How to handle Mum who doesn't seem capable of normal conversation

[GrowingBetter]

My mum clearly wants a closer relationship with me but I find it so hard to relate to her. She's always been a SAHM apart from tiny bits of tutoring here and there, nothing consistent.

I wouldn't say I'm particularly career driven but I've always worked and enjoy my work, it's a big part of my life. She has no idea how to make conversation about my work which would be fine on it'l was the only issue between us.

She never rings me for a chat but always likes to WhatsApp message me in an instant message type style. Which I find really annoying. If I call her she's shocked and thinks something's wrong.

Every couple of weeks she'll send me an overly sentimental/ gushing message saying by how she loves and misses me and has been thinking about me, which I have no idea how to reply to, and just irks me tbh. She doesn't put a question in it so I don't even know if she wants me to reply and I don't want to encourage it anyway.

I know she means well but I'd rather her just call me and have a normal chat to catch up, which she seems to be incapable of.

I feel like I need to accept her for who she is but who she is is very difficult to relate to.

Can anyone relate to this? How do you handle it?

The back story is that she moved abroad with my dad when was 19 years old for about 15 years, in that time I got married and had kids. Now they are back in the UK but live about 2 hours away from me. I see them every two months for a weekend or so. (I'm glad that they live that distance from me as I imagine she would be suffocating if she was in the same town as me).

Did your mum go to boarding school? You sound like some middle-upper class women I knew who were basically emotionally abandoned by their parents. One had parents who fucked off from England to the U.S to chase their dream just before she went to uni fro boarding school, and the other's mother died and she was basically abandoned by her father to a boarding school run by nuns. Bonding emotionally with children doesn't come naturally to some people.

Your Dad might say he would be fine with her working, but he might not have made it easy for her. You really don't know what goes on behind the scenes of a marriage. My DH is fine with me working but wasn't willing to inconvenience his own working schedule to help me follow my career dreams. It was just 'too hard' for him. As a result, I will never go as far as I could have.

You sound very judgemental of your mother. I'm not saying you don't have reasons to wish things were different. I have known a lot of parents who have moved overseas leaving adult children behind. I couldn't do it and don't understand how they can do that, but I seem to be in the minority there.

I'm sure your mother has done the best with the resources available to her. She had reasons for the choices she made. We all do. Your child will have opinions on your choices.

I'm not saying your feelings aren't valid. Feelings are just feelings and maybe some counselling to help process them will help you.

If your mother is ND you should consider the possibility you are as well. My DD is autistic and as the centre said, it often means the mother is too and the mother is usually the last to get diagnosed.

Did she have a choice but to move OP? She's clearly financially dependent on your dad. I feel you have abandonment issues and I don't blame you for that, she was there your entire life then upped and left.

However I think your being slightly unfair to put it all on her. You can't blame her and not your dad, when your dad was the only reason they moved.

She txts instead of rings due to her anxiety and inability to say how she feels using her voice. She sends the long texts saying she loves you because she feels guilty for leaving when I'm not actually sure there wad anything she could have done to stay.

I think you respect your dad more for working and have afforded him more forgiveness due to that but the reality is he was the bread winner, if he says we're moving to x place and she says no he may go anyway and they grow apart and split.

Whilst I completely understand the failure of your relationship after the move and you learned to be self sufficient, I think you will regret someday not engaging more when she's making an effort to, it will weigh on you.

Your right she won't understand about the childcare but she may look it up and try to suggest options it's what I would do. I would suggest talking through these issues with her, she may suprise you. Also if you prefer calls, call her and keep doing it, eventually she will stop thinking something is wrong and she may even call you... she's not a mind reader so she doesn't know you would prefer calls.

Good luck OP I hope you can rebuild your relationship soon

Do you think she may be neurodiverse? If she hasn’t worked and doesn’t feel able to work and is very poor at making conversation… it might not be a low self esteem or lack of effort as such.

Obviously if you resent her for abandoning you then that’s totally understandable.

I’ve been sahm and wm and when I went out with my friends when sahm they’d all be chatting about their work and I didn’t even know what questions to ask and then everyone would ask how the kids were and then the conversation would Peter out. It’s so hard (I’d say on both sides). Actually I connected so well with my mum from then on, we’d talk washing, weather, bathrooms, kids’ lunches, play dates etc. I’ll be honest op from the way you talk it doesn’t sound like you can meet her in the middle tbh which is a pity.

I think aswell when they moved back they moved 2 hours away and that's had an effect?

My parents are a long way away and it does make a difference. You really lose touch with the details of someone's life, even if you share them. It's not the same as being part of it. Then it creates distance.

What your parents did by moving away was shitty. But it was BOTH of them who were shitty. I'm not sure why you've let your dad off the hook just because you were able to "have it out" with him but you're still angry at your mum. Has your dad done anything to try to make it up for you or did he just say "sorry" and then went on his way?

As to the current relationship, your mum is who she is. Have a look at her friendship group, does she even have one? Or are they all tied to your dad?

Because I suspect she doesn't know how to have a closer relationship. Have you said "mum, I need you to show an interest in me and my life". And if she is, as you suspect, autistic, it may be that you need to set it out, step by step. "I do X activity every week, it would make me feel valued and listened to if you would remember this and ask me about it". And then prompt her to "remember X activity of mine? Well I did A, B and C there this week."

If you really want that relationship with her, you might need to take small steps in showing her what you need and want.

But be prepared for it not to work. If she's happy with the state of your relationship then why would she want to change anything? Surface level might be enough for her.

As to responding to her messages. If they're out of nowhere and a bit pointless, you can always respond with emojis.

This was my first thought too OP once I read your description of her. I know an armchair diagnosis is tedious but she really seems text book neurodivergent.

If so, I would try to look upon her sympathetically in regards to not working etc. as this may have been beyond her capabilities. I would try to accept her for what she is and accept you will never have a "normal" mother/daughter relationship but that she does care for you in her own (albeit detached) way. allow yourself to grieve that too - it's a tough pill to swallow. You've been very honest here, I think you should take that honesty to someone trained to walk you through what you're feeling. People here can be cruel and many just won't get it (and others will be lashing out at you in projection!)

I think you blame her more because a mother-child relationship is so foundational and carries so much personal and societal weight. The standards are set much lower for men who abandon their children - which is why they do it with impunity!

@SunFlowerBear

I had this conversation earlier with a friend. Academia is full of ND.

@ProfessorPeppy Do you have any recommendations of where I can read more about this? My mum is a generally well-intentioned person but your list of traits describes her perfectly. The dissonance between what she's trying to be or to communicate and how she is perceived/received is really difficult for everyone and I'd love to understand more about what might be underlying it all.
(Sorry OP, I have no advice for you, only sympathy, as I have a similar relationship with my mum.)

What jumps out at me (and others) is that you aren't mad at your dad, but you are at your mum. I am not saying you're wrong for feeling that way, but I do find it a bit surprising. It feels like your mum is getting all of the blame for a joint decision, well actually more your dads give your mum was presumably financially dependent on him and had to follow him. And both of them could have guided you through uni. I'm not surprised you feel resentment at all.

I am not sure how you respond to those messages. It sounds like it's the fact that they feel inauthentic that is so maddening.

All i can suggest as have others is take it to your therapist. In my opinion the ongoing mental demons of a difficult parent come back in different times and in different ways and getting them out of your head is going to be the kindest thing you can do for yourself. I also think that there's no understanding some parents so you're better off focusing your energy on yourself.

My parents were all set to move to New Zealand when I was 17! My father didn’t get the job in the end but they would have gone and just left me behind.
I agree with others that it was fundamentally your Dad’s decision and your Mum followed him. Your Mother sounds a rather sad and desperate character. If you can try and cultivate compassion for her rather than judge her that might help. You sound angry that she didn’t work and so can’t understand your concerns about your own job. There is so much more that you could talk to her about. Work is really not the most interesting subject for most people. Could you have a day out doing something that you both might enjoy? She sounds very lonely and unfulfilled.

You sound scathing and angry with her. Have you tried any therapy? It can't be good to feel so annoyed all the time with your mum.

Are you also cross with your Dad op?

But annoying how you've not read my updates. I was equally annoyed with me dad but I've worked it through with him. My mum wanted to move too as she wanted to be close to her sibling ...she told me she wanted to be close to family. She didn't think of my need to be close to family. She as the adult I was the teen.

Thanks for all the helpful replies.

I know a lot of people just want to blame the man here.

I'll leave it at that now.

How old are you now op?

Understandable that you felt abandoned by your parents. But it is something that can't be changed now.

Our parents are humans. They make mistakes. Your Mum has clearly had a very different life from you.

If you want to resolve things you will need to move past this to a place where you feel less angry.

Your mum is unlikely to change.

What do you want her to do or say now that would help?

We can't change what has happened in the past but we can change how we react to it.

While you may have 'worked it through' with your dad, it doesn't sound like you have really acknowledged how completely dependent your mum is on him.

Plus you seem to be holding her to a higher standard just because she's a mum not a dad.

Your mum appears to have some very long standing issues and potentially be neurodiverse. How much do you know about her parents, her upbringing, the reality of her marriage? Bearing in mind our parents marriages are never how they seem to us.

There are reasons she is the way she is and the reasons will not be she wanted to piss you off and let you down. You need to accept her for who she is, someone who did her best despite having a lot of limitations even though 'her best' didn't turn out to be what you wanted.

Were you given the option to go with them? At 19 I was married and had my own household. We relocated away from my parents. 19 is an adult and clearly they felt you were capable of standing on your own two feet.

I've known lots of people who have moved away from adult children. I couldn't do it myself but it seems common and normal.

Truly Snerl I think these are just very common behaviour for people in later life.

If you read your sentence about dissonance, doesn’t that strike you as someone wanting things to have perhaps been different, feeling they are still here and can change things; but in reality it’s happened? I don’t think these are unusual attitudes in older people and I think there is perhaps a little too much diagnosis on these threads and not enough common compassion.

Well, my mother has never worked either, or had a mortgage, so I refrain from talking to her about my job, or interest rates/ tracker mortgages etc. There are other topics of conversation!

Sounds like there is a lot of resentment against your mother that has never been acknowledged/worked through and you struggle with her attempt to build a closer relationship now after being fairly absent from your life for years.

Being related to someone does not automatically mean that you can relate to them or want them to be closely involved in your life and that's OK.

Don't let yourself be eaten by resentment and anger though OP, focus on your own life and family and don't let your parents have that power over you...

I have never related to my mother in any way and we always had a very superficial interaction only.

All her life most of her conversation was inane gossip about and (often unfair) criticism of her family and neighbours which I had no interest in. She seemed unable to discuss anything else and had no hobbies or interests whatsoever.

I don't think it's reasonable to expect someone who isn't in the preschool stage to necessarily understand or know much about the 30 hours. I'm well past preschool and my own choice and preference was to be home with my children at that stage. That doesn't mean I can't talk with someone else who made a different choice about their different experiences. I don't understand the 30 hours so, if we interact socially, explain it to me. I can still be interested in the life of someone who made different choices to me.

My daughter talks to me about things I have no experience of.

You've worked it through with your dad and accept that he was chasing his career when he decided to leave the country and you, at 19. You've identified with him, and are now similarly chasing your own career.

What was he able to say that made that make sense to the point that you don't resent him like you do your mother, considering he was the driving force behind their emigration, and what would you need to hear from your mum in order to not feel angry with her for having to make a choice and going with him?

Do you feel she should have said to him, you go, I'm staying here with DD19? That would have likely resulted in the breakdown of the marriage, how would that have affected your relationship with your dad? Your mum?

Really, there is only what there is and at some point it's a blessing to be able to accept that your parents did/are doing the best they could with what was on the table at the time, and a big part of that is their own upbringing, which gets passed on down the line until someone says enough, and does the work to stop the pattern. I'd see if you can talk this through with a therapist.

I really resonated with your posts. I have a similar although slightly different dynamic. My RS with my dad is completely dead and that seems to have a finality to it, it’s a resolution but this limbo land of trying to have a relationship with someone who brings nothing to your life, and just takes is hard, your mum is taking from you emotionally and has expectations as does mine. Mine is similar in that she has no interest in me or the DC, it’s about her feelings and what I can do for her to make her feel loved. It’s like being nice to a colleague at work and having to listen to all their stories and they never ask you anything. I also resent my mum and have had a lot of therapy about it, it helped with my dad and moving on but I feel stuck with my mum nothing ever moves on. What did change though was my expectations. I don’t expect anything from her now. I just let her verbal diarrhoea me about her neighbours and TV shows for a couple of hours once a month and then smile politely and leave

Im not sure others understand what it’s like to have these conversations. They are so boring and demoralising. My mum just wants a captive audience she has no interest in me. It’s emotionally really hard to tolerate especially if you have had struggles and sometimes all you want is what you think a mum should be. It’s a huge disappointment. Hugs OP x