How can I resolve this? (relationship with Mum)

[MrsdeMontford]

I had a baby just before Christmas and DM who lives in another country came to stay, I originally said that for Christmas I wanted to go to ILs this year, the first for about 5, as I was taking this year off doing Christmas. DM told me she had nowhere to go as my DB was spending it with his Gfs family,this turned out not to be true she hadn't asked, I said DM could come. At the time I felt very pushed into it, I knew her staying for such a long time was going to cause problems. I offered that rather than stay with us I arrange an apartment for her to stay in but she declined.

So she arrived, she as usual criticised everything about me, my friends looked chavvy, my house looked scruffy none of these are true, she ignores me and throws herself in with the dc, she adores them but it's always very clear that she only really tolerates me so as she can be with the dc who she then treats as if she is the parent unless they require disciplining and then she refers them back to me. So i'd just had a baby I was sore and at one point I developed really severe pain which turned out to be retained placenta I told her I was really ill and that I think I was going to take some of the codeine the hospital had given me, her response was ' oh please don't think of the poor baby' ( I was bf), she helped with the dc but left me to make food for everyone clean up after everyone(she creates an unbelievable mess) and Dh spends most of the time cleaning up behind her. On boxing day she starts to put up some shelves in dds room because she wanted to not because we wanted her to, causing absolute chaos and dh spends the whole day having to sort it out when she can't do the job but has covered the whole down stairs in cardboard and crap.

I had said that I wasn't doing any of the family Christmas stuff but she railroaded me into having my grandparents over, she had fallen out with them and they weren't speaking, for dinner said she'd cook I told her the oven was broken and wouldn't cook only heat so just go buy easy buffet type food but instead she arrives home with about £100 worth of lovely Sunday roast stuff that needs to be properly cooked. I again tell her that it doesn't work she says yes but you cooked a ham yesterday, I say no I cooked that in the slow cooker, so dh spend the whole day looking after my grandparents whilst she figures out ways to make dinner, takes our oven apart screws and all and completely breaks the whole cooker, dh and I then have to go and sort out the mess me constantly on edge because I can tell how wound up dh is.

Anyway this is all back story,normal from her, sorry this is so long. The main issues were that one night she took the baby from me and was asleep on the sofa with dd on her chest, I was in the room, when she woke up I explained that it's important not to sleep with dd on the sofa due to the risk of cot death. The next night I had been cooking I come into the room, she has polished off half a bottle of wine and is laying on the sofa with her eyes closed and the baby asleep on her I was so angry that I shouted at her, she refused to apologise just saying she wasn't asleep and that if I didn't believe her that was my problem. The other thing was that she told me that my older children had told her I was a really grumpy mum, they are 7 and 4, they had told her this when I was 7 months pregnant, working and finishing my Msc and she had taken them to stay at her house. It really upset me because i'm sure it was a passing comment from them but she brought it to me like a problem that needed fixing, I'd a week old baby and the timing was terrible.

She was due to come and see the baby again when she was a month but just before she was due I rang her to ask her something and she ended up shouting at me down the phone telling me I never listen. I was calm but upset and just felt it was the final straw. I emailed her that we had some boundary issues that needed sorting out before she came to stay again but said I didn't want to get into petty who did what, she said what issues I said the above, she basically said that I was always a difficult child she had never forgotten my behaviour as a teen and would never be able to forgive me, I got angry and said that any bad behaviour as a child was as a direct result of her dysfunctional parenting. In the words of my brother 'what have you done, what, what have you done?' she has refused to speak to me hasn't seen the dc, missed out on the baby. I feel like the really bad child, I'm anxious, panicky and I don't know what to do and I know I'm going to have this thrown back at me in the future. My DM is really, really good at conflict she has always fallen out with somebody, didn't speak to my brother for 6 months. At all the big moments in my life she has caused huge rows so as they are all tainted with these issues, she told me my wedding was the worst day of Her life. That when dd1 was small the reason she cried was because I obviously didn't have enough milk for her as she had counted what I had dranknin a day and it clearly wasn't enough. She takes baths with my dc, I asked her not to she does it anyway the list is endless.

I can't stand it but they're are so many issues I don't think I can ignore them when she carries on to treating me so badly. If I could cut her out and then forget about her then that would be the answer but the not talking is almost as bad as taking the shit. What do I do? My dad says she'll never change and that I just need to distance myself but it's not that easy, she is on her own and I feel so guilty. Thanks for reading to the end, it probably all sounds so trivial and petty but hard to explain.

Thank you, you are right but it's hard to shake a lifetimes guilt. I shall work on it.

I love your name btw.

:) I understand how hard it is. My mother isn't abusive but she's cold and unloving and has done some pretty unforgivable things down through the years. I became severely depressed a few years ago, and could see no way out until I talked to an amazing psychiatric nurse who made me see that I was driving myself crazy by trying and trying and trying to get my mother to show me some love or concern. It was like someone opened a door from me and I went from being a caged animal scrabbling for scraps to someone actually living a real life.

I moved to a different country and since then my life has changed beyond recognition. I suffered terrible abuse at the hands of a family friend when I was younger, and I always assumed that was the cause of my problems. Partly, it was, but the main cause of my depression and anxiety was my mother. Since reducing contact with her I haven't had a single dark day. I've had tough times, naturally, but I've never felt hopeless the way I did when I was around her.

Do your children a lifelong favour too... keep contact at a minimum.

You know this uncertainty you have, the panic attacks? She's wrought that in you. She's trained you through a lifetime of subtle put-downs that you aren't good enough.

It doesn't matter that she doesn't do that directly to your children: the poison is there. The script they'll get (over and over, over and over in subtle ways every time she sees them) will be different, yes.

'Your mother is awful. I don't know why she's the way she is. I wouldn't be surprised at all if your dad saw the light and left one day. I don't know why he puts up with her. Yes your mum was awful as a child, always said she hated babies, I've seen the way she was with you when you were tiny, thank God you had Granny to look out for you...'

Don't let her influence the way they see you and their family. Don't let her in, AT ALL. It does make a difference, every word. Don't end up with your children sneering and putting you down.. because they've learned how to be that sarcastic, insecure, bitchy person from their Granny - and they've learned that you will take it.

You aren't doing them a favour by making sure they still have a relationship with her. Not at all. Not really.

Keep her away from them.

'She likes my dc, they are good, normal children to her, not like myself and my brother, bad children that we are, nothing to do with her'

• but yes, don't you see, that's what she will tell them. And that IS abusive!

Fostering division, hatred, sneery nastiness. Building a family 'history' for them that isn't about laughter and love and support, but pettiness, jealousy, snide remarks.

I had it with my own grandmother and mother. Saw it in action. Horrible, nasty dysfunction.

I can see it for what it was now, but at the time, I was just left with the feeling that my family was kind of bad. People didn't like each other. I liked (and wondered at) other people's families, who seemed to enjoy spending time with each other. Didn't have this kind of undercurrent of nastiness. Hard to put one's finger on- as a small child I loved my gran - I was her baby, golden child as they say!

By the time I was a teenager, I had come to the realisation that I disliked my family 'dynamic'. I preferred spending time with others and learned to keep them at arms' length, and I still do so now.

It's only as a grownup I've been able to muse over it all and disentagle it. And I honestly can lay the blame for so much at my grandmother's door (or maybe not - she had a hard life - as Attila says, she was trained that way too).

But. If my mother had been the type to take action and cut contact, instead of just allowing the dysfunction to continue (she wasn't the nicest mother either) - I think things could have been very different.

You sound as if you're much further ahead with understanding the reality of the damage this does than my mother was (the proof being of course that your children are different...hmm there you go!) So - as the child of a family with a poisonous witch for a granny, I'd say do them a favour and spare them the dubious gift of a close relationship with her.

I agree with doctor - being around people with a dysfunctional relationship can be very damaging for children. My mother's family are superficially polite to each other but there is constant tension which was headwrecking as a child. I used to baffled as to why people wanted to spend time with their aunts and cousins - I found it so stressful being around mine.

please don't expose your children to this woman. i agree with doctor. you might think it's fine and dandy because DM doesn't tell the DC they are horrible etc... but when an adult tells a child that they are "good" and their parent is "bad", that is headfuckery of the highest order.

when your DC are older, Granny will use that dynamic to manipulate them. They will think she is the clever one, and you are the idiot or the bad parent or the one they can't trust. and things will become incredibly difficult and dangerous for your DC, they will be vulnerable to terrible manipulation.

your feelings of guilt are understandable (though please realise, your mother carefully engineered the way she raised you in order to ensure that your guilt would mean you would always be at her beck and call... there is actually nothing to be guilty about. at all), but you can't allow yourself the luxury of indulging those feelings.

your children (and you, and your husband, the people who care for the children) must come wayyyyyyy before your mother. don't choose your mother's short-term happiness over your children's long-term emotional stability