So, background;
I am a mother of 3
I run my own business which is successful but hard work, as such I spend 10-15 hours a week out of the home doing a very physical job
I also do 5 hours of training a week which I require to be physically able to keep working.
I also have bipolar disorder.
In February, I had been in a depressive state for 5 months, mostly to do with pregnancy of my youngest who, at that point was 6 months old.
My mum lives abroad and visits twice a year. In February we both had a celebration of a life event that her and her husband helped pay for (they are very wealthy)
It was a wonderful weekend of celebration, friends, family and gatherings.
On the Sunday, she took our two children (5 and 7) off to Heathrow to drop off her husband and then return to me to stay for a week.
I worked for four hours that Sunday, arrived home at 7pm and took the baby off my husband who was juggling her and cooking, fed the baby.
Mum came down from upstairs and complained excessively about my room being messy, snatched food out of my husbands hands and complained about it and refused to make eye contact with me.
We’d had a cleaner come in for 5 hours that week to make it okay for her. I was really struggling to hold anything together at that point in time.
I went to bed straight after dinner rather than have an argument with her. She then laid into my husband, told him I was doing a shit job, she managed three children and no support and had a clean house, she didn’t understand why we didn’t just leave the baby to cry, etc etc.
I was pretty upset. I did try, I tried so hard and it just wasn’t good enough.
She left the next morning at my request. It was horrible, I was so utterly depressed and the loss of just mum getting to know our last baby as a baby was really hard. DD is very clingy and in a week mum could have got to know her, maybe given me a chance to have a lie in (she doesn’t sleep well)
But instead it all came down to what a good housekeeper I am.
We’ve just spent a week on holiday with her (in the UK) and today she wanted to come and have lunch here, at my house.
So I’ve spent all day trying to get the house straight, seeing every bit of dust that she’s going to hate, the clutter of 5 people and a dog living in a 2 bed house and just feeling like a complete failure.
I am thinking of just telling her I need to meet her out of the house.
And for that to be an indefinite solution to this. I can’t imagine I will ever look around and think that I have a good enough home for her standards. She lives in an executive apartment in one of the most exclusive cities on earth for goodness sake.
WWYD?