Sick of my emotionally stunted family.

[JustAnotherMoaner]

Having a bit of a hard time of things at the mo, both financially and emotionally. We are skint beyond belief and it is worrying me immensly, and the worry consyumes my every waking moment, despite my best efforts.

We went to stay at my mothers yesterday. We were all sat at the breakfast table this morning, and our situation cropped up in conversation. It all got a bit too much and I burst into tears and ended up pouring out months of bottled up feelings, including ones of suicidal thoughts, which are becoming more and more at the moment.

DP was brilliant, but all my Mother's DP could say was "you are upsetting your mum, stop being so selfish"

I was told by my mum and her DP to pull myself together and that people are in worse situations than me and that I sghould count my bl;essings. The outburst wasn't mentioned again for the rest of the morning.

When we left, I really wanted a hug from my mum, and all I got from her was a kiss on my cheek which I fely was begrudging.

Its not the first time it has happened. I was sexually assaulted when I was 21, and was told by my mym that it was my own fault.

My mum does sometimes offer practical help with my 2 DSs, but only occasionally, which I don;t mind. I just want her to be less dismissive of my feelings.

She ghas always been the same. I have never been able to please her, and she has never been proud of me.

Why am I so fucking desperate for her to be proud of me? For fuck's sake, her work collegues know NOTHING about me. They don;t even know she has me and they know nothing of her grandsons.

I have chanmged my name for this, although it's priobably pointless.

You have no idea just how much you sound like me! Or like I used to be anyway..
You don't have to prove yourself to anyone! You've got a loving partner, beautiful children (and having and raising them is one of the biggest accomplishments of all).

michaelad is bang on the money. As you yourself say, you need to lower your expectations of your mum. If she's never been supportive and loving before, why would she suddenly start now? It sounds like you've got a caring DP and a lovely young family of your own. Concentrate on them, and keep your expectations of your mum on the level of swapping idle chit-chat over the telephone.

Hi JAM, wish I could think of something helpful to say!
I wasn't that close to my mum. I'm an only child too. I often felt she was disapproving of me, and I couldn't tell her things in the same way other people tell their mums. I know that she did love me though, and how she was was in some way down to her upbringing. She couldn't deal with emotional stuff at all and would just change the subject, or if we had cross words on the phone she would put the phone down! I think she wished she wasn't like that, but didn't know how to change.
Maybe you could distance yourself from her for a bit, as she obviously won't change either. All credit to you for not making the same mistakes with your own family, and they are what's important. It's never too late either to take up something you really want to do jobwise, and I'm sure you'd have the support of your dp. Please believe in yourself! Easy to say I know...

DP reckons we shpuld just use her for her present buying capabilities. He tinks if she wants to spend her cash on us out of guilt for being emotionally inept we should let her.

I don;t want her money though.

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Hi jam

I'm in same boat. No your not moaning, you are righteously angry over her treatment of you. Your expectations of her as a mother are perfectly normal for any child or adult child. And to have them constantly disappointed of course you feel angry and hurt and let down and depressed/suicidal etc. Even worse when trying to talk to her produces her denials. Its incredibly frustrating and hurtful to have your mother not just sit and LISTEN to what you have to say then show some/any! acknowledgement of your experience of her as a mother to you. I've been through it with mine (she did the constantly ringing about trivial things too...) and for the last 12 months I have not been in any contact with her. Having realised at 16 her and my sister had lied to me about myself and my abilities, my personality, looks, feelings even ("don't be so silly!" used to be a fave when I said something about her not caring for me) I spent about 2 years screaming at them. Solved nothing, gradually calmed down (externally, was constantly in emotional turmoil which no one knew) and tried gradually (over about 10 years) to behave more and more maturely around her. Didn't work. She still acted up like a child. When I became pg I felt v protective towards my child and incredibly repulsed by her attempting to finally be a mother and pay attention to me. It was so sickening, she wasn't interested in me for just being me, and accepting me. She wanted me for my 'package' perfect son in law, gc on way...I was then everything she wanted. So I cut her out of my life. Whether I was right or not I'm still not sure. But I do know that I'm not angry, frustrated, over the top anymore. My life is calm and my dh is fantastic about it all (he has nutty family too) and we have made a lovely family unit. I lean on my friends on occasion, lean on my dh a lot and chat on here about it all. I also have councelling once a week which is highly recommended if incredibly difficult at times to be honest about my feelings.

Your mother has had plenty of opportunity to change. How many years have you known one another? If your son came to you with these issues, how would you react? I think that is the acid test, because then your realise that mothers are not all like yours, your one too and your reactions to your sons will help you realise your mother could be different. But only if SHE chooses to be different. Try to get councelling thru GP, try buying some books off amazon when you have the money 'toxic parents' is meant to be good and 'divorcing a parent' is my particular fave ;) sorry, probably shouldn't joke about that...but its not just about divorcing a parent, it goes thro things you can do to make things work between you and your mother. Chat on here, don't expect your friends to be a huge help unless they have been thru same as you or are good at listening. I know most of mine don't agree with what I've done. I just try not to talk to them about it now. You could also try to be creative, brainstorm ideas about your mother and your childhood, if you want the answer to many of your current issues, your childhood will contain many of the keys. (ie I don't like inviting people back to my house for coffee, in my childhood my mother would go balistic if I invited someone home unexpectedly. I get uptight about how clean my house is, in my childhood my mother was virtually obcessive compulsive about cleaning.) Try writing a book of your life. Just for yourself, much of it will probably be ranting BUT you will get something out of it, even if its releasing feelings and pent up anger. And you will probably discover things about yourself you didn't know.

Anyway, don't keep it all pent up, release it in some way, and look after yourself, ask dp for a massage, give yourself a pedicure, go for a walk by yourself etc. All that will help too. But your on a long journey and I wish you strength to deal with it all!

xxx

Thanks Ally,

Your situation sounds very similar to mine. When I was pg with DS1, she was really attentive etc etc etc, and now is alost OTT with DS1, and then will include DS2 into things almost as an afterthought, which also pisses me off.

It's inetersting what you say about not being able to have friends round, because that was my experience too. I was never allowed to have my school frinds over whyen I was younger. I got round this by having them round to my grandmother's, who I was very close to. Mty mum doesn't have any friends really, she keeps herself to herself, and if anyone crosses her, she will bear a grudge against them for a long time. I am the opposite to that. I love being socaible and meeting new people. I love having friends over to my house too.

Hi jam

My mother wasn't sociable too, can't say I'm sociable now, things have been tough over the years and I'm used to staying in my safe place (at home) and hibinating while its tough. Don't want to talk to people or go out and have a good time. Yeah I'm dealing with it, dont want to pass it on to dd!! Mother also kept grudges too. The most obcessive one was our next door neighbour. She kept a diary on her for 2 years. Really disturbing stuff. It was all times of cars arriving and leaving, car reg, make, colour. Discriptions of people in and out of house. Snatches of conversations overheard. Our neighbour wasn't a criminal by the way. She was in her 60's as was her partially deaf husband. And they only had family and friends round. And my mother thought her diary normal................

Interesting about your dc tho...why no attention to ds2? Strange.

xxx

Hi Jam, just wanted to say how sorry I am that you have to deal with this on top of everything else that's going on in your life right now. It must feel so unfair that, unlike a lot of people, you can't turn to your mum for help when you need it the most. In particular, I have to say that I'm disgusted that she told you it was your fault that you were attacked. It is NEVER a woman's fault if she is assaulted.

Remember that relationships are two-way things. It sounds like you have supported her and been kind to her when she needed it. By contrast, she has belittled you and made you unhappy when you turned to her for help. Would you accept such poor treatment from anyone else? I think not.
FWIW, I think the suggestion to not discuss important things with her is ideal. It just gives her an opportunity to make comments that will upset you. Don't make it easy for her to hurt you.

can't ad much (but does sound horribly familiar) except you will never treat your DCs in the same way - you will love them and support them and tell them how great they are .

JAM. Sorry that things are so bad in your life at the moment. As others have said, there is no point in looking to your Mum for support so I suggest that you look elsewhere.
Does anyone have any experience of Home Start? Are they helpful?

You're not moaning - you have a heck of a lot to deal with and it would be nice if your mum could help!

I was a Home Start volunteer - the idea is that you get a weekly visit from a helpful, non-judgemental parent who gives you paractical support with your children. It's definitely worth looking into.

that's 'practical' support, sorry. Nothing new-fangled and paractical.

Hi JAM,

So sorry to hear you're having a rough time with your mum - i just wanted to post and let you know that you're not alone.

Just this week I have had a similar outburst with my mum and have been feeling rotten about it all week.

We have never seen eye to eye and all through my childhood I was left feeling like she didn't care about me - I don't ever remember her looking after me or even hugging me.

Like you, I always wanted to please her and I spent about an hour sobbing this week about how I wanted her to be proud of me. It isn't silly to expect your mother to be proud of you - she's your mum after all and that's what they're supposed to do and anything otherwise seems like unnatural behaviour.

She never listens to me and any time I open up to her about how I feel she doesn't seem to acknowledge anything I say so for years I've kept it all to myself.

It troubles me, as I'm sure it does you, that we don't have a relationship where we can talk about things. It makes it worse that my mum and sister are really close and I have just always felt left out.

As other MNers have suggested, counselling might be the way forward - I went through 4 years of it before and it did help but now I'm thinking of going back - unresolved issues will only plague you later in life.

Don't beat yourself up about it if you can help it - it is so self-destructive - try to focus on the good things in your life like your little ones!

Best of luck and take care xx