My mother hates my husband (long)

[badtoworse]

I don't live in the UK. DH is from the country we live in. Mum came to live here (divorced and then later my father died) some years ago in a house a short drive away. Soon decided it was a big mistake and that she hated it, then to complicate matters then injured her back and became really unable to manage living alone. We sold my house and we moved in with her. All coinciding with me starting a new business venture and DH becoing unemployed. DH has bascially been unemployed (except for a couple of short contracts) since then. When we all moved in together DS was 20 months (now 4.5) and we've since had another child who's 1.5.

Before we all moved in together I was about to go back after mat leave and all set up (at her suggestion) for mum to have DS while I worked and DH at work. DH lost his job three days before I went back but mum said she still wanted to come up in the afternoons cos she wanted to see DS. She (much later) claimed DH had sat on the coputer and let her do it all. He said (we had a big row about it then) he only sat on the computer while DS napped.

My business has been slowly dying a death so I'm going to be WOH from Monday (previously ran busness from home). Yesterday I had meetings all day. DH supposed to be looking after DCs for the afternoon while I'm out.
I told him not to let my mum do too much, to imagine she was not there as it's too much for her. When I came home I asked mum (who I saw first on coming in) how things had been and she pulled a face and said tell you later.
Asked DH if he'd let DS just spend the whole afternoon with my mum and he said, only a bit while DD asleep..she slept for almost 2 hours. Then I ask mum and she says that he'd sat on the laptop and told DS he couldn't play as he'd wake the baby up and she'd felt bad so spent 2 hrs entertaining DS while DH sat on laptop.

I was really pissed off as I'd asked him specifically not to do this and we had a row.

He says she's exaggerating and that he can't believe I'm questioning his parenting abilities/calling him a neglectful parent and talking about him behind his back. He says DS wasn't with her the entire time, he was in and out and he didn't tell him he couldn't play, just that he had to be quiet as the baby was asleep.

She says he's a lazy git and it's the same old shit as all those years ago, she's had enough and would go back to the UK if she had the money. They've been avoiding each other all day and I feel totally caught in the middle.

I'm so angry that he did exactly what I asked him not to but I can't stand this atmosphere, it's like I'm being asked to choose, my husband or my mother.

I think the sooner you get out of there, the better.

Once you have clarity like this, it is impossible to unsee all the manipulative tactics, all the quiet bullying, the emotional blackmail, that comes along with a person like your mother.

Everything she says and does, is going to annoy the fuck out of you now, because you are wise to her...and she will not change. For far too long she has quietly controlled you, your husband and your children. She has pretty much gatecrashed your life and taken over.

She will be FAR easier to cope with once you are not living in each others pockets any more.

Hang on in there. Stay cool. xxx

Endorphins While I was off work I would put her electric blanket on when I put the children to bed. She doesn't want to put it on, cos she doesn't want to go upstairs unnecessarily. Now I'm out at work til 1030pm and she goes to bed before me. But, there's a hot and cold air con unit in there. I've said to her before, put it on high while you go to the loo so when you get undressed the room is warm. There's no reason she can't go up, whack the air con on, switch on the electric blanket and the heater and let it all heat up while she goes to the loo and cleans her teeth. But no...because then what would she complain about?
Pictish this is spot on:
Once you have clarity like this, it is impossible to unsee all the manipulative tactics, all the quiet bullying, the emotional blackmail, that comes along with a person like your mother.

She has pretty much gatecrashed your life and taken over She's even said this before (the gatecrashing bit, she's never admitted to having taken over) and I always denied it, but it's true.

Well, an escape plan's in place, and you've achieved a lot since mid December, so keep up the momentum, stay alert and as up as you can fake it. A brisk can-do attitude with DM and she'll still moan but realise you're serious.

Forgot to say well done being pro active and writing to your boss re: new academy. Fingers crossed you & DH can fix up afternoon childcare at the end of the month so he can go on that course.

I agree the sooner you leave the better. Your mum moved to Spain of her own free will surely? She could have stayed in the UK, you can't force an adult to move abroad. If she regrets the move she can move back. Stop accepting any responsibility for her decisions. She decides to not have the radiator on or go up and put an electric blanket on, fine, stop micromanaging her. She will have to sort this stuff out soon when you are gone.
I wouldn't have let her get away with the orange thing though and made it clear that your son doesn't get down from the table until he has finished his dinner, although if he was faffing on with his main course I'm surprised he wanted to bother with a yoghurt.
it's good you are leaving for your son's sake as she makes him the centre of these manipulations and it isn't good for small kids to have that much power and see their parents manipulated.

Keep going op. you are almost there.

And if she wants more vegetables, she can cook them herself. She does no cooking or cleaning. She should not dictate what your DH cooks every day.

But you knew that. And you are doing so well. I am not surprised you are getting headaches. But I would be surprised if they didn't go when you move out

Her moaning about you eating food she doesn't like has an easy answer "we'll be leaving soon and then you can buy and cook what you want".
Your mother is unemployed so could sort out purchasing vegetables or growing a few if she was that bothered. She really does talk a load of nonsense.

You said yourself, a while ago Bad that you felt the scales had fallen from your eyes. When that happens in a relationship, especially a relationship between parent and child, it can be so daunting, and life changing. You go through every emotion in the book, which is what seems to be happening with you. Your mothers only true feelings are about control. All the rest will just be used, as and when she feels they will help her get what she wants. Now that you know this, you will - thankfully - never again be the person she has tried to make you. Sadly, the hurt that comes from knowing all this, and regret that it wasnt what you needed, will always be with you. That`s when you make it all about just you, and your own lovely little family. Which is exactly what you are doing.

You're all so wise.I've said it before, I don't know what i'd have done without this thread in the last few weeks. It's so hard to see from the inside, it's only when people (with no vested interest) tell you it's all a bit fucked up that you can start to see it for what it is. It's true Autumn I am still reeling in many ways from seeing all this.
Starting work so will keep this brief. Today's little thing was that at dinner she says "I've made bread (she has a panasonic breadmaker), I hope someone will eat some of it", in a sort of questioning tone. I didn't reply, just sort of shrugged and then she sat there the rest of the meal looking like she would cry. I can understand making it if she wants to eat it, but it's this thing she does of deciding to do something and then getting annoyed and martyr like if people (who never asked for her to do it in the first place) aren't constantly killing themselves with gratitude. It's so fucking TIRING.

Curiously it's like being mum and patiently placating a small child, "Yes that's lovely, well done you. Oh you can do it! Yes you can. See how easy that was?"

Hi I have been watching for a long time and have mostly agreed with all , you need you own home to build your own family.but you will still need a relationship with your mother after this. Looking at the the whole bread incident, I feel she is waving an olive branch and maybe ( I could be wrong ! ) wanting to get things a bit more normal. It sounds a bit as thougth you taking at everything she does in a bad light when in fact she is just ... making bread .I know your relationship is bad now but it could be better in the future when you live apart.

I do agree Salopia that sometimes she is trying to offer an olive branch, which saddens me a bit because I feel bad thinking badly of her, but it also annoys me as she STILL has never apologised. She came to tell me the other night that a program I used to watch with her was starting a new season. I said thank you. But you see, I can't sit there watching it and chatting like nothing has happened while she's doing this daily guilt tripping and bitching about stuff. I realise we will have to have a relationship and I hope it can be a good one, but there's too much bad feeling at the moment.
Also, I would feel more inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt if she hadn't then spent the afternoon pointedly shutting the door to her lounge every time DS went in there.

I understand completely that things have gone too far and you definately need to move out ( I could never live with my parents you were brave to try)but now you have a good plan of escape maybe set up an internet shop for her and agree how often you you will visit and then she will pester you less ?? sit down family meeting( probably being naive )

While I agree she is a controlling nightmare who has vastly over-stepped the mark, and I think you have been stoic and firm, I wonder if a small thank, that'll be nice, the next time she does something like making the bread. You don't have to get dragged in more than that, but at some point you will have to be at least civil to her.

Can you try to see her as someone not related to you at al, but with whom you have to have daily contact, a colleague you have to cope with but don't much like, say. Then extend the same sort of courtesy to her as you would to that person.

Maybe tomorrow you could just say a thank you for the bread?

I do apologise if this is simply not a good idea (I don't really have toxic family so little knowledge of it), and is likely to drag you back, but I'd hate it if you were, in the future, reproaching youself for things we've advised you to do.

she will never say sorry if you want a relalationship with her it will have to be a new one.
it is in your control xxx

Unfortunately, I don`t feel that you can afford to give an inch whilst you are still living with her, Bad, and I suspect you know that too. She has shown too many times that the old give an inch maxim is so true, where she is concerned. Once you are away from her, of course you will, hopefully develop a better relationship, although it must be on your terms. Another week or so, being completely detached will not affect how you will all rub along in the future. It should, however, avoid any further distress for you. You sound as if you are just hanging on by the skin of your teeth now.

I agree with Autumn - I think until you move out you need to keep as detached as you can from her. I think, and I'm trying to say this nicely, that Salopia is wrong when she says it is in your control - it's really not. It takes two people to contribute to a relationship, and you have tried being nice/kind etc for years and where has it got you? This is my experience with my own toxic mother - IMO being the normal reasonable person in a relationship with a narc will just destroy you emotionally if you try to treat them as a normal person. Sorry, I'm phrasing this badly because it's late and I'm tired.

I'm trying to say I think you're doing the right thing being detached while you are still living with her, and you can try rebuild your relationship with her differently once you are in your own place.

No, don't fall for it. In time maybe you can repair your relationship but she has to understand that the guilting and martyrdom has to stop for that to happen. I really hope you can be on better terms in the future but my gut instinct is that she will be furious you have escaped and will keep trying to get you to see that you were wrong.

The problems with narcs is that their expectations are so irrational that you can't anticipate where the critism is going to come from.

I was once screamed at because I gave my mother directions. The problem was was that she asked for directions to the wrong place. And my god did she lay right in. How did I not know that she meant the other place. How dare I! It went on and on.

We were in the car at the time and it was the only time in my life that I thought it would be better to open the door and throw myself in front of the bus behind.

So you don't want to say anything because you don't trust that it will be accepted in the way it was meant.

I'm not rude to her, honestly. Well, OK sometimes she winds me up with the ridiculous martyrdom and I sound a little curt maybe or frustrated. But unless it's a row I don't really react much, and even then, again it's more frustration and I don't shout or anything. It is difficult to be "normal" or chatty as it's like a mindfield, there are so so so many things I can't mention because they're a "sore point" iykwim or they're one of the things that she's complained about or because I know if I do she'll play the victim, so I finding I'm really really limited in what we can talk about. Like, yesterday she made marmalade with DS but she very pointedly kept shutting the door to her room when she was in there with DS, looked like she was trying to exclude DH. So if I chat about DS enjoying making it, I don't know whether she'll say something about DH leaving her to do all the childcare. If I say it's looks delicious, she'll say "yes, but I don't suppose anyone will eat it" or something like that. Do you see how even mindless chat is fraught with difficulties? When she's in a mood like this, everything becomes a complaint or a reproach.
She is the one who started this, kept it going, threatened to kill herself because I wouldn't back down, stormed off for 4 days, said she would cut me out of her inheritance, said she will never speak to me again. I said it would be better if we lived apart and that I'd be 5 mins away and would help her get set up and then visit and have a relationship and be friends.
I'm not explaining myself very well.

So you don't want to say anything because you don't trust that it will be accepted in the way it was meant.

^^ exactly.

You're actually explaining it very well Bad. You're right when you say the slightest thing is fraught. You don't know for sure what mood they're in until they start speaking, so you watch them carefully from the second you enter the room for clues as to the emotional mood. You also don't know if they're actually in a good mood which will transmute into a bad one UNLESS you start speaking, but it may be bad, in which case you're in for it if you say anything at all...

Argh. Just leave, you will truly be so much happier. Nothing you do/say will ever be enough, even if you kill yourself trying. So why try?

The thing with my mother is, in her mind she has done nothing wrong. She is the victim in this. I am treating her badly, I am being cruel, punishing her. As she said in an e mail to DB, this is something she will have to "survive" she sees this as something that is being done to her, not that she has created and stoked the fires of. So, all these little barbs or the weeping...well I'm sure she does feel bad, I'm not saying she's putting that on..but she's said because she feels that I am being cruel to her, so this being pathetic and martyr like and the poor weeping victim, it's not that she feels terrible about the situation she's created and the things she's said and done, no..it's that she feels victimised by me and hard done by. In her mind the desired solution is that I feel sorry for her, that I do all the leg work and apologise for my behaviour and grovel and fuss round her and gradually things will go back to before. Believe me, it's what happens everytime, just that every time before I've believed all that and caved in after about 4 days tops.
Right, will stop wittering..have to go to work for a meeting.

Give an inch - take a mile. The 'normal' conventions (compromise, mutual respect, plain dealing, WYSIWYG) don't apply.

The victim mentality is ingrained in her im afraid and she is playing it for all its worth because she obviously thinks that this is her best way of getting you to do and react how she wants. You have to detach from it totally. If she wasnt your mother but someone you had recently met what would you think of this behaviour? I agree its tiring and draining both mentally and physically. No wonder you've had headaches.

You have nothing to apologise for. Keep going as you have done. She may not like it but eventually she may even come to respect you(secretly) for it. My dad is like that. I didnt speak to him for 6 months when I was younger and although his behaviour never really changed towards anyone else it did a bit towards me and the dynamics altered. I may just be lucky with that and we still cross swords though...