As some of you know, I've had ongoing issues with my mum, after she emotionally abused me as a child, in many ways but one of the main ways was favouring my sister over me and excluding me. I posted a few months ago about how she still does this when we all meet up as a family and I made a conscious decision not to play happy families any longer and not to see my mum if my sister was there too. I did plan to tackle my mum but decided against this as I don't think it would achieve anything other than give my mum and sister more to bitch about. Also my mum would just turn it round to being about herself and how upset she is etc etc and it would get out of proportion with her involving the whole family.
Anyway, I have noticed when she comes to see me and the DCs she has started excluding me. For example she will be all snappy with me or ignore anything I say but be all loving with the children. If I tell the children off for whatever reason she huffs and puffs or starts saying things like "I'm going home if you're going to be like this". I know she is trying to control me via the children. She popped round the other day and every time I said anything to her she just looked at me like I had crap all over my face but then was being over the top affectionate and attentive with the children. I've noticed she also ignores me in favour of my husband, always asking him how he is, and questions about his work but never asks me anything about myself.
When she does it now I've started walking off and letting her get on with it. When she ignored me the other day she was at my house in the living room and I walked off into the kitchen and started loading the dishwasher. She inevitably comes to find me after a while, huffy that I haven't basically sat there whilst she ignores me. I think she doesn't like losing the power and control over me. We bumped into her in our village as well a few days ago, we were all out for a walk and she started walking with us and again totally ignored me and started asking my husband all about himself, so again I walked off ahead with DS in his buggy and let her get on with it. She will also always make a big point of defending DH in front of me if DH and I disagree on anything. The other day DH wanted me to pick him up from somewhere later that day but I said I couldn't as I was doing something else, and my mum started saying "Oh well if she's going to be mean I will pick you up". Basically she looks for any opportunity to undermine me. Am I doing the right thing in ignoring her?