Why do I revert to my moody, belligerent, unpleasant teenage self when around my parents?

[MCT76]

A bit of background first...I live in the UK and my parents live back home where I'm originally from. I am an only child with a somewhat chequered and troubled relationship with my mother who is incredibly domineering, overbearing and controlling in my eyes. My Dad was killed when I was 2.5 years old. They had been separated for a few months and my mother had already started seeing my stepfather. They moved in together soon after my Dad died so he is the only father figure I've known. He is a nice man but is completely dominated by my mother to the point where he is unable to think for himself or do anything without her. She is the sort of person that would say: "We like these foods, we don't do this or that, etc" with him looking on silently and nodding in agreement like a puppet.

My teenage years were a nightmare: my mother was constantly on my case to lose weight and 'fit in' (we fell out more times than I can remember over this) driving me to secret binges and self-hatred. I left home as soon as I could and moved thousands of miles away partly to get away from her prying eyes and nagging ways and partly because I wanted to leave a culture and environment that I found oppressing and restrictive. Fast forward 15 years and things have not improved much at all despite many 'talks' (consisting mostly of her crying her eyes out and telling me that I was "mean" to her) and the physical distance separating us. When we are apart and communication is restricted to e-mails and phone calls, I can just about manage to tolerate her...But when we are in the same place such as now (they are visiting now for 3 weeks...thankfully, they are going for a 6-day break in between to Madeira) I cannot help but revert back to my teenage self...angst-ridden, rebellious and resentful towards her. We just do not connect on any level...I feel I've got more in common with my local greengrocer than I do with her and her constant comments about how people "should" be make my skin crawl. I know that deep down she means well but is completely unable to relax and have good time without preaching and turning her nose at whatever she disagrees with...
She is afraid of everything and keeps trying to mollycoddle me calling me baby names...at almost 36! I have told her that I don't like it and she took offence saying that she doesn't mean any harm and that I should just accept it...

I have lost any hope for our relationship to improve but every time they leave, I feel incredibly guilty and quite disgusted with myself for turning into the stroppy teenager that I fought so hard to leave behind...

My DH is wonderful and tries to empathise and support me but he realises that there are some deep-seated issues that I simply cannot get over and he also gets why my mother's behaviour and comments can be a source of distress for me...I know that they are far away and that I see them twice a year but it still affects me more than it should and I wonder if anyone has a similar experience or some words of wisdom to share...thank you for reading thus far...I desperately needed to vent before they come over for dinner (for the 12th day in a row!)

I think in some ways it's worse when you don't see your parents often, because you get an intense period of time with them when everything seems magnified. (Mine are arriving for the weekend tomorrow, and it will be the first time they have seen me heavily pregnant, and the last time they'll see me before my first baby, their first grandchild, is born. I'm quailing already.)

My mother couldn't be more different to yours, yet (at 39), I also find myself reverting to teenage behaviour at times. In my case, it's because my mother has simply never recognised the boundaries between us, and doesn't understand at some fundamental level that I am not her, or an aspect of her. Because she has no self-esteem and is something of a passive-aggressive doormat, she extends her self-deprecation to me, so I've spent my entire life listening to her downplay anything I've ever achieved in case the neighbours or the extended family think she is showing off. Because she cannot say no to any request from someone else, she is horrified that I am more likely to say no than yes, and don't suffer fools/racist remarks/whatever gladly. Because she's settled for very little in her life, she can't get over the fact that I haven't.

I think this is why I revert to being a teenager around her - because that's the time when you first try to assert yourself as someone who isn't your parents, No words of advice - as it's obvious I haven't solved my own situation! - but good luck.

Have you heard of transactional analysis?
It's a theory developed by Eric Berne in his book Games People Play.
In his theory, people can operate on three levels - adult, child and parent.
It's appropriate when you're young to respond on a parent/child dynamic with your parent, but we can often revert to parent/child (or stroppy teenager) dynamic when we would actually be happier operating on adult-adult.
His book is worth a read, as he talks some good sense about why we continue to be involved in what are clearly harmful or annoying circles of behaviour with people because we're getting payoffs from doing so. Anyway, hard to paraphrase but well worth a read to see if it throws any objective light on your situation.

Hi Quod,

Thanks for your reply. I know what you mean about intense periods of time...I found that seeing my mother twice a week when I was living back home but on my own was just about manageable insofar as we met for limited periods of time and over lunch/dinner, i.e. a specific purpose. Spending time with her is something I cannot cope with...she rubs me up the wrong way like nobody else can. I am normally chilled out around people but when I'm with her, I turn into a nervous, highly-strung wreck which leaves me feeling rather drained and down about the fact that we are unable to communicate as adults.
I've not heard of the book you mentioned but will check it out. I know I need to work on my approach as I cannot expect hers to change at this stage...

Good luck with your folks and congratulations on your impending motherhood! It's good that you were able to recognise behaviours from your mother that were affecting you and have tried to move away from that...it's still hard at times not to fall back into old patterns, isn't it? Childhood traumas have a sneaky way of popping up now and again...

Thanks again.

Wow, mega Quolibet, you've given me a pleasurable trip down memory lane.

Found the book in my pa's den when I was a proverbially knee-high but, before my discovery, at bedtime my pa used to sing me the song that was inspired by Eric's work:

Oh the games people play now
Every night and every day now
Never meaning what they say now
Never saying what they mean

And they wile away the hours
In their ivory towers
Till they're covered up with flowers
In the back of a black limousine

[Chorus:]
La-da da da da da da da
La-da da da da da de
Talking 'bout you and me
And the games people play

Oh we make one another cry
Break a heart then we say goodbye
Cross our hearts and we hope to die
That the other was to blame

Neither one will give in
So we gaze at our eight by ten
Thinking 'bout the things that might have been
It's a dirty rotten shame

[Chorus]

People walking up to you
Singing glory hallelulia
And they're tryin to sock it to you
In the name of the Lord

They're gonna teach you how to meditate
Read your horoscope, cheat your faith
And further more to hell with hate
Come on and get on board

[Chorus]

Look around tell me what you see
What's happening to you and me
God grant me the serenity
To remember who I am

Cause you've given up your sanity
For your pride and your vanity
Turns you sad on humanity--
And you don't give a da da da da da

The book and the song inspired my interest in a certain subject and the rest, as they say, is history.

Have you thought about abbreviating your moniker, MCT76? My pa's eclectic taste in music influences me to this day and on the extremely rare occasions that I indulge in full frontal house cleaning/clearing, MC5's Bring Out The Jams (Brothers & Sisters) at full blast charges my battery and drowns out the sound of the Dyson