Can we have a thread for those of us who are daughters with difficult mothers?

[PinkyofPie]

Been thinking about starting this thread for a while.

My mother is a difficult and sometimes toxic woman and we have a strained relationship.

I think IRL there's not enough people around like me, all my friends are best friends with their mums. My mum recently moved back to the area and all I get is "oh I bet you're so happy". Actually, no, her being closer is awful if I'm honest.

There's so much to my relationship with her, too much for an OP.

A huge bone of contention is that she knows about a family member sexually harassing me quite badly through my teens (I've posted details in another name). I'm talking flashing, suggestive language and grabbing me now and again when no one was looking. I have told her the details. This person is still very much in her life, she bigs him up to anyone who listens and can't understand why I despise him and won't be near him. She minimised his behaviour massively and We Don't Talk About It.

She also made comments along the lines of "well did you lead him on?" yes mum, I was 16 and he was 55, I was gagging for it with a relative.

being in her presence is very tiring. She has no friends so I feel pressured to see her now she's back near me. I met her today, and I am drained. I always feel like I've done something wrong, she's in a constant mood. Everything is crap, she hates any food we eat, complains about people nearby and won't look for the good in anything. Where she lived before was so much better apparently. Spending just a few hours round that negativity is exhausting.

The funny thing is she makes out to others like we extremely close. A daughter of her friend - who I had just met that night - once said to me "I'm so jealous about the bond you and your mum have"

Anyway I know MN has lots of people who feel the same so thought I would start by having a place for us long suffering daughters to share, moan, vent and generally get everything out into the open!

Sort of.
But I think that's our disordered thinking Tbh 😞
Call them.

My first post on stately homes 4 years ago started with the line
"My childhood wasn't that bad but....."
Very very common.
I think I struggled to accept how inadequate their parenting was. I still do. I loved my dad very much but he enabled her.
I refuse to.

This is the first time I've spoken about it to anyone really. My DF definitely didn't enable her. He gave her an ultimatum and he lost. But her choosing alcohol over him has made him very bitter towards everything. He feels he wasted his best years with someone who threw everything away for booze. My aunt and my Gran (my DM's DM) absolutely enabled her in every way they could. They supported her in her denial that she had a problem with alcohol and they provided her with drink. I remember my grandma arguing with me when I went to her for help at the age of 13 telling her that my DM was drinking at 6.30 in the morning when she thought no one was up. I was told that then was the only time my DM had free to herself to drink as for the rest of the day she was running around looking after everyone else! At that point I knew that it was pointless ever speaking about it to anyone.

I'm in.

Both my parents were nasty cunts. They destroyed my childhood, and would have taken my adulthood too if I'd let them. They bullied me and used me so cruelly.

I will never forgive them even though they can't touch me now and my life is so much better. I won't be there at their funerals - I just don't care what happens to them.

I have found that society is generous to parents who don't like/struggle with their children but the reverse is not tolerated; and hating your mother is pretty indigestible to most people. I hate her lies; and who she is.

I've been almost 15 years NC with my father, and 3.5 with my mother. If they'd died at my birth I'd have been so much luckier.

It isn't pointless to talk to people who understand
I sometimes doubt my memories about stuff that happened but then I know that's my own wish for it not to be true taking hold
I got the "script" from the toxic parents book;
Total denial
Saying she has no memory of it
Saying she did her best
Crying
It was very sobering seeing it written down...

My DM can certainly claim to have no memory now. Something else the drink has ruined is her mind. Ironic really that now she's finally not a drunk she's showing signs of dementia possibly related to 30 odd years of alcohol abuse. So drink robbed me of my mum twice over really!

Totally understand the feeling of people not understanding us daughters who struggle with our own parents. I see this more now she's ill. That I must be so concerned, and I get the puzzled looks when I appear so cold/detached towards it all. I'm not NC with her but we do the bare minimum. Speak infrequently on the phone and see one another once a week maybe. Which probably sounds alot to some people but we live in a small town and I work round the corner from her so it's a conscious effort that I don't see her more.

Detached
Yes
That's how I feel

Fly...
Yes, it's a great taboo isn't it?

Hi Bladders.

It really is. It has taken me a lot of work (by which I mean therapy) not to feel ashamed of the way I feel about my parents. But even so I typically minimise it a little - by saying 'we're not close' or some such.

I do find that people are very accepting of my not having contact with my dad - there are very few questions. But when they find out I don't like my mum the same lines get trotted out: 'oh, that's just mothers and daughters'; 'your mum loves you really, she's just not very good at showing it'; 'she won't have meant it like that' etc etc.

If only they would open their eyes.

'I have found that society is generous to parents who don't like/struggle with their children but the reverse is not tolerated; and hating your mother is pretty indigestible to most people.'

So, so true. People have said things to me like 'oh well your parents may treat you unfairly but if anything happened to you I'm sure they'd be devastated' what the hell difference does that make to me? It means nothing.

Do any of you have to cope with your parents bad mouthing you to other family members / acquaintances. This has happened to me an awful lot. The people involved often barely know me, don't live near us and know nothing about my childhood and take my parents side. Then what happens is that I'm invited to some family thing where certain people square up to me and expect me to explain myself. Often when my children are there. My mum has just asked me to come to another one of these fun events and I said no so she said she wanted to take dd3. Again I said no because I don't want my child to hear people who know very little about me bad mouthing me - she's only 7. I was then called 'spiteful' for this.

I could write a book about all the things they've done. I have a slipped disc in my back and 2 weeks ago my mother pushed me over. She now denies it happened.

Actually, the biggest head fuck about my mother is that she switches between being nice/nasty. So after incidents like the above she will be smiling on the doorstep the next morning.

Yes, my mother flounced off to a different country and just before she left, slagged me off to the people who bought the house (whose dad is my son's karate teacher). They blank me when they see me now. I found out she'd done this recently (she left nearly 2 years ago and I wasn't sure if she had slagged me off but suspected it) and spoke to them and they gave me the "you only have one mum" routine

farfromtheusual I hear you ! Mine is the same
..my siblings have emigrated and left me with her ..she has now moved 100 miles from our hometown to be near me (two roads away!!) so I 'can look after her' ..constantly criticises and puts me, my DH and DC down and has bizarre views on not leaving my son and daughter together 'unsupervised' as they 'may decide to do things to each other ' ??? (they are early teens) I actually sat and worked out how long she might live for.... this weekend and seriously considering moving away.

My DB moved away too. He went to uni and never moved back. Saw an opportunity to get away and he took it, can't say I blame him but I hate that it's all my responsibility now. Especially as her health is now failing. I totally identify with the bad mouthing to other people. I don't know for certain but I'm pretty sure alot of people in my mum's "camp" have a pretty low opinion of me as a daughter. In that I appear to not care too much about my DM in their eyes. They just don't know the truth though, or they do and they deny it too. I think they feel sorry for my mum having such an aloof daughter. I just don't put on an act like she does that's all.

We can all take a small piece of comfort in that no matter what lies or truths which they twist or tell to suit their agenda or relieve them of their guilt by re writing history - we all know what the real story is. We know our pasts, we remember our lives, we know the truth.

I went to live abroad but mine bloody followed me and then proceeded to be a fucking complaining misery.

My Mother moved to me where no one knows us/her and has rewritten history ..she is the doting grandmother who has moved to 'help' me with the children and I am the ungrateful daughter. The DCs don't want to visit her as she criticises them all including telling my eldest DD she is fat like her mother and no man will want her ... (I'm a size 14 and my DD is tiny and too young to be worried about what men 'want')

have mentioned moving to her ..DH has a long commute to work ..it would make sense (and be a valid reason !) then she asked how would I care for her if I was living somewhere else ..ermmm how about everyone else who scarpered ! Feel such resentment at being left to carry the burden that I can barely speak well of my siblings which makes me look like a complete evil mare
I know one person in RL who has a similar relationship with her mother and she talks of a weight being lifted as she walked away from her last year ... I feel I need to do this too

I'm an only child. My dad has failing health due to a lifestyle of eating crap, smoking and spending his whole day in bed. I dread the day anything happens to him and an huge guilt trip is placed on me. I've never felt loved by him. Yet I'm made to feel this is my fault.

I think my dad is autistic so I can kind of forgive him I suppose. He always said he never wanted children. My mum wanted a child to validate herself and when I had a baby at 21 she never forgave me.

'My Mother moved to me where no one knows us/her and has rewritten history ..she is the doting grandmother who has moved to 'help' me with the children and I am the ungrateful daughter.'

Same here. I'm the ungrateful daughter too. I have a severely disabled child who was her favourite....until she hit puberty and her behaviour became more difficult (my friend predicted this years ago) and she now tells me she hates her She's jealous of my middle child who's very successful at school and sails through everything and now dd3 who has less severe SEN is the favourite.

Pom one of the fundamental aspects of narc behaviour is using emotional blackmail to manipulate the situation to their suitability IYSWIM. So your mum, regarding your possible move, is emotionally manipulating you into staying because, should you move, she will have no scapegoat and no-one to control. Another thing narcs fear with losing control of their scapegoat, is that the scapegoat can then speak to others about what the narc was really like.

In simple terms, they fear losing control of the scapegoat, and also fear their image being tarnished by the scapegoat. Many narcs will go for a pre-emptive strike and tell everyone who will listen to them, that you are the nasty/bad/paranoid/ drama llama etc. A pre-emptive strike for a narc will entail the narc trying to make mud stick to the scapegoat, so that very few people believe them.

Let you actions speak louder than their words. Even in the midst of the narc trying to tarnish your name.

It's so bloody confusing reading all of these horror stories - it makes me think that my childhood wasn't that bad at all.

Sure I had an alcoholic violent father and a self sentred mother but there were some times when we were all happy. We were fed & clothed & probably to the outside world people thought we were pretty privileged although they knew father was strict. Sad though that dbro & I don't ever remember being told we were loved. I think both my parents had their own issues tbh & I do have some rather unpleasant memories of affairs & wife swapping back in the 70's - I was just a teenager that the time & it was all pretty unsavoury...

The thing I really struggle with is that I don't think deep down mother is a horrible person - if she was, it would be easier to go nc. Add to this that dbro doesn't rock the boat & falls in line (which makes me automatically look like the one in the wrong when I am "difficult"). Dbro says it's because he thinks if he says anything then mother will fall out with them which in turn means dneph won't have grandparents.

My mother can come across as kind & caring (e.g. she'll do anything for my dneph - a much better grandmother than mother) but she is self centred and dramatic. Actually when I was poorly with cancer last year she actually said she had been having similar symptoms - turned out to be nothing of course..

Mother falls out with people all the time - especially women, who she thinks are all "looking her up & down". There is definately jealousy there - I swear she's jealous of me on occasion. The circle of friends who came with my stepfather when they got married have mostly fallen by the wayside over the years. Estranged form most of her family & even her own mother for over 10 years.

Surely a bit of self reflection must tell her that it can't be everyone else in the wrong? I'm being unrealistic though aren't I? I'm still hoping she'll change when actually that won't ever happen.

I don't have the right to post here. However I wanted to say thank you for writing your experiences. I have probably had a tendency to be one of those 'you only have one mother' people (my mother died when i was a child). You have all made me think about my attitude so thank you for that. You've also made me think about a family member who i now realise speaks badly of one child (it's all couched in 'funny' stories but now I'm not so sure).
Thank you for opening my eyes a little more.

To the outside world, everyone thinks my mother (and sister) are wonderful. No one ever understands why I keep them at a distance.

This past weekend, it was all little things that culminated into one big cluster fuck and left me wondering why I ever bother coming back to my hometown.

All they care about is themselves. We were at a family wedding, with DD as the flower girl, and my sister got drunk the night before and missed the ceremony. Everyone asks me where she is. I don't know.

My mother tells me to take multiple pictures of her and DD together and send them to my sister. After all, it's a shame she's not able to come

My sister shows up at the evening do. Sitting there sulking, whining about her head/stomach, (still hungover after 12 hours of sleep), and keeps telling me I should have done DD's hair differently.

I'm the photographer for my mother and sister's Instagram. No pictures with me.

My mum tells me she's taking my sister back home in the middle of the meal and told DD they were taking her home for a sleep over (this was pretty planned anyway) DD gets all hyped up, begs to go. I say, "Mum, please just stay for the speeches. DD may still be needed."

"No, we're leaving right now. Your sister needs rest."

"She should take a cab."

"How dare you! She's your sister and she's sick."

DD is crying because she wants to go. Full on meltdown.

They leave.

DD is not present for a special part of the speech.

I tell my mother the next day.

"Why didn't they tell us they still might have needed us? How rude!"

I feel like I'm in the fucking Twilight Zone when I explain that, actually, it was them who were rude by sister showing up hung over and leaving without saying goodbye, and then promptly being told "get off your high horse and get over my superiority."

I can't fucking win.