Argument with DM

[Cheeseandapple]

I had DM staying for last few days. We've got a tension underlying our relationship but we've been getting on really well for the last several months. She was due to stay for another week.

We had visitors on Xmas eve and Xmas day but just my DM and DB were staying over night. DM was being very passive aggressive, critical and generally not seeming to put much effort in to keeping relations affable since 24th, when guests were here. I tried to stay assertive but hospitable knowing it would probably blow over when guests were gone and she felt a bit more settled here.
We ended up having an almighty row yesterday. Probably tension building up over a few days. She fights dirty and was calling me all sorts of names.
This morning she insisted on raising issue with DH. He's not perfect but in no way involved in my fall out with DM and had a childhood filled with battling parents so avoids confrontation at all costs. He got pretty angry when DM tried to pull him in after he explained this to her and tried to take DD for a walk.
It's a few hours later now. At my insistence DM has changed her plans so now staying with friends instead of with me (she's semi homeless - owns a house that she lets out and in the process of buying another). DH has said he wants nothing to do with her after the way she has behaved the last few days.

It's all so horrid and I don't know what to do. She doesn't have any other family in this country other than me and DB but is so nasty to me. I'm totally torn between protecting myself, DH and DD from her toxicity and being there for her as she enters old age and doesn't have many other people.

She's entering old age and I know from experience the guilt of losing contact with such a parent. You've opened your home to her at Christmas and adult relationships require effort from both. Could you ring your brother and explain what's happened? He could perhaps step up and help out, I'm sure he knows how your mother treats you. It's very upsetting for you at Christmas time but it sounds as though you've been more than accomadating

You need to protect yourself and your family from your mother and her outbursts. Just let her stew for a bit.

Can you imagine behaving that way with anyone providing you with accommodation at a time of need?

No, probably not. I don't know why some people feel entitled to be nasty with family, it's as if they're exercising a muscle.

Leave her alone, put away any guilt and reflect on why she has so few people around to help her at this time.

Also, have a second Christmas and properly enjoy yourself now the atmosphere is staying with someone else.

Thank you for replying, especially given that my post has been quite rambling and unspecific. I'm reeling after everything that's happened.

DB knows all about it and has his own version of difficulty with her.

She gaslights and is very good at becoming a victim, turning on the water works etc and I have this image of her in my head as being very vulnerable.

DH is fairly patient but has just had enough. Said he will support me by listening but can't have anything to do with her. He said her constant nit picking comments are exhausting.

I'll definitely leave it a few days if not then until the new year. I can't see any good coming from speaking to her soon.

God, she's said some really foul things to me in the past. It's so upsetting but I stupidly forgive. She probably hasn't done anything THAT awful over the last few days but context is everything. She's called by schizophrenic, mad, controlling, a weirdo etc. Told me I should have taken contraception when I happily fell pregnant with DD last summer because it meant I was too tired to travel to see her in a different city after work. The list is endless but she's got a 3 second memory and is good at minimising .

schizophrenic, mad, controlling, a weirdo

It sounds like she is all of these things in this case.

Google Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers and also Emerging From Broken. Both excellent websites and you'll find your life replayed on their pages.

Thanks @peekyboo I came across daughters of narcissistic mothers earlier this year & a lot is so incredibly relatable. I'll have a look at the other one now.

It's one thing having a 'diagnosis ' but another figuring out a fix.

I couldn't go no/low contact, it would be heartbreaking and I think I would be sad forever but I've got to make sure this destructive cycle stops and that DD doesn't get to an age where she remembers this shit happening.

I went no contact in the end, I reached my own limit and just couldn't do it anymore. In the end it was a smallish thing that set it off, but there had been much bigger issues previously. The final straw, and all that.

I'm still sad now, I think about my mother every day, but my life has changed completely for the better. I didn't realise how much my nerves and stamina were affected by what went on and the undercurrent of criticism and anger that came through so much of the time.

It does get easier but it's not a fix. There is no fix. You can only do your best at any given time.

Why do you think it would be heartbreaking to stop making yourself available for her abuse?

@peekyboo thanks for sharing that. I hope you continue to feel the benefits. I've been googling narcissistic mothers and it is so close to the bone. Do you have siblings? Or family on your mothers side? What did mutual friends/family do?

@NotTheFordType that has made me well up. It's so accurate. I've always felt that she's so complicated and there's 2 very distinct people within her. She does have narcissistic traits (definitely nowhere near as bad as some of the awful things I've read on here) but she also has capacity to be compassionate and generous, empathetic. Going no contact would mean I'd lose the little bits of her that o really love and I'm just not able to do that yet. Also I've grown up feeling incredibly guilty for not being able to make her happy and NC would be the ultimate sadness for her. Although I have an academic understanding of all of this I'm still very driven by my emotion and my up bringing I guess.

One of the most important aspects of a relationship like this is being able to see how your mother is responsible for her feelings, and also responsible for how she treats you.

We've been trained to feel responsible for hurting them, having been told for years that we're hurtful, cruel, irresponsible and ungrateful people who our mothers have only ever tried to help. Etc.

The ultimate sadness of them losing contact with us happens because of how they treat people, not because their children suddenly decide to treat them terribly. It is a consequence not a random event.

@peekyboo
It has taken me years to figure this out and start behaving that way. She's know cross/sad because I haven't apologised although having said that, we are moving towards reconciliation.

I've got to remember who she is, not be distracted by who I want her to be.

I do not think you are moving towards any sort of reconciliation at all, just more appeasement from you towards your mother. It will again not end well.

What she is and what you want her to be are two very separate and incompatible things. It is not your fault she is like this and you did not make her that way.

Protect yourself and your own family unit from her malign influences here, you’ve basically been trained by her from an early age to serve her at your overall expense. Abusive people like your mother are not horrid all the time but their nice/nasty cycle is a continuous one. She was not a good parent to you when you were growing up and such disordered of thinking people make for being abusive as grandparent figures too. I am not at all surprised that your husband now wants nothing to do with her, you ultimately need to do the same. You will need to grieve for the relationship you should have had rather than the one you actually got. She will not change and she will not become the nice parent you want her to be, she is not built that way.

And what both notthefordtype and peekaboo have written.

Do read and consider posting also on the stately homes thread on these pages. The resources to read there are very good.

There is no reconciliation with someone like your mother because she will not allow it and will simply move the goalposts. There is good reason why she has no friends, everyone else has backed away from her. You are probably one of the very few people who actually bother with her but you really should not. She is now old and toxic but fundamentally she has not changed since your own childhood, she was young and toxic. She really does have you well trained.

You do not mention your dad, is he still around?. Where is he now?

@AttilaTheMeerkat a lot of what you've written is bang on the money. When my very DB was about 17 it was like something clicked in to place for him and he suddenly realised what our mother was like. It was about six years ago that I started to realise that not all mothers were like this and not everyone had this kind of relationship with their mums. I have joked with my friends about being trained etc but in all seriousness I was privy to difficulties in my parents marriage from a very young age with the clear expectation that I would side with and support my mother. I missed out on a close relationship with my dad as a youngster because of it I think.

As I was writing about reconciliation I was thinking the same thing. There will be no reconciliation. It is a cycle. She always has an excuse to explain away bad behaviour but as the years pass I'm seeing it more and more as a catalogue of cruel verbal and emotional abuse.

My parents separated as I entered adolescence & and there is a marked change in my memories of a happy childhood and frought teenager years. It's become apparent that the reason for that is because my DF was the subject of her malice. DF has wanted nothing to do with her since she left him but is happily remarried. She's totally floored that he won't be friends with her.

@AttilaTheMeerkat God, opened the bloody floodgates tonight!