Is it me?

[cockneylass]

A few years ago, when DC was born, DM came to visit to 'help with the baby' and stayed for several weeks (due to large distance). DH and I ended up having a pretty big fallout with her quite early on in the visit. It made the rest of this time very challenging and uncomfortable. Things have never been 100% since.

Anyway, fast forward to present day. I woke up yesterday morning to loads of messages telling me about how one of her friends had met my DB for lunch when visiting in the city he lives. DMs friend couldn't wait to leave because he spent the whole time ranting on about what an awful person DM is (he went NC with DM about 6 years ago) and how she had fallen out with cockneylass those few years ago and made her life hell during that visit. This reignited an old wound for DM and the jist of the messages was basically why do my kids hate me, all I ever did was show love, I'm so hurt to be told we are not close, why would people tell DB these stories about me, it's unforgivable, the fun and laughter has been sucked out of me because of my kids, I work hard and spend so much money on you all to help, I was made to feel so unwelcome on that visit, I can no longer have a joke with my kids, how did it come to this, it still affects me to this day etc.

Anyone else with a challenging mother/daughter relationship begin to question themselves and ask is it actually me? Have I been unreasonable and unkind? I thought everything was 'ok' and she is due to visit again and then all of this out of the blue. Is making me feel a bit anxious.

Yep, I always get the line of after all we did for you, we fed you clothed you as a kid

Yeah you had too if you didn't social would have taken he, such martyrs

It's Bullshit in my family but I know how tough it is when they guilt trip you

It really is impossible to say from this - without knowing the context of what happened it's tough but if both you and your DB have problems with her it's probably not you. Certainly when I had issues with my mother I was made to feel like I was blowing things out of proportion and treating her unfairly (in hindsight I wasn't)

Ok a bit of context. She's always been a bit bossy, but ok. Things changed when I got pregnant. She became a bit distant and only really got in touch to tell me what to do, or to send me a list of the baby names she liked. Things started to get a bit frosty when she informed that her husband and his two teenage children (one of whom I'd never met), would also be coming with her to stay at my house. I wasn't exactly thrilled at having a house full of guests at 38 weeks pregnant and made a comment to that effect. That didn't go down well at all and she said I was selfish. She couldn't really get why I didn't want everyone visit so close to the birth.

Anyhow, baby was born and she spent those first few days telling me that I had to x, y and z and it had to be this way and that I must not do a, b and c. She belittled and criticised things DH and I were doing. She was bossy/overbearing. We found it hard. DH lost it one day and said something like "leave me alone, I know how to do it." That then led to a huge argument and her going in a huff for many many days (whilst still staying with us).

Now that I've received loads of really really long ranting messages I'm reflecting back on that time and wondering if I am also partly to blame? She said she was made to feel unwelcome.