Am I the only one who struggles with their relationship with with their mum ?

[JuicyJ]

Have just had mum down to stay for a few days and she's left this morning after some heated words over my 'career' (or lack of it as i've only just stopped working - she suggested I needed to speak to a career advisor) and my parenting skills, as she thinks i'm too soft on my daughter as well as various other comments..

I feel she's criticised me for years, whether it's been my choice of men/work/my lifestyle etc and she leaves me feeling deflated, and with low self confidence. She has her own problems but I never judge/criticise her.

Am I the only one who has issues with their mum and will my relationship with my daughter suffer also ? I really hope not.

no, you're not alone. i do too. infact i have been fiinding it increasingly hard to be around her and have stopped going to see her as often. (usally twice weekly) if it wasn't for my dcs i dont think i would go there more than a couple times a year.

my mum doesn't respect me as an adult and a parent. she undermines me with my children and underestimates me as someone who is capable of thinking for myself!! i can't tell my mum anything. i can't even tell her things about my friends like "oh, X is heading to egypt for a week" because she cannot be positive about anything and turns everything into either bitchy criticism or a lecture. when i visit we practically sit in silence now unless my dad or sister are in teh room because i feel i can't open my mouth to her about anything.

have to go out tonight to see her as haven't brought the dcs out in a few weeks.

Thanks for sharing that with me, sorry to hear your relationship is strained too.. it's so tiring having to deal with that. I feel i'm constantly judged, and now I worry if i'll turn out like her as sometimes i'll do something like her and it scares the hell out of me !!! there's no such thing as normal/perfect but as long as your family are happy then that's the most important thing.

what you describe is extremely similar to how i feel. i also worry (it scares me too) that i will turn out like her. it is very tiring. but i dont think there is anything i can do. she is who she is. things aren't dealt with in my family (with me and my dcs they are but not in my parent's family IYSWIM). nothing gets talked about and any times i have tried to tell her how i've felt about things she puts the blame on me. she doesn't take responsibility for her part of our problems. i wasn't an easy teenager. to listen to my mum, you would think i was the devil child but it's only now as an adult i realise that actually, it was part me and part how she dealt with me that made the situation so bad. i wasn't out partying or doing drugs. i was home every night by 11pm. she didn't like my boyfriend (but she doesn't like anybody) so she made it very clear. which of course made me want to see him even more. i really dont think i was as bad as she makes out and i honestly think she played a part in how awful it was at the time but she will never accept that and there is no point in trying to get her to. i'm just trying to distance myself from her now, sad as that is but i have to for my own sake and for the sake of my dcs. i dont want them thinking that is a normal parent/child relationship.

I've got a bad relationship with my mum too.
She will always comment on my parenting and how I don't do anything properly. She'll make comment's about my weight, (very sensitive subject since I was a teenager) like my sister is so thin and how much she likes thin women, they look sooo elegant and that I should really look more like her... (I'm only a size 10 I'm happy with it)
She's controlling and manipulative and always want's people to feel sorry for her but when I don't fall for her tricks we end up in an argument.
Like you said JuicyJ I'm really scared that me and my daughter will have a bad relationship like me and my mum. I know that won't be the case cos we are very different even thou sometimes I do something like my mum and freak myself out I'll always do my best to support my daughter and be there for her.

HeresTheThingBooyhoo Wow that sound's exactly how it was when I was living with my parents, strange...

Ooo crumbs Gab the weight issue was the same with me, that bought tears to my eyes reading your post - my parents divorced when I was young so comfort ate and was a bit overweight (not much though just a bit chubby) she took me to Weightwatchers when I was about 12.. as if I needed to at that age.. never felt good about my size or weight and that left me with esteem issues for a long time after.

I dont want to have a bad relationship with her but just struggle to deal with her and the little comments, also dont want my daughter to not see her as she needs to know her family, just dont know how to deal with her without feeling hurt and deflated all the time..

I have a difficult relationship with my mum too.
I have three daughters and have made a real effort to have a very different relationship with them than I have with mine.
I think if you are aware of the problems, you will not repeat them yourself. Or that is what I hope.

i noticed how bad things were when i would find myself getting stressed and looking for excuses not to go there on my usual days.

my mum does everything under the guise of 'worrying' about me. and i know she does worry about me but i think what she sees as caring and worrying, is more like her not being able to cope with not having control IYSWIM. for example, i have lived in my own home and been raising my son by myself for 6.5 years. (and later my ds2 for 2.5 years) now i know that isn't an incredibly long time but i have been doing it successfully for all that time. i have never missed my rent or not been able to buy food or heat the house. i am not well off and things could be alot more comfortable but we are healthy and our needs are being met. i have two very happy healthy boys. i am really lucky, no real issues at all. but yet my mum is constantly, and i do mean constantly checking up on me. we usually go out on a sunday evening but last sunday i texted saying we were jsut going to stay at home and have an early night. she texted back asking if everything was ok, i told her yes of course it was, but she sent my dad in to check on us!!! i'm not 12!!

It's strange how much impact our mums have in our life even thou we know they're in the wrong... I still struggle with my confidence now.

The easier thing for me is that I hardly ever see her as we live in different countries and I'm very happy with it, I don't want to try and have a proper relationship with her.

I'm sorry I don't have words of wisdom, but I know how you feel.

I think it's very good that you take your children to see her cos you are right they should know their family. if your mum doesn't want to change or doesn't think she needs to change there's not much you can do...

Great comment Moo - just be aware and dont repeat !! It's always the one closer to us that hurt us the most.

Heresthe thing - I admire you for how you've managed, your mum sounds alot like mine, she disguises most of her comments as worrying about me and caring about me, and never seems to have faith that i'm old enough and big enough to sort things out myself.. have you ever tried to talk to her about your relationship ? I'm close to writing a letter to mine, have always bit my lip and ignored it, however she will write me a letter telling me how i'm not supportive and dont care about her feelings..

Until a few years ago, I had a terrible relationship with my mother. She was horribly critical about me - my home, my choices, friends, my weight, my parenting. I only visited when I absolutely had to and never, ever confided in her.

Things have improved since we moved away a few years ago. For the year running up to the move, she had refused to speak to us, even ignoring the children, for reasons that I really don't understand (or care about!). In fact, her behaviour was one of the deciding factors in our move to another part of the country.

I think the shock of nearly losing her grandchildren forced her into a rethink and she is now very attentive BUT I still keep her emotionally at arms length and only ever give her the 'good version' of our lives. So, when she visits, the house is kept spotless, the children all primed to say the right thing and DH knows, under pain of death, that he is not to leave me alone in the house with her. These things actually make me feel a bit more in control of our relationship.

I can like her now (she is very funny and engaging when she tries) but I am very wary of her all the time. It's very tiring though.

i have never sat down and said "i want to talk to you about us" because that just isn't what we do. like i said, nothing gets dealt with in our family. but i have said things at times when her behaviour is getting to me. like one time she told me not to be friends with a woman who had split up with my cousin. this was about 6 months ago so i was 24/25 not 15 or anything like that. i told mum that i had no intention of being the woman's friend, i didn't like the woman etc, but mum carried on saying "she'll jump ito your pocket and turn you against everyone, that's what she wants, she wants to be in your pocket" (how mum knew this i will never know, i think she has spoken to the woman once in her life, all the rest she heard from my bitter cousin) so i told mum i was big enough and ugly enough to decide for myself whether that was a friendship i wanted to have. but she kept on, "i'm just trying to warn you" i said i didn't need to be warned, i am an adult and can make up my own mind about who i am friends with. anyway it ended with her sulking and wasn't discussed again. pretty normal for us TBH. as i said, we cant just have a chat (this saddens me, i'd love to be able to talk to her about men and troubles with friends etc but she cant stop herself from trying to lecture me).

I feel your pain...I could have written many of the posts here myself! I have always had a very difficult relationship with my mum too (and to make matters worse, I am an only child so there is no one to share the load with me!).
She's such a domineering, overpowering force that she needs to control everything and everyone around her. She's always had an obsession with weight and as I was a chubby child (I lost my Dad when I was 2; my parents had separated only a couple of months before and my mum had already moved us in with her new partner. He is lovely but completely and utterly under her thumb), she took me to many doctors and nutritionists from a very early age and made me feel that being thin was the only way to be acceptable and successful. It took me years after I left home (and moved countries!) to like myself and to start looking after myself for me and not to please her or anybody else.

I don't tell her anything important either, only very superficial things because anything I say is a chance for her to take to the podium and start lecturing me about how to live my life. Another things that irks me no end is the fact that she is constantly trying to prove how 'cultured' and 'refined' she is which is so pretentious it makes my skin crawl...I know she means well but she has never ever acknowledged a single thing she's done wrong and every attempt at 'talking things over' has ended with her turning on the waterworks and playing the victim so I refuse to indulge her anymore. I see her twice a year but for a about two weeks at a time which seem like an eternity. I feel awful when she leaves and guilty about it but I have come to terms with the fact that our relationship will never change and cling to the hope that I will not turn into her (my DH says I'm definetely nothing like her which is always a great compliment in my eyes!).

oh laura that sounds really hard but i'm glad you have found a way to be happier about it. i think if i had a partner i would feel able to move away but as i am on my own i would be terrified of being alone and isolated, not knowing anyone. also, my dcs do love seeing my parents and their other grandparents.

I'm in too much of a rush to post properly and may forget later but I also have a very difficult relationship with my mother. I confronted her about a number of things a few years back which led to a huge fall out and a couple of years of being estranged but we are in touch again now and things are MUCH better. I honestly think that sometimes addressing the issues can help you move the relationship to a more adult level but you have to be prepared to lose the relationship in the process...it depends how bad things are for you. I also read a book called "When you and your mother can't be friends"...really helpful, with some good tips on how not to repeat mistakes with your own DC.

The weight thing seems to be common theme here, doesn't it? My whole childhood was spent on a diet and even now, if she wants to get dig in, sdhe likes to mention how fat people make her feel sick, in a lovely, passive-aggressive way, bless.

To answer the last part of your OP, Juicy, I have a twenty-something daughter and we have a fab relationship. We laugh and shop and talk about everything and, when she has had troubles in her life, she looks to us for support. When she was growing up, I used to think, what would my mother do, and then do the opposite

Sounds a bit silly, but it has worked for us.

Thanks Laura, that post was really uplifting. I hope when my daughter grows up that she can always come to us for support/advice. It's funny reading the posts here as all of these mothers sound like mine ! So could it be a reflection of their generation ?! I have a fab MIL who dotes on my daughter, however I know she has her opinions also but she doesnt share them, so this keeps our relationship balanced and healthy.

I like the idea of thinking what mother would do and then do the opposite too, as well as reading the book papillonrouge mentioned, good advice all.

Thanks also for sharing experiences, it's difficult talking to friends in real life as most have great relationships with theirs, so thanks to online friends for your stories x

Thanks, JJ - reading it back, it looks a little smug

There are lots of things I wish I had done differently with my children, and they gave me a bit of a bumpy ride in their teens but I did try very hard not to control them and to actually listen to them instead. And, even when I am cross with them they know I am on their side (at least I hope they know that!)

My mother never really thought of her children as living, breathing people - just sort of very demanding pets.

Laura - definately didnt look smug to me !!

I think mine has so many issues that she just relays her insecurities onto us, i've always thought parenting is like gardening, have to nuture, nourish, support and let the sunlight in to allow them to flower..:)