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?

Heathcliff, I hope you know that's rubbish. It's definitely not you, and just another way of being cruel that she even thought about blaming you.

I don't happen to think people that kill themselves are all selfish or nasty, which is what is sometimes said on here... BUT in this case, she has been. Nasty woman.

Thanks, shes a nasty piece of work. I've cried all the tears i'm going to, onwards and upwards now. I have a wonderful husband and his family and my 3 amazing children. Thats all I need although I did have a wobble one day when I realised that if we ever split up I would have no one. My father isn't worth tuppence either but i cut contact with him many many years ago.

I don't. Her whole side of the family deal with it by blanking me completely.

Well blimey this was an unexpectedly comforting thread. My mum isn't as bad as many on here, but I've always known she didn't like me. For a while I convinced myself I was mad to think that, and I remember clearly the overwhelming relief when my dad finally admitted it was true.

I hugely identity with the idea of Stockholm Syndrome, in fact that made me gasp out loud it's such an accurate description. I adored my mum until my first serious boyfriend pointed out how awful she was to me.

I was lucky because my dad loved me very much - although obviously not as much as he loved my mum - so I got a decent upbringing.

It is my daily quest to not be my mother, to let my DD know she is loved, to break the chain. I struggle sometimes, I find it hard to express anger without lapsing into my mum's voice, but I think I'm making it.

Thanks to everyone who shared their stories, you have made me feel.... Not alone :)

We do not get along. I was controlled by her as a teen - my thoughts and opinions were hers.

She loves my dcs but focusses very much on what they are to her. She constantly tells them how much she loves them and it is too much.

I have never felt she has ever been proud of me.

My mum hated me once she realised I had a mind of my own and wasn't just her appendage. She was a classic narcissist, thankfully now dead.

She was obsessed with dad and insanely jealous of us kids taking any of his attention. He did what he was told for an easy easier life.

I am lucky to have an understanding and lovely dh. I still don't really believe him when he says he loves me. I try very hard not to pass on this feeling of unlikeableness and lack of self worth to my dd, but when she gets upset she says no one loves her, something my ds doesn't say.

Oh yes, Mother's Day, ha, when I was a child my dad and I went to the shops and bought her perfume, flowers and a card. We were so happy (the only time I remember going out with dad by myself). She then had a massive tantrum about how awful the presents were and how stupid Mother's Day was, so I chucked the card in the bin and took great satisfaction in never giving her anything for Mother's Day ever again.

I posted upthread, but I just wanted to say that attachment-based psychotherapy has helped me hugely with this issue, and anyone looking to deal with this pain that we feel over our relationship with our mothers (and the effects it has on other relationships) should try it.

Gosh this is a thread that resonates with me as well. I have a narcissitic 'mother' and a passive schizoid 'father' - she got to bully me and he sometimes joined in, or at best he did nothing to stop her. She never liked me, let alone loved me, and her worst snipe was always "You are just like your father", which was meant to be the biggest put down . I have spent most of my life believing I wasn't good enough in some way.

Everything I do relates back to her:

• At age 9, she showed me her caesarean scar and said "That scar's from when I had you", basically blaming me for her scar

• During my middle and late teens, when I was discovering who I was and what I wanted in life, she said would always say to me "You are so selfish" if I didn't want to do something for her. The worst of it was that she made me such a people pleaser that I would do things that were against my own best interests, because she wanted me to

• As I was growing up she would always poke fun at looks and make me feel inadequate - big nose, weight gain (I was growing FFS!), or my pimples - in order to make herself feel better. In retrospect she was also hated having another female in the house who might get my father's attention (I was her daughter FFS, and there was no untoward attention from my 'father')

• When I left home to go to university, she later later accused me of "running away from home to get away from her" - erm no, I got into a university that was far away because I didn't get into my first two choices. I now know it was the best thing for me to get away from her

• I had a job in Japan in my mid-20's, and had spent a pretty penny getting flights home to spend Xmas with the family, she chose to bring up a $90 parking fine I had before I left in front of the whole family. I shouldn't have bothered flying home...

• When she doesn't get her way, she throws a tantrum, shouts and emotionally blackmails, triangulates individuals, tell lies to one, and lets them do her dirty work (works especially well with my father), ignores and neglects and acts the martyr, and sometimes its a combination of any or all of these at once.

I now no longer have any contact with the egg and sperm donor (they were never parents, there was no love, just food, money and clothes), and my life is peaceful and calm. I have a much better sense of who I am and who I want to be in the future. I am consciously working on the people pleasing, setting boundaries, self love, self respect and my self esteem. I got rid of all the 'frenemies' I had because they were all a version of her or my father. Slowly but surely I am attracting the right people in my life, people who can see me for my good qualities, and who don't see me as something they can use.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and its good to finally be able to see it...

There does seem to be a theme on this thread of a lot of our mothers having narcissistic tendencies. I can see that also in my younger brother, the favoured one, who has made a monumental fuck up of his life.

My mother did not like me, she was very controlling, also a narcissist, prone to sulks and rages, my father was an alcoholic so a difficult childhood and adulthood. I am not even going to write any more, they don't deserve the space. We are minimal contact now and she tends to leave me alone, either because she has done all the damage she wanted to, or she has stopped getting supply from me. It is funny, when we do have any contact, the ways she indirectly tries to explain things. Her last attempt at manipulation was so obvious it was laughable.

I left my marriage to a narcissist, controlling, abusive dh, and for the first time ever, I have silence in my head. They make you think you are going crazy. I am still working on boundaries and working out who I am, rather than who people want me to be. It is a good project to have. I think the best I can do for dc is love and support them to be their own people.

In my mind "mother's day" is still all about my mum, I see the signs and I think "oh shit". I regularly forget I am a mum and it might be me they're talking about.

My dm does not see me as an individual. I am just her child. Every time she reminisces about my childhood the emphasis is on her;

"You were so sweet as a baby, I dressed you in blah blah blah"

"I never left you to cry, I was such a loving mother"

"All my focus was on you, my needs went out the window"

She says these things when trying to criticise advise me on how I raise my dc. I do not ask for advice - it is always voluntarily given.

She likes to have the power and believes she knows far more about politics/men/life than me despite having disastrous relationships and never advancing in her career. It affects me as she is never proud of my achievements. On the occasions she appears proud she takes the credit;

"Well I always encouraged you to attend university"

"I wanted you to have more opportunities than I did"

"I was happy to support you through university" Err you did no such thing. From 18 I have supported myself and her whilst living at home.

She has a recollection of my childhood that totally contradicts mine. I tell it as it is and she accuses me of lying. For example for my 21st birthday I bought all the food and drink. Dm insists she did! She actually becomes upset if I do not go along with her.

Lisrento I forget about myself for Mothers Day too. It does not occur to me to wonder what dh has planned. I put myself last in pretty much every area of life, Mothers Day is no exception.

I remember reguarly giving my dm my last £10/£20 and the first part of salary and having nothing left to live on. A friend once asked why I would leave myself short. It did not occur to me to put myself first. I grew up feeling she was a priority and I owed her. I always feel indebted to her

I am very much affected by her child rearing which according to her was wonderful

I have seen counsellors and suffered heavily with depression.

These posts are sad. I realise how many others feel like I do.

Mine hated me - still does from wherever she is in the hereafter.

We were living with her when she tried to get her sticky mits on the £44k we had in equity.

How did we deal with it?

We left, got an xd phone no and went no contact.

She spent 4 years writing anonymous letters, sold her house and got rid of everything my much-loved (but not by her) df wanted me to have and believed I would have after her death.

Later on she sent the contents of her flat to the auction rooms, and gave the money to 2 children of friends, now well in their 60s.

Bitter - yes

She told me (I was the second of two) that she had two miscarriages before me and had only wanted two children...so I was to be grateful for existing. When I was six I developed a v serious bone infection- agonising and un diagnosed because I was lying about the pain. Two operations and years of disability. My uncle told me at my brother's wedding that the whole family thought it was disgraceful I was left in a room for a year then because she was ashamed of me. He didn't do anything though.

I wasn't allowed a bra or deodorant. I was mocked had all my hair cut off laughed at with my friends. Told I was lying about needing IVF (5 goes for my dd, then miraculously 2 natural dss).

After my third pregnancy I developed arthritis - it was awful for her so naturally I comforted her including when my hair fell our from a medication as she was so upset...

My dad died when I was 20. Some years later when I was a bit sad she said I should get over it, that my problem was that "you and your dad just wanted to sleep with each other".

I have comforted her, moved house for her while my brother did nothing but had lunch cooked for him! Before going NC 18 months ago after finding out from my brother that she was cutting me out of her will (I would have only found out after she died) I would have to spend an hour every day on the phone sorting her life out. If I dodged a call there would be consequences.

There's so much more.

So sad for all of us.

I'm deeply saddened to read all these stories

I just cannot comprehend your own mums treating you all so badly

my mum loves me dearly
although she has forgotten me now

Twenty years ago, when I was 17,my mother told me I was to leave the home that day and she had arranged for me to go and live in a hostel in a nearby town, I was picked up and taken away, I remember having to go to social services that afternoon to get a food voucher as she hadn't given me any money.

In the years since ive seen her once, when I turned up outside her house with my son, she looked through the window, recognised me and i saw her say 'oh no' in horror at the sight of me. When I was nineteen I rung her and told her Id had a baby, she said 'don't expect me to be it's grandmother'. The only time she has ever actually contacted me herself was when I left her a phone message telling her I had traced my father, (after sending her letters asking her to tell me about him, which she always ignored) she then rang me back to question me about him and what he was doing now.

So a bit of an understatement to say my mother doesn't like me, growing up with her was like sharing a house with a stranger who fed and clothed you, but I also had to put up with sneers, cold looks, just complete disdain and contempt for me and anything I did. I grew up knowing I wasn't loved or liked by her and eventually I grew to hate her and now feel nothing for her. I went through years of loathing myself as I just couldn't understand how she had just cut me off for no real reason.

Apologies if this post is too long, I don't really post on here, but had to say something, am in tears reading some of these posts.

Can I also add that I think my mother could live with me as a child, as she could control me, she did and there were so many petty rules, but my growing up terrified her and there was no way she could have had an adult relationship with me, as I would have to be independent from her and make my own decisions.

To be so weak and inadequate you would rather disown your child and future grandchildren .. well I think it was easier for her to do that than change her own behaviour.

Oh and I was kicked out at 16. I was no angel, nowhere near as bad as some, there were no drugs, nothing bad, just couldn't handle standard teenage girl!

Neither my mother nor my father love me. My father is an alcoholic and was incredibly emotionally abusive until I eventually went no contact nearly 15 years ago.

My mother is controlling and also emotionally abusive (albeit in less obvious ways). She pretends to be such a caring and wonderful mother but the public facade has majorly slipped a few times where she hasn't managed to be in control and she's made it abundantly clear that she neither loves nor likes me. DH was shocked by what she has said to/about me and loathes her.

What really upsets me though is I did everything right in spite of her. I did what she wanted. I bought a flat, I never rebelled, I never took drugs, I didn't party too hard, I never got mixed up with the wrong crowd, I had a very successful first career and bought a house as a single girl, I met a wonderful man and got engaged, married and had children in that order, I have a lovely home and a lovely lifestyle and a second career and professional quals and an Masters and my children go/went to the best schools in the UK and seem to have turned out OK.

I have still never done anything to please her or to make her proud of me. All I have ever had is criticism and a cat's bum face.

I have spent 54 years trying to please her in some way and even now I would still like her to feel proud of me. I know I never shall and if hurts.