I'm 40 years old and my mum still makes me cry

[Rollercola]

My mum is incredibly judgemental. I love her lots, and she's very kind to me & my dcs but she's is very much concerned with 'what will people think'

I separated from my EA exh last July after being with him for 23 yrs. I dreaded telling my parents and i never told them the full extent of exh's behaviour, but to my surprise they were very understanding and supportive, and have helped me out financially since then.

Since then I've met a new partner. As my dcs are still young (12&8) I've been very mindful all year of keeping the two things separate. I see dp one night at the weekends when the dcs go to their dads, and usually one night in the week for a coffee for a few hours. The kids have met him but he's not stayed over and we haven't done anything all together as I know it's still quite soon for them and they're still adjusting to me & their dad separating. We have no plans to move in, it's not even been discussed. We're both just happy to spend time together now & again.

This is where it gets a bit silly. My mum is friends with me on facebook. I'm not one for putting my love life across facebook so there's been nothing really on there to say we're seeing each other. But I changed my status to 'in a relationship' the other day because as far as I'm concerned I am. I love the guy, I've no idea how things will pan out because my dcs will always come first but at the moment we're seeing each other & enjoying each other's company and it's serious.

My mum has given me a right telling off and ridiculously reduced me to tears. She thinks it's highly inappropriate to announce that I'm in a relationship and seems to think that what is essentially just a tick box means that I'm moving him in to my house & will ruin my dcs lives etc. She wants to know what our plans are and I just said we didn't really have any yet. She just said 'well my idea of a relationship must be different from the younger generations..'

I've had loads of messages from people saying what nice news it is (we've been seeing each other for a year so it's not actually even new news!) and the general feeling from friends is that they're all really happy for me.

So why does the one person who means so much manage to make me feel so shit about it? I've spent the whole year stressing about not upsetting the kids, I've always put them first, I work really hard with my exh to remain friendly for their sakes which I know means a lot to them.

Do I not deserve a bit of happiness with a partner? Or am I supposed to put that on hold until they've flown the nest? I worry so much about everything, and for the first time in years I feel so happy but she's sent me right back to square one now doubting I'm doing the right thing.

Any advice on how to handle her?

I stay at my DPs 4 nights out of 7 and come home to my parent's house where I live.
My dad is away for two weeks at a time, back for a day, then back working for a week in another city. I can see how my mum is veryupset about this, but...
Every single time I come home she will critisize, raise her voice at me, and altogether just make me feel like utter shit. Everything I do isn't right for her. She will say "I want the life for you that I never had" which basically means "i'm going to live my life through you". It's awful, I cannot afford to move out yet although I am in full time work. She puts me down every change I get, tries to get me to leave my DP because he's a bit messy and such. NOt the man she wanted for me, but she likes him.
She makes me completely miserable, everything I do is wrong in her eyes, and she reduces me to tears, too.
AS Novida has said above, us choosing to get upset is her having control over us. My mum has me under her thumb because I can't afford to leave home yet. She upsets me, makes me feel really small & lowers my self esteem. She thinks she's trying to help, she's not.
I know in the front of my mind, I am an adult, I control my life and I do what I want to do, but the freaky thing is, in the back of my mind "my mother is going to shout at me for this" and that's not right for an adult woman to think. It's not.
It winds me up thinking my mum's got me wrapped round her little finger. I don't want to come back home on a night after work. I'm not even top priority for the council. I have to put up with this, but you don't.
I love my mum, but she is toxic. her "advice" is hurtful.

I'm really glad I posted here about this. I've never really thought about my relationship with my mum before because I was too focused on dealing with my relationship with my exh.

But this has made me question the way my mum is towards me. A lot of my insecurities stem from worrying about her disapproving which is ridiculous at my age.

I have registered to do the Freedom Programme online which will hopefully help me come to terms with my relationships in general.

the disapproving is her way of expressing how much she worries about us all still

What on interesting comment, with more of a grain of truth in it. I find my dd's father doing that.

The other one when a mother wants to live their lives through you. As a mother I find it is a very easy one to fall into, gggrr.

Yes I do think there's an element of her wanting me to do 'better than she did' I think she hoped I'd meet a rich business man and buy a big house so she could brag to her friends.

Yet my sister and her dh are much better off than me but have no children so that's not right according to my mum either.