is your mother weird?

[carlajean]

And, if so, at what point do you challenge her on it?
My dh and I took my elderly parents out for lunch yesterday and there was this scenario..
Dh to mother 'what would you like to drink'
Mum 'nothing thank you'
Dad to mum (catching up a bit) 'what would you like to drink'
Mum 'nothing'
Dad 'are you sure'
Mum 'NOTHING'
Husband to my dad 'what you you like to drink'
Dad 'lager please'
Mum to dad ' have Guinness'
Dad to mum 'I want lager'
Mum to dad 'HAVE GUINNESS'
Dad has Guinness. Mum drinks most of it.

She's been like that for ever, and nobody has ever told her to stop being so bloody annoying. I look back now and think that it was a mistake, but that it's now too late, but feel sad that I never had the guts to do it.

Anyway, I was just wondering if anyone else felt the same way.

(I've already posted this on Gransnet, as I'm interested in what the members have to say, but, as I'm in between - no gc, but older children, I'd like to know the opinion on here)

My mum is weird but not in the same way as yours. Weirdest thing my mum has done is just before DH and I got married she basically told us that I should allow DH to rape me to keep him happy. DH was disgusted

Oh and to answer your point on challenging her. If she says something nasty and I challenge her straight away she'll say she was only joking or I'm being oversensitive. If I challenge her about it then next time I speak to her, she'll deny saying it and if I push further and say we both heard it she'll use the joking/ over sensitive excuse. Very frustrating

That's a bit like making a big fuss of ordering salad because you're watching your weight, making the other person order chips and then helping yourself to their plate!! Maybe, if she only drinks other people's drinks, she can rationalise it that she's not a drinker?

Weird, yes. Annoying, possibly. Does no-one even make fun of her drink-pinching ways?

Carla, what would happen if you did point out what she did, in a sort of jokey way? I'm sure it's really annoying but it does also sound funny TBH! What does your dad think - surely he should stand up for himself if he really wants lager?
(My mum is weird in lots of other ways BTW)

Your Dad also needs to stop enabling her. But I doubt that's going to happen.
If this is the worst of it, next time buy a Guinness and a lager.

My mum is convinced that if I feel differently about something that that is me being awkward or silly or mean or extravagant or too cautious or too careless (whatever the situation might be). She is nearly 70 and hasn't yet grasped that people make different decisions based on what they want and that they're not wrong or 'awkward', they're just different from her and that's allowed. It does frustrate me but now, I don't challenge it or look for her approval, I just have to concentrate hard to make sure that I'm not influenced by her,, ie, I stay on my own course and don't let myself get talked in to something, or talked out of something.

No, mine's quite sensible and nice. Doesn't help you, sorry but in the interests of balance and all that. She's 70 so hoping she won't get too weird!

My mother is like this. My parents split up over 10 years ago and are still on good terms, but my dad constantly panders to my mum's behaviour because of guilt over leaving. She is the most negative person I've ever encountered - everyone has a better life than her, everything in her life is awful, she has such a tough life, and she won't let you forget it for a second.

Sometimes I wonder if she is on the autistic spectrum - she is terrible at picking up social cues, you can make it perfectly clear through body language and tone of voice that you are annoyed at her and she doesn't have a clue. She will also rabbit on and on and have completely one sided conversations, or repeatedly ask innapropriate questions even though it is perfectly clear that the person she is asking doesn't want to talk about it. She is also completely incapable of coping with any kind of change (including the fact that she still hasn't gotten over the end of her marriage and still tries to make my dad feel guilty). My childhood home is still decorated exactly the same way it was when she first moved in 25 years ago and she makes a million excuses as to why she doesn't want to redecorate (and money is not an issue).

I could go on and on!

My mum is weird in so many ways, I love her but she gets worse as time passes and she isn't exactly elderly. She can be weirdly OTT about manners, or not seeming to be pushing herself forward. Myself or DH will offer her a drink or something, so she has to ask about 10 times 'are you sure? oh ok...only if you're sure. Really? You don't mind?' etc etc. Very frustrating. Just say what you'd like! Then she will spend the rest of the time thanking us, over and over, in between talking at the speed of light all about herself.

She wears me out just listening to her rambling stories. They never seem to have a point or a punchline and she sort of treats me like a journal and will just outpour everything with barely pause for a breath, let alone me saying anything apart from 'hmmm' and 'oh mmm'. The stories are all very long and she spends most of them saying something about X's husband's brother's uncle's friend - you know, the one you once saw that time when you were 2, yes you know, you must remember, he walked by us and waved, his sister Y owned that shop near where we lived before you were born, anyway him - well he got a dog last week, how funny!... On and on and on...

Yes is she that weird (and more). Started challenging her when I was about 6. Didn't go down too well. Have fairly minimal contact.
Oddly enough many years later my Dad finally recognised that she was being weird not me. Still as he's bloody weird as well it wasn't much progress.
My experience is that it's very unpopular pointing out the weirdness and no one else wants to attract any backlash so unlikely to back you up.

My mum is weird in the sense that she holds the most horrendous and offensive views but it's ok, because she is just old fashioned, not racist or homophobic, just old fashioned.

Mine is weird. Only little things of course but so irritating:
She is obsessed with the fact that her car is small (it is a Peugeot estate. Clue's in the name) and calls it her 'little car'. Tries to say that it is no bigger than my corsa. Odd.
She has to finish eating last at the dinner table. If you are still eating she will watch and pace herself so that she can say we all wolfed ours down.

My Mum is lovely but a bit bonkers. I get on with her really well but find it frustrating when she seems to use me as a dumping ground for all her thoughts. It like she doesn't have an edit button. I have started to pull her up on it and I now tell her, very bluntly, that she is being boring.

I have forbidden her to tell me any of her dreams.

I could go on.....

Ps, I am smiling at all the long posts on this thread. It's good to have a moan isn't it

No my Mum's only weirdness is that she doesn't care about money or success or anything in particular. She knows what she wants an doesn't want and doesn't mess people around. The only thing she does do is not tell people what she really wants (because she doesn't want to be disappointed). But most of the time she doesn't want anything. When my Dad was still alive she was annoying because he would annoy her and she was bitter. Now he's gone, bittersweet to admit, but she's completely chilled.

I think it's never too late to tell people what you think. I also think it will be good for her too.

Weird in a fabulous way - she collects everything known to man. Including wade ornaments, piggy banks, teapots, tea cosies, kitchen tins, pigs of all descriptions, tea sets, all sorts. She also wears clothing I wouldn't be able to - lots of patterned leggings , onesies, boots with tassels on, and has the ability to laugh her way out of everything. She has some three hundred nicknames for me, my sister and pets. Wonderfully weird and unique.

My father on the other hand is just plain weird. He claims to have no money but eats in Armani fecking resturaunts, has stolen countless things from jobs, has had over 40 jobs, lies on his cv 'sold' my baby furniture to various single women, regularly donated sperm to universities (i.e. weekly), wears corduroy trousers, sandles and sports socks, has very odd sexual tastes (and yes it was tmi being told that - he's into brutal sadism) , has the emotional capacity of a cardboard box and appears to have no ability to feel empathy or to understand that he shares his genes with other people apart from himself. He is a very, very odd man. Unfortunately he's so bloody weird that I have been advised not to have dealings with him for safety.

In my family we just use humour. Someone does something like that, everyone would laugh.

My Mum can be controlling and odd but not for very long. I love her though, she tries.

My mums got really weird since retiring. I feel like I don't know her & we used to be good friends.

It's like telephone roulette - you never know which Mum you're going to get. Overly excited mum, massively PA mum, nasty mum, harassed mum, happy mum. They're all extremes of whatever the current emotion is. Blasé mum was around for my 20 week scan - she didnt give a shit. That hurt.

I just miss my normal mum I don't think she's well actually.

My mum's not weird to me. She's amazing. She has been happily single since divorcing my pig of a father 25 years ago, has always worked and is the staunchest feminist and the kindest granny ever. It's surprising how many people think those qualities make her weird but that's their problem.

Your mum sounds very difficult. It would be hilarious, I'm sure, if it wasn't so irritating. Your poor dad - will the worm ever turn, do you think?

My mum does the mental download thing too but I do it back at her so it is quits. My DF doesnt really listen to her so I am her best confidant. I don't think I will do it to my DDs though as it will drive them batty. And she does the rambly thing about the cousin's wife's brother's neighbours dog.
The one I hate is the Outpatient Story. Not just for her and my DF but if any random person in her village goes to the hospital she regales me with What the Doctor said. As this is my day job I want to scream and run away.
But overall she is kind and thoughtful and loving and eighty next week and I am so lucky to have her!

Omg my mother is 100 shades of weird.

So many things but it's the long, rambling repetitive stories from as far back as 1972 that really get my goat. Especially the one about my sisters appendix, I must have heard that story 1000000 times.

On a worse note, my dad hasn't been allowed to have a life basically. They have no friends as she just doesn't approve of anyone, she is too weird to have a friendship with. She just grinds you down with her opinions and personality. She was quite emotionally abusive growing up and I have little contact now.

My mum used to love changing my kids poo-nani nappies. And getting up with them at 5am. Very weird.

My mum is very weird around food and it took me 25 years of my own eating disorder and a year of therapy to kind of get better to recognise it. She is another one who always says she doesn't want much then picks of the kids plates!

Trying my best to have normal food behaviour around my own kids and thankful I don't have daughters as they are generally more affected.

Just realised that sounds quite mean, she has always meant well and is kind, sweet and loves us to bits, just in denial about a life long eating disorder.

Mrs TP, my brother and I always deal with challenging behaviour with humour. It's the only way to avoid total family breakdown. His dw takes everything far too seriously so we have to turn it on its head before she turns it into an issue. It developed as the only response to my domineering father as he got older, he wasn't scary any more, just silly. He laughed along with us eventually.