Mum often says hurtful things to me, I think unintentionally

[AllIsCalmAllIsBright]

I'm in my 20s and my Mum and I are quite close. But ever since I was a teenager there have been instances where she has said things that are quite hurtful and yet quite ridiculous and inaccurate. I never know how to respond so I just stay quiet.

Today I was chatting with her about one of my best friends and I mentioned that she hasn't been a little distant recently and it's mainly been me reaching out. My friend and I are both single and my friend has shown no interest in dating. Yet my Mum then said that my friend had probably got a boyfriend and was far too busy with him to speak to me. It's such a huge leap of assumptions and conclusions with no evidence yet it stung as I know she said it with the underlying frustration that I'm "still" single.

Her friend has a daughter around the same age as me. My Mum loves to tell me how beautiful she is and 'drop dead gorgeous'. I've never had a compliment from my Mum on my appearance even at events, so to see her be so lavish with praise with other people is really hurtful. The compliments are always really over the top.

She also makes lots of other little digs. Like when I was ill off of work I said how I felt guilty and she said the team probably didn't even notice I wasn't there? Or when I left a job and saw a colleague in the supermarket she said they probably have forgotten me already.

She is one of those people who everyone thinks is really kind, quiet and nice, even me. So these kind of comments always take me by surprise.

Am I being too sensitive?

Place marking.
My mum is 90% a nice person but that part of her that isnt is all directed at me and my father brother aunts etc will all think im "too sensitive"
Lots of goading me in to a reaction with her silent treatment or throwing hersrlf up on the cross

Her own Mum is very similar but a lot colder, whereas my Mum can be nice most of the time and then she says things like this and becomes quite cold and critical. She praises herself on not being like her Mum, I think it's quite worrying how blinded you can be to it and makes me worry about how I would be as a mother if I have children in the future.

She is the 'good' parent though, so I feel like I'm really struggling to accept that she can also be critical and hurtful. My friends all love her and think she's lovely. She has never told me she loves me and at primary school when we ran out of our classrooms to the playground we weren't allowed to hug or kiss her like the other children did as she found it embarrassing. I remember when I was around 7 I fell over at a friends' birthday party and hurt my knee and my friend's Mum gave me a cuddle and kissed my knee better and I remember feeling so shocked and confused by it.

@TheYearOfSmallThings

you will no doubt break the cycle and show your dcs what you haven't had from your own mother.

See I don't believe this is necessarily true. I think it is very difficult to have insight into how good a mother you are, and the question of how your children experience your parenting (depending on their own personality and disposition) is another matter again. All these mothers who are being labelled narcissists on Mumsnet are probably confident that they are not repeating the failings of their own mothers, and have broken the cycle. All the daughters who are appalled by their own mother's failings are probably oblivious to their own daughters' perception of them.

Basically I suspect Philip Larkin was right!

To be honest, I haven't given it too much thought. I'm very conscious of my own dcs and making sure they don't feel like i did as a child and continuing into adult hood. I can absolutely see your point - something to think about!

So it is more like enmeshment than love?

She doesnt really see you to love you?

I think some mothers cant adap to their daughter being their equal, usually the type of mother who never really sees their daughter. Just sees her as an object self.

I hate the tendency to excuse this behaviour as 'insecurity'. When I feel insecure about myself, I don't act like a dickhead to others. I try to improve myself - I don't try to drag them down.

Thats the difference between a normal human being and a nasty cow (and probably a nasty cow with a cluster b personality).

So don't excuse it as 'insecurity' ppl. Because its bullshit. Nasty people do nasty things. The reason why these sick individuals behave the way they do is irrelevant at best. At worst, will keep you hanging around trying to figure it out when you should be running for the hills.

Insightful post from @Pinkbonbon

@Lunificent

She’s not good for your mental health. I would limit time spent with her and limit conversation. Don’t ever attempt to have it out with her. Toxic people like the drama and turn it round on you. Just keep you interactions bland and mildly pleasant. Spend time with people who are not cruel to you.

This.

I also think @Pinkbonbon is spot on.

OP, you sound really lovely but your mother certainly isn't.

Why you would want to hurt your own child is utterly beyond me.

You will be a lovely mother one day if that is what you wish but I suggest you consider some counselling to help you really get how damaging being around someone like your mother is.

She is not good for your self esteem and mental health.

Some parents dont/can't show love so never cuddle or kiss - it doesn't mean they don't feel it though. It sounds to me as though your mum is disappointed in the way your life is panning out at the moment and can't resist having these little digs. My mum was similar and it wasn't until near the end that we got much closer and showed each other how much we really cared. It's all very sad 😞

What Pink Bonbon wrote here. Cluster B personality disorders are real and NPD falls under that category.

Toxic crap like described can and does go down the generations and it is your choice whether you inflict this level of abuse onto the next generation. You won't in all likelihood and probability treat any children you go onto have like your mother has treated you (and her mother has treated her) because you have two qualities both mother and grandmother lack; empathy and insight.

You know this treatment of you is wrong. Your mother does this because she can and she also wants to inflict this on someone else i.e you because that was done to her by her mother. She never sought nor wanted to seek the necessary help.

Completely limit all interactions with your mother over time down to zero sum. It will do your MH no favours at all to be around your mother and you will spend all your days asking yourself, "will I ever be good enough?". You are more than good enough, your mother and your grandmother are the toxic ones here.

I feel like there is choice how to react after self awareness. I decided I wanted to be a better person than the one who made a dig when she felt inadequate.

Im not saying that other people's successes never make me feel inadequate but now i take the feelings i experience as a compass; what do I really want? I get better not bitter. If i am blaming somebody else i force myself to ask what my role was. Focusing not on blame but how to improve.

I think i was 36 years old before i had this epiphany though. I also figured out that the mistakes id made were due to having prioritised appearing happy over being happy.

So i think i started out as a bit of a vulnerable narc, but i took responsibility for becoming a better person.

I wanted to change.
I ceased any kind of passive aggressive communication too.

Thats why i hold out hope that my mum will one day get it :-/

If i got it, why cant she? I was brought up with her low self esteem projected on to me, her anger at my own sense of myself, slint treatments,stonewalling, martyrdom, manipulation, triangulation ... and that is the crap i brought to my first adult relationship until i stepped back and thought who am i?

Whyyy cant my mum do that?

Maybe I'm being childish but I'd want to turn it around. So match her insults with similar... 'xx Mum is so lovely and warm'. 'x Mum is so glamarous and attractive'.

But as I said... childish of me.

If she is decent much of the time, can you choose one of the better moments and talk to her. Ask her why she is so cruel sometimes (have some recent examples ready). Tell her that it makes you want to distance yourself as you know that isn't how mother / daughter relationships should be.

@Pinkbonbon

I hate the tendency to excuse this behaviour as 'insecurity'. When I feel insecure about myself, I don't act like a dickhead to others. I try to improve myself - I don't try to drag them down.

Thats the difference between a normal human being and a nasty cow (and probably a nasty cow with a cluster b personality).

So don't excuse it as 'insecurity' ppl. Because its bullshit. Nasty people do nasty things. The reason why these sick individuals behave the way they do is irrelevant at best. At worst, will keep you hanging around trying to figure it out when you should be running for the hills.

I agree to an extent. I do think the behaviour stems from almost a pathological fear of other people's opinions (like being embarrassed at your dc running to you after school....that's really quite severe) . So it is insecurity but I absolutely agree that it is not an excuse. Not at all. As a parent we have a responsibility to at least function around that level of insecurity for our DC.

I just had a similar conversation about my Dsis. Who is massively and to an extreme level insecure. She manifests it by over rescuing and involvement coupled with an impressive poor me attitude. The trouble is I know exactly where it comes from (thanks dm and df ) but dsis chooses still to be awful and controlling and snobbish about it. The conversation started because she ends up on her own for parts of hristmas because her DC (late teens and early 20's) avoid her at every possible opportunity.

It might stem from insecurity but people choose how to respond to insecurity. If you choose to put others down then you will end up damaging any relationships.

Sorry OP I think its intentional. Ultimately she sounds like she can't bear others succeeding because it makes her feel bad so she instinctively puts them down

My mum also has never given me affection or told me she loves me. A few years ago had to have some medical investigations and my gynaecologist was lovely, so maternal and caring. The way she touched me (abdomen) and looked at me made me burst into tears, I had never known that affection by a woman before! Absolutely atrocious behaviour by these mothers.

I read a book called ‘Will I ever be good enough? Healing the daughters of narcissistic mothers’ - I would highly recommend it.

@AllIsCalmAllIsBright

Her own Mum is very similar but a lot colder, whereas my Mum can be nice most of the time and then she says things like this and becomes quite cold and critical. She praises herself on not being like her Mum, I think it's quite worrying how blinded you can be to it and makes me worry about how I would be as a mother if I have children in the future.

She is the 'good' parent though, so I feel like I'm really struggling to accept that she can also be critical and hurtful. My friends all love her and think she's lovely. She has never told me she loves me and at primary school when we ran out of our classrooms to the playground we weren't allowed to hug or kiss her like the other children did as she found it embarrassing. I remember when I was around 7 I fell over at a friends' birthday party and hurt my knee and my friend's Mum gave me a cuddle and kissed my knee better and I remember feeling so shocked and confused by it.

It may not be her ‘fault’, but that doesn’t mean it’s not awful for you. Try and separate fault and effect and offer yourself the compassion of acknowledging how hurtful it is /was for you.

My mum is exactly like this. She’s so abusive but talk to strangers and they think the sun shines out of her arse. Just grey rock her (so she only gets info she absolutely has to know), stop spending time socially with her, and start focussing on building back your self-esteem

@layladomino

Maybe I'm being childish but I'd want to turn it around. So match her insults with similar... 'xx Mum is so lovely and warm'. 'x Mum is so glamarous and attractive'.

But as I said... childish of me.

If she is decent much of the time, can you choose one of the better moments and talk to her. Ask her why she is so cruel sometimes (have some recent examples ready). Tell her that it makes you want to distance yourself as you know that isn't how mother / daughter relationships should be.

I always used to think that will ''make her think'' but my mum is so conscious of any pain caused to her which is real pain that she has every right to feel and you are the perpetrator and she is the victim of you, but if she hurt you, then you're throwing accusations around, you're holding a grudge. My pain isn't real. Only hers is.

So this kind of logic (making her see it by serving it back to her) doesn't work on her!!! At all!!

Following

Sounds like typical mother behaviour to me. I’m not saying it’s right or ok, it just seems normal enough though.

She might be doing it totally unconsciously. She might be jealous of you, it might be her way of bringing you down a peg because she's worried otherwise you'll leave her. She might have been treated this way as a child.

I'd just ask her - with examples so she can't brush it off - and see what she says. Even if she does brush it off as 'it was only a harmless comment don't be so silly' explain how it makes you feel when she makes them. If she doesn't mean any harm she'll stop.

I did this with my dad and only when we went to therapy together did we make any progress. He would always outwardly act normal and ask to spend time together, but when we did he was horrible to me - he wouldn't say hello, would do things like accidentally knock my bag over, sigh dramatically as though it were my fault, and tell me to pick everything up - and I would because I didn't examine the situation in the moment. Constantly talk about money or him paying for things in front of people as though I were a young child ('that's a good idea, I might pay to get her one of those' for example when I was an adult). It was so confusing and he would get extremely angry/roll his eyes if I said anything. All I knew was i didn't want to be around him. (And he's known as the nicest person ever.)

Yes "levelling" behaviour.

The person doing the levelling does not ask them self "is this who i am, the sort of person carries on a silent treatment for a year+ ?" no, they will see it as justice meted out. You got too big for your boots. A mutual acquaintance asked you how you were first, agreed with you, laughed at your joke... the leveller does see them self as a petty resemtful bitch. They identify with metimg out justice. You were putting them in the shade and that is the injustice they were the hero resolving.

I know this for a fact. I know somebody who ices me like im a ghost while love bombing all others around us in the group.

I can only think that what i did was be quitr quietly likeable.

I meant to type, the leveller does not see them self as petty or resentful

They see a wrong partially righted.

My mum started saying exactly the wrong thing in any given situation, eg when I split from my husband because he was unfaithful after 2 years of marriage, my mum came up to my room to say that she was very proud that she and my dad had been married for 40 years and that my brother and his wife were doing very well too after ten years, and that she thought our family were good at marriage, except, well...

It turned out to be the early signs of dementia in her case, with that loss of inhibition that comes with Alzheimer's.

This sounds like my MIL. She used to tell me friends of her family were so pretty and that her dd's friend was the "most beautiful bride" she had ever seen. Just after we married!

She never wanted me to have her son's baby (her own grandchild) and said I shouldn't have it if I wasnt certain. I had never said anything about not wanting her. She then acted like grandmother of the year after I had her. All the while putting me down and criticising me whilst I struggled with PND. She then decided to ignore our second child to make me wonder what I had done wrong. I decided enough was enough and cut contact, the best decision I made for myself but more importantly, for my girls. I can now see I was a fish in a pond surrounded by sharks (in laws).

She knows full well what she is doing op. I know this is hurtful to hear but it is keeping you in your place, making you strive to be better and gain her approval. It is mindgames. I would go so far as to say she does not deserve a lovely dd like you.

I think you need to distance yourself and protect yourself a bit more. Your mum should be someone you can turn to for support and love, not someone to hurt and diminish you.

Yes, "levelling"

My mum is exactly the same. Everything wrong in her life is my fault by default. I deal with it by ignoring her. I tell her what I want her to know no more and I keep my life private,She thinks she knows everything when in fact she knows nothing and that suits me, I do things for her as she is elderly but I do them out of duty I feel nothing totally nothing regarding her, She an bluster and blow and tell me how fat I am,how I am a crap mother,how everything regarding the kids success is down to her all day long,it goes in one ear and out the other,She is a disgraceful human and the grandkids she loves so much,well if only she knew, "is the rotten old hag off again on one mum" they ask,They see her for what she is for how she belittles me and tries to control,the selfish tantrums and demands she tries to make and the scheming she does to cause chaos then tries to wriggle out of it, The kids do not buy it anymore than I do and they love me all the more and she hates that, She can do and say anything she likes now I have no time or energy to indulge her,She has lost far more than she has ever gained, She knows everything she does but she is weak and powerless because we choose to not acknowledge the nastiness,the critisisms the shitty behaviour she can;t touch us and when she sees how close me and the kids are our family unit which she is so on the perifory off it kills her,She chose to play this game of divide and conquer and she has lost wonderfully, She will still do her best to put me down but it cuts no ice because I wont let her win,