Mil can’t be happy for her kids

[Whyohwhyissheso]

Does anyone understand this? DH has worked so hard over the last few years taking us from poverty level earnings to a good income. He’s retrained, worked every evening and Saturday for 7 years to get where he is. We feel so fortunate and thankful that things have worked out and he supports his brothers and sisters when they need anything. Mil just seems annoyed he’s not struggling on minimum wage.

Mil visits it’s contestant comments about how hard her life has been, how much she’s struggled. She ok for money, owns properties and doesn’t work. It’s like it’s ok for her to be a success but her children can’t be.

It’s constant digs at DH when she’s here. Little asides about his ‘empire’ and how unfair it is he makes more than a care worker or a teacher. She acts like him doing well is immoral or something. One of her other children has worked hard and is starting medical school as a mature student. Since then I’ve noticed she’s started having digs at them and feuding with their partner when previously she liked them both and was full of praise when they were struggling.

It’s constant - stories about how hard she’s has it, but no one is saying she hasn’t.

We don’t engage with it. We just nod and say yes that was hard for you. The happier we are the worst she behaves. How can you be like that with your own kids?

There is so much more but it would be an essay if I wrote it all down.

My DH is from working class and we definitely experienced that when he left the factory to start an access course and then went on to Uni. I don’t think it’s all working class, but I think amongst some families there is a culture that fights against those “getting ideas above their station in life”. My DHs stepfather would constantly tell him to stop wasting his time at school and go back to the factory while he could still walk into a job there. That most of the people flipping burgers at Micky Ds “had degrees” as did most of the “useless scroungers” on the breadline. His mother was still upset that he had not stayed in the military and harped constantly on about how he would be a sergeant by now with a steady pension in his future. She didn’t care that he had combat related PTSD so did not re-enlist for good reason.

They don’t speak to him now he is degreed professional…first and only in his family with 12 siblings. It’s almost like they view him as the black sheep of the family and a class traitor. His siblings have jobs like working in a tyre shop, delivery driver, factory worker, forklift driver, hairdressing, professional cleaner, care worker. Which is fine, all essential jobs but they’re excluding him, he’s not become a snob or anything.

My DM was like this. She didn’t want anyone to have a better life. The first time I got prescription glasses - waste of money, she gets the reader glasses from a supermarket, I should have done that. All the time. She just couldn’t be happy for me.

In the end I didnt tell her if we went on a nice holiday/meal out/bought something nice for the house. She was the same with my brother and his wife. Said they were pretentious to me.

I had therapy post a car accident, and in discussions my mother came up. The therapist said she was a narcissist. Explains a lot.

Thanks both. It’s really weird as Mil is very middle class so there isn’t class issue there. It just she seems to dislike any of her children doing well. She also is competitive with illness, no one is iller. She even competes with my DD who has quite a horrible illness. Maybe she’s just a narcissist, it’s so frustrating having to deal with her and her doom competitions.