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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

How can I make peace with the fact I love my mum but I don't like her?

9 replies

kippersandkittens · 11/12/2017 20:14

I have some horrible memories of comments my mum has made to me and about me over the years. Recently I've found out she has been commenting on me to a mutual friend, seemingly in confidence, but the friend has told me everything she has said. It's bloody awful! I wouldn't dream of talking about my children like that. Why does she do it? It would appear that she really dislikes me.

I feel like crap Sad

OP posts:
NotTheFordType · 11/12/2017 20:22

I'm so sorry. I went through this realisation a few years ago with regard to my mum and being NC (no contact) with her has made my life so much less stressful and anxious. I feel like I can really concentrate on me and my DS for the first time without worrying about someone criticizing me and telling me I'm doing it wrong.

kippersandkittens · 11/12/2017 20:27

Is NC really the only option? My Dcs adore their grandparents and I can't fathom how that could work. Honestly she makes me so anxious and when we are together she's constantly making faces and touching feet under the table with my dad at the things I or the dcs say. It's horrible.

OP posts:
AttilaTheMeerkat · 11/12/2017 21:56

Its not your fault your mother is like this, you did not make her this way. Her own parents did that.

She was not a good parent to you growing up and she is not a good grandparent to your DC either if she is treating you as their mother like this. Your children may well notice all the faces she pulls and no they do not adore her either. They should not be subjected to her emotional manipulations either. Deal with your own fear, obligation and guilt re your mother through counselling and find someone who has not bias about keeping families together.

People from dysfunctional families end up playing roles; you seem to be the scapegoat for all their inherent ills. Do you have siblings, if so how are they treated?.

I would suggest you read "Toxic Parents" written by Susan Forward and post too on the "well we took you to stately homes" thread on these pages.

kippersandkittens · 12/12/2017 07:52

I have a sibling who she is very proud of. I am the disappointment and am told that indirectly quite a lot. Much is made of the fact I'm divorced too, with constant references to 'broken homes' and 'fractured families'. That's from both of my parents too.

I don't know how to handle it, I'm a grown woman FFS, yet I'm made to feel like I'm useless and can't cope with anything.

OP posts:
saoirse31 · 12/12/2017 07:56

I'd reduce contact. She's not good for you or your dcs. Have similar experience and its only when it actually hit me that she was being horrible about my ds and had been for years that I stepped back. And its lovely not getting the nasty and snide remarks about me, also. I feel v sorry for her but sorrier for my DC who deserves not to have his achievements denigrated constantly.

RunRabbitRunRabbit · 12/12/2017 08:06

You are happy with your DCs adoring an abuser?

Children have no concept of the future danger posed by being close to abusive people. You have to be the adult.

When she turns on one of them, how will you explain that you knew she was abusive, that she abused you for years and yet you pushed the children towards her? Of course they might not tell you what she is doing to them. Who did you tell when you were little?

Your children adoring them is not a reason for staying in contact. Quite the opposite.

Do you secretly believe that you deserve to be abused? Maybe you think that because your DC don't deserve to be abused, unlike you, your mother won't start on them? You know you didn't and don't deserve it, right?

TheSquashyHatOfMrGnosspelius · 12/12/2017 08:11

Wow OP. NC isn't the only option but her abuse of you is so overt, I can't see any other . Try sitting her down and calmly saying how you feel and hope for change I guess but if she is so confident and arrogant as to treat you as badly as she does without even an attempt at subtlety I can't imagine for a moment she is likely to see your POV. Try telling her for your own sake as much as any other but she is already abusive around the kids so long term that is unlikely to change and as they get older she will start in with the sly digs and shit. They will soon cop on to what she is saying as she sounds out of control.

thecatfromjapan · 12/12/2017 08:36

To build on a lot of the advice here:

Your mother clearly has issues.

For some bizarre reason, she needs her children to be perfect, invincible, invulnerable - 'successes' - in order for her own sense of self and safety not to feel under attack.

She can't cope when things 'go wrong' in the life of one of her children, for example, with your divorce. Instead of seeing you as someone who left a bad relationship, and who builds a new life after that - as someone 'strong' and 'capable' - she's freaked out by the evidence that life can throw up obstacles, and careful structures can fall apart.

I'm guessing she's really strange when you need to ask her for any kind of help - be that really small emotional claims on her, or even when asking for love and caring.

Some people are like that. I think it's because they are put together in a very fragile, brittle way, and this is how they cope.

The result is that they tend to put people in 'boxes' ("That's my 'difficult' daughter; that's my 'good' child."), partly because it cuts down on the need to think or engage. Partly because it reduces the emotional demand - which they find overwhelming.

One way to deal with her would be to acknowledge that she is deeply flawed and in her own way, struggling to manage with the demands of life and relationships with the people in it.

Another way is to acknowledge that your relationship with her is stressful and produces anxiety. Then to acknowledge that this is not a failing on your part. You will have been subtly told that it is your fault for many years. It isn't. She has issues. It IS going to provoke anxiety when you interact with her because she is acting in very non-rational ways and you are having to do all sorts of mental gymnastics to keep the relationship with her. You are carrying the stress for her. So of course it makes you anxious.

Once you acknowledge the reality of this, you can begin to make clear-sighted decisions with regard to your relationship. For example: "Interacting with my mother is anxiety-inducing. This is bad for me. I can't change her. What can I do to lessen this very real impact on me?"

And the solutions to that may well be to reduce interaction. It may also be that knowing all of the above means you can detach quite a lot. Realising it's her issues goes a long way. But you really have to work on that insight.

And of course she's good with the children. Children are very trusting and non-judgmental. they are a great ego-boost for the fragile. The wonder, of course, is that - even with children being so trusting and accepting and giving of unconditional love - she couldn't cope with you (or even your sibling) when you were this age.

So, in a way, not only is she getting all that non-conditional love from the children, she is also getting some sort of fantasy validation that she was great when you were young - she gets to re-play it AND it 'proves' to her (And ,she hopes, you) that the problem in your childhood was you, not her.

It's bollocks though. for a start, you're their mother, she's only there sometimes, and you're facilitating their interactions with her now.

And she knows that.

As they grow up, it will almost certainly unravel a bit. Sad

But you will probably be able to have adult conversations with your children about the good and bad qualities of their gran.

Does any of this help? I do think that the place to start is to realise that your mother is a person who has issues of her own and that it is absolutely not your fault that the relationship makes you anxious. There are good reasons for that sense of anxiety and you are allowed to take actions that reduce that stress. Start listening to yourself, start taking yourself seriously, start putting yourself first a bit. Try imagining one of your children telling you what you are telling yourself - and thinking about what your answer to your child would be. It's good for you. Smile

Gyoza · 12/12/2017 19:01

I have similar issues with my mother that I’ve only properly came to recognise and understand in last couple of years. I also don’t want to go NC for various reasons but I’ve found reducing contact helps, we now speak about once a week when she calls me, and I try and reduce opportunities for her behaviour to upset me wherever possible. When I do get upset about things she’s said to me in the past I just tell myself that she has very little emotional maturity and doesn’t mean to hurt me through the things she says but it’s just the way she is. I try to focus my energy on making sure I don’t fall into the same patterns of behaviour she has and work on improving my own mental health. It’s hard to brush off some of the hurt but they people like that aren’t interested in changing, just focus on yourself and your relationship with your own kids. I found the book ‘will I ever be good enough’ quite useful.

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