Why doesn't my mum like me being confident and strong?

[HangingBasketCase]

For many years I've struggled with confidence and assertiveness issues. I've also suffered with social anxiety and generalised anxiety, this has really held me back until recently but over the past few I've taken steps to address this and I've also had counselling.

During my counselling it suddenly dawned on my that my mum is the root cause of a lot of my problems. She's always been very overbearing, often telling me what to do and would get moody and snappy if I didnt do it so I learned it was best to shut up and say nothing, even if she was out of order. On the rare occasions where I did stick up for myself or speak up I was usually told to shut up. Mum dislikes criticism and always likes to be right, and so her response would be to just shut me down rather than discussing it normally.

She didn't like it if I had my own opinions and would often shout me down, about that as well. As a consequence I've always been one of these people who sits on the fence and is scared of airing my point of view in case I offend others.

Basically instead of bringing me up to be a strong, confidence and assertive woman she turned me into a scared, weak pathetic creature. I say turned because over the past three years or so I've been working at changing myself using the tools and coping mechanisms given to me by my counsellor who was excellent. She told me that it's Ok to stand up to people, including my mum, and that it's perfectly Ok to air my point of view and that if that offends people it's their problem and not mine.

The problem is my mum doesn't like this. I now don't feel the need to pussyfoot around her, I stick up for myself and air my opinions openly. I'm never aggressive, but she will always try and shut me down. I always push the point though because I refuse to be "shut down" by her any longer. She thinks I've become awkward, difficult, moody, argumentative, you name it and she tried to tell me off like a child.

I don't understand it though? Surely most mums want their daughters to grow up to be strong, independent women able to cope with anything life throws at them and not weak push overs? I don't get it. What is her problem?

I also forgot to mention that I recently told her that I was considering retaining as a nurse and she told me that I wouldn't be able to do it because it's hard and stressful.

No encouragement whatsoever.

My mother is like this. Things have gotten better since I've moved-mainly because she can't be bothered to drive out.

You said it yourself; she likes to be right. It's her own insecurity that makes her combative of your confidence.

Bullies thrive on imbalance of power-if you're weak, she's strong. She'd rather that than you being happy and treating you like an equal.

Good for you for finding courage and strength to change things. That's a really hard thing to do.

People like your mother never change.

Thanks for responding.

I've never thought of her as a "bully" before, but she does have an overwhelming need to be in control of everything and that includes me. She can't control my brother because he has never let her, that's the difference between us. I'm just naturally more passive than he is.

I've now removed the control from her.

You are doing so well and you should be very proud of yourself. I think your mum has her own issues going on and probably had a very similar upbringing to yourself as these sort of thing often goes down through the generations. I can only advise you to keep to your current action plan. Keep asserting yourself but expect her to be shocked, hurt and quite indignant about your new stance.
I would sit down and write her a really heart felt letter, if it's in letter form she can read and re read at her own pace. Tell her that you love her and appreciate all that she has done for you but tell her how she has rocked your confidence over the years ; well everything that you have told us really.
Your mum may or may not be able to accept this criticism. She may or may not wish to change so that things can be better in the relationship between you both. Remember, also that change for most of us, can be very difficult.
Whatever happens, tell her how you feel, and then keep on building yourself up and doing the things that are true to your heart. Yes, nursing will be hard but if it is what you want to do then go for it and carve out your life for yourself. I wish you every happiness.

Oh my, I could have written this about my mum! I put it down to her being a nursery school teacher and always having the children in her class listen to her. I don't think she realises that I'm not 5 anymore! She even speaks to my dad in the same way.

I'm not allowed to have a different opinion to her and anyone who does is wrong. Plus she constantly criticises me if she thinks I've done/said the wrong thing. Because of all this, I'm terribly self aware to the point that I'm constantly assessing my own behaviour amongst friends/other people and I hate being like it!

I think you have to accept you can't change her but can change the way in which you deal with her. You need to let her comments go over your head and just agree with what she's saying and do your own thing anyway.

With me, it doesn't always work, I sometimes feel the need to argue my case or pull her up on what she's saying but it results in an argument. I keep hoping it's making her realise that I am my own person, but who knows?!

Do you think counselling has helped you overcome your reticence in giving your opinion to others? I haven't been able to address that/the self awareness thing in myself so maybe counselling would help me.

Do be aware though that things may not end well. My mum and DSis are NC because my mum is like this. They seem to have totally different opinions on everything which my mum can't handle, whereas I do tend to agree with my mum sometimes.

I am a mother who always likes to be right - but I'm also ready to admit that I'm wrong. I have a 16yr old DS who also likes to be right all the time, thankfully our "battles" are good humoured and I would never want him to be afraid of standing up to others (perhaps not quite so much with his teachers would be good tho!!) but we do have some very heated debates.

Well done for breaking the cycle

Once you start standing up to someone, changing the status quo and effective balance of power, they usually hate it at first and fight it hard.

Often after a while it calms down as they adjust to the new you. Sometimes, depending on how driven for dominance the person is, it doesn't and you have to accept constant friction or walk away. Both of you being female may possibly make it more difficult.

I hope she can simmer down and accept the new, more powerful you. Congratulations, it's very hard work standing up to a bully for the first times!

Mums can be funny creatures. Luckily mine is nothing like yours but even she has had the odd funny moment. She was quite an accomplished dancer until she married my dad. They then lived abroad until I was born. I would have loved to have had dance lessons like my friends did when I was small but I was never allowed. Anyhoo... I'm a bit taller than my mum and have inherited my dad's long, skinny build...

When I was in my early 20s she had a clearout and handed me down a dress that she'd had made for her at a similar age (think 60s retro shift style). I held on to it and then one time wore it on an evening out. I phoned her to tell her afterwards, thinking she'd be pleased but the response I got instead was a rather sniffy 'oh, I'm surprised you could get in to it'.

After I'd got over my bruised feelings I sat down, thought about it and realised that she simply had a moment of jealousy. Even though I'm not a dancer, I'm as slim as she was, but taller. I'm also educated to post grad level and have had a successful career of my choosing. I also have financial independence and more disposable income than she did.

I think in a bizarre way (even though my mum has helped me a lot with my ds and loves us both), she just wanted to be 'better' than me in some way. If I'd told her instead that I'd wanted to wear her dress but couldn't get it on she'd have said 'that's a shame' but been quite pleased.

And my mum's one of the good ones! I suspect yours could well be very jealous of your achievements as an individual in your own right, hence the squashing you and putting down your ambitions. Ignore her - it's your life and you deserve to follow your ambitions. Nursing is an admirable career choice and people who do it day in and day out deserve nothing but admiration and respect.

My mum did nursing training for a while when she was young but had to drop out and never went back to it, so yes, I think there is potentially some jealousy there. However there was no reason why she couldn't go back to it, and she also went to have a very good career in a totally different profession. So there nothing to be jealous of really.

She's also always been very over critical my of clothes and hair styles. But forbid I ever criticised something she wore though. I once, quite helpfully I thought, pointed out that you could see through the top she was wearing and she went ballistic saying she'd wear what she wants etc

She can dish it out, but not take it back.

But that's the thing about jealousy, isn't it? It's just not rational because it's about them and their feelings of inadequacy, not you. It does sound hard because children naturally want to please their parents but honestly, in this case I don't think you're ever going to. I've had to learn that sometimes my best policy is to get on and do what I feel is right, and then just mention it in passing once it's a fait accompli.

You could be describing my mum! It was only after having a lot of therapy that I was able to express and opinion or speakup about anything, I was so squashed down and unconfident. I was also properly trained into being a complete people-pleaser which has been so difficult to stop.

My current thoughts on it are that my mum was actually quite unconfident or had poor self esteem but as long as I was around to be ground down, silenced and rendered unconfident I was the perfect foil that enabled her to feel better. Well done for getting out of it OP.

You'll probably find she has a huge fear of being unlovable and that no-one would ever love her just for being her.

so she was careful to ensure that her children were dependent, passive people who would never question her or argue with her (which is the closest she probably felt she could get to actual love/acceptance).

it's sad what human beings do to each other in a desperate attempt to protect themselves from fear.

thank goodness you found a good counsellor to help you move on from all this. isn't fair really is it, that parents do this to their children.

My mum too!

A lot of it I think is generational. She was brought up to be subservient to "men"- they went out to work and brought home the money, the women stayed at home and looked after them. Everything was about what other people thought, was their house the cleanest, did they have most expensive doulton, would people think they had nice manners?

This extended to children. Having the most obedient, best dressed, well mannered daughters meant people would think their parenting was good. Therefore any sense of independent thinking or behaviour was immediately quashed.

She still tries to tell me what to do. And yes, should I stand up for myself or refuse to do do what she wants it's "hormonal", or I'm being childish, or upsetting her.

I kind of leave her to it now. Although she has upset my dc a couple of times by saying idiotic things like you can't go out without a coat, people will think you look stupid.

I am trying raise the dc to have their own opinions, own style, and to voice what they want and what they feel.

Op it sounds like you have finally seen your mum for what she really is.
And just because she's your mother doesn't mean she's a nice person.

It sounds like she's trying to control you as if you were still a child.

If she really cannot take any honesty from you at all then you might want to consider exploring if she has traits of a narcissist. I'm coming right out and saying this, as I'm sure your therapist can help you with that. As the big thing is- you cannot change them. And they may never be ok with you having your own mind. All you can do is to protect yourself.

I'm speaking from experience of this sadly.

But what you are describing sounds very familiar, and it seems like you are seeing your relationship in a new light. Hoping you manage this transition ok.

I don't think my mum had the best childhood in the world to be honest. She's never explicitly stated this, however it's what I've picked up in bits and pieces from things she said over the years. Her own mum could be a very difficult woman and I think possibly had some kind of personality disorder, she would often punish my mum and he'd siblings by literally ignoring them for days, weeks sometimes even months on end if they did something wrong or offended her in some way.

A lot of your OP struck a chord with me. You say surely mums want their daughters to grow into strong, independent women and I think that was the case with my mum - a strong, independent woman who does things exactly how she would do .

Time and geographical distance certainly helped for me, I was able to pull away from her because she couldn't physically be there to take over. My confidence grew and I became the strong, independent women who does things how I want to do them.

What Meerka said once you start standing up for yourself, changing the status quo and effective balance of power, they usually hate it at first and fight it hard is so true. The amount of times I had to justify what, why, how I was doing something was exhausting, and having her walk into my house and just take over - the arguments that caused.

It's been hard but i think she has finally accepted it (Maybe she's just given up trying to make me the person she thinks I should be, or maybe, hopefully she's accepted me as me).

Keep at it, you are who you are, you do things your way because it suits you. You are doing really well.

gosh that sounds pretty tough for your mum to deal with as a child.
did you know that frequently families replicate patterns of behaviour down the generations?

and by the sounds of it you are breaking out of this family pattern. so it makes sense that you will get resistance.

Some people aren't capable of living the life or being the person they want to be. Instead, they live their lives through others. That can mean either pushing then into living the life they wanted (think pushy mother) or squashing down those around them so that they don't achieve which just highlights the bully's own inadequacies.

This could have been written by me!

My dm painted a picture of herself as a strong woman who took no crap from anyone. I fell for it and was scared of her as a child/teen. I was petrified at asking to meet friends and other very run of the mill things. She enjoyed the control.

Fast forward 10 years and she met a loser who took complete advantage of her in every way possible. I saw her for what she was - a very insecure and needy woman with no confidence.

In all of this she still liked to talk over me/lord her opinion over me/become angry if I did not agree with her/convince me I am not liked by others, manipulate me.

I often doubt myself, over analyse conversations, feel I am not good enough, assume others will not like me, feel inferior especially when around intelligent people.

I was bullied at secondary school and always thought this was the cause of my low self worth but after having counselling sessions I have realised dm contributed heavily to this. I stood no chance at secondary school - my confidence had already been dented. I did not value myself even at the age of 11

The irony is my mum always used to say "you need to learn to stick up for yourself" when I was having problems at work, the reason I found "sticking to for myself" or being assertive so impossible was because she'd never allowed me to do it growing up!

She doesn't like the change, it's not what she's used to and comfortable with. She's going to try upping her usual method to get you back in the box where she's comfortable with you being, because it's worked before. It's going to take time before she discovers that it doesn't work any more and adjusts, and that's good, it means what you're doing is working.

My DM was very like this for years, but she'd managed an EA dh with explosive tantrums from ever actually getting dangerous by keeping the kids in the house under tight control so they didn't provoke him. Her sense of safety was threatened by me getting too independent. When I told her I was getting a dog two years ago she actually told me "no". And when I stopped laughing, we agreed that she probably wanted to think that through a bit more

Well done for making these changes for yourself!

Once you start standing up to someone, changing the status quo and effective balance of power, they usually hate it at first and fight it hard

This is SO true.

Another one with a domineering mother here.
Like you OP, I have gradually grown more confident and assertive as the years wore on and she HATES it.

She often looks at me and says in a puzzled voice ''you've changed'' and I overhead her tell my father once ''....... has got aggressive lately'', all because I don't agree with her on everything.

I try not to be drawn into arguments with her but it is so hard. She knows which buttons to press.

OP. Don't give up! And don't give in at this stage. You have come this far. Hopefully she will eventually realise that she needs to change how she treats you.

You are an adult and your own person and not an extension of her and she should treat you like and adult.

Your DM does sound like she feels threatened by the "new you"

It's worth considering that it takes time for someone in their later years to be able to accept change, the fact she isn't young comparatively speaking and the fact it may feel like you are now poles apart from who you were and the level of control she used to have, which has ebbed away now you are so confident .

It could be that your DM wont be able to move forward from it, on the other hand maybe if you can talk openly to her, it could remove the barrier she has put up between you, and you could built bridges. Although she sounds like she has history in putting you down, I would hesitate to label her "abusive" as such.

I don't know if this is useful, but maybe some people just don't know how to adapt the the different ways of parenting small children, then adolescents and grown children.

The bossy parents with small children get much admired by other parents for the way their children are so obedient but then some never seem to stop being bossy.

Oh I wouldn't consider her abusive either, just over bearing and controlling. But that extends to all aspects of her life, not just her parenting.