Anyone else’s Mum just dumps emotionally on you?

[Cherriesandstrawberries]

I’ve just come away with my Mum for a few days for a long awaited beach trip in the UK. We spent a few hundred each which I didn’t really have the money to do but my Mum really wanted a little holiday with me.

It’s the first night and she’s literally just used me as her therapist. She’s in a deep depressive hole and everything is miserable and overwhelming for her. I’m now really missing home and my teen at home and regret coming.

AIBU to not want to have to take this on? I’ve kept telling her she needs to revisit a therapist but she’s not very proactive. I’m feeling awful now and feel really negative and down myself but aren’t you supposed to be there for your loved ones? Feeling confused as I’m also annoyed that I feel low too now.

Familiar with this from both parents. I hope you're ok.

Not much advice apart from telling her how you feel. My mum never noticed she did it and it has helped to very forcefully say stop. Of course, I listen and help where I can but there is a firm limit and I stick to it.

Thanks @FlamingYam its reassuring to know that my feelings were valid too. I had this all through my teens and eventually asked her to stop. So this has come out of nowhere tonight and threw me. I’ll put some boundaries down tomorrow if it continues

Yep, since I was a child. I knew all about their infidelities and details of the sex life from when I was 7. I know when they last had sex, why they had issues conceiving and every single argument they had where I was expected to pick a side from a young child and yelled at if I didn't pick their side.

It's parentification, it's terrible parenting and you deserve better.

Don't go on holiday with her again, because you deserve nice holidays with people who care about your moods.

It's okay to look out for yourself and go home if you want to. You say you are supposed to be there for your loved ones but by dumping all this on you she isnt being there for you

Me and my sister, when it comes to my mother, we totally shut her down when she starts up. It gets so upsetting, so confrontational, and goes nowhere productive.

So we both say, 'goodness me, is that the time? I have to be . . elsewhere'

We are not her therapists, and we refuse to be her punching bag or pity party audience any longer.

All the bloody time. I am like a sounding board. Most of the time I can just put up
with it and make sympathetic noises but sometimes especially if I have got stuff of my own going on, I could scream at her. It’s gets a bit much. My mum just likes to moan about her life, she never does anything proactive to change it.

It was like she was waiting to pounce with it all and it went on for hours. I tried to relate to it and sympathise and she would say things like ‘you just don’t understand’. Like wtf, why tell me then.

I just don’t even want to see her right now, I’m so upset that after all this time she’s still using me as her emotional sponge

I feel your pain OP.

I find it so hard to cope with. It has me in tears and i struggle with crippling anxiety over it sometimes .

This is my first post, a nice light-hearted topic that resonates. 🥴

I personally had a very similar relationship with my mother. She ignored any attempts to lay down boundaries and stop the doom and gloom, despite me being persistent after therapy and learning how to create my own iron bubble so I wouldn't go insane. She was convinced she and I were so alike and had a special bond, since I was a vulnerable and depressed teenager. It was hilariously out of touch.

This had been going on for years, and I had been trying to enforce emotional boundaries for years. I put it down to ignorance.

Her actual nature was revealed when I had my own DD and I confided that I was struggling with post partum depression and was having doubts, and I asked for her to please stop bombarding me with messages about her own problems, since my poor mood was rubbing off on DD who was a few months old and I wanted to be present.

She snapped and said she had it far worse, with three DC under the age of 4 (I am the oldest) and she was disappointed in my attitude, since her time alone with me was the happiest she had ever been. It was so nasty that it shocked and upset me. I don't think I dignified it with a response.

Whenever I told her about my DD she would offer just emoji responses, but her problems were described in long essays. I refused to answer her calls when she asked if she could ring without context, because it was almost always an emotional dump.

I suppose my hope that she would change and actually begin to care about her only DGD prevented me from cutting contact right there two years ago. The final straw was about three months ago now, since she began outright lying, and honestly I do feel much better not talking to her. It's not worth the emotional drain.

If you try to enforce boundaries in kind, but firm, words and are persistent about it, and it doesn't stick, then reducing contact might be best for you. It's not a failure on your part. The kind of person who tries to get their own children to take responsibility for their emotions instead of dealing with them themselves isn't exactly reasonable.

Another thing is that she probably doesn't have any friends because of this behaviour. Don't put up with it just because you feel like a captive audience. She's taking you for granted.

Yep. Including every recent sexual encounter she's had recently in detail and her criticism of it.

And much worse involving sleeping pills ground up in the meals she serves....

In my case it’s my Dad. My Mum was his default therapist and now it’s me. He’s even started doing it to my DD (18) to a lesser degree ( doesn’t mention sex to her, thank goodness).

He seems to think that family exists to help him on every aspect of his life! He has seen therapists, but we’re the everyday, free therapists. 😂 It’s draining.

My dad died a few months ago and my mum has just been to stay locally for three nights.

The emotional hangover from this encounter has been longer than the actual visit.

She talks at everyone - me, the kids, strangers in cafes, my neighbour. However her version of the truth is so corrupted the dissonance echos for days after.

I don't know how to cut this off. I want to say to my neighbour when they say 'your mum is lovely' is she hated that, moaned about this, lied about that, but I just mutter politely which keeps the echo going.

Will you Op, be able to cut it off? What's your tactics?

Yes my Mum has always done this. She has had a hard life so I try and be sympathetic but sometimes my positivity wanes. It's made me mindful of not doing it with my daughter's when they are older as it's not enjoyable to be around.

My mum is the same. She's very elderly but I dread seeing her because of it. I find myself avoiding going to see her which then makes me feel guilty and I dislike myself for not being more sympathetic.

I find that I don't know where or how to draw the line. What I mean is that I know it's "good to talk" and "a problem shared is a problem halved". So I feel that listening is something that I should do even though I don't want to. I don't know how much listening & sympathising it's reasonable to do or where to draw the line even though I know it harms my own mental health, which it does. I feel tired and helpless facing my mother's relentless onslaught of how unhappy she is and how no one loves her.

Yes far too much the last few months due to having a sibling that's mentally I'll so it's taken it's toll on my d mum however I seem to be the one who gets the emotional baggage.

I've actually
Put off going for coffee or breakfast for the last two months with her and just nipped in for a hello as even though I have said a few times that I have a lot on my own plate as well as helping with said sibling she kind of ends up crying on me or being snipey.

I've bitten my tongue a lot and not said too much at times but I've and my d c have had a couple of big anniversary /results type things and although I've mentioned them they've been totally
Looked over and it's starting to grate now.

She has also been helping me with something really
Important but that she insisted they help
With and you guessed it due to the situation with sibling it's meant my stuff has been left and things have been missed.

It’s really hard as I’ve done in a lot of work on myself and have been to therapy myself and it’s so frustrating to see her not take responsibility for herself and go too, properly. She always finds a reason why the therapist doesn’t suit her or she gets frustrated that they haven’t made her better in a number of months.

I don’t want to cut contact, we would both be heartbroken as we’re also really close too. When she’s stable, she’s lovely to be around and we’re a good support to each other. That makes it even more confusing.

Like another poster has said, when I find myself about to offload onto my teen, I stop myself as I want my home to feel light and happy compared to how I grew up in heavy, sleepy, depressive atmosphere where my mum would be in bed for days on end.

Thanks all for sharing, it has really helped to know others experience the same

However her version of the truth is so corrupted the dissonance echos for days after.

@ChaosRain Yes, my Dad’s exactly the same, he comes up with versions of events to suit his “woe is me” narrative…and we all know (in the family at least) that they’re totally inaccurate! DH and I sometimes look at each other in bafflement when my Dad’s having a moan. 😂

"I don’t want to cut contact, we would both be heartbroken as we’re also really close too. When she’s stable, she’s lovely to be around and we’re a good support to each other. That makes it even more confusing"

Denial is a powerful force indeed. Why are you excusing such terrible behaviour from your mother like this?. You've spent money you didn't really have merely because she wanted a holiday with you?.

Abusive people can be nice sometimes and that is the nice part of the nice/nasty cycle of abuse which is a continuous one. Would YOU be heartbroken if you were to cut contact, probably not and more like relieved. I daresay she would not be heartbroken either and more like pissed off that her all too willing audience i.e you have walked away. She has conditioned and otherwise trained you from early childhood to be her confidant and emotional dumping ground for all her ills; roles that she should never have foistered on you. She also put the fear, obligation and guilt buttons in you as well.

You can only help your own self ultimately and disordered of thinking people like your mother actively do not want to seek the necessary help. I would also suggest you read and or post on the current "well we took you to Stately Homes" thread on these Relationships pages.

You get out what you put into therapy and you need to want to get better. The therapist can help, but only she can change her own mind.

I think your mum might just be a bit self-centered and struggling at the moment again, so I seem to have misjudged your circumstance. If there are stable, positive times to ground the relationship then it would be a definite negative to lose that.

It might be helpful to give reduced attention during her episodes, with more attention during positive interactions. If she thinks you don't understand then hold your hands up and say you don't, okay. The reaction might just shock her enough into change. When there's something pleasant that comes up on the holiday then devote attention to it with her instead.

I only cut contact a while after the benefits of maintaining a relationship ran down to basically zero, and I just felt motherless. I questioned myself a lot, though my decision was affirmed upon receiving a bitchy voice mail. She leveraged her new husband having yet another small stroke to try and guilt me into supporting her (like I haven't done that enough already and she's not exactly supported me) and being angry at me for blocking her, instead of being upset for him.

I am in no way criticising anyone but I would ask those who talk about boundaries, etc to consider -
would you want your Mum to be there for you if you wanted to talk things through? Who else but your Mum, really, is going to provide that level of support unless you pay for therapy? Mums are ordinary women too and when Mums and daughters have been really close, when Mum needs someone to talk to, the person she will turn to will be her daughter.
I know it can be irritating, make you anxious, etc. I'm all for encouraging people to go to therapy and people shouldn't be burdened with other people's problems. But, it is your Mum.

This was my childhood too. My mum would get drunk and keep me up until the early hours of the morning telling me ridiculously inappropriate things about her marriage to my dad that I couldn’t possibly comprehend at such a young age. Can I ask how it affected you later in life?

Well done OP for not doing this to your own daughter.

It is the most dreadful emotional abuse of a child.

Yes, abuse.

A young child simply doesn't have the ability to comprehend what is being told to them.

It brings sadness, anxiety, confusion, guilt and depression to them.

They don't have the words to explain how they feel and they don't have anyone to talk to about the confusion and fear it brings to them to have the adults in their life dumping on them.

Unbelievably damaging and life long repercussions for the child.

Hence the OP being triggered by it.

Children of these parents often end up as people pleasers who simply do not know how to have a relationship or friendship without being in the fixer role.

So fxxked up.

As usual @AttilaTheMeerkat will give you the bottom line.

You are enmeshed by your mother and can't imagine not being close, but the fact is distance would be so good for you.

Yes your mother is human and just a woman, but dumping your unhappiness on your children is plain wrong.

Ring the Samaritans or some such organisation for a free ear, but leave your children the hell alone.

My DM did similar when I was a child and it caused real issues for me. Slagging off other family members to me including my DF / her DH, but when I did same she'd jump in to defend them. It also affected my relationship with DF as I would be rude / contemptuous to him after things my DM had said about him, and he didn't know how to handle it.

Also, she'd tell me I was really mature for my age, probably to justify telling me all this stuff, when I actually wasn't. When I tried to act grown up around her friends (as I'd been told I was really mature) and they got irritated, my DM would then get embarrassed and tell me off. I found the world very confusing and internalised a lot, which came out in me believing that I was a bad person.

After lots of therapy I can put some distance between me now and what went on when I was a child. But I refuse to engage with DM now when she goes off on a rant about somebody. She's actually a bit more balanced now, and if she hadn't behaved as she did when I was a child then I think I'd be prepared to engage more with her. But as it stands I don't feel I want any more of it, knowing the damage it did to me when I was younger.

I don't feel the need to share any of that stuff with my DC. I love their DF - my DH - and we're a team. If I want to offload then it's to him, my therapist or my friends. I want my DC to feel they can share things with me, and I'm very aware of facilitating an environment that's conducive to this. But I feel strongly that it's not on for me to share back in the same way.

Thank you @jumphopskip , I never connected hearing the 'very mature for your age' as warming me up for the nonsense that followed but she did.

She's currently having a right go at her dead SIL, her brother who died ten years earlier has now fully achieved sainthood but for that my aunt must be demonized. Obviously, the truth is somewhere in the middle but also nothing to do with us, we rarely saw them more then once a year at a very large family event.

My dad has also been nominated for sainthood. A fantastic childhood friend pointed out he'd always been a grumpy bastard which confirmed my less glowing memories.

I’ve just spent a few hours with my dm. It was hard work. I’ve always envied friends who had nice mothers. I hope I don’t do to my dcs what she did to me. I am honest with them but now I’m worrying that I’m too honest.
Shopping with my mum and she managed to get in again how fat I am. She has losing weight rapidly (perhaps not a good thing).
Now I feel guilty that I did not enjoy my time with her.

If I want to offload then it's to him, my therapist or my friends. I want my DC to feel they can share things with me, and I'm very aware of facilitating an environment that's conducive to this. But I feel strongly that it's not on for me to share back in the same way.

I feel the same @jumphopskip , I offload to my DH and my closest friends, not my teenager children. My “job” is to support them emotionally, not vice versa. In the future, I may ask them for advice on certain practical matters, but they aren’t here to top me up emotionally.