get that back, for a start) so why would she not have got it? If there'd been a problem, she'd have let you know.

Stay away. Keep her at arm's length. Get other babysitters. "I'm not discussing that with you." Repeat ad nauseam.

Good luck.

Yes, narcissists swear black is white.

Anyway - maybe life is too short to put with it any more?

Worried that your brother also thinks he can carry on like this though. Is he the same?

Maybe you could deal with your brother separately, just getting rid of his stuff. Goodness knows your mother will be hard work, but if you can just get your brother sorted, it could give you energy to carry on dealing with your mother!

Good luck!

Change your locks and stop answering your phone.

YOU don't seem to realise that you don't have to engage with anyone you don't want to engage with.

Disengage.

If she calls round your house, don't answer the door.

If she keeps knocking, keep ignoring her.

If she truns up where you cannot avoid speaking to her (like where you work, and I bet she will do this if you stop engaging in other places) - you give her the broken record treatment and say "I love you but I'm busy. I will ring you on Xday" and you KEEP saying it.

last time we had a big row - about the same thing, she called round just as i was about to pick my child up from nursery.
She turned up on the door step saying she was not going to leave until we sorted it out.

When i said i had to go, else i would be late and charged by the nursery she went even more mental at me, as according to her, it was an excuse and i was not priotitising her.

She said this to me yesterday. MOnday she said she thought she would pop in, have an ice cream with me in my garden ( she had not mentioned this bit to me) i had told her ( despite what she now says) that i might not be in. I was fully intending to not be in, but if i had told her that i would have had 20 questions and more hastle, so it was easier to say i might not be in.
anyway. Last night she was going off on one saying i should proristise seeing her and family and that she had told me she was coming round and so i should have been there and she is deeply offended and hurt i was not.

she is clearly some kind of narcisist - everything revolves round her. She is incapable of seeing life from anyone else's view point.

So disengage. Don't call, ask her to babysit or speak to her accept on your terms. Ignore all threats and emotional blackmail.

Repeat "that's private" in response to all interrogations. Ad naseum.

The thing is she is capable of being "trained" - your sister has managed it.

sister hasnt managed it at all. Its just she has a parnter to vent to. many many a time she goes into a bit of a depression about it. Or goes totally hysterical with frustration and has a massive outburst.

Thing is, nothing ever changes. Mum is fine, its just those around her. Weirdest thing is, her friends and anyone that knows her would think she is the loveliest person in the world. so many times we have been told by her friends that we are very lucky (!!!!!!!!????????)
and that just boulsters her ego or whatever it is that makes her act this way.

Sister has just come to the point where she accepts thats how it is and theres nothing she can do about it.

Move counties! Nothing like an hour-plus drive to stop people dropping round...

I don't really understand from this why she's so terrible but maybe there's a back story. Maybe i'm just stupid!

If she hadn't said she wouldn't babysit why would you think she wouldn't and arrange someone else to do it? I think that does sound rude of you (sorry!). Your mum had probably been organising it and looking forward to it. You thought she'd been sulking by not picking up the phone for 3 nights, what if she was out or busy?

Sounds like you all misconstrue everything everyone else does or says!

creepy - she was ignoring me beacuse i wasnt in when she wanted me to be, and wouldnt tell her where i was going.

She normally phones me about three times a day, so to not talk to me for 3 days, and not return any of my calls something was def up.

she had been moaning about babysitting as she didnt want to do it, she was not talking to me, and i was calling her and she was not returning any of my calls. for all i knew she would still not be talking to me today, and i would have no sitter and not be able to go. So i found someone else to do it.

To a point you are enabling her tbh.
Why did you call to see if she had the stuff?
Why did you tell your brother that Friday was OK to collect the stuff?

Change your locks-house & garage & your phone number-& don´t tell them the new one!

i didnt tell him it was ok. i said it wasnt.
but he said it was the only time he could come, and he needed a friend to help as he was lifting a car engine out of the garage, had also special equit just that night to do it.

thing is, im caught between a rock and a hard place. If i say ' no then is not good' i get 1001 questions and beacuse i wont answer it causes an argument.

or i say nothing, and it causes an argument.

i was calling her to see if she had the stuff, and tbh i could see she was very huffy with me. Taking a leaf out of my siters book i decided to call, and pretend like nothing was up ( when clearly she was pissed off at me)

if i hadnt of called her i would have been accussed of all sorts of stuff.

This is the point - i cant win. i can never be in the right.

Hello, andnow.

I'm sorry if I sounded unsympathetic in a previous post.

The thing is, you're absolutely right-you can't win. Your mother always wins and you are always wrong. I think that must be really hard for you. But since that's how it is, then maybe you don't need to worry about being the bad guy and you can concentrate on doing what you want.

Your mum seems to get hacked off anyway so all you need to deal with is the constant phone calling when you don't play ball. Could you get another, secret mobile for friends' calls? Switch off the old phone and leave it at home, then your mother can't bother you. Ignore her if she comes round (and maybe change the lock on the garage).

All you have to lose is a bit of occasional babysitting she says she doesn't like doing anyway.

Does that sound like a plan?

sister is trying the serenely not giving a stuff appraoch. but its really really hard. Have you tried that aganist someone when its your own mother. thing is mum just ramps it up more and more. and gets more and more people involved as well. so the poor person who is suppossibly in the wrong at the time, feels the wrath of mother, plus anyone else she has roped in.
Big fall out last year, sister ending up having to say sorry to not only mum, but brother and step dad, as apparently, they were deeply upset at how she had treated mum ( by refusing to take mums bait)

thing is, if you speak to step dad or brother on their own, they admitt they do anythuing for a quiet life, and that mother is in thw rong, they just know there is no point disagreeing with her, because you will never win. and then because noone does disagree with her, she gets worse and worse and worse.

nightmare

I can see that you can never win and never be in the right.

So you accept that and you be "in the wrong" on your terms from now on.

I don't understnd why, if she is ignoring you and not calling you for 3 days, you then repeatedly try to call her? You are giving her what she wants.

When she gets the hump you don't call her. You wait until she gets over it and calls you. If she then gives you a hard time you tell her that you are not prepared to discuss it and you put the phone down.

When she comes out with the emotional blackmail you hang up.

Her friends probably think she is wonderful because she insists upon it.

If I were you I would move house and change my phone number and keep a pay as you go phone to contact her on.

And no babysitting, keeping things in the garage or giving relatives keys to your house.

well ,thats the thing mrsboogie. i called her as i was pretending that nothing was up.
( as sister does)
i left message each day on the voiccemail just saying hi, it me, give me a call back.

then yesterday when she was going mental at me for not telling her about the babysitting sooner i said, ' yes. well. i had tried, i called you 3 days and you didnt return my calls' according to her that was not good enough and i should have text her.
i said ' when someone is clearly ignoring me, im not going to keep calling and text the whole time until i get a response. I told you i called, i was trying to let you kow, it it your fault for not returning my calls'

at this point she wnet more mental and then starting going on about how abused she felt and how i take her for a mug and im a terrible daugher and am taking the piss etc etc etc.

the calls were my - serenley calm pretending to not give a fuck.

and that just ends up with me in the shit too.

can you see what i mean about whatever i do is wrong.

i think thats what im going to have to do. else its just exhausting.

I need to accept what ever i do will be wrong, so like others have said, i will be wrong on my terms.

butterfly - so when you mum goes totally off the wall at you for no reason, how do you handle it, what do you do?

ie - what would you have done with my thing that happened this week?

You have to change the locks and get your brother to get his stuff. It doesn't matter that you don't mind, in principle, him using it - in actual reality it means he gets to interfere.

Why haven't you changed the locks? Just do it!

She was huffy with you for going out.

You´re an adult-you can go out without your Mum´s permission.

I just find it odd that you felt the need to phone her-knowing she would ask where you had been etc.

She was in the wrong-why were you trying to smooth it over-it would have been fine left for her to make the next contact.

I take it there's more to this because you say you didn't speak to her for 7 years but while her behavious seems to be extreme to me, why do you refuse to tell her anything in the first place? I understand not wanting to go into extreme detail about your new man, but couldn't you have said, "Mum, I have to go because I have a date." and when she wanted details (which of course she would - I want details and I don't even know you!), say, "I'm sorry mum, I don't have time to talk about it now and besides, I'm not ready to really go into it yet. I need to see how it works out because I have DC and I'm not willing to make this man a permanent or public part of my life until I'm a bit more sure of him".

By refusing to tell her things and being secretive, I can see how she might start to get paranoid. She's handling it badly, yes, but nonetheless her desire to know about your life isn't strange is it?

I think you phoned her, because she's conditioned in you, over the years, the idea that you have to behave a certain way with her. She expects a call - even though it hasn't been arranged, and on a subconscious level, you feel you need to call her - so you do. It's what us daughters of mums like her do - we try to please, to gain approval, to feel worthy. My mother and I had a similar relationship to the one you're now going through. She won't change. So you must. I got myself teflon coated! In other words, I decided enough was enough - I was never going to win, never going to be good enough. So I gave up. I gave up trying to please her, I gave up rising to the bait, I gave up expecting a good relationship with her. I let her awful words and insults and verbal attacks wash over me, bounce off me. I am now totally indifferent to her. She sees her grandchildren, I personally have minimum contact. I discuss nothing of importance with her. There is so much in my life that she knows nothing about, and never will. I stopped playing the game. I just stopped. She upped the stakes, and when she realised that didn't work, she sulked and huffed and puffed. I ignored it all. I treat her politely, calmly and with respect. But I don't "interact" with her, as I do other people in my life. Do we have a good relationship? Of course not! Can I live with it? Yes, absolutely. It beats the alternative.