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!

Geranium I find it extremely hard to be a "good" mother, or at least, what I think of as a good mother. I.e, not her, and I always feel like I'm on the verge of slipping.

I have depression, diagnosed, and I know that influences everything I do. My mother holds this against me, and anything I do unsuccessfully I should have never done because "I'm mentally unstable. I really worry for (DD)." So I try to do too much; cooking, baking, spotless house, playing and teaching DD things, etc. And I get burned out and her voice gets in my head saying "you can't do this, you're ill-equpt."

I always wanted to be a mother, despite all this. After PND, I was hesitant to have more but DH and I have decided to TTC again. My mother doesn't know, but recently she said "Oh God, don't have any more, you're not a natural mother."

I spent all night crying.

princess and fferal

www.narcissism-answers.com/

ladydepp I miss my DF too. He was the total opposite of my mum, kind, practical, level headed and we got on so well. My mother was actually pretty jealous of our relationship. What annoyed me the most, was when he died, she made out to everyone that they were soulmates, conveniently forgetting that she had 18 months previously, divorced him. They remarried when DF found out her was terminally ill and he wanted to do the 'right' thing and make sure she was entitled to his pensions etc.

The dirty house thing does seem to be a theme doesn't it? I refuse to go the my mother's house because its so filthy. A couple of times I've attempted to tidy and clean it, but within days its back to the same shit hole its always been. Can't be arsed to waste my time anymore.

Because of her mental health I was put into care on a regular basis. Is it bad to say I never wanted to go back. I used to beg and plead to stay at the children's home. Or I was looked after by my aunts. Both didn't really want me around. Yet because of my relationship with my mother who used to go on about how family was everything I once asked her to name in order who she considered was part of the family. It started with her sisters, her parents, my cousins who were all younger than me and finished with my aunts husbands. I did not feature anywhere. Apparently this is because she had known them longer than me.

I have a birth debrief next week
I'm asking a friend to go with me
What use would mum be?
This is the woman who - when I was in the depths of pnd - told me "you haven't got time to be depressed"

I've spent the last 2 days with her so am feeling quite low but I won't be seeing her for a couple of days now
God
How fucked up

I'v remembered some more things from my past - she blamed me for being such a difficult baby that she started smoking, she "switched off" from me when I was about 9, she also has a favourite child. Also doesn't like women, always makes negative remarks.

Although we don't know each other personally- we can all be united in the fact that our mothers are terrible.
My mother hasn't bothered to see my visit my children since we moved nearly 3 years ago, yet we have visited her and she is forever visiting my sisters. She even visit my half sister (no relation to her).
I had to move out aged 15 as she replaced her alcoholic boyfirend who was forever threatening to hit me because I was complaining his drunk singing was upsetting my sisters at 1am- with a drug taking man who kept coming into my room and in front of her trying to get into the bathroom whenever I was getting washed!!
She was only upset I left because she had no babysitter.
This woman stole my Jewlery when I was about 10 and pawned it (I found out years later) I was crying my eyes out at the time and it makes sense that she wasn't concerned.
She also spent my inheritance that was meant to be shared out equally with all her children (my other sisters received theirs!)
She told me I wouldn't amount to much when I left; I proved her wrong: in a 15year+ relationship, bought a home, passed my driving test, got a uni degree and not once has she congratulated me or said she was proud.
We have nc lasting around 6 months at a time and when we do speak she just calls to either brag or moan. It makes sense that she has hardly any friends....
Most of the mothers mentioned on this thread all seem sad and unhappy with how their lives have turned and like my mother I suspect your mothers are jealous of you, like my mum is of me.
Having a bad mother carries an extra benefit; you learn from all their terrible mistakes and will fight every day to never be a parent to your children as your mother was to you. It burns her how well my children have turned out and she can continue favouring her grandson (little devil!!) and not buy my kids presents, but always her other grandson. I am now fine with this, because the problem is and always will be with her, not me.
I have accepted this and am at peace. I hope you all are too x

It's good to have a place to talk. My mother is a very happy, popular and busy woman and always has been. Her neglect was mostly emotional so I never felt I could discuss anything emotional with her. Also she has a dominant personality - I couldn't have things that she didn't like. There wasn't a lot of room for who I was. She revisits this on my children - she wants to treat them, but if they choose something she doesn't like, she tells them 'you don't want that!' And gets them something she approves of.

God yes, the blatant favouritism!!
It's awful and has passed onto the next generation
My brothers dd gets soooo much - both in time and material stuff
Quite depressing really

I have a brother (who I am very close to, more so now I am NC with my mother). He was the scapegoat and I was the golden child. Being the golden child turned into total enmeshment with my mother, which in some ways feels like you are close and have this great relationship, but it was always a clingy, dramatic relationship. I made excuses for why; she'd had a hard life, she's suffered depression, divorced my alcoholic dad, etc. But once I really properly moved away and then married DH and had DCs she turned up the enmeshment a notch and decided DH was competition and set about over a number of years to try to split us up basically and turn herself into a housebound invalid, totally dependent on me (we ended up living with her). All came to a head and we moved out, the housebound invalid thing she demonstrated to be a load of bollocks when she got so angry that I wouldn't play her game that she stormed off to the coast for 3 days, which was a 2 hour drive away.
So, I feel I thought I had this lovely mum I was so close to and then it's turned out to all be an illusion and actually she's been so horrible to me repeatedly that there is no way but not to speak to her.
She had a tiny tumour removed from her breast this year and has recovered very well, but it got me thinking, I will be relieved when she dies and I won't be going to her funeral. The only thing I worry about is a long, drawn out death and her pleading for a death bed reconciliation. I know I won't want to do that, because it will be her asking for ME to apologise for the invented wrongs she's invented from her victim status and I know I will be put under immense pressure to go and I don't want to. Hopefully when she goes it'll be quick.

My mother blatantly made a favourite of my first born (DS) and pretty much ignored DD three years younger. When DD was about 3, my mother was going on to my brother about how much she loved my DS and he was "her little man" my brother pulled her up on it by asking "what about DD?" and she said, and I quote: "Well, I'm sure she's a lovely little girl but I don't know her in the same way I know my little DGS". SHE SAW THEM BOTH EVERY SUNDAY at that point and we had lived in her fucking house until DD was 20 months.

I'm in!

I cut my mother off nearly a year ago after one of those straw that broke the camel's back moments. We live abroad and had moved without giving her our address so it's been easy enough to keep out her way.

She's utter poison. She's a covert narcissist, kind and meek self-sacrificing mother to the outside world, bloody horrible if you have to live with her. Each day of my childhood she would get up and if she was in a good mood, that was fine, but if she was in a bad mood she would look around for something I'd done wrong and either shout at me or hit me till I cried. Then she felt better. If I hadn't done anything wrong she would invent a new rule that I had transgressed without knowing it, or pick a fight about something. She tried to sabotage any piece of happiness I ever had and tried to take credit for anything good I ever did. I stopped hoping for her to love me when I was about 10 or 11, I think - I was a bit older when I realised that I also had no control over whether or not I got into trouble, that it was entirely down to her mood and not my behaviour. I was relatively young, then, when I split off from her psychologically - but I feel as though I bear the scars even now. It was easier to ignore when I was younger - and while I was scared of everything, had very little belief in myself - still I could make an effort and make things happen, and I got a PhD and a decent career. But I remember driving to my new job one morning and thinking how it would be easier and I would probably be happier if I could sit in the house all day, eat junk food, and play computer games - basically that escape still looked 100 times better than actually living life and getting and doing the things that bring other people joy. I often feel like that still - and I've never been in the driving seat of my life, never able to put my needs ahead of anyone else's. I hate that.

too much your mum sounds like mine.

The house thing is interesting. My mum always blamed us having a shit house on me and my sister. She gave up everything to look after us properly which meant she could not afford to decorate it or have nice furniture. My aunty bought our beds so we didn't have to share with her anymore. We were never allowed friends over ever. I left home as soon as I left school and my sister left when she left a few years later. That was 15 years ago and her house is still the same. She has a different excuse why every time she moans about it, which is a lot.

My mother is a narcissist, emotionally abusive alcoholic. Have been NC for years, and realised it was the right decision when she tried the 'you'll be sorry/feel guilty when I'm dead' line on me, and my only thought was that I'd be slightly relieved, if anything. Which probably makes me a terrible person, but I'm past caring. I could write for pages and pages about her, but a few highlights:

• Told me that my disabilities were 'God punishing her' for things she'd done before I was born, that she wished she'd never had children, and that I wasn't a 'real person.' Regularly threatened to get rid of me/put me in a children's home for ordinary childhood misbehaviour.
• Continually mocked me for the things I was interested in as a child/teenager, especially anything remotely intellectual.
• Told me that it was my fault if she started drinking. Regularly threatened/attempted suicide and blamed me for that too (when I was young enough to believe her!)
• Told all her relatives that I have a much higher-status job than I do, for her own bragging purposes. I like my job, but it's not good enough for her. She's unemployed.
• Told me as a teenager that I should get cosmetic surgery to 'fix' parts of my appearance that until she mentioned it I wasn't self-conscious about. (Also advised me to blame my depression on hating my facial features so I could get NHS-funded! cosmetic surgery.)
• Once terrified me by smashing up my glass porch in the middle of the night. In her mind, this 'cured me of self-harm' because she cut her arm while doing it. No, sorry. Just guaranteed that I'd never mention my self-harm to her again.

According to her she was a wonderful parent because she bought me lots of toys and took me to ballet lessons when I was tiny. I still have horrendous anxiety and self-worth issues, but in the past few years that I've been NC I've come to realise just how far from normal all of this is and how most of it wasn't my fault at all. If anyone on this thread is wavering about going NC, I'd really recommend trying it. It makes such a difference.

Bods Thank you :) lovely comments warmed my heart :) xx

Noncommittalthanks for the flowers :) x

Princessmi12 for you. it's such an evil thing to say to a person isn't it? :( I spent most of my pregnancy very scared and in hiding. I fully believed she would of carried out her threat if she had got her hands on me. She loses control at the drop of a pin and has been a very violent woman.
I've never understood how she keeps getting away with it though..one time with one of her many exs she battered him black and blue and bottled him in the head, he needed 20+ stitches and she got away with it.

Another time she attacked a relatives partner with a screw driver he had to jump from a 1st floor window to escape her.I could go on and on with similar stories!!

She has battered,kicked, dragged me around by my hair,given me a fractured arm,black eyes,pulled hair out,used belts,slippers,telephone,fists,shoes, Hoover pipe (you get the idea) to beat me and she's always got away with it cos I was too young or once older too scared to tell anyone..but I've just never understood how she has battered(seriously in many cases) a multitude of ppl and keeps getting away with it.x

for everyone on this thread... I reckon we all deserve 'em!

My DS and I were talking about friends this morning. He's about to move up to "big school" and is a little nervous about meeting new people, so it was a bit of a pep talk. Either that, or he was just quizzing me about my friends! The majority of my close friends I've known since I was 11 or 12 years old, and we've hauled each other through a lot over the last three decades (marriages, divorces, babies, illness, bereavement, new homes, new cars, holidays...). They are the ones I can pick up a 'phone at 3am and know that they'll come running - and that they know I'll do the same for them.

But ever since I've been trying to think of a single person who is friends with my mother. And I can't. My father has friends. A lot of them. He's the sort who'll chat to anyone, about anything, for hours. But my mother...? Even now I can't think of anyone who is friends with her.

She had one friend from her school days - my godmother as it happens. But she's not seen or spoken to her since I was ceremoniously dunked. Her former colleagues whose names she'd drop into conversation all of the time before her retirement... well, within a week their names no longer cropped up (and they only did during that week because she was pissy that no one had bought her a gift/got her card/thrown her a party when she retired). She has no one apart from my father and my daughter. Even my Golden Child brother doesn't have very much to do with her (they've not spoken in 9 months, because he went back-packing with my SIL in Vietnam and... didn't tell her. He's 50. He doesn't have to tell her anything!). My oldest brother is NC with her and she's never met his son (who's 7 now)...

She's just very unlikeable.

And I think that's actually quite sad.

I'm in. I have a troublesome relationship with my mum. I'm the scapegoat in the family. Nothing is ever good enough.

This from a PP really, really resonated with me -

"There was a pivotal moment when I was about 2and a half/3 when she feels I rejected her and she never forgave me for it. She brought it up in the last conversation I ever had with her 4 years ago. "

Apparently, when I was either a week old or a year old, I pushed my mum away when she tried to hug me. She never hugged me again. She didn't do kisses either. I'm 53, so this has been going on a long time.

There are times when I just can't bear being with her and can't stand to physically touch her.

My mum has no friends either Nine years she lived where I am now, (before storming off and setting off NC), nine years and not a single friend. Nobody even knew she left as she had made no friends.

My mother has shut herself in the house and refuses to go out or do any of her old social things (church, sewing group etc) or even speak to any of the neighbours. For the past two years. She will come and visit family, and is perfectly capable of going out and doing normal stuff if it's with one of us. She says family should be looking after her better and it's up to us to be her social life and complete support (the nearest of us lives an hour's drive away. Thankfully I'm more like five hours) since she's grown apart from my father and no longer likes going out in public with him.

I should add, she refuses to get any medical or psychological help for her obvious mental health problems because "you can't expect me to talk to strangers!". She claims not to eat and ostentatiously picks at her food but hasn't lost any weight and if you ignore it she eats normally. She constantly rings us her children to complain about us to one another and constantly whinges about my father. it's all deeply manipulative.

My mother has never hugged us
Never been physical - unless you count hitting
And now dads gone we are supposed to hug her and kiss her
It actually makes me recoil
Mum also never makes an effort
I've tried to get her going back to church - even for someone to take her
Nope. The person goes to Early and stays too late
Tried getting. Her to go to knitting club
Nope. Rooms too small
Tried getting her to volunteer. Nope. She won't make any effort to speak to people.
She is a bitter, cold, boring woman.
And I've told dh if I start to behave like her to smother me in my sleep
Part of my seeking help for my pnd was the fear of turning out like her
So fucked up

So much familiar here, I wouldn't know where to start - but wow I can't believe how many of us there are! I came back from a few days with my nasty, controlling, emotionally manipulative, delusional hypochondriac mother who always put herself first and let stuff happen to us which she shouldn't when we were kids.

I've considered NC but it is so complicated and difficult. Her husband is a prissy, judgemental prick who can't stand children. Huge favouritism for my eldest too - both he and DS2 have started to notice it. I feel like I've had my soul sucked out when I get back from seeing her and I don't know why I still do really. to all people with shit mums!

to you all. Mine is a nightmare, not a narcissist but equally not a good or pleasant person. We are not NC but have not seen each other for a year and are mutually very low contact. This is good.
She's an entirely unreliable, cold and dishonest person, bit racist, very judgmental of anyone and everyone. I just really dislike her and I sense it's mutual. Oh well.

I'm in - my horrible mother (I can never call her mum as that sounds too nice) died recently, I've not shed one tear, I felt absolutely nothing but relief at not have her being horrible to me any more.

It was so difficult at her funeral, hearing everyone say how lovely she was and how much they would miss her.

I felt like saying, "You obviously saw a very different Mrs Donkey to the one I did"