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?

I have only really appreciated what was missing in my childhood since I had children of my own. That was what made me understand the extent of the problems. Thanks to Mnet I've researched and I really do think she's a narcissist. Two broken marriages, everything done to create an impression of her perfection, fallings out with so many people over the years.

I'm just glad I was her dd rather than my dd who is much more sensitve than me and I think the damage would have been greater. But still at 13 it was dd who made me realise it really wasn't me.

Now, I just have a sadness. I have made my life; it just rarely includes my mother.

Thanks to those who answered my question about happy marriages earlier.

It seems that it hasn't been easy for anyone and reassuring to know that others have described feeling similarly to me.

It's interesting all the talk about Mothers' Day Cards too. I used to look for one that didn't express any particular sentiment at all. I don't have to bother anymore and it's such a relief!

In the end my exh used to buy them and if he couldn't a very basic "Happy Mothers' Day" card, then he'd buy one that was really over the top and gushing, thanking her for all her support and how our lives would be darker without her in it and she was the glue holding us all together, that sort of crap, just to be ironic! And we'd laugh about it... Nasty, spiteful bitch.

I hear what you're saying about the cards. I keep it very simple "Happy Mothers Day" or "To Mum on your Birthday" etc. No gushing messages.

I once described my relationship with my mum as being more like a niece / great aunt relationship. She cares but I'm just not that important really.

I'm not sure if my Mum likes me or not. She's an odd fish.... I was the result of a split condom.

She runs away from difficult situations. When DD was born, my OH had died 3 months previously. I ended up having an EMCS and had to stay in hospital with DD for a week. On being released, I needed to buy a breast pump from my local Boots. My Mum wouldn't come to the shop with me and I had to make my way down from the car park on the first floor of the shopping centre in the lift and walk to Boots and then round Boots looking for a breast pump.

A couple of days later, I needed some shopping (I didn't have an up and running PC at this time). My Mum drove me to Sainsbury's, but I had to walk around on my own, leaning on the trolley while she again stayed in the car with DD.

I dread buying Mother's Day cards for her - I just can't bear buying cards which gush. I just don't feel that way about her. Neither do my brother and sister.

This is a timely thread for me. I have had a horrendous relationship with DM since I can remember. We visited for half term. We live abroad at the mo. went back to our house in uk. She barely acknowleddged me. stole my youngest dd and my eldest for a day, to celebrate her birthday with my other sisters help. brought her back late and in doing so created holy buck in the house as we tried to get stuff done before we left.
I was recently hospitalized re mental health. this is the ultimate no no. she rang yesterday to talk about the book RUby Wax has written about the brain. I have a degree in psychology and understand the brain quite well. she ignored that. she thinks I am being "naughty" and looking for attention. "my poor husband". She creates fusses that my other sisters then deal with ie Skype me and tell me I am damaging my children with my carry on, why don't I just deal with myself.

Two youger sisters very close, but I believe they are a triumvirate bullying format. One is glad she is not on the hot seat, the other thinks she is helping out beleaguered Mother, Mother holds peoples coats and eggs them on. My brother gets the same treatment. Everything is triangulated through her. She has nothing but disdain for anything I do. I achieved a really high mark in my leaving cert exam, she looked at me and said "Is that good?" then asked why on earth would I want to go to university. I should be a secretary. I took all her advise.
I want to go NC. It is like cutting out a tumour. I have been in psych care on and off over the years. She can't stand me never mind like me. I remind her too much of herself. That is it in a nutshell. I have tried and tried so hard to be not her with regards to my daughters. I have also engaged in some horrific relationships with no idea that what I needed actually mattered. She had an almost identical relationship with her own mother....Wonder if she brought that Ruby Wax book.
When I was diagnosed with bi polar, she went to a psychiatrist just to make sure she might have it too. didn't want to be out of the pic

No. She hasn't spoken to me for over 2 years as she made a few nasty comments about me and my siblings and I said I would prefer it if she didn't. Apparently no one disagrees with her or challenges her.

She doesn't like or love anyone though she says love is over rated and people (like me) who think they are in love are kidding themselves.

DCP ,Thanks for starting this thread. Wise words on here. Lots to take in.
Yet another choosing MD card very carefully.
Yet another nodding along with the posts.
I am an only, never felt loved by her. She also does the bizzare " copying", competition stuff.
When my marriage of 30's years ended I begged my XH to " stay, please dont leave me with her"! says it all really.
After two days of my tears, she announced she'd had enough of my weeping, she couldn't cope with the drama and to "just get on with it"! Then promptly left , leaving me in a soggy heap on the floor. :(

I have a loving, close relationship with my children, made mistakes as we all do.
You wont be like your mother, you are emotionally aware, you are not her.

Afrodite - i also searched for adoption papers growing up as was sure i must be, given the different way i was treated compared to my brother. I felt invisible too so totally get the point you're making

The saying is 'kids can be cruel' but its definitely true the other way too!

My mother likes the me she thinks exists. So for example, I pretend that we never really go anywhere or do anything. Sadly, whenever I do say we've been somewhere that involves money, I get all these views about how in her day no one ever went out for dinner and where do people get their money from etc.
She also has views on DD and how she should behave which are a bot old-fashioned (e.g. I should have just left DD to cry herself to sleep, even when she had been crying for over an hour!)
Because I only see her 3 times a year, and for 48 hour periods, it is easier to just bite my tongue and think of freedom, rather than actually confront her and show I have different views. Not sure she'd like the real me!

lola I think you sound like you need to go NC with your horrible mother. She sounds as cold and spiteful as my mother, who also dismissed my severe depression and mental health problems as me being attention seeking. Didn't acknowledge my suicide attempt and subsequent admission to a psychiatric unit at all - it has just never been mentioned.

She also refuses to acknowledge any of my achievements but raves on about my (less achieving, frankly) siblings. Had beautiful hand-painted plates commissioned to mark all my siblings' marriages, and me nothing. It goes on and on and on.

I can solve the Mother's Day Card conundrum - just don't send one. This year, I sent my mother some beautiful pictures my children had made to her on her 70th. Not only did she not acknowledge them, she then proceeded to completely ignore my 40th exactly one month later.

I really regret parting with those precious pictures now. She really is a monumental bitch.

I must say, it is jolly nice to let off steam among others who understand all this. Most people in RL just can't fathom it so I don't talk about it unless asked directly, which is rarely.

My Mum likes me a lot. Doesn't think I'm perfect, but genuiniely does like me.

It came as quite a shock to me when I realised that my MIL does not like DH. I just couldn't get my head round it. Yet there it is. She thinks he's not likable and wonders why I do like him. Wonders why my Mum adores him. Wonders why he has lots of good friends, some of whom go back years.

It is really very weird.

No, my mother doesn't like me and struggles to love me. She is an extremely judgemental and controlling person, and by growing up I represented a challenge to her way of doing things that couldn't be tolerated. Growing up she was angry, violent and unbearably strict. I was got up at 6am and worked all day til 11 at night with literally no break at all.

When I split from my long term ex partner, she was no help at all. All she could say was 'I'm scared!' (thanks, mum). She left me to sleep in my own car rather than offering me a place to stay, and offered support to my ex rather than to me. When I met my DH, she refused to meet him at first, calling him an 'exploitative abuser who would just leave as soon as he'd gotten what he wanted' (because no guy in his right mind could like me in my own right, right?) then was extremely rude when I did finally introduce him after we'd been together a year (she sat in silence and sulked for 2 days!)

I deal with it by being extremely independent, doing my own thing, living my own life. I set boundaries, and I am not afraid to go NC for a while if they are crossed. My mother's response to this over the last 5 years has been to play the victim who is scared that I will walk out of her life.

It really, really hurts sometimes though - especially as I have a sister who gets oodles of support (emotional and financial). It pains me to say it, but my sister and is still living at home in her mid 30s in order to save tons of money to buy the perfect home in a couple of years, and copes with it all by being a serial liar to the point that I worry she will one day become seriously unable to distinguish truth from fiction.

There seems to be a common theme here.

When my fiance and I split up when I was 8 months pregnant, I found myself back at 'home' with only 50p to my name and the clothes on my back.

Whilst I was in hospital having my son, my mother arranged for me to go into a mother and baby home so that we didn't impact negatively on her life at all.

Then she was signed off work sick for 6 weeks for the stress it had caused her and garnered lots of sympathy from everyone she knew whilst leaving me and my new baby completely alone without any support from anyone.

Funny about adoption. She once told me I was adopted and had all the paperwork in the attic, did I want to see it.
Sometimes I watch her dare herself to be an even bigger bitch than usual. I think she likes the reaction which she can then use as further evidence of my nastiness, which then gets my younger sisters knickers in a twist and she goes in as the enforcer.
This time I have said and done nothing.
What I am interested in seeing is that if I am off the bench as the bad object, who will get it in the neck for future reference......should be interesting to watch from afar.
I am very sad at not having a family with brothers and sisters but our relationships are so ruptured. However, I have my girls and hope to be a better mother. Not that she has set much of a bench mark. Not rendering them psychologically damaged is a good start I think

I really feel it when I see friends who have a normal caring Mother daughter relationship. I do feel jealous and grieve for the one I would have liked to have had.

I don't feel jealous vjg, but I think that's because I don't think I deserved it.

I really like to see normal caring mother and daughter relationships in others because I can enjoy it 3rd hand. If that makes sense!

Mine hasn't spoken to me for almost 10 years and blanked me at both a family funeral and family wedding.

Her loss, especially of a relationship with her 3 wonderful grandchildren. I called her on her behaviour (walking out when I was 12) and she couldn't take it.

After a lot of therapy, I know I've made the right decision.

I have spent too long, wasted so much of my life wondering what would make my mother happy. That makes me angry. I can in a jot always conjure up that look of cold, slightly sneering disdain she keeps for when I give her a gift. Needless to say it goes unused or unopened or she returns it.
My younger sister does the same. Never thanks me for presents and often gives them back to me, excludes me from family events and so on. mothers little henchwoman.
fuck em.
I cannot do this anymore.

sleepwhenidle - REALLY interesting and perceptive question about food.

My grandmother was a bad mother in a very different (and far more serious) way than my mother. She failed all three of her children, one in a catastrophic way. I believe that my mother's problems with being maternal towards me stem from being my grandmother's favoured child. Anyway, one of the issues is that my grandmother has always made terrible decisions about men, has always surrounded herself with horrible gropey guys, and has always been absolutely obsessed and vain about her appearance. She is now 86, and still makes a point of telling anyone who listens that she weighs less than she did when she was 16. Her three daughters, my mother and two aunts all have issues with weight. It is kind of obsessive. My two aunts have issues with overeating and dieting, my mother has an extremely controlling attitude to food where she will NOT eat fat, and swears that it gives her stomach ache to eat anything richer than Ryvita. It's a kind of health obsession, but only about eating - she doesn't do any exercise.

I have had anorexia twice, and I think it is related to having been the child of a very controlling mother, with food the only thing I could have any say over. Despite the first bout, when I gained a stone in my late 20s, my mother made incessant comments about it. She couldn't bear having a 'fat' child. I ended up with a second bout during the split with my ex.

I do know what you mean, it is a mixture of awe and envy!

Yes, awe and envy. Kind of makes me feel happy that that is one person who doesn't feel like I do!

Will read through all of this with interest - not sure if my mum likes me we sort of have a passable relationship but to be honest are probably constant disappointment to each other

I have two dds and am desperate to have a better relationship with them and actually wanted sons due to my own deep seated issues with my own mother obv now I wouldn't change them for the world but I do worry for the future.

Oh the food thing. The RYvita thing. The crunching down stuff that has all the nutritional value of dust. by my mother then binges. (with my sister) to the point that she throws up.
THis is bonding for them.
I now hate food. I hate cooking. I hate resteraunts.
Mother called me fat my whole life, brothers and sisters joined in. I see pics of me younger and instead of a barrage balloon I see someone with a lovely figure but a kind of terror in their face cos they think they are fat and totally unlovable. so that's always nice to remember. so I try not to

I just asked dh if he thinks my mum likes me - he burst out laughing which says it all really!

My mum doesn't know the first thing about me and doesn't want to find out but she will go to great lengths to make others think that she is a wonderful supportive mum. I could tell so many stories of the hurtful things she has said and done and it's taken a long time to realise that it's her not me, she twists everything to make herself look good and me look like a horrible daughter which I believed for most of my life. I barely speak to her these days and that suits me fine, I have so many wonderful people in my life that there is no room for a negative bitter narcissist anyway