Clingy, needy mum - but bereaved

[anotherdayanother]

My dad died earlier this year and I appreciate it is fairly early days for my mum - they were extremely close. Co-dependent really.

I feel very selfish feeling this but here goes. We were never super close in the way some mothers and daughters are, partly because the incredible closeness she had with my dad got in the way of any other relationships she had - even ours.

I understand why she is now looking to me to replace this and feels lonely but she literally bombards me with texts and emails about every tiny aspect of her day. We don't have much in common and whilst I love her and want to help and look after her I don't want to be like this forever. or at all if I'm honest but I'm willing to do it or a while whilst she is particularly getting used to life without him (although I fear she never will get used to it really).

We had a rocky relationship at times and frankly e.g she/ they weren't around for me when I have needed them for various reasons so it feels weird.

What can I do or say to get her to back off a bit - she has made lots of new friends since he died so that does help but she still bombards me and interestingly doesn't with my brother. She lives 5 hours away and is always saying oh 'x has family nearby' all the time.

I couldn't stop thinking about your mum when I went to bed last night.
Bed times are the worst times. At least during the day you can busy yourself but when night time comes, that's it. You're on you're own and I bet she hates the dark nights coming in and no one to give you a cuddle if you're sad.

Nothing will ever be the same again for her. My mum and dad went out every night with various friends. They had a good social life. She did 20 years on her own, bless her. Friends continued to take her out but it was never the same, naturally, eventually that boiled down to a couple of games of bingo a week. Not my mum's favourite pastime but she was grateful for anything and I picked the slack as much as possible.
When dementia struck friends fell away as it became impossible . One set stayed pretty loyal but then they had to admit defeat eventually.

When mum passed away aged 88 last November, I felt immense relief for both of us. It's a soul destroying illness and robs you of the person you loved. I thought I was fine, that I'd done my grieving while she was alive. Wrong . just a couple of months later I started to grieve for the mum I'd had not the one she'd become. I miss her terribly. We were robbed of the last 8-10 years together.

My mum wasn't the perfect parent. I know I haven't been either. Most of us muddle along and do a good enough job. It's not like we are taught to do the most important job we'll ever have. I'm sorry she didn't step in when your dad was harsh. My mum didn't always either and I can find a bit of resentment about that if I dig deep enough but I was loved and cared for and that was the most important thing and my life is a lot emptier without them in it.

In fact it was nearly always me who did the ringing. Sometimes when things weren't good for me I would have appreciated a phone call just to know she'd been thinking of me.
We have this idealised picture in our head of how we'd like our parents to be and the fact is it's never like that because they are imperfect just like us.

I'd ring her. Ask her how her days been. Arrange a time with her when you can spend a bit of quality time with her. You might find that just does the trick and to help plug the gap a bit by giving her something to look forward to.

I agree nobody is perfect. We all make mistakes in life. We all make mistakes as parents. Its how we learn and move on. Hopefully making things right.
P.p. depends how much OP felt loved and cared for. Absent parents in times of need and then all of a sudden when THEY'RE alone, they need us. I have so much sympathy for people who have lost loved ones and yes they need to feel supported and cared for but so do children growing up.

Absolutely cup cakes and I was aware that op only touched on that aspect but she did say she loved her mother and that she was quite sweet, so maybe with dad gone they can rebuild their relationship.
When my dad went, it was mine and mum's time. It was great and I treasure it, although no way had she been an absent mum when he was alive, they just enjoyed their retirement together. That was fine.

Enjoying retirement is different. You can enjoy retirement and be a parent. You're right OP only touched on this aspect. It appeared to me Op's mum was absent. I was just speaking out of my experience. Its different if your parent wasn't absent through your upbringing/early adulthood.
I'm glad you enjoyed your time with your mum Dowser :)

Dowser your post is very moving and useful for me to read. I don't have a great relationship with my mum just now, although I love her very much.

OP i thought I'd add something that might be of use. My elderly exPIL are quite isolated and don't have a great deal going on. I find it keeps their spirits up to always have a date in the calendar. So if exH visits them, I'll call afterwards and invite them in a couple of weeks. Then he'll do similar. So they only ever go 2-3 weeks between a visit and there's always a date in the calendar - something to look forward to.

I'm only actually seeing them once a month or so, so it's easy to enjoy the time together.

Maybe your brother would be amenable to making a similar arrangement so you can share the responsibility.

I don't call often but I try to call once in a while with sufficient time set aside so I can show genuine interest.

I don't want to minimise bereavement, but from my own experience of separation I can relate a little, I can go days without speaking to another adult. If DC are with their dad then sometimes I have whole weekends of not speaking to anyone. It's difficult to describe how it feels at times going to bed knowing no one knows if you even get up the next day. It's tough not having anyone to share the day to day things with.

By all means try to establish contact that works for you but I wouldn't say anything that could make her feel more alone. Better to not reply to all her messages than to say something direct.

This is really useful and I can see that I do need to give her the leeway she needs. He truly was everything to her and it must be incredibly hard to not have him there.

I will try and be a bit more patient. I think i just got sort of worn down by the constant influx of utter trivia, and the huge mismatch between what she thinks of as interesting/ important and what I do.

And yes there's all the 'history' - she was just his mouthpiece though and is definitely kind and sweet on her own.

It is indeed very different to those who have that super-close relationship with their mums providing support at times like this. It can leave you feeling guilty that you should be doing more.

I've posed this question before ... Why do Mums presume that their daughters will look after them and provide them with support in their old age, and not their sons? In this modern, equal time in which we all now live?

Ugh this used to be my nightmare until I went no contact with my own mother when her emotional neglect/abuse went too far. I think that some posters here don't quite understand the dynamics where there has been significant parental emotional neglect/abuse in the past. Sure its sad that her co-dependent partner has passed - but that doesn't mean she can simply use you as an object to replace him to fill her needs.

You should indeed have a think about what your values are and how you might feel in the future and then act accordingly. I have a very strong belief in helping people in need, compassion and kindness - but I have made a very clear decision that I would not support my mother if her partner passed. That is not an easy decision to get to - but she just let me down/caused me so much damage that I feel no obligation whatsoever. Of course - that's me and my circumstance - I suppose my point is that just because she gave birth to you doesn't mean that you have obligations to her no matter what her behaviour - past and present.

Best of luck.

Thank you agent and for all of you who haven't had brilliant parenting I'm sorry to hear that l
Believe me if I'd been the result of neglectful and abusive parents I too would have disappeared quicker than a rat up a drainpipe.
Obviously op still cares deeply about her mother otherwise she too would make minimum contact.
I hope you can find that closeness again, even if it's on your terms.
Maybe she has regrets that she wasn't as inclusive with her children as she maybe should have been.
Maybe your father hated sharing her.
I know a man like that. He gets very demanding if he can't get his wife's attention.
He'll create a drama and be quite unpleasant until he gets it.
It's not pretty in a 63 year old.
When I mentioned it to his daughter, as in your dad's grumpy tonight ( huge understatement) she said oh, it's cos we are talking to mum, and he wants her all to himself.
So true and I'd noticed myself years ago.
Turns out he never felt he had enough attention from his mum. He's stuck in a 6 year old time warp.
His wife is a different person when he's not around.

Maybe there's a similar scenario went on with your parents.

This is a sticking plaster fix rather than a root cause solution but can you set up a wassap group for you her and your brother? And add dcs if they're old enough? That way you're sharing the load with your db and you can mute it the odd photo or link to something interesting and you can comfort her/ fill her need for validation rather than having to react so intensely.

Ermm makes the important point that I agree with - it's really hard for those who have 'normal' relationships with their parents to understand this. It comes across as me being a total bitch.

I have to say with my mum it is somewhere in between - not as bad as the situation you describe Ermm. But equally, we are not close and i have no desire to start getting super close now. It won't work or happen.
I do love her and she is sweet but I got this far on my own in effect and I just dont want this suffocating relationship long term. Yes to help her through the aftermath of the bereavement it was of course the right thing to do but this is my concern - that it is becoming the 'modus operandii' for her. Eg she sent texts this morning about the minutaie of people I don't even know's lives.
So the key points are:
-how can I make sure there are boundaries longer term as I don't want a clingy/ codependent relationship and am not my father to her

• how can I recalibrate the level of detail she goes into as I really don't want ten texts a day about Pam's daughter's dog has had to go to the vets and I don't know Pam never mind her daughter...

Thoroughly agree about this idea daughters should be the looking after go to people being irritating.

My father died 5 years ago and I had the same. Actually, it would be fair to say my mother fell apart and hasn't been the same since but she is slowly on the up. Realistically, I am not expecting her to be 100%

In some ways, it has been nice. I was always closer to my dad as we were alike. My mum and I got on fine but it was always her and my sister. When Dad died the dynamics changed and I saw it as an opportunity for us to grow closer. I am also well aware that this won't be forever and I need to enjoy her while she is here.

I won't lie. Sometimes it has been unreal. Stifling, even. And the juggle of having a young family added to the mix is not to be recommended.

I don't reply to everything. Most of it is just musings . I could also muse with her. Sometimes she is a useful ally in the humdrum of family life.

I have an older sister too who is nearby. Their relationship is complicated now and I've learnt not to get too involved. We sometimes bounce things off one another and laugh things off. Other time we get pissed off with one another if one of us feels weare doing more.

Is there any chance you can sound out your brother? Challenge him on the lack of contact. Distance is no excuse. Challenge your mum on it too

My brother isn't doing anything wrong and is great - he does feel the same about the trivia but he definitely doesn't get bombarded as much. Maybe because he is the son, maybe because she perceives his work as more serious (!!!), maybe because he has been firmer with her.
He is lovely and we do swap notes and let off steam about it all. He also visits her more than I do to be fair.

I really get it, OP, that’s so hard. My FIL died in a car crash 8 months after DH and I got married and MIL depended heavily on him for several years, still does in some ways. She called him every evening and spent an hour on the phone with him. My BIL didn’t get the same number of calls, though he and his DW had a new baby and maintained their boundaries.

I tried to be supportive of the situation, and obviously DH was grieving as well. But my DSis was going through a distressing marriage break-up and was revealing that her husband had been violent towards her, so I was also receiving calls regularly from her, and she stayed with us sometimes.

We were also discovering that I was infertile, a process that eventually led to us adopting our 2 DDs.

I found it so stressful after a while, we weren’t getting any couples time at all and we were newly married still. I had helped my MIL by arranging for the legal firm I worked for to handle the legal stuff, I worked for the solicitor who handled the case, a mistake as it turned out. Because I was finding out that FIL had been to blame for the car accident and MIL didn’t want to believe that her DH could possibly have made a mistake, and she went on and on about how the police had let her down.

It was too much. In the end I couldn’t keep my mouth shut, as I had typed the letters that had spelt out what had actually happened. So we ended up arguing. I think it’s why my relationship with her isn’t great. I knew I was being unfair to resent my MIL, and unfair to my DH, but I needed him to back off a bit and establish some boundaries with his DM, whilst still supporting her.

So you need to be firm with your DM and maintain boundaries with her. Otherwise, you will end up resenting her and that’s hard to overcome. Yes supporting your DM is good, but you need to establish when you’re going to talk to her, for example. And see if your DB could get involved as well?

HTH.

I'm sorry you lost your Dad, another; my mum died 3 years ago. Since then I have come to the conclusion (from watching friends lose their dads) that it is far harder on daughters if their dads die first, because then the daughters seem to be left supporting their mother in the way their dads used to. By contrast, my dad has pretty much looked after himself (physically and emotionally). Obviously I do my best to be there for him (he lives overseas) but really I haven't had any of the emotional load that you and my friends describe. Since my mother is exactly the type who would have become very needy and PA and sulky, I have a great deal of respect for the way you're handling the situation. I'm not sure I could have been so mature (less than ideal childhood here too).

Good luck

Mittens - that sounds really hard and I hope things are, as they sound, better now.

I've only now replied to her text from this morning about trivia to do with her friends but I did genuinely forget and she hasn't texted me in between at least.

I had another idea which was to try and steer conversation a bit more to things that are at least more interesting - that is definitely part of the problem. Not just bombardment but bombardment with trivia about every single meal she has/ friends of friends.

My dad died when I was very young, my (much older) sister left home a year later, so, for over ten years, it was just mum and I at home. My mum has never had another relationship, and my sister has turned into a narcissistic bully who my mother is scared of.

My mother would like to be very dependent on me, and the behaviour you describe reminds me so much of how things were between us. Near-daily phone calls about nothing in particular, including each specific price drop whenever she bought something. As the methods of communication increased, so did her expectation that I'd contact her on each and every one of them. She'd want emails, and MSN messages. Then messages by Skype (and she'd tell me her Skype was sad that it hadn't heard from anyone recently). Thankfully she never really learnt to use the mobile I bought her.

Through counselling I realised I could take back control. I'll ignore the phone if I don't want to talk to her, likewise emails etc. Getting to this point was not pretty, as I ended up with depression and ignored every contact from her for a couple of months. I don't suggest you do similar! But things are better, though she does keep pushing for more.

One thing I did was to initiate a weekly conversation each Saturday afternoon (as well as another during the week). I have, recently, become more flexible about this as I hate the feeling that it's set in stone. I've bought her some books to read, which I have also read, so we can talk about them (though the time she rang at half 11 to tell me she'd started one of them was memorable!).

It is difficult, and I know I don't have immediate grief to deal with as well. But do put some boundaries in place. Your mother does have others to talk to if she wishes.

@anotherdayanother, thank you, life has moved on to other challenges now, but my MIL is still emotionally dependent on my DH, that’s not going to change. She’s not grieving now though, and can enjoy her grandchildren. DH’s GPs both died in the 2 years after his DF, his GM 3 months later, of a broken heart, I think.

She also calls and talks about trivia for ages, then DH is too tired to talk about something they need to discuss. I think she, and very likely your mum too, talk trivia because they miss having a partner they would have previously talked about it with.

@NC04, your situation sounds awful. It’s good that you’ve found a way of handling it though. I don’t answer my MIL’s calls, but my DH isn’t able to do that. (But then I’m the same with my DM, a whole other story.)

Yes definitely - it's all the stuff she'd have shared with my dad and it now gets directed somewhat towards me.

And yes the more I give, the more she wants. She never stops the conversation and will carry on and on. Indeed she's at it now about yet another 'amazing coincidence' that someone she knows is someone else she vaguely know's relative. I know neither of them and she lives in a small town so it's NOT actually a coincidence bless her.

Oh god I'm as bad as her wittering!!

someone she knows is someone else she vaguely know's relative - some of that is just making conversation though, I'm sure 85% of MIL's weekly chats are her telling us about her hairdresser's cousin's dog's dad's neighbour's niece who went to school with/lived on the same road as/used to work with her who has, on the whole, just died. I could just read the obits in the local paper Perhaps some set phrases in response to those texts would be helpful, or just ignore them - we tend to just say "are they dead" as soon as she starts

I think the idea of putting aside a moment at the end of every day to scan her emails and texts and then send a nice breezy reply with some of your news from the day as well. You could let her know you are going to do it this way because although you like to hear her news, you are too busy during the day to give her messages your full attention and you want to send her back a proper reply. Then mute her texts and send her emails to a folder and read them at the end of the day just before you reply

I’ve been there to an extent but Mum and I are close and she lives very close to us too. When dad died she was bereft - together since teens. I look very like my dad and am like him in manner a lot too so she gets comfort from being around me. Winter is harder as she hates the dark nights so it’s more pressure on me to go and keep her company (not from her though) as I know she’s lonely. I also work and have 3 dcs plus a DH on shifts. She is coping better now - 2 years on - but it’s still pretty early days really. It’s a pity you can’t find comfort together OP but I understand your frustrations.

I realize it's a bit weird and a shot in the dark replying to such an old thread, but I thought I'd give it a try and see how OP is doing. I resonate so much with the relationship you described with your mother and it's difficult to find people who understand that middle ground we're in—she wasn't an abusive parent, but many of her behaviors and reactions toward me drove me to create distance between us, and our relationship was never typical mother-daughter lovey-dovey. Part of the issue is that she has plainly ignored (or perhaps somehow after all this time doesn't realize) how strained our relationship is.

My dad passed in May three months ago and we are in the thick of this initial phase where she wants me to fill this void in her life. It feels incredibly stilted and awkward to try to be supporting her and feeling her grasp onto me for a level of emotional support and closeness that does not feel natural. I feel that I have been stripped of my own time to grieve my father because she's gone to pieces so badly, and the message I'm getting from the world around me is that her grief is so much more real and important than mine, and I'm just getting angrier and angrier at this idea that my life just has to be about her now. She has terrible anxiety and panic attacks and every day it feels like she's a timebomb waiting to go off. I'll go and have dinner with her or spend the day with her and she's texting me and calling me that same evening as if as if she hasn't seen me in weeks. I have a stressful job and can't keep up with this expectation that I'm available for her 24/7. I also have a brother and he is doing what he can, but I am the child who is geographically closer (only about 30 minutes away) and so I feel her expectations for me are different because of this mother-daughter idea that simply does not match the relationship she actually forged with me.

Sorry, I'm seeing now that I typed a lot. I guess I don't even know specifically what I'm asking, as many in this thread have stated that time simply needs to pass. But I appreciated seeing a sentiment close to my own feelings expressed, because so many people do not understand this type of complex dynamic with your mother. Wondering how you've gotten on, I suppose.