Really really really need someone to tell me if I am being unreasonable to my mum

[User20191]

I don’t know what to do about this. Don’t know if I am being over sensitive or if my upset is justified.

It’s my birthday tomorrow. My mum was due to meet me for a birthday lunch about 25 minutes from her house. We were due to meet at 12.

What was lovely is that she had arranged for my friend to come over to their house at 6 and to do a meal for five of us (brother and dad included). The plan was we would have lunch together then go back to the house (half hour drive) around 3pm and get ready for the dinner.

I text my mum an hour ago and said see you at 12. She’s replied and said she can’t meet me then it is too early and instead I should just drive to their house (about 1.5 hours drive), with the stop for lunch about an hour.

I am really upset as I was looking forward to this with her, just some time me and her. What is upsetting me the most is that I know the reason she wants to cancel is to spend extra time showing off their home to my friend. There’s not even a real reason for it!

I feel totally let down and don’t know what to do. Is this me? I feel so confused.

The key thing is but to have her be the sole guest.

Should say The key thing is NOT to have her be the sole guest.

I think your DM has very different ideas from you about how your relationship should look like. She decided to do a birthday dinner for you ( as it’s a right thing in her eyes) and now she’s probably behind with things, nervous and stressed. In her eyes dinner is more important than your lunch together. It fits with what you’ve said about emotional neglect. Your DM is not good with emotional support and sees her role more about practical stuff and probably giving you instructions. It’s not good , of course, but it’s how it is.
I would try to calm down and go to dinner. Yes, you said things but your DM said them too. Just be a bigger person, thank her for dinner and ignore any sarcastic/nasty/ rude comments. You’ll feel better afterwards. And plan all your birthdays by yourself in a future.
Happy birthday!

Firstly, I hope you're birthday goes as well as can be expected under the circumstances.

In future, for your own peace of mind, I feel you will finally have to accept that you are never going to get that extra mum/daughter closeness that you crave. She has let you down too many times, seeing you as needy. Your mum obviously loves you but she sounds like someone who needs to involve others in her plans, to show and praisenher efforts, when all you want is to focus on the two of you occasionally.

It's unlikely she will change as it has happened so many times, and she has her own agenda regarding these things. In future make your own plans with people who won't let you down. Again Bon Anniversaire.

I get it OP because I have a mother like this. I’ve now given up and am LC with her. She always puts her own needs first and can never be the unconditional loving support that I need. Mine does nothing for me on my birthday yet expects lots of attention on hers. She’s complicated and self absorbed and thrives on drama. I’d suggest you build up your life/friends so that you don’t need her for anything. Get therapy weekly to help you through it. Cancel the birthday plans and tell your friend that you have fallen out with your mum so you and her will go for a meal out instead. I wouldn’t mix mother and friends if I was you. Keep your family drama separate from your friendships. Don’t cry and moan at your friend about it or you risk driving people away. Just go enjoy your birthday with your friend.

Hey, kinda sounds like you're describing a nice version of my mum! You're allowed to be upset because you feel she let you down(again). My mum is the main reason I moved 250+ miles away and my counseller, therapist and hypnotherapist also describes her as emotionally abusive.

I also would love to have one on one time with my mother and it saddens me every time she cancels for something more "important". It doesn't matter if it's a major birthday, a graduation, or whatever, it still hurts. Not much help really, but I can offer a virtual hug. I try to get over it by planning events around when she says she's around - that way I know I have friends to help distract me.

I wish I''d had a mother who would have cooked a birthday dinner for me. Sometimes I think people need to accept things as they are on an 'it is what it is' basis. Blaming parents for our insecurities is rather pointless really. At some point, we have to stand on our own two feet. My mother now has dementia and I would give anything for her to know who I am and not look around so vacantly. I wouldn't give a dam about the fact that she would never have cooked me a birthday dinner. I would just want the things I loved about her back. Sometimes i think people can be so focused on self that they miss out on the blessings they actually have in their lives.

I will add that it is my mothers birthday today. She will see her card and her gift and seconds later she will see it again and it will be like she just got it. This will continue until the cards are put away. Her gift is a basket of plants with a card that will keep telling her I love her... she will read it every day and some days she will know its from me and other days she won't recognize the name. Sometimes its a reality check like this that people need to realize exactly how lucky they are.

I get it OP. My Grandmother was like this with my DMum. I watched my Mum twist herself into shapes trying to get her mother to be the person she needed her to be but it was never going to happen. This went on for years and was awful to watch once I was old enough to realise what was going on.

Gradually drop contact. Not as some sort of petty revenge but until you feel mentally healthier about her but even at that point, stay low contact. Try to get to a place where you are pragmatic about it.
I shuffled my sister out of my life for these reasons. She is just like my grandmother. Selfish, self centred and has zero interest in or empathy for anyone else on this planet. See this as a final straw moment and take the reigns now and be in control yourself. You will feel a million times better if you choose to ignore some calls and only answer one in five texts and gradually let it all fade from poisoning your life.

Norbert. Are you always so optimistic?

HenriettaH clearly you have no idea what it's like to have a toxic parent. I am very sorry your mum has dementia and how this is affecting you but you are projecting those feelings on to the OP when it has no relevance here. Why should the OP put up with being hurt by her own mother time and time again, just because she's her mother?

We wouldn't allow friends to treat us this way so why should a mother get a free pass to do as they please regardless of how it hurts their child? The OP has actually been told by a qualified professional she has been emotionally neglected.

There is nothing she can do to change her mother but posters telling her she should be grateful because of their own circumstances are not helpful.

Happy birthday OP
Hope you've arranged to just have lunch with your friend today.
Please don't go to your mum's or you will spend your birthday being upset and your mum will just think you were being dramatic.
Show her that there are consequences to her actions and that you make your own choices now you are an adult.

I’m truly sorry for all those who had a wonderful mother, who through death or illness are no longer that wonderful mum you miss and adore. However try please to think of those whose mothers have never been wonderful, or selective with their love for their child.

It’s not easy growing up in a world that tells you a mothers love for their child is unconditional, unfaulting and always there. You question your sanity, your worth as a person, and blame yourself. Because if all mothers are perfect at loving their child then of course the child will grow up to assume the problem is them.

OP has every right to feel the way she does, and it’s Clear her mother chooses to play games with her emotions to cause emotional distress to her daughter. It’s not something she should put up with because you only get one mum.

My mother was a cold hearted cow, who was wonderful one moment and unbelievably cruel the next. She was never there for me when I needed her, in fact she threw salt in my wounds. She died and I don’t miss her at all. long before she died I wept buckets grieving for a mother I would never had, or deserved by society’s standards. I had to realise I might as well had been orphaned and as soon as I accepted that, and stopped trying to win my mothers love and approval my mental health dramatically improved.

Happy birthday OP, I hope you find the strength to distance yourself from your mother. Don’t let her be able to play games with your emotions again. If she decides to play host next year, just tell her you have other plans.

Happy birthday op!!!!

You are reacting like this due to all the other times she has let you down, it's understandable. The reality is that when she makes these plans you can only agree if you accept they are likely to be cancelled or changed.

I hope you have a lovely day

The phrases like My mum passed away 2 years ago. You only get one mum, I would do anything to see mine again and telling someone posting in distress they are 'lucky' and 'blessed' are just as minimising of the ops upset and emotions as the M in this situation!

And happy birthday OP!

Tbh. You’re old. Stop spending your birthday with your mother fgs

I don’t get why the lunch out is so much more important than the special birthday dinner your mother is cooking herself for you and your friend. She’s probably overwhelmed with having to go out for lunch and then having to go home and immediately start preparing a massive birthday dinner. Can’t you go to lunch with someone else and then go to hers for dinner?

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I hope you go onto have a happy birthday.

Its not you, its your mother. Not all that surprised either to read that you've had counselling and that person had originally told you that you had been emotionally neglected by her. You still are being emotionally neglected by her. People also forget that not all parents are as kind and or as loving as theirs are.

How does she get on with your dad (does he back her out of want of a quiet life) and what is he like?. I would ask the same questions of you re your brother.

Its not your fault your mother is the ways she is and you did not make her that way (her own parents did that to her).

I’m truly sorry for all those who had a wonderful mother, who through death or illness are no longer that wonderful mum you miss and adore. However try please to think of those whose mothers have never been wonderful, or selective with their love for their child.

This needs to be said again. Not all mothers are good mothers.

It sounds like the OP wanted to spend a bit of time on her own with her mother (that's part of the relationship that mothers and daughters tend to have). OPs mother has form for letting her daughter down and is not emotionally equipped to deal with her daughter on a one to one basis. OP has had counselling previously and was advised too that she had been emotionally neglected. She to my mind is still emotionally neglected by her mother, a woman who has unlikely changed much if at all since OPs own childhood.

Dear OP, Happy birthday,

I am a 55 year old mum sending you lots of love. I had some really difficult times with my mum, from childhood into mature adulthood, like you. She's elderly and very disabled now and I try to be kind and compassionate. Over the years I've had to put in a lot of distance and have a lot of counselling. I found the Alanon Family Groups principle of 'detatchment with love' very helpful but also a challenge, as a friend joked 'if you cant detatch, semi- detatch'.

Wishing you the very best of success with a birthday step towards inner peace and emotional freedom.

I’ve calmed a bit this morning.

I get that I have overreached. I wish she had simply said it was too much at the time it was arranged. That’s what hurts, she thinks it is fine to be so flippant and jkst cancel. I asked her why she organised it in the first place and she said ‘I probably wasn’t listening because I was busy.’

My brother has his own issues from our childhood. But he apparently has told my mum he is going to find it awkward making conversation with my friend (he’s known her since he was 8) and my mum has said it would have been better if this friend wasn’t coming.

Everything is always a drama with my family and I never feel any way close to this stressed, sad or confused with anyone else in my life. While I can see that dinner for 5 people is a lot, I don’t think 2.5 hours (including travelling for her) out of the day to have lunch in what is basically a cafe and very informal, is necessarily too much. I resent it because I know the extra time she needs is directly associated with doing everything possible to show off her home to my friend. And yes I probably should laugh it off. Me and her are very different people and I automatically feel the worst around her when i wouldn’t assume the worst with say a friend.

They are not bad people and for my own sanity I don’t want a big long term row. It just feels shit and it is nice to read posts that remind me I am not alone.

Dear Henrietta wishing you all the best for enjoying the moments of now you still have with your dear mother. Caring for DPs mum during her last years with dementia was very demanding, we did our best to enter into her world when she could no longer share ours. It's lovely that you have so many positive memories, I hope cherishing your mum her on her birthday today can also be one of them. .

Happy Birthday OP, I hope that you have an enjoyable day despite what has happened

OP if it was me, I’d feel annoyed and irritated, but absolutely not upset or distraught. And if she was getting her house ready to make a special dinner, it might have been too much to do lunch as well. I personally can’t see why you’d do both anyway, it seems like a lot of unnecessary fuss, but if it’s what you organised then so be it.

However it also sounds to me this is just a small part of ongoing issues you’re having with her. You can’t change the way she behaves to you, or what she does. But maybe it’s time to take a step back from her and change your expectations in the relationship you have with her.

You sound like you want her to behave in a certain way, almost like you need to be babied by her. She’s your mum but you’re both grown adults now and it doesn’t sound like a balanced, healthy adult relationship between a mother and daughter, the overdramatised upset and all this birthday fussing sounds bit stifling. If you hadn’t said you were over 30 I would think you were still in your mid teens.

Do you have good friends your own age? And has your relationship with your mum been the same since you were a teen? You say you hate her yet you were also really wanting to see her, including just her and you, twice in your birthday. That is showing two very extreme emotions which we don’t normally attach to a parental figure.

I would encourage you to stop making your relationship such a central part of your life. It doesn’t satisfy you or make you happy, and she can’t change to be what you want her to be. I believe you’d also be benefit from some counseling to help work out why you feel this way and how you can accept the way it is.