Can anyone explain why my mother did this?

[Smithofheavens]

I'm very low contact with my mother, we communicate only when necessary, it's been like this for 6 months or so.

I'm trying to unpick our relationship and there's something that happened that I don't understand. She was very good with childcare when my children were tiny, and had no problem giving my husband a hand if I went to visit friends for a break. But if I was going to visit a friend to help them (I went to see my best friend when her mum was dying) or to a funeral she would be FURIOUS. Really angry, accuse me of lying, that I'm not really going to funeral etc. It's like I was "allowed" to go away on the piss but not to help anyone else because there's no way that could really be true.

What's that about?

Is it possible that your mum enjoys seeing you (and your DH) as irresponsible and possibly paints you that way to other people too?

For example if you are out getting pissed then she sees herself as the hero for having to step in and look after the children of her feckless, irresponsible daughter. Maybe this is how she portrays the situation to other people too. This works with the criticism of the toddler gym classes too (that her stupid irresponsible daughter doesn't know what she's doing and just wastes money) and the disparaging remarks about your DH while also helping out while you're away (that her irreponsible daughter is out on the piss again and her son in law is useless so she will just have to go in and be the unsung hero)

You helping people upsets that narrative for her. Clearly if you are able to go and help other people you are both kind and competent which disrupts the idea that she's the heroic martyr to the useless, irresponsible daughter and son in law.

I agree with a lot of the ideas about narcissism on the thread, but wondered if there's a chance your mother used to use 'helping others' as a cover for getting 'up to something' herself? It could be her guilty conscience she's projecting onto you? She can't tell you what she thinks you're up to, as that would mean exposing herself, maybe?

I think It's about debt.
She helped you , you are, in her mind, in debt to her. Her help was not an act of kindness it was "costed" in her head and you needed to pay her back, she may believes this so implicitly that she didn't think it needed saying.
But.
You helped someone else..you effectively gave away part of her "savings"
I know it's odd, it depends on a very twisted set of values, and beliefs.
But with some people (narcish) there is no such thing as a favour as we might understand it..it is all factored into some kind of cost balance sheet of personal investment = debt & repayment.

Wow, so insightful!

Deathstare - uncanny. She went into great detail telling someone how we struggled, how hopeless my husband is, and how much help she has been. She never expected it to get back to me but by a series of odd coincidences it did, and I called her on it and she massively minimised what she had said, and said she had just been sounding off. It was actually very public though.

Andthebandplayedon yes this has played havoc with my mental health. It's one of the reasons we are hardly in contact.

I hadn't realised that people could cling on to a start they've told themselves, so badly, even when it's hurting the people they're meant to love. It doesn't make sense to me.

665TheNeighbour, yes, debt. My father too is a balance sheet man. He even has said out loud on regular occasions "just give me a minute while I think what you can do for me."

Their expectations of me are wildly different to those of my siblings. The extent of my "debt" is far greater too, and I have no idea why. Of all of us, academically and materially I've been far more successful, and pulled my parents out of a giant financial hole too, and then found them (and funded and furnished) a new home near me, I thought this was the right thing to do but it seems it was expected, and I'm still in the red to them. Weird.

pulled my parents out of a giant financial hole too, and then found them (and funded and furnished) a new home near me

Actually if you think about I'm the context of a public image where they are responsible/heroic and you are irresponsible/useless this makes even more sense.

In most circumstances an adult child having to bail their parent out could be quite embarrassing /loss of face for the parents. So your parents have respun it. In their version you owed them this because you and your DH are the ones who are ones who are actually irresponsible and they have to keep "saving" you. The fact that you were in a position to bail them out financial is (in their eyes) only because they have done so much for you (probably at their own cost according to them). This spin on events - you and your DH as useless and irresponsible, them as the heroic martyrs who hold you together - saves them a substantial loss of face.

it seems it was expected, and I'm still in the red to them
yup ! - if they think that way nothing will ever be enough to pay them back for their entitledness personal sacrifice.

Flipping heck I had NEVER looked at it that way, and never ever brought up anything about it - as far as I was concerned they had some bad luck and I was able to help.

No good deed goes unpunished.

So can this be fixed?

I feel a lot better since we haven't been in contact, I'm sad to say. But they're not getting any younger.

you forgot, you do owe them endlessly, forever .. because your mum gave birth to you. How can you ever think that you could be free?

I don't know. the way she feels free to critize you, the slagging off of your husband (how does he feel about it and her?!) and yourself, the huge rage if you don't do something she approves of (does she see you as an independent adult at all?) and most of all the way she undermines you with the children - it all sounds as if she has to be the matriarch and you are not entitled to be an adult, but only ever her child; your children's relationship should primarily be with her (in her eyes!).

If she's got grandchildren then she's not young. Sadly it is very very rare for people for older people to change. If you feel better without contact, you shouldn't feel guilty. YOu can't help your feelings. All you can help is how you act to them, and how far you choose to engage with her.

It sounds like she's pretty far screwed up, sadly, and you'll have to set very firm boundaries. Undermining you to your children is an absolute NO, so is physical violence to people or possessions. There's a lot of advice on how to set boundaries, but the sum of it "if they act beyond your boundaries, then withdraw. Reestablish contact after a time, but then withdraw again if they go beyond the boundaries". Toddler taming, really; whatever her age, she's behaving like a very domineering one.

So can this be fixed?

In a word, no.

"I feel a lot better since we haven't been in contact, I'm sad to say. But they're not getting any younger".

Your mother is toxic and is not good to have at all around, not being in contact with her has made you feel better.

Re them not getting any younger I would not go down that particular rabbit hole at all. None of us are getting any younger. I wonder why no one ever asks parents estranged from their kids “how are you going to feel if your son or daughter dies?”.

Its also very hard to set proper boundaries with such people mainly because they see you as an extension of them, also you have never been encouraged to actually have boundaries.

You would not have tolerated this from a friend, your narcissistic mother is no different. Also your mother has had her whole life to make a difference when it came to you and she has not bothered. Women like your mother cannot do relationships so the men in their lives are often just as narcissistic as they are or are long gone.

Toddlers also grow up, I would think that emotionally speaking your mother is stuck somewhere around the age of 6

Gosh this is a lot to take in.

Does all this mean that she really has a terribly low opinion of me OR loves me but she's got all twisted somehow?

I'm trying to get my head round it.

at a guess, her own desperate insecurity (far deeper than any person can ever satisfy) drives her to find proof that she is necessary, needed and loved.

so she tries to manufacture ways to prove it. The easy and nasty way is to put other people down (you and your husband). And worst of all undermining you with the children. Ally that with the need to be vital, hence the rather controlling babysitting and the attempts to tell you how to do everything the 'right way'.

When things go too far, the desperation inside leads people to forget that other people are just as able to lead decent and competent lives ... and should. At that point, the insecurity can tip people over from loving their children / husband / even parents into trying to suck them dry. I don't think it's even conscious some of the time. That need becomes, like alcohol for alcoholics, more important than anything else including their own children.

That's the extreme end of the pattern. Your mother ... well actually she sounds fairly far along the path, I'm sorry to say. Hopefully there is still some leavening love for you. The twist that she hates you helping other people is a bit odd, but when people are that far along the path some odd quirks do come out.

Have a read of Toxic Parents. It is very good indeed.

How does your husband perceive her?

"does she have a terribly low opinion of you?"

I guess (and this is extrapolating a looong way) that actually, her illness means that she cannot see you clearly at all. It's all overlaid with her deep inner filters - the insecurity, the anger, the neediness, the self-centredness.

It does sounds as though she doesn't actually truly love any of her children, she loves herself and you all fulfil I need that she has...

It's not you, it's her

Thankyou. I'm still trying to get my head around it all and am consumed with rage. I've read toxic parents and it sounds terribly familiar. I've had a full on flying monkey visit telling me my mother doesn't know what to do to make things better. This is plainly bollocks. I've explained that there really is no personal benefit to me to resume contact and I was told that I'm stubborn and I should reach out.

Fuck. That.

a good response is "thank you for your kindness in wanting to help, but this is between my mother and me and only between us. There's a great deal goes on behind closed doors that other people don't see" Possibly add "even when they think they know the situation" though it's a bit less polite, if they are pushy.

then persistently and possibly quite obviously change the subject if they raise it again. You aren't being rude; they are bringing up a subject you have asked them not to discuss and that you have clearly said that there;s more going on than they know.

People often become flying monkeys from the best of intentions and sometimes because it really makes their own lives easier. But you need to hold firm to what is healthy and right for you and your family.

How does she see your father's drinking? You were saying in first posts that she's fine with childminding if you're going out drinking - so maybe something in her needs to enable others' drinking to maintain her 'normal' or stay in denial about certain truths.

Does she ever do anything 'community minded' or for friends? Probably not if she is a narcissist (or only for an audience). You doing these things (PTA etc) as a part of life could be very exposing (and thus triggering) for her and she would actually take it as a personal offence if she has NPD or narcissistic tendencies.

Were your DC children around when she had her rage and booted the hallstand? Do they hear her criticising your DH?

From your posts it seems that anything that expands your world and any activities that require a certain level of functioning on your part (did she take you to any activities when you were young) set her off and that she fears you coming out of the FOG.

You seem to be getting a lot of clarity though OP

so maybe something in her needs to enable others' drinking to maintain her 'normal' or stay in denial about certain truths.

I think you're spot on there and I'm gobsmacked I've never seen it. She absolutely enables his drinking and I've never ever understood why. She's never insisted for example, that he seeks professional help, she just thinks he should "cut down." My entire life has his drinking running through it as a constant thread. Even from being tiny. That sounds like I'm blaming her for his drinking - I'm not, he's responsible, but she in no way at all helped him stop. And consistently minimised the effects of his drinking, which as their child, have for me been far reaching.
I'm humbled at the insight!

Does she ever do anything 'community minded' or for friends? Probably not if she is a narcissist (or only for an audience). You doing these things (PTA etc) as a part of life could be very exposing (and thus triggering) for her and she would actually take it as a personal offence if she has NPD or narcissistic tendencies.

No, she doesn't. It surprises me how little she does despite her hugely overt religiousness.