Anyone else have a poor relationship with their DM?

[LAwonder]

It’s complicated. She has narcissistic traits, probably because her own childhood wasn’t great. My childhood wasn’t awful, no abuse, but looking back I always felt upset. DM is very self absorbed, thinks she can say and do what she likes and no one is allowed to react. I pushed against that and now we’re NC.

I don’t really see any alternatives. She won’t change. So either I sacrifice my sanity and mental health or we stay how we are.

I wish I had a close loving relationship with her. I wish I could tell her all the little things about the DC, about me, about our life. I wish I could invite her in to share some of it with us. But honestly, keeping her at a distance feels like the healthiest thing for me.

I’ve been on stately homes threads on and off for years. I’ve had therapy. I understand FOG, I understand grieving for things you didn’t have abd overall I am now used to this situation, but once in a while I just feel a bit lost and a bit sad about it all that this might be it. I think the damage to our relationship is so concrete now, I’m not sure we could ever go back (and back to what anyway??).

It’s been 2 years of LC then NC. I never planned to write her off, I don’t want to write her off. And NC forever just seems shit. But the alternative feels futile too.

I'm going through the stages of realising my relationship with my mum is pretty poor. She sounds much like your mum in many ways. Always wanting to give her opinions but never earnest advice or support etc etc.

It's hard because I always thought she was fab growing up but now looking back I realise I was unhappy a lot as a child/teen too. And as an adult I find it wearing and upsetting talking to her. I ought to go for counselling about grief of things you never had as well.

I've no advice about going NC because I'm still so worried and upset about maybe having to go LC to protect myself. But I wanted to post to say my sympathies.

@OneStepOneStumble the realizing stage is hard. Things start to make sense but what you begin to realise isn’t easy to take on.

I found counselling amazing, I think everyone should have it as standard. Having a professional to pick through emotions and issues was so helpful, and I felt lighter after every session. Saying that, it helped me but it hasn’t changed the situation, and this is what’s bothering me now - where can things go from here? I don’t even know if I want a relationship with her again yet it feels unresolved and I feel fearful about leaving it longer and longer and longer.

Sounds cheesey, but it’s like our relationship had a crack which has just got bigger and wider over the years and now we’re standing on either side of a bloody great canyon.

That analogy explains exactly how I feel with my mum. The gap is widening and I don't know how to stop it. Or even if I should.

Some advice given to me by a friend was that at this point it's very unlikely that DM will ever change. So the toxicity will continue. So I suppose the decision is how much you are willing to put up with purely to have a relationship with your DM?

I try to think of my DM as a rather pleasant but distant aunt sometimes... That helps. I've grieved for the relationship I've never has with her, but I do want to maintain contact. Things always get difficult if I forget about that boundary.

I could have written your OP. I'm about 3 or so years NC and still so sad it was needed - but it was. I couldn't cope with her anymore, even though I love her.
When you wrote either I sacrifice my sanity and mental health or we stay how we are - that was exactly the epiphany I had. It's shit, and it's normal to grieve not having a closer, safer-feeling, warmer mother relationship. I still do, often.

@OneStepOneStumble Yes it’s definitely getting wider the longer things go on for. I guess as well I feel that whilst she caused the original cracked, it’s now my fault for letting them continue to get bigger. I generally try not to think in terms of fault and blame but I know my DM sees this as my doing and that “whatever it is she’s done, surely we should just love and accept her” (her words) so I feel somewhat responsible for things not being resolved.

@Heartlake interesting you say that about her being a distant aunt as that’s how I felt when I visited last year (we live a long way from each other). The conversation was all quite surface level and I realised that I felt very uncomfortable going into detail about me and DH and the kids. I suppose it felt weird having to fill them in on stuff they should know through normal day to day chit chat, but also that they’ve missed so much that the depth has gone.

@RhubarbTea how does your DM feel about NC? Mine has told me I’m “cruel for pushing her love away and keeping her at arms length and she won’t have any more to do with me unless I can be kind”. If I comply with her, all will be ok. But I can’t anymore.

Next summer is probably the next time we’ll visit our old hometown and I will make the effort to pop in. That’ll be 2 years since we last saw them (dm+dsd). I found the last visit incredibly painful emotionally. Too much has happened since we moved from that area - we’ve lost close relatives we were fond of who lived there, so that hurts, plus the situation with DM makes it hard, plus whenever I’m there I’m transported back to how I felt living there and I realise I wasn’t very happy a lot of the time there as a child, as a teenager and even as an adult. I’m much freer living away. I love seeing friends and other family there, but it’s not me anymore and I struggle with that.

I’m so sorry you guys have lost or are losing out on this relationship too

I do feel for you LA! I'm determined to break the chain with my own DC though.

Had to Skype DM this week (for reasons I don’t want to put for fear of outing myself).

Ever since I don’t really know how I feel. I so desperately want to love her, to have a warm and close relationship yet when I saw her the other day I had an overriding sensation of thinking how I didn’t want to be like her. She dominated the conversation (as always), dazzled the kids with the Nanny Show (so they think she’s amazing) and was then short and curt with me.

I’m pretty sure she creates an engaging facade to draw attention and converts this into her version of admiration and love. It doesn’t really matter what the other person is thinking as long as they are watching her.

I don’t miss her.

What happens when the kids get older though? I think my eldest dd can sense somethings not quite right between me and dm, and where dm draws her in, I can imagine dd asking her stuff or repeating what I’d said. Not that we have plans for the children to spend time alone with her at any point... But they might ask to do that in the future..... And also if and when the kids get phones, she can contact them directly, which fills me with horror.

It’s all such an on-going emotional minefield, even with very low/no contact

Im a NC veteran!!
First went NC when I was at uni, that was about a year then I got with DH who has a lovely close family so he persuaded me to get back in contact with her.
He soon realised his error once he got to know her. We went NC again a couple of years later, we went abroad for about 3 years and then when we came back and I got pregnant with DS1 I went though the whole ‘my child deserves to know all thier family, what if me and DH split up I’ll be all alone with a baby etc’ got back in contact. That lasted about 4 years, gradually got worse and worse until I just couldn’t excuse her any longer and it’s now been 9 years since I last spoke to her.

Having been NC then back in contact several times it has helped me realise that she will never change!!
My sister lives closer and so sees her more regularly (but got shorter periods) but also has a poor relationship with her. My sister hasn’t had a strong partner though and her current partners family are also awful so I think she clings to the hope that my mum will change.

I think I’ve come to terms with as you say ‘ the grief for something you never had’ eg the loving mother-daughter relationship and it makes me sad when I see other people’s relationships with thier mums. But the main emotion for me now is the shame of not having a good relationship with my mother. Like I feel people will judge me. It makes me feel like I’m not good enough. I have no confidence in myself or my abilities.

@BrieAndChilli I also feel ashamed too. Like people think that me and dm are as bad as each other. I’ve had friends say “but she’s your mum” like I should just forgive her and everything will be hunky dory.

I’ve thought about writing to her, but it would only really be to say “sorry we can’t be close because you hurt me too much, and seeing as you’re not going to change, I’m accepting this as a stalemate and moving on without you being a close part of my life”. I couldn’t do that to her, and what would it achieve?? It would just hurt her even more (and yes I do acknowledge that she’s hurting) and wouldn’t help me at all either.

Lose bloody lose all round.

You are still very much an adult child of a narcissist with all the damage that comes with being such. Your mother has trained you and from soon after birth to serve her with you putting your own needs and wants last. The fear, obligation and guilt you still carry are all very much part of that too.

Your mother's childhood likely was not great either but all she has now done is inflict all that crap onto you. She chose the low road here and did indeed repeat what was done to her.

How do you respond to people who say such guilt inducing stuff like, "well she's your mother"?.

Consider also are they very much like her too?. These people have no idea at all what being a now adult child to such a tyrannical parent is like; they have not led your life and some people also have their own agenda.

She has not cared about hurting you though and treats you like something she has stepped in. Ultimately you will need to let go of any and all hope that she is going to change because she will not do so. You will also need to grieve for the relationship you should have had rather than the one you actually got.

Low contact often leads to no contact as well. She was not (an absolute understatement here) a good parent to you when you were growing up and the very worst thing you can do for your kids now is to keep on at all exposing them to her emotional manipulations; she is merely using them as narcissistic supply. She will harm them also in not too dissimilar ways as to how you have been harmed as their mother. She is likely playing one off against the other, certainly tries to buy their affections, undermines you in front of them at any and all opportunity and has a favourite.

Seeing a BACP registered therapist and one at that who has no familial bias about keeping families together could be a real help to you as would looking at the website entitled daughters of narcissistic mothers.

Re the kids having phones do not let your mother under any circs have their phone numbers. Your job here is to protect them from such malign influences like your mother.

She would not be hurt but full of rage (narcissistic rage is indeed a sight to behold) if you wrote such a letter and I would urge you to write it all down but NOT send it.

ANY letter no matter how carefully constructed will be used by her (and her all too willing enabler, that being your stepdad) as a means of further bashing you about the head with. It is not your fault your mother is like this and you did not make her that way. Women like your mother cannot do relationships and they always need a willing enabler to help them. It may well be that your DSD too is actually as narcissistic or abusive as your mother is; such men who are not are often discarded.

Thanks @AttilaTheMeerkat. I’ve posted before and have appreciated your advice then too. I saw a counsellor for the best part of a year last year and that made everything feel lighter somehow and I accepted a lot during that time, it definitely helped.

But now we are where we are, and sometimes it just feels shit. Most days, I don’t give her a second thought. Though I have phases of FOG still. Sometimes I read back through old texts and emails and remind myself that it’s better to be NC. That feels horribly negative though - that I’m focusing on past shit instead of trying to fix things. Though I must also reminder my counsellor saying that the pattern of her rage and me having to fix things was something I should break free from. And I think I have, and here we are, which is a good as it’ll be - the alternative just isn’t workable.

Friends just don’t get how my dm might not give the soft, supportive, sweet love that they get from theirs. They think it’s just silly fallings out, or clashes, or whatever. Some understand and have seen/heard about it all over the years, but I still think they think I’m just being stubborn....

I won’t write the letter @AttilaTheMeerkat. I know it’s totally futile. It would just make things worse.

DSD knows what she’s like but I think he takes the view that he’s made his bed and now has to lie in it. She’s trapped him anyway, he’s tried to leave a couple of times and all hell broke lose so I think he’s given in. I love him, he’s a decent bloke, but caught up in her web and is too weak to break out of it and sadly he has also let dm get in the way of his relationship with his own kids.

He truly sounds like a weak bystander of a man rather than a lovely bloke. He has thrown his relationship with his children under the bus too. You should really have no time for him either.

re your comment:-
"Though I have phases of FOG still. Sometimes I read back through old texts and emails and remind myself that it’s better to be NC. That feels horribly negative though - that I’m focusing on past shit instead of trying to fix things. Though I must also reminder my counsellor saying that the pattern of her rage and me having to fix things was something I should break free from".

You cannot fix what is unfixable here and on some level this works for her. Your counsellor is correct in that you have to break free of the cycle of her rage and you then having to fix things. Indeed you must drop the rope she holds out to you; disengage completely.

hi OP I'm in a very similar situation, but I keep contact because I'm afraid she'll harm herself deliberately as revenge - I couldn't have that hanging over me - and because she'll dump it on my sibling otherwise. NC is not for every one at every time but I was very LC for about a year when I worked in a developing country pre-internet and the phone system was so unreliable. It was wonderful and I'd never felt so free. I wish I'd never been sucked back in but I feel I can't escape now. I'd advise you do it if you can.

It's good that you have seen a counsellor as I think people in our situation need to build resilience and coping strategies. People with normal families are well-meaning but can't really understand how their behaviour and aggressions infiltrate and damage your sense of self, you can end up (like me) someone with no sense of their own needs and rights and with a very poor self-image as unlovable, always wrong, etc.

I've kept the vile texts so that whenever I feel like a truly shitty person I can go back and see the proof that I did nothing wrong and responded to abuse with kindness and dignity.

About trying to fix things, I realised a few years ago that you can't fix things. You can't change someone, just how you react to them. The kind reaction is what we often need to choose.

oops! at the end there it should say "kind of" reaction... ie how we react

Neither she potentially threatening to self harm and potentially dumping herself onto your sibling (and what sort of a relationship do they have with her these days?) are really any sort of reason, let alone basis, to remain in any sort of contact with your mother. What can she do other that rant and rave at others if you were to disengage from her completely?. Drop the rope along with all hope that she will somehow change and or become a nicer person. Its not your fault she is like this and you also have never been responsible for her actions. She simply conditioned to make you feel that you are responsible for her.

Abusive people also often use the "I'll harm myself" threat to further control and keep their intended target in line because it works for them.

Would you at all tolerate your mother's behaviours from a friend?. Ask yourself that question too.

I haven't spoken to my DM in 4.5 years after she did something that was the last straw. This has not stopped her leaving voicemails and getting others to call me in an effort to hoover me back in. Yet not once has she apologised for what caused the no contact and admit her part to it. It was truly horrible btw.

After a lot of soul searching I have realized that no matter how much I deeply miss and crave having a mum in my life, she isn't what I need. She is a deeply messed up person but unwilling to get help or admit her wrongdoings. And this is what it comes to. I have to love myself more than she is able to do, as she causes me so much damage and to my kids too. So I have to be the mum I want for the sake of my kids.

Good luck OP. Consider no contact or low contact if you can.

@Immigrantsong
how much I deeply miss and crave having a mum in my life,

you said "a" mum not "my" mum...I think for a lot of us that is true and that is what makes going NC very hard. We somehow cling to hope that we will somehow get what we've needed for so long. The power of optimism!

[quote cornishacid]@Immigrantsong
how much I deeply miss and crave having a mum in my life,

you said "a" mum not "my" mum...I think for a lot of us that is true and that is what makes going NC very hard. We somehow cling to hope that we will somehow get what we've needed for so long. The power of optimism![/quote]
Well spotted. I said that on purpose, as I realised that I didn't miss my mum but the idea of what having a mum is all about. Yes completely agree and hope all here find some love or be the love for those around them. It is the unconditional love and acceptance we miss. But we can be that ourselves.

Do you have any supportive friendships with older women in your life? Perhaps a mother-in-law or aunt, or just an older friend? It does help to have a bond with someone who has a bit more life experience and goes some of the way towards filling that mum-shaped gap in your life.

aw OP i can relate so much to what you are saying.

Iv been very LC for 3 years now and it hurts so much at times. But then we have contact and 50% of the time it leaves me anxious and upset and the other 50% feeling elated and like she does love me. so draining.

I'm sorry I don't have advice, but you are not alone.

@lilsquish that switch from being nice to being hurtful is really hard to deal with because you don't know what you're going to get

When she is nice you feel awful for feeling negative about her, so you let your guard down / get your hopes up then you get taken back down to earth with a hard crash when she switches to horrible mode.