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!

I need this thread right now as I am stuck out in another country with her.

My mother can be loverly and deep down has a good heart but she can a very difficult and overbearing woman. She goes in cycles, the little digs start, then finding fault with odd things, random rule changes. Then the full on passive aggressive tantrum starts, she acts like everyone is against her and everyone walks around on eggshells trying to placate her. We've just had one that lasted for a week. Then she blows. The she goes all sweet and innocent and everyone is expected to fall back inline again. When my Dad was alive he used to keep her in check.

My sil was out here with my brother and my Mum was a total bitch to her, she probably now has 4 dils who won't give her the time of day. In her mind its the dils who are being nasty to her. The day before sil was due to go home we were all having normal conversations but my Mum started making stupid commens and gasps everytime I said anything. As if I was being overbearing and opinonated. At that moment I knew she was transferring her hatred to me and I was now the terrible human being who is nasty to her.

I can't take it anymore ad refusing to play along with her stupid mind games. I was supposed to be keeping her company and using the house as a base for short trips away with my kids.Tomorrow I leave for a pre arranged weekend trip but I am not coming back. There is a wooden lodge by a lake with a pool with my booking.com name on it.

My Mum is also considered to be sweetness and light to the outside world. It's wierd how none of her kids can tolerate her.

Hi, can I join in.

So hard to explain to people that your mum is the one that makes you cry. My mum is perfect, achieved amazing heights in her job, has a perfect house, looks 20 years younger than her ages and has the social calendar of a 20 years old. And she does it all by sucking the life force out of me!

Her highlights: beating the doors down to my halls at uni at 3 am because she knew I had been prostitutinf myself. Actually she had seen a picture of me in unapproved high heels - try living that down at 18.

Telling people she couldn't stay of work to grieve for my dad because I wasn't bothered he was dead. I was heartbroken, a proper daddy's girl but "you expect to loose a parent, I should be crying because I lost my husband"

And finally my son has a genetic disability as in the combination on my genes and his dad's genes. According to her it was my early prostitution and when the dr suggested that was fucking crazy she actually said "well he didn't get any of the bad stuff from me, I only gave him the good things".

Oh god it's so good to rant.
She's just back from a fabulous holiday with her fabulous friends where she was being chatted up by all the young men and I told her I was started college in a week and had a job the rest of the time so I would be unavailable Monday to Friday. She literally didn't listen, as in just pretends I said nothing. Does anyone else's mum do that? Just ignore the details they don't want. She's made plans for when I'm at work so I have to keep repeating I am at work!

The damage mothers can do! I hope I can see it now so I can jump in for a daughter sitting in the dark believing she's the worst.

Huldra
Good plan!
I will NEVER go away with my mother again. We booked a villa the year after my dad died. Had to cancel as ds2 needed an emergency op (he had the Op the day we were supposed to fly)
Luckily we were insured.
Booked later in the summer in the UK and she was just....awful. so bad we came home a day early!
And then she told everyone what a great time she had!!
No way I'm going away for the weekend with her

For sixty years I have played a game of skill, without having any of the skills I need and without knowing the ever changing rules.

After years of physical mental and verbal abuse, she went NC with me in 1988 and my enabler DF stood by and let her do it. Her rationale? I had ruined her life and shown no remorse.

She died five weeks ago and I am finally free, but even now too much of my headspace is being taken up by the fact that she left all her money to a charity with which she had no connection and left me the job of clearing 96 years of crap out of her flat. So far I have found nothing relating to me. The rejection is overwhelming.

Can you get a house clearing company in to do it?
My mother left eveeything to me when dad died. As did my siblings. Not one of them could even come up with a bloody hymn for the Service.
They only reason I am still in contact is because of what my dad would think of me if I went nc 😞

Please 💐

I came across a photo of my mum today while cleaning out some drawers. It made my skin crawl to see her smiling for the camera at a time she she made my life hell. I shredded it.

I lost my purse earlier, the last place I remember seeing it was in the kitchen. I had put it down when unpacking shopping.

When my Mum gets stroppy she goes around the house moving other peoples stuff about, throwing it outside, putting it in wierd piles so they can't find it. Passive agressive cleaning. It's not the first my stuff has gone on a walk about. My brother and sil had their washing taken out of the machine. We found it in a wet pile days later in a random outside area. Because you know its impossible to say hey guys your washing is done and I need the machine.

I cheerily asked her if she had seen it, she gave a huffy no and stuck her nose in the air. When I travel I stash cards in varous places so if one goes missing its not the end of the world, not that I let her know. Kids asked whats for food with her near so I commented that luckily we had some pasta and pesto as I couldn't buy food atm without my card. Said I was waiting for the bank to send me a code so I could get emergency money out. All calm and smiley in a its a pita but not the end of the world way.

Mother goes out, comes back in and I can hear her around our bedroom on the ground floor.

Just been out into the hall to find some random towels dumped in a pile and the strap of my bag showing. She hasn't said a word to me. I guess once again the presence of my belongings irritated her, she hid it, the changed her mind.

huldra
I could have written half of your post, it's as if you described my mother. Especially going in circles and how sweet she looks to outside world.
Do you think mental health issues present or is it just personality traits?

Please I have been left very little of my mother's estate. The majority of it goes to my sister whom she never stopped complaining about.

While I was clearing out her house I wanted nothing that reminded me directly of her. I only took stuff that reminded me of my dad and I've thrown away every single photo of her.

I want absolutely nothing to remind me of that awful woman. I've started telling people exactly what she was like and they're like

My mother desperately wanted to leave everything to my brother
I simply pointed out that it was unfair and dad would not have approved of that bit told her it was hers to dispose of as she wished - when I was sent a copy of her will she has actually gone for dividing the estate 3 ways
Funny isn't it? My brother is the golden child yet it's me she phones if there is a problem
Me she relied on after dad died
Me she has made her POA
Why treat me like crap then?
It makes no sense....

Oh noni, I'm so sorry about what your mum said to you about your dad's death. Mine said a similar thing - "he was my HUSBAND - he was only your father." It still bloody hurts and it was 30 years ago.

Passive aggressive cleaning! I love that huldra explains why my exams results mysteriously made it into a drawer without me ever seeing them, only to be found after I was in bits for an entire afternoon blaming everyone from the school for not sending in my answers to the postman for not delivering them. What a drama queen I was. Imagine being so lazy as to not be up for the post man, didn't I feel foolish.

slippery that's exactly it, I started to wonder if she'll be alive when my husband dies so I can be officially sad then.
I've learned emotions aren't a competition but I still minimise anyway I feel out of habit.

Where to start.....

I grew up,with crippling shyness and self esteem issues because almost every sentence ,y mother said to me contained the words "you would be (clever, pretty, good! If....." I was never good enough just being me.

I have no memories of my childhood but keep being told it was good etc, but I don't believe her, or my father as she is a narcissist and he enables her. She wants to be seen as the expert on everything in the extended family and he sets her up - hard to explain, but nauseating to see.

She has re written history and refuses to acknowledge my fiance who killed himself.

In the years that I struggled thinking I was infertile she would revel in telling me how easy it was for her to have children. And whenever I made a comment about children I would be reminded that I didn't know what I was talking about.

My parents are now living with me, possibly for the rest of her days. She got drunk a few months ago and injured herself in a fall, but refuses to see a doctor and refuses to do anything. She spends her day watching YV and shouting at anyone who interrupts her viewing.

She lies to family about how close we are as a family -which is not at all and actually told a visitor to my house that she owned it and I was living with her.

I feel nothing anymore. They even refuse to take out insurance,so that their funerals are paid for - leaving it to myself and my brother to take care of. I them get shouted at when I point out that they are being selfish. I'm not 50 yet but DH and I have already sorted this out so our kids don't have to foot the bill.

I too have found my people

I have been NC with NPD egg donor for over three years. Did a 6 year stint of NC in my twenties but got sucked back in when I was pregnant with DD.

She has never once said she loved me, has always belittled me and done what she could to crash my confidence, despite me doing well at school and being a really well behaved child. I don't really consider I had a childhood - I was her emotional crutch/punchbag.

She doesn't just not love me, she actually hates me. She is so overwhelmingly jealous of the success I have made of my life, and so angry with me staying NC. She triangulates with DD19 but I won't let it affect my relationship with her, so she has no power over me, which she cannot stand.

I think her proudest moment was probably when she contacted the police after XH kicked the living shit out of me, I was attacked so brutally I had a bruised cervix, and she told them I was "prone to exaggeration and drama and XH would never do a thing like that." Her own daughter. Can you imagine?

I keep hoping she will die soon, I know how awful that sounds but she just spreads poison. I don't think many people will attend her funeral. She was NC with her own DM, my lovely nan, and NC with her only sibling. I certainly won't be there.

to everyone]

Oh noni, I'm so sorry about what your mum said to you about your dad's death. Mine said a similar thing - "he was my HUSBAND - he was only your father." It still bloody hurts and it was 30 years ago.

Oh god, mine too! Exactly that. Plus "losing a partner is the worst bereavement anyone can ever suffer. Nobody can possibly understand that grief until they've been through it." She said that to me a month or so after my father died, just after my third miscarriage, which she knew about. I wouldn't want to get into a game of top trumps, I'm sure losing your husband is pretty devastating (for normal people - for her it was simply devastating not to have a whipping boy/constant source of narcissistic supply) - but you'd think twice, wouldn't you, before coming out with a statement like that?

It's amazing reading so many similar experiences from complete strangers, and many worse than I could imagine. to all!

Something I picked up on was someone asked did others find being a parent hard. My mum went on and on my entire life about how hard it was being a parent and how much she sacrificed for us and how much she needed a life of her own (her justification for partying and dumping us off at my grandparent's house every weekend and sometimes midweek. I never wanted children as I'd been led to believe I was too selfish and that we all turned into our parents. When I fell pregnant I was in turmoil at how hard this was going to be and how it was going to ruin my life... But it wasn't (isn't yet 7yrs down the line) hard and far from ruining my life, it made it complete. I vowed never to be like my mother and I'm not. I feel such unconditional love for my child, I could never hit her let alone beat her and I could never blame her for my own mistakes in life. My daughter will grow up with her own issues surrounding my parenting skills and existence but narcissism and guilt mongering won't be how she describes me.

zeezeek - I can remember telling my mother that it was taking a long time for me to conceive and her only comment was "Well I got pregnant very easily all 3 times!" Yeah, thanks for that

What continues to amaze me with everyone's posts is how could any of us possibly imagine doing this to any of our children? My mother seems to resent me having any happiness or contentment, whereas all I want for my children is for them to be happy and settled in whatever they do and whoever they are with. How could someone not want that for their child? That's the bit I don't understand in my own relationship with my mother and in many of the posts on this thread.

Gah I just did a long post and It disappeared

I'm so pleased I started this thread now, I was so nervous as I did begin to think I was the only one who despised my mother!

A common theme I'm seeing here seems to be jealousy on the part of the mother. My DH often says my mum is jealous of me, and that's why she's awful to me. I think this, and the fact that she hates females, contributes to her behaviour.

Whenever I plan to do anything fun she always tries to talk me out of it. She thinks I should be sensible at all times because she doesn't have a spontaneous bone in her body. For example my SIL was getting married and I was bridesmaid. I told mum that we were probably gonna plump for a hen do in Magaluf (many moons ago this was when I was a size 6 and could drink most blokes under the table). She went all "oh don't do that its so tacky and could be dangerous. What about camping or a spa weekend?". We did got to Magaluf and all she ever said was things like "I can't understand why anyone would ever want to go on a drinking holiday with their friends". It may seem like a non-issue, but it's another way of trying to either control me or make me feel guilty for everything I do. I fully expect she wants me to be a younger version of her, but we are polar opposites and she can't bear it. I'm 30 now and she continues to try and turn me into her - any presents she buys are very much to her taste (horrible Royal Doulton style creepy ornaments despite us being very much the 'minimalist' family) and she expects them to be front and centre in the house. DH can't understand why she just doesn't but something I like like a Disney DVD. I think it's something to do with asserting her presence, like a dog who pisses everywhere to mark their territory.

lady when I was pregnant I'd had bleeding at about 6 weeks. I'd already had a miscarriage and was nervous about it happening again. I told my mum my worries and she said "well as long as you don't go up the town getting drunk and wearing high heels it should be fine" wtf. Why can't for once they just say "that must be awful, hope you're ok, I'm here if you need me"??

I was quite ill a few years ago
Tested for lots of nasties, one of which was leukaemia
When I came back from the dr (I'd been sent alone since I was 11) I sat on my bed very upset and told her what they were testing for
She just got up and said "well if it is that I'll be dead before you will"
Everything is made to be about her
Everything
I only wanted a bloody hug

When I gave birth to a rather large baby and needed to have stitches, my mother's comment was, "All this nonsense with people needing stitches nowadays - I just popped babies out with no trouble." I tried to point out that my DS weighed more than twice as much as my sister had.

Then when I was having menopausal problems I got. "All this nonsense about people having problems with the change - I was too busy working to bother with all of that". Yes - you were so busy working you never came to anything I did - not even hospital appointments. Thank goodness my Dad was always there for me.

Donkey...I'm peri menopausal atm
Not much fun
Mum had a hysterectomy when I was about 8 snd straight onto HRT
You can imagine the amount of sympathy I get

Noni and toomuch - my Mum was exactly the same after my Dad died - "I don't know why you're crying, I've lost my husband, he was only your father."

I've done reasonably well in my career - two people have said to my mother (while I was there) "You must be really proud of Mrs S and how well she has done." She clamped her lips together and refused to say anything. Oh she did say to one friend, who pushed it, "She was a really, really, horrible child."