Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
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

Original poster

Paying back mother for raising me

369 replies

moneyowed · 31/05/2021 12:20

Hello all, I know this is wrong and all kinds of twisted from my mother but what I'm trying to work out is how much is a fair sum to pay my mother.

My mother is an a abusive narc and I am pretty much NC with her. She has told me all my life that I am an investment and she expects a return on it. When I was a young adult she told me that her investment in me has gone to waste (I won't elaborate why as I don't think it's relevant) and therefore I need to pay her back for raising me. I agreed to this and promised her I would do it, in the hope that this will alleviate me of all guilt and feelings of responsibility towards her so I can break away.

How do I work out a fair starting point for how much I should pay her?

OP posts:
Campervanna · 31/05/2021 13:03

@Hopeisnotastrategy

I'm the mother of a grown up daughter OP.

Please don't do this my darling. Your mother is one seriously screwed up woman, and going along with this madness will only prove to her in her own mind that she is right. I can tell you now that however much you give her, it will never be enough.

Please don't waste any more of your energy trying to pacify her. From now on I would like you to focus on you. Concentrate on the people you love and who love you - and if you don't currently have some go out into the world and find some. They'll be out there.

Sending you a big hug and all good wishes for the future.

Hope x

Lovely and insightful post.
Russell19 · 31/05/2021 13:03

You owe her absolutely nothing. Why do you think you've broken a promise though? What promise did you make and when?

blacksax · 31/05/2021 13:03

She abused you for years, and you were browbeaten and coerced into making that promise to her.

By continuing to exert control over your emotions like this, she is abusing you still.

Howshouldibehave · 31/05/2021 13:03

I don’t really get what you mean-what does she want from you if it’s not financial?

Don’t give her a penny-no matter how much you give, it won’t be enough and she will still be disappointed

CuriousaboutSamphire · 31/05/2021 13:04

Tell her there was no contract.

If she has a contract you were too young to undertake it.

If you have gone wrong then she didn't programme you correctly.

You want a refund because you are faulty.

Or, more simply, fuck mother, you are utterly batshit.

Blueskytoday06 · 31/05/2021 13:04

She chose to have children. I think you should counter it against what she should pay you for her failings as a mother and call it quits.

SamusIsAGirl · 31/05/2021 13:05

Send her a cheque for £0.00. You don't owe her for your existence.

candycane222 · 31/05/2021 13:06

Your problem is not your failure to give in your mother's ludicrous batshit emotional blackmail.

Your problem is that you feel guilty about it.

Feeling you have to pay her back because you promised is also s problem - you are defining yourself in relation to someone batty and probably completely inconsistent.
That way madness lies.

Start today to take hold of your life not as someone who needs to please her mother, not as someone who defines herself in opposition to her mother. But as herself.

Ease your mother out of your head.

RandomMess · 31/05/2021 13:06

Exactly there is no price on you not being who she wanted you to be.

Please just walk away.

QioiioiioQ · 31/05/2021 13:07

Send her an official letter of dismissal she is no longer a parent. Not really....do not engage with her at all she doesn't deserve any of your time or energy

secretskillrelationships · 31/05/2021 13:07

So you're only worthy of love if you meet your mother's idea of your potential. Is that realistic? Is that what you'd want for your children?

Did you promise your mother you'd pay her back or did you say you would? In either case, it's okay to change your mind based on new evidence or understanding. It doesn't make you a bad person or mean you're like your mother.

Do look at Pete Walker's website on complex PTSD, I think you'll find it illuminating.

PinkPoloMint · 31/05/2021 13:07

@Cocolapew

I would start and finish with Fuck All

this 🌸

SisyphusDad · 31/05/2021 13:09

The return on her investment in your upbringing to which she is entitled is for you to walk away and go completely NC. Seems reasonable to me.

diamondpony80 · 31/05/2021 13:10

There’s only one reasonable answer to this - 100% NC and don’t give her a penny! It’s not going to help your relationship in any way and a payout like that could affect you financially for the rest of your life. You owe her absolutely nothing. If you want to spend some money spend it on therapy for yourself so that you can learn how to close the door on the abuse from your mother

DeciduousPerennial · 31/05/2021 13:10

If the ‘return on investment’ she was expecting was not monetary, then this twisted expectation she has now should not be either. That’s just logic and before you even get to what decent, loving parents behave like.

She extracted a promise by being an abusive person. That’s not a promise you have to keep.

I’ll tell you the same as I would tell my children: invest whatever money you mistakenly think you owe her in yourself. Find a counsellor, go to therapy, read books, be strong enough to see the twisted woman for what she is.

All I want for my children is to raise them with the tools they need to be content while they make their way in the world, and be decent, functioning members of society while they’re at it. That’s it. I get to them a point and then they’re off and free. That’s the point. They owe me nothing.

And you certainly don’t owe your mother anything for her version of being a parent.

QioiioiioQ · 31/05/2021 13:12

Send her this, not really she's not capable of understanding it but I hope that you will

On Children
Kahlil Gibran
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
But seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
As living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
And He bends you with His might
That His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
So He loves also the bow that is stable.

HoppingPavlova · 31/05/2021 13:12

Don’t be ridiculous. You do not pay a parent for raising you. That’s their obligation. This will not solve any of your issues. Get counselling and go NC.

OhRene · 31/05/2021 13:12

You don't pay tradespeople for a shit job, and if your mum thinks you've not turned out like she wants you to be, then it's on her. Her mothering was shit, obviously, right?.

Give her a one star review and fuck her off.

MikeWozniaksGloriousTache · 31/05/2021 13:12

The thing is, you could move heaven and earth fir her, give her all the money you had and it still wouldn’t be enough for people like your mum. You need to cut contact and invest the money in therapy. Flowers

BlackAmericanoNoSugar · 31/05/2021 13:13

Did she not read the terms and conditions properly? All the investment opportunities have an asterisk somewhere with small print attached. Something along the lines of *market conditions can go down as well as up.

If she had tended to her investment properly then she would now have the return on investment of a happy mother-daughter relationship, which is literally priceless. It's her own fault that she doesn't, not yours.

QioiioiioQ · 31/05/2021 13:15

Parents do not own their children, parents are conduits via which we enter into existence, you really are an arrow flying into a future that your mother can never ever access, that's what she's angry about, that you will get to outlive her and experience things that she will not experience

SusannahSophia · 31/05/2021 13:16

Is she expecting you to produce grandchildren for her? And you have either chosen not to have children or it hasn’t happened?

You owe your mother nothing. If she had been a great mum, you might have felt some obligation to care for her in her old age. But she wasn’t, and should have no guilt.

Look after yourself. It’s not selfish to do so.

Subbaxeo · 31/05/2021 13:16

Surely this isn’t real. If it is, I would tell her she owes you for being a terrible mother over the years. Shocking.

Patapouf · 31/05/2021 13:17

Big fat zero pounds and zero pence. You didn't ask to be born for a start.

You need to reduce or cut contact with her.

gamerchick · 31/05/2021 13:18

@QioiioiioQ

Send her an official letter of dismissal she is no longer a parent. Not really....do not engage with her at all she doesn't deserve any of your time or energy
Better still get one sent from a solicitor. It would be worth the money.

That's fucked up OP, I'm sorry man. Flowers

Swipe left for the next trending thread