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).

Oh of course. But recognising those choices and not repeating them is a good step. Its hard to brick generational trauma.

Thank you, I thought the kindness shone through too. Have a good day

She's not interested in op or her family beyond the superficial whatsapp gushing.

What leads you to believe that her communications on whatsapp are superficial? Why are expressions of love "gushing"?

This is very skewed thinking.

Actions tend to speak louder than words and disappearing for 15 years overseas when your child is still a teenager doesn’t indicate this does it.

Tbh when people are judgemental of others, it's a reflection of how they feel about themselves, and it's appears are you being judgemental and pretty unkind, what do you hope to gain from that? She's your mum, she tries the best way she can, she's not going to change now. Balls in your court.

Did you not see them in the time they were away abroad

I guarantee that your children are not going to agree with every decision you have made for them and your family. Hopefully, they will be generous about it and recognise you did your best. Many aren't.

I never said they would.

At 19 you are not child and old enough be left alone,my mother died when I was 17 and I was a young mother at 20 with two kids. But once you had children didn't she want a relationship with her grandchildren,I could never leave and be far away from mine.
After 15yrs without her ,you dont need her and have no bond.
It seem she is either selfish or controlled by your father,or both.

Thank exactly what u was thinking!!!

Let me respond from a member on the other side of this convo. I am a middle aged woman who has done everything I could ever think of to be a good mother. I also was a sahm for most of the time and I did this because it seemed to produce the happiest children. It's the same reason I did everything I did. My entire life was a string of considered choices that was in service of that goal.
I was never going to be my mother. She made so.many mistakes. Until... until my children looked at me with the exact same look I had given my mother over the years. A look generated from a deep disgust of the failure I thought she was. I couldn't understand how this happened to me. Believe me, I was VERY sure ihad succeeded where she had failed. It was a heart breaking shock i am still recivering from. How was this possible. After I had corrected all the mistakes my.mother made, how did I end up eating that rejection that I had fed her for so many years. Slowly, over a devastating 3 year period I came to realize that it had been easy to blame my mother, she was after all the one around who made herself available to be blamed. She was the one that was there to make the mistakes. My father was a man, and so not expected to be much of anything. As the months rolled by memories of things she had said and done when she was my age came back to me. Things I'd always frownd at or just dismissed. I now understood them because they were what I felt now. Each memory was a fresh slap. How i had abandoned my mother and left her with a relationship that was little more than a series of pity fucks. My children and I are estranged. This society endorses it. Let go of anything or anyone who make you uncomfortable. I have reconciled with my mother. And now I am slap bang in the middle, with estranged selfish daughters on the one side and an 83 year old mother on the other side of the world. I wasted 3 decades punishing her for being human. I have many regrets. Motherhood is indeed cruel.
It's likely you will need to face serious loss before u can see through to your mum. Bur if you could hear me I'd say, focus on what you share. And not what you don't. One day your job will pale in weight to you absent mum. Try to find a way to remember that she is your mother because u come from her. Try to know her this way.

You are an adult so make your own life.
You don't like your mother, that's okay. She doen't give you mental stimulation and you have few shared adult experiences.
You both seem to treat each other politely and maybe that is as good as it gets if you are unable to reciprocate the loving expressions of care that your mother makes.

So, simply because it is possible in these times, I would spend more time together and make a few shared memories between her and you and your kids. Otherwise, get used to the way it is.
Perhaps your mother has a mild mental illness or memory loss. No mother is perfect but most are good enough.

You seem to think you are on a higher sphere to your Mum.
In reality you are now equal adults. In past generations you might never see your mother again once you leave home and live hundreds of miles apart.

Your Dad loves her, at least, for who she is.

Be happy for her; hope she has contentment; be thankful that she made you resilient and independent.

I really hope you haven't looked back at this thread, OP, because it's a cesspit.

This is so interesting. DMIL has been like this for a few years ( now 79) DM used to be so much more interested and engaged is becoming this way. My DCs are adult and TBH I don't think I have confided in my DPs for 15 years, but DSis is really struggling with it. Is it just an age thing I wonder ? How old is your DM ? Has she always been this way ?

I think it's worth getting some therapy. I'm not surprised you're carrying resentment, I'd be resentful too, its totally reasonable but I think to improve your relationship you'll need to find a way to let that go. They'll also help you work through how to accept her as she is, and appreciate her as she is, without the feeling that she's not done the right things/doesn't behave the way a mum should. I think it'd also be good to get into some good communication habits and boundaries with her that work for you both.

I'm not saying you're wrong to feel those things, they're totally reasonable and understandable in the circumstances, she sounds frustrating and very different to you, and not very supportive. However, she's the person she is, she's behaved how she's behaved and to move forward you'll need to work with the hand you got dealt. This is a tricky thing to process and genuinely accept so I really think a good quality therapist/counsellor will be best placed to help you, I don't think it's as simple as just trying to find a better communication tool. I think it'll be very challenging for you, and involve bringing up some old feelings around the way she basically abandoned you during some key years... but it'll be worth it to feel like you're in control of the situation, and the relationship is how you want it to be I suspect!

Yes I think it’s pretty clear OP feels her mum is somehow “lesser” than her - which must account for at least some of the dysfunctional dynamic between them.

My mother-in-law sounds like this. Whenever we spoke it’d be about her, she’d never have a normal two-way conversation. It was hard to build a relationship….‘fortunately’ she moved abroad when our boys were 4 & 1 and never came back: 17 years ago. We’ve had 2 more boys since and she’s never met them. In fact, we stopped speaking after our 12 year old was born. We’d tried to call to let her know he’d been born, she only text, then we my husband next spoke on the phone a week later with her she didn’t ask a thing about our new baby. That was 12 years ago and she doesn’t even know she has another 9 year old grandson too.
I think there are some people who just aren’t cut out to be mothers - they’re cut off from
normal maternal emotions. You have to be to walk away from your child and just miss years of their lives.
Don’t feel guilty for how you feel

I do ring my mum quite a lot, but in general I prefer to WhatsApp her and everyone else. I find it less invasive and can have equally good conversation like that but at my own pace.

It sounds like that isn't your main issue with your mum though really, so maybe that's more of a symptom than a cause.

I agree that its probably good to find a common ground away from working - grandkids probably a good starting point. I have always worked and have often found myself irritated (unfairly) at friends and family that don't but it's not my choice what other people do as long as they aren't relying on me for money, so wouldn't voice that to them x

Op my mum is the same and never worked after having kids, I am very career driven. My mum cant apeak about my work really but it doesnt stop us having a good relationship. My mum has great advice on budgeting and I find her perspective helpful when talking about people. It was a different time when my mum raised me and some women were able to break the mould but most did not and were stay at home mums, whereas now the majority of women do work. Its wotth trying harder though and it sounds like she is trying in her own way.

Following this with interest, I have a similar mother

It’s a sad world when people think they are their career. There is so much more to life.

The working/not working is a red herring.

There's plenty of people who just naturally don't seem to have social skills, or they choose not to use them for certain people. They may have good careers or they may be SAHMs.

It may be down to undiagnosed ND or LD, but that doesn't diminish the fact that is is very unpleasant for the other party.

• Randomly dropping a brag about some random thing.

• Not actually listening or taking account of the other person or anything they are saying. Completely ignoring most things they say.

• Steering the conversation towards some unrelated thing.

• Repeating some unrelated anecdote again and again.

• Repeating what the other person has said in a very "faraway" tone, as if they have come up with some really ludicrous statement

(even if the other person has said something normal, practical or serious).

• Getting upset when the other person isn't then paying them full attention, appears bored or doesn't want to engage.

• There often is a very selfish side to this type....they definitely find their critical thinking skills when they need something.

They seem oblivious, but somehow also super cunning and "notice" when something is working in their advantage or not.

You can see they're fairly emotionally immature and want to manipulate others to look after them or do what they want.

It feels incredibly frustrating and lonely and draining engaging with someone who acts like this.

There is no self awareness about how bad they are.

Especially if they're in an an environment where they have managed to get their own way all the time, or not been socialised properly, they then imply the other person is being difficult by refusing to do their bidding.

One culprit for this was a very senior person at a temp job I had.

I politely spoke to him about the very normal work thing of getting some expenses refunded as I had been using my personal phone lots (on work business).

He just repeated in a faraway whimsical squeaky tone "....you may need to get a SIM CARD..., phones need SIM CARDS...". Nothing about what I'd actually said.

What. the. Actual. Fuck.

It was only a temp job so I quit an hour after this, and that evening he repeated more nonsense down the phone at me trying to get me to stay.

So it seems he was actually capable of noticing things?

(I'd given courtesy notice of a week which I didn't have to, but actually I wish I'd just walked. Fucking freak).

Er, work on a better relationship with your mother. I feel amazed by your disconnect, and apparent inability to socially dust off a bit of interaction. It might be worth exploring what seems to have been a bit of abandonment for you at 19. Best of luck, at worst you’ve got someone saying they love you.

Everyone would be ‘better off as a 70s parent but a 20s child’. Just makes you self centred.