My mother

[Pennies]

This is going to be long and I'm posting from my phone so apologies for typos.

I don't know what to do about my relationship with my mother. As a child she wasn't there for me much. She worked full time (she was a Dr) and spent most of her spare time either painting, gardening, decorating the house or writing articles about the Bronte sisters. I can only remember her sitting down to do some colouring with me once as a child and I remember the picture so vividly. She never played games with me etc. my bro was sent to boarding school aged 9 so she didn't have much to do with him either. She is very much a child of the war generation and I take a quite a modern and progressive approach to life so we don't have much in common.

Throughout my childhood my dad was having multiple affairs and I think he was emotionally abusive to her. She finally left him when I was 15 and I went with her. At the time my dad hinted that his poor treatment of her was because she was difficult to live with. I didn't want to hear it and had a go at him for shifting blame which he accepted.

I found our little life together after that weird. I couldn't really talk to her much. She had no social life so I felt I had to be around law company for her. I was annoyed that she wasn't getting out there and starting to build a life for herself. She stopped painting, gardening, her Bronte sister thing, all hobbies. She often went to see her mum 60 miles away. I could tell she was depressed but she did nothing about it and I didn't know what to suggest (aged 17).

Skip a few years and I leave home etc. She hoes to live with her mum who dies shortly after. Mum then lives in Gran's house. She remains depressed. Then she randomly inherits a life-changing amount of money from a distant relative. It doesn't seem to have any effect on her life or demeanour. We are now 150 miles apart.

In 2001 whilst on holiday in France she has brain haemorrhage. She is in intensive care out there for 3 months and I am there with her for the entire duration. She made a full recovery.

My first DD was born in 2004 and I hoped she might rise to the occasion. Through my pregnancy she never asked how it was going until I confronted her at about 5 months as to why. From then on she'd ask but I could tell it was out of duty. She visited us the week after she was born and held her like a rugby ball. That is the ONLY time she has ever held my children. Not because I don't want her to but because she doesn't want them to. Now aged 8 & 10 they have never even sat on her lap.

5 years ago I was diagnosed with cancer. When I told her she said to me that she had some "catastrophic" news too. Bracing myself (whilst feeling pretty fragile) I asked what it was. It turned out that some people who she thought were going to take her out to lunch didn't take her out to lunch. She refused to engage with anything to do with my treatment and to this day has never once asked how I am.

She is 80 now and is an old 80 year old. She has carers and her mobility isn't great; she walks with a stick. She gets a little confused but she's actually all there mentally. Anyway, she does NOTHING but sit and chain smoke.

She never sends cards etc for birthdays, this Christmas I bought all her presents to her grandchildren. She bought me two books which was fine but it annoyed me because it proves that she can buy stuff if push comes to shove. She never thanked me for buying her grandchildrens' presents for her and hasn't offered to pay me back. She stayed with us over xmas and spent more time talking to my dog than to me or my kids. She smoked in my house despite ring asked not to and being given an easily accessible place to smoke.

She never asks how I am, she never asks how the kids are. In an attempt to try and form some kind of relationship I am now coming to see her every 3 weeks. This means I have ask people to have my kids stay the night (DH is around but works v late), put my dog in kennels and drive 150miles to see her. I got here last night and basically spoke to myself because she doesn't communicate at all. She asked after my dog but hasn't yet asked after my children.

Sooooo, as you can probably tell I am bloody angry with her. I feel enormously let down. If I try to confront her then she becomes the harried victim and all woe is me I have never got anything right so I feel guilty. My family say it's all down to the brain haemorrhage but don't get involved (DB lives 200 miles from her). The fact is that these trips to see her every few weeks are worsening our relationship. I'm doing all the running and getting nothing back. I go to work then come all the way here to find there's no food prepared so I cook dinner for us whilst she sits and smokes.

She won't move nearer me or my brother. She is equally disinterested in him and his gorgeous 4 year old son whom she referred to as "the boy" last night.

I'm not sure why I'm posting. Maybe to just vent my spleen. Any advice at all would be welcome. I need to improve this before my anger turns to hatred.

I have to go out now but fully intend to return and reply properly.

Think very carefully. What do you want? What do you think you will get?
One thing is crystal clear. She will not change.

I don't have any advice, but I couldn't just read and run. What a sad situation for all concerned.

I hope your cancer is now in remission. My first thought was to wonder whether your mother would have been diagnosed with a disorder affecting her ability to communicate emotionally if she had been born in these more enlightened times?

You are doing such a lot to try to care for your mother. I think you're right that you need to vent and perhaps to find someone to vent to IRL?

(Just as a very minor point, the smoking in the house would drive me over the edge.)

I think you are going to get lots of replies throwing around the word "narcissist" but I don't see that.

One thing that helps me, when dealing with disappointing parents is, "They were the best parent they could be". They didn't disappoint out of malice. They didn't disappoint because you weren't loveable. They just did what they were capable of.

It sounds to me as though your mother didn't have the life that would have made her happy, and now she's a lonely old woman.

What do you actually hope to achieve by your behaviour. You're trying and trying and trying... for what?

Thank you for your kind replies.

My cancer is not classed as being in remission but I currently feel well .

I have myself thought that if she were a child today she may be assessed as having an ASD profile. She is an only child born to parents who ADORED each other to the exclusion of her. They were good looking, sociable and dynamic. She did not fit their mould. Aged 11, after the war, she was sent to boarding school and relatives whilst her parents larges it in Hong Kong. She didn't see them for four years. .

I need to improve this before my anger turns to hatred. - it won't. It will turn to indifference.

My mum is a child of the war-years, and very uncomfortable giving or receiving love or affection. But I know that it is there. It doesn't actually sound as if there is any affection or love for either child, or grandchildren from your mum, and if there is none, you cannot force it, or magic it into being. It's hurtful, but you must see that?
She is not interested in your illness (and she was a doctor? ) or your children; only mildly interested in the dog (who will have no demands on her, no problems to tell her about, nothing she needs to interact with.)

I know what I'd do;- I'd stop seeing her so regularly (people like this see it as a sign of weakness, of desperation and neediness, on your part) and stop buying presents for your dc from her. Why do you do that? Why can they not make up their own minds about her thoughtfulness (or not)?

You live 2hours away by car; you must have built up your own network of RL support. I'm not saying ditch DMother, but definitely step back. She's made her bed, she must lie on it.

You will not change her.

Why bother?

I agree with previous posters - she isn't going to change. She wasn't the parent you wanted her to be, and that's not going to change. And even if it did, it won't change your history.

You just have to decide how to deal with it. You could cut off contact but that is not easy with a parent - there is still a bond even if it's not a happy one. You sound very kind - I think you would find it difficult to abandon her. Probably, you just have to accept she is who she is, and you try not to let that get to you. It's a bit out of fashion now but I found NLP helpful in these kinds of situations - programme yourself so that triggers fade in importance.

This is all horrible for you, and I can feel your pain on behalf of your children who have never had the grandma they could have had. Having said all that, despite a flawed personality, your mother sounds like a high achieving, interesting woman - perhaps you can identify some of the positive traits that have been passed to you and your children.

And yep - the smoking would send me over the edge!

Oh love. People above have said wise things. She won't, no matter how much you want it, change. Whether her self-centredness is due to some developmental disorder, or the brain injury, or being on her own for so long, or a combination of all 3, is kind of moot. She is the way she is, and that's the way she's staying. It's not her fault, and it's not yours. All you can change is you - the way you think, feel and behave.

If I were you (and I know how hard it is) the first thing I'd do is lower my expectations. Expectations are premeditated resentments. It's crappy, because we expect our mum, above all others, to be in love with us, always. But either she was never wired like that, or the brain injury broke the wiring.

Just accept things, and her. Be kind, but to yourself too. Make sure you're getting the supportive love she's not giving you somewhere else. And understand that, if you can do this well, you're giving your own DCs a wonderful model of how to be a nice human being.

Hi Pennies

Your situation is so like the one my DH was in soon after we married. He'd always had a very cold relationship with his mother. He was an only child - much longed for by all accounts - and then he was handed over to a succession of au pairs as he grew up. His relationship with his DF was better.

She would never congratulate DH on any achievements as he grew up. He won all sorts of awards for a sporting activity, which I would be thrilled about as a mother, and she never said a word. ( DH now a high achiever and not very modest either. Not a good trait, but I understand that no one else was going to bang his drum as a child).

Anyway, DHs father died and we were left with DMIL. She turned to drink in a big way. In fact, she'd turned to drink long before,but she'd hidden it well. Then she opened up about the fact that her parents were really rotten to her when she was growing up, and that somehow she thought it was perfectly acceptable to repeat the pattern onto her 'longed for' son - my DH.

It was so screwed up... Being out of the loop I could see it more clearly, but it looks like you have a similar situation on your hands.

Once MIL was in a home, we went to see her maybe 2 or 3 times a year. It was a 6 hour round trip. It was done out of duty, really. I'm not sure what pleasure was derived by any party. I found it hard, as my family are so much closer.

When she died, she was cremated. About a year later, we had a signed for delivery letter from the undertakers. Her ashes were still with them and all previous letters had been ignored by DH, asking him to go and collect them.

We did eventually go, and her ashes have sat around in the house for years.

DH, I think was glad when she'd gone. He has wiped out most of it, but what I would suggest to you is to go and have some counselling. Get it out of your system.

Your Mum doesn't probably have much time left. Don't beat yourself up about the relationship. She has brought it on herself.

You need to look after 'you'.

It is not your fault that your mother was and remains inherently selfish as a person. It is not your fault she is like this, her own parents did that lot of damage to her. I would also think that she is not on the ASD spectrum either.

She is likely to be like this because her own parents were emotionally abusive towards her as well; what else do you know about her own family background?. The little you wrote of her is VERY telling - "She is an only child born to parents who ADORED each other to the exclusion of her". Well there you have it; that is one cause amongst others of why she is the way she is and was to you as a child.

Where are your boundaries though with regards to your mother; many people would have walked away from the likes of your mother without a second glance years ago. I suppose it was a sense of duty and obligation on your part that you have persisted in doing as you have.

Such people do not change; they are not psychologically interested in changing. You need to be around people who love you for the person you are. You need to grieve for the relationship you should have had and did not get through no fault of your own.

Unfortunately people like your mother see kindness as weakness, she has not at all appreciated anything you have done for her so it is more than okay to completely back off from her now. You have tried at great cost to yourself too and its time to put you and your own family unit first now. It also does the children no favours either to see you as their mother treated so badly by their nan.

Sorry,what a miserable situation. Lots of wise advice and words here. I hope they do offer you some comfort.

This habit of visiting so regularly and at such great cost to yourself is indeed worsening your experience and relationship?mi suggest you cut these back quite dramatically and replace with regular phone calls. It's heartbreaking but she won't change now.

And if you can, try to stop trying to please her all the time.you are setting yourself up to fail and fall once again into the role of an emotionally neglected child.

Get home as soon as you can and concentrate on your family who do love and need you.

Glad to see that you have so many replies in the same vein as I had intended to post. My own mother has many similarities to yours, including the chain smoking and disinterest in her DCs and GC.

A couple of hospital stays (hers) have opened my eyes to exactly the kind of woman she is, and I have detached accordingly, rather than absorb the negativity or feelings of disappointment that inevitably come with prolonged contact. She has just told my sister that it's too much effort to come to her wedding. In context, she's in her early 70's and still working part time for 5 days per week to pay for her fags.

These people are largely unaware of the impact their behaviour has on their families, and wouldn't have the capacity to change it even if they were able to find some shred of conscience.

Two very important sentences.

1. She is incapable of showing you the kind of love that you deserve, want and need.
2. You are not unloveable, despite her behaviour.

The years it has taken me to separate these two things have often been painful ones that have done a lot of damage to my self esteem. Please take heed and start looking after YOU

OMG thank you so much everyone for being so kind.

I'm afraid that I flipped this morning and confronted her on it. I think writing my post brought into the forefront of my mind and an unsuccessful night last night consolidated it all. I am ashamed to say I gave her both barrels. She admitted that she has no interest in my kids but then later claimed to have not said that. I told her she was selfish (I might have said something about having her head stuck up her backside ) and that she has been a consistently rubbish grandmother. I said I felt hurt. She said she felt hurt and I said that she had brought it on herself. I said that I'm angry that she's chosen ciggies, bricks and mortar over flesh and blood. It was utterly shit.

So I'm on the homeward 150miles now. Feel like a class A bitch but I do feel a bit relieved. We left amicably but we both feel crap.

I will back off for a while. I need time to simmer down and be nice again. I have completely taken on board the advice about setting a good example to my kids. That is fundamental and hugely important.

I hope that maybe my bluntness might have hit home to some extent. Not nec as a catalyst for a change in her behaviour but as an opening to me to feel like I can broach the topic again in less inflammatory terms as I did earlier.

Pennies - I hope that you get some 'release' from your outburst, but I fear that your bluntness will just have confirmed to her that you are needy, you want something from her; and she does not, and will not, give it. She doesnt feel the need- why should she change? What will be the benefit for her, if she changes (don't say 'giving and receiving love', because she has no need of that)?
setting a good example to my kids. That is fundamental and hugely important. - what example are you actually setting your dc? That they can be walked all over, used, disregarded, disespected? But you do it for yourself, your own benefit, because you would feel guilty after, if you hadn't. That is F.O.G. You're doing this for HER, but also to alleviate your own feelings, your need for her motherly love. She doesn't feel any need to love or respect you. You are teaching your dc that they should 'love, whatever the cost to themselves, and whatever the situation'. ??

How about teaching them the very important lesson, that if your efforts, your love, your attention, your respect, your help - is NOT reciprocated, desired or even acknowledged, that it is OK to step back? Some people cannot be helped, nor do they want to be. It is ok to demand such respect. If it not forthcoming... move on.

I'm sorry, Pennies, you sound lovely and conscientious and caring - but if someone does NOT want it, you cannot help them. Focus on helping someone who appreciates it, instead.

Well luckily, because she is so far away and also because of the chain smoking we don't visit much with the kids. There is the occasional Sunday when we leave here at 8am, down there and take her out for lunch then drive back in the late afternoon. This means they don't really see much of the relationship between me and my mum. When everyone else is around there is a more natural flow of conversation so they are oblivious to the problems I face when it is just me and her together. My DD1 has commented on the fact that she doesnt talk much but I glossed over it. I put it down to having poor hearing (not true).

Still feeling guilty with a hint of relief. Interesting chat with my dad about it earlier. They were good friends but have drifted apart recently. He said this is due to the one way nature of their relationship with him doing all the legwork. He gave up. It's not an option for me sadly.

Why not? why isn't it an option to give up on her? your father divorced her (for some reason ) why can't you?

I would. Without a second thought.

(I've done it to my own father - NC now for over 20 years and don't miss anything about him)

I think NC would destroy her. That is the very reverse of what I want to do. I am certainly going to withdraw though.

She divorced him because of his affairs.

Hi Pennies, so sorry to hear about your situation. Everybody has said everything that I would have said, and I totally agree with ptumbi.

What makes you think going NC would destroy her? Isn't she doin this to herself anyway? Please don't feel duty-bound to continue flogging a dead horse. I feel particularly disgusted at her behaviour when you told her you had cancer That is completely unforgivable and would have been the last straw for me, personally.

Her general behaviour, from what you've described, is utterly dispicable and you owe her NOTHING! It actually sounds like she is going out of her way to hurt you and deliberately upset you.

I'm so pleased you gave her a piece of your mind, but then you go and spoil it by saying you feel bad about it? Why??? For being honest instead of spiteful and wicked like her?

This nasty piece of negative energy should not be a part of yours or your family's life. You do right to detach considerably, if you can't do the whole disowning thing.

Sorry if I missed it in your post but, do you have a partner and what does he think about it all?

Life really is stressful enough without having to contend with something like this. I wish you well.

I am NC with my father. He is not quite like your mother but could be considered emotionally abusive to my sister and I. He too had an abusive childhood but in my eyes this doesn't excuse him. If anything it should make him want to go the extra mile not to repeat the same behaviours.

For me it was NC or exposing my children to his abusive ways. Both options are the rock and the hard place. I don't find it easy to be NC. I think about him everyday and here I am at 4.40 am writing about him here. He is married so not alone but he has NC with any of his children or GC which I feel a sense of guilt for. Why, I don't know.

The thought of him aging and dying haunts me. I play over scenarios where I am good he has 6 more to live and what I would do. Do we reconcile? If so, why wait until he is dead? Or do I turn my back on a dying man. Neither are easy choices.

I have some comfort in that I tried to reconcile with him last year. I emailed him and he responded 4 months later. We spoke and he gave me a series of reasons why he didn't want to see me. How everything was my fault. He also admitted he would never have contacted me. We spoke a few more times but he then sent me a text saying he didn't want to hear from me again. I was disposable and the sense of rejection I have always had was opened up.

I am telling you all this so you have some appreciation that NC with a parent is not the easy option. It is often flippantly suggested here , by and large I suspect by people who are not in that situation.

I am not saying don't go NC. That would be hypocritical of me, but it is hard. Depends on whether a long distance relationship with the odd visits is harder.

Whether or not your mother has any kind of personality disorder is not for us to diagnose, but what IS coming across loud and clear is that she is emotionally unavailable. To you, your brother, your children, his children. She has little to no emotional connection to any of you. This may be due to something in her childhood - was she evacuated as a child? lose a parent early? - or it may be her personality.

Your Dad having multiple affairs could either have added to her lack of emotional connection, or her lack of emotional connection could have contributed to his affairs (but I wouldn't give him the chance to use that excuse myself!)

However, while that is kind of relevant to who she is, it's not really relevant to what you need - currently your visits to her are achieving nothing for you, and probably very little for her. She's indifferent to your children, has she said she's indifferent to you as well? does she honestly care whether or not you visit, or is that just your guilt projecting how you would feel in her place?

No one can tell you what you should do, but if the frequency of your visits is worsening your relationship, then I would decrease the frequency as a first step. Maybe once every couple of months instead. And don't take the children, as there's no point exposing them to that level of indifference to them, it's just unkind, and it makes no difference to your mother. :(

Country Your father sounds the very definition of "Nasty". What a horrible excuse for a human being, let alone a father. So you are "disposable"? These spiteful words must have hurt very much indeed, but I guess that was his intention. To stick the knife in.

I agree that you've obviously gave him enough of an opportunity to change and you've offered the proverbial olive branch, but his response is purely hostile and full of contempt. He obviously will never change, but you know this already.

It's the getting our heads round the fact that they will never change that is the hard bit and coming to terms with our expectations of how we expect a parent to be never being met.

I went NC with my mother over 2yrs ago. It took me about 20yrs to get to that point, however, but I've never regretted it for a single second.

I eventually had enough of this nasty woman sullying and polluting my life and my conscience. My mental health improved no-end too. Closure was accomplished, finally.

Pennies - your mother was a war-child, poor thing. Must have been tough - but then, millions of people were.
Your mum had a brain haemorrhage - poor thing. She made a full recovery though, and you don't think it changed her.
Your mum faced a DH who had affairs - poor thing. Life goes on.

She sent her son away to Boarding School at a young age - my DP went to boarding school at age 7; he is still in contact with his (loving) mother.

These are all excuses for her 'poor unhappy life' - they did not cause her to disregard your cancer, ignore your children, disrespect you. She does that, because of how she is. (and she sounds absolutely horrible)

Your brother is NC with her - this is not because she sent him away to school. It is because she is not deserving of his love and he would rather spend his feelings on those who reciprocate.

Your father finds that she doesn't care enough about him to make it a two-way friendship. He's stepped back.

Don't you get it? She doesn't want any of you. She is not going to suddenly see the light - she is not interested, and will not miss any of you. You are projecting your own feelings of loneliness and grief onto her - she doesn't feel these feelings - you do!

There is a song (don't know who it's by) - the lines "say something, I'm giving up on you" resonate.

country - my father to a T. Had an affair - blamed everyone else for it (including the 15YO me), sent back Xmas presents unopened, wrote stinking letters...
I don't think about him, other than on MN when I advise people to go NC with toxic, harmful people.

Pennies - forgot to mention; have you read the 'stately homes' threads on 'relationships'?? Very enlightening, and empowering.