Does your Mum like you?

[DevonCiderPunk]

and if not, how do you both deal with it?

Mine doesn't... she tries her best to hide it, but I just get on her nerves. About 10 years ago the penny dropped and I started asking around the family and it turns out that she can spend a good half hour telling anyone who will listen about my flaws. This was a very hard thing to hear, but I've always known it deep down. If I tell her something in confidence (e.g. depression, marriage problems) she will take it straight to others and exaggerate it. And if I am having a hard time she will always find a way to make me feel like I deserved it.

It's incredibly sad and I would do just about anything to avoid this happening with my own daughter. What to do?

It took me a long time to settle down after some god awful relationships. All of which were my fault for either not putting up with stuff or not being switched on en

I spent many years caught in a trap of believing my mum's myth that we are close and get on, and always wondering why it hurt so much and I was always so unhappy around her.

One problem is all that history of me trying to be nice to her has convinced her I think she's great, and though I've become more and more disaffected and distant with her, it's very hard to make that clear. I'm dreading mother's day, because I always send her something, because I always have, and I don't dare stop. But I hate it.

Gah!!

Enough!

But I had a kind of epiphany that as they didn't know me at all their judgements meant next to nothing. I'm not NC but as close as I can be whilst maintaining contact if that makes sense. Bare minimum. Helps too that DH sees it.

I was lucky though - I had a paternal GM who I was close to. That helped hugely as the parents just didn't get me.

My dad just stalks me now. She doesn't speak to me at all.

She ordered me to have an abortion when I was 30. I just did it. Screamed the clinic down. She said 'I wouldn't love it'. I believed anything she said back then.

what she meant was, SHE wouldn't love 'it' so didn't see the point.

she's never seen the point of me

she's got four other kids though ( my brothers and sisters) and i have no contact with them either as they say i am horrible.

I am very careful with chosing a Mother's Day card too. I never get one with a verse that says I couldn't have done it without you etc.

she's a vile woman actually. But my father worships her and always has. I saw that model growing up. It's made me over tolerant to unacceptable bounddaries. I have taken enough shit to sink the titanic as a result.

fortunately I am a lone parent now and have fuck all to do with them (apart from my stalkery father who has got hold of my new number somehow)

The NC is interesting Aaron i am not specifically but last spoke to her in new years eve when she was shitfaced and not making sense. She never phones for a chat and having ha a shit year last year, i thought maybe she might... but coming up 3 months with nothing

She's not abusive like so many on this thread but she sure doesn't make me feel good about myself.

I too am irrationally jealous of people with great relationships with their mums. one of the hardest things about my marriage breakdown was 'losing' my MIL (but then she just dropped me too - so perhaps it is me?!)

Me too mrs nothing too loving or sentimental, it would be BS.

Mine doesn't. Relatives tried to remove me during my childhood. She still has her moments when her view of me completely floors me. My DH is the most supportive, wonderful man and that helps. Though I used to think he was flawed because he loves me. I have moved past that now. I have a reasonable relationship with her these days . Most recently thanks to MN. I just tell her she is talking shite or to stop talking now. She takes it quite well whilst knowing I mean it.

Pfft. My mother likes no one but herself...

My mum doesn't like me at all. She loves the child I was.

I don't think she ever anticipated me being a real person, let alone a different person than the type she wanted me to be.

I have mental health issues (depression and anxiety,) and whenever she wants to make me see her point, she plays on these. She has never once apologised for the things she's done to hurt me; emotional, verbal or physical.

She sees my 19mo DD and sees me as a baby. I refuse to let her do to her what she did to me. As it stands, I'm the polar opposite of her as a parent, so I fully believe I will never be like her with DD.

I agree with a pp who said they gravitate to kindly mother figures. I find myself doing it, but try not to get too clingy.

I have no real idea. She's severely mentally ill and has been sectioned multiple times- during our childhood she was abusive and also let us be abused by her partner, but her illness was definitely a cause of this (and we went into care as a result). As an adult, she sends cards and messages, and tells me some things which sounds like she is proud of me/likes me/is struggling, and then will switch to hurtful messages and bullying, but it's hard to separate what is a symptom of her illness, and what is her, iyswim? I think she does care for us, but liking/loving us, I don't know.

Nope. Mine told me at 13 that she loves me, but doesn't like me.

Judging by her behaviour I think she was lying about the loving part.

Took a long time and realised it was her problem, not mine and I have very little contact with her. It's lovely.

My mother loathes me and has done since I was a small child. She thinks I got in the way of her relationship with my father. Actually, he was just having a string of affairs and it was easier for her to project her unhappiness on to me.
I have recently decided I will not have anything more to do with her. This has come on more since I had my dd (DC3 after two DSs) and I realise I would never leave her alone with my mother.
She occasionally sends abusive emails where you can tell she was drunk sending them and then my DH takes it up with my father and then we go into another cycle of silence.
I actually think she is obsessed with me. She sees me as the OW in her marriage. She even wrote me a letter once saying she could never forgive me for trying to take my father's love away from her when I was a child. Bonkers.
She even stood up and walked out with I rose to give my speech at my sister's wedding.
God the stories I could tell.
Well - that was cathartic!

I can relate to those Aussie and dollius.

My parents separated just before my 18th birthday. I have a clear memory of my mother screaming at me in the back garden calling me a bitch who "drove your father into the arms of another woman".

I was about 13 when my mother said to me that she loved me because she didn't have any choice as she was my mother, but she didn't like me. I also doubted the 'love' part at the time. By the time I reached adulthood she was quite open about not loving me either.

She wasn't even embarrassed about other people knowing about it. She was so certain in her belief that I was unlikeable/unloveable that she assumed people would feel sorry for her for having been cursed with such a hateful daughter.

mummybeerest mine sounds similar to yours in that I always felt I was doing something to purposely hurt her by growing up. Teenage years were awful, my first boyfriend hit me often and when I tried to ask her for help eventually she told me I must of really annoyed him and these things happen. I felt so ashamed of myself for what now I see as normal teenage behaviour (with great help from some quite hilarious threads on mn) yet I still can't shake the shame of becoming a functioning adult. She became overly involved when I had dd1 when everything I did was wrong in her eyes. And what I thought was us becoming closer was just her obsessing over my DCs.

She eventually told me 18 months ago she didn't like me and just wanted to spend time with her dgc without me. Well that's not happening as I can see her becoming angry and dismissive as DDs become older and, heaven forbid, have their own opinions.

I try to remind myself it wasn't/isn't me. I grew up and became independant which in her eyes is a direct attack

I didn't realise until my thirties that my dad just doesn't like nor understand me. Everything fell in to place and suddenly I could understand so many events that had hurt and confused me. I find things much easier - but the Mothers' Day card comment just now made me smile, I spend ages finding a Fathers' Day card that I can put my name to.

droopytulip this sounds like classic Narcisstic behavior. It's natural that small children adore their parents (survival method as they are dependent upon them). As children change and grow into thinking adults Narcs cannot handle that one of their sources of Narcisstic supply is becoming independent and cannot be controlled. You are there purely to make them feel good about themselves and ergo if they are not happy it has to be your fault.

Narcissists have no empathy or self-knowledge so you are not going to have any kind of recepricol relationship with them.

Heartbreaking stories on this thead. Some parents do such terrible damage.

My mother sort of cares in her own way but it will never ever be enough. She's jealous of me and my sister and cannot be happy for us, especially when it comes to relationships. She is furious with us both for growing up and abandoning her, as she sees it. Its sad and scary at the same time.

My best friend is mum to an 18 month old DD and I am so jealous of both of them! I know I hide it well and I love spending time with both of them but it breaks my heart at times. Little one has a lovely mum who can't do enough for her and puts her first all the time and mum has a beautiful baby to nurture. What do I have - 2 parents who don't really give a shit!

Ditto to struggling with Mothers Day cards

I had huge problems in my teens thinking she didn't. I was a very difficult teen, and my tantrums obviously didn't make her warm towards me! But part of that was caused by the thought that I thought she regretted having me etc etc. I didn't know how to deal with both her unhappiness and my reproaches towards her. Now we have a much better relationship and she has mentioned several times qualities in me that she appreciates, so I know that she notices the good as well as the bad, which is v. important. I have seen and experienced so much love and support from her, and genuine encouragement and sympathy too in the last few years, that I can see that we were both very hurt and confused during the difficult years. She's only human.

We are both so, so taken over by our moods, which means that in times of stress we both have the shortest fuses and enormous tempers. And I think I just didn't know my parents very well as a child (which is normal, cos aren't all kids little mini narcissists to a certain extent!). So I got the wrong message and that led to one thing and another.....

50 and still waiting for her to give me a hug or tell me she loves me - she's just not the mothering kind. df was my mother and father.

She can't help it - she was always overlooked as a child so doesn't have a clue how to be a mother - I have tried very hard to break the mould and do things very differently with my dc but she criticises everything I do.

I will never be the person she wants me to be, I don't want to be that person. I am happy with who I am but wish she was too. The current storyline in call the midwife with chummy and her mother is too close for comfort and makes difficult viewing.

Nope.
DH is excellent in ensuring that I never have to be alone with her anymore because she spouts such horrible things if she corners me.
She dotes on DS, of course. Ain't it always the way?!

No. She doesn't. I remember being about 10 and asking her why she loved db and not me.

We muddled through, but when I married dh I mentioned oyt loud to him that I found her difficult. Dh reassured me I wasn't imagining it. She just wasn't very nice to me.

Once I noticed that she had picked a favourite in my own dc's, and had heard enough criticism of my parenting skills, I dropped contact. We haven't had contact for 11 years.

I miss the mother I wanted to have, I don't miss the mother I got. I've tried very hard to be a different mother to my dc's. I hope I managed it.

No she doesn't. I always knew I was a mistake and that she didn't want children. At nearly 54 I am still waiting to do something that pleases her. I was never the "party" child she wanted with curly locks and a fun personality. I was too plain for pink. Lots and lots and lots of things. With hindsight I believe she is a narcissist.

It took my daughter at the age of about 13 looking at me from the sofa after a visit and saying "God how did you put up with her - she's so difficult" to make me realise finally that it wasn't my fault.

Having said all that I was never hit, I was never abused and materially I was very lucky. But do I have a port in a storm - no. Do I have a confidant - no. Do I have someone would rush to me at a minute's notice -no. Do I have someone would will tell me they are proud of me no.

I would love to do just one thing that meets with her approval. My DH isn't good enough; my home isn't good enough; my children aren't good enough and I'm not good enough.

I honestly don't know. And I don't really care. I try not to think about how it could have been different, and I consciously try to be different with my sons. But it's a struggle.