Annoying mothers.

[FortyandFemale]

My mum annoys me.
I am close with my mum to an extent but she wasn’t always the best parent-very emotionally unavailable and selfish as a person so I do find it very difficult to open up to her about how she made/makes me feel.

The issue I’m having is that I feel like she causes unnecessary upset between us siblings.

We are all grown up 33, 40 and 45 now. I haven’t spoken to my older brother in years I did used to try to visit and invite him back to his home town to see us but he used excuses all the time.

He basically only speaks to my mum occasionally, he moved away and got married. It’s not a great loss as he was a crap brother growing up. He wasn’t that present really and I think we were an inconvenience to him as younger siblings.

The thing that I hate is when she tells him everything about my life & tells me everything about his life like we would be interested.
She knows we don’t speak but doesn’t seem sad about it or want to bring us all together as a family she just gossips between us all (me, my younger brother and my older brother) and expects me to care about him when I just don’t and obviously he doesn’t me either. The annoying thing is my mum always makes me feel like I’m the awkward one saying I don’t really care or want to know stuff etc but I’ve just got used to my life without him in it now & I'm perfectly happy.

Is anyone in a similar situation and can offer any advice on how to deal with this.

My mum is living on her own - she and my step father separated a few years ago.
she has friends but is a bit of a loner and says she enjoys her own company. To be honest she just enjoys sharing other people’s lives- she tells me every detail of my siblings/auties/cousins/her friends/neighbours lives. It’s pretty annoying really and I do try to act disinterested but doesn’t seem like she will understand or stop anytime soon!

From experience the conversation is usually either about other family members, the news, what the local Karen said on Facebook or hospital appointments.

I feel your pain 😂

@FortyandFemale what would you rather she discuss? She might appear superficial but opening up emotional wounds might not have them heal any better.

do however dislike the fact she doesn’t seem to care we don’t speak and knowing this, insists on sharing every detail of our lives without a second thought

She's pretending things are fine between you. If she looked at reality, she would see she failed her kids in a really fundamental way and she doesn't want to see that. Nor do you because you want to maintain your relationship with her. You're scapegoating your bro for your mother's failures as a parent when he was a child himself. Your brother and you responded to that failure in different ways. The separation from his dad also affected him differently, as he was older.

Your relationship with your mom sounds pretty superficial.

But since you don't see or communicate with your older brother, it makes no sense to hold onto this resentment. The only person it hurts is you. You're both living your lives. When your mom talks about him, leave if it bothers you. She's old and she's not changing.

My mum left my dad as she said he wasn’t present enough, always at work etc. She had moved away from her family so felt isolated and unhappy.
As far as I know my mum must have dealt with it well as within 18 months of leaving she had started a new relationship with my stepdad moved 3 hours south and had my little brother!
I also think she relied on my stepdad to give us a good childhood - it was like she couldn’t be bothered.
I absolutely agree that my older brother may have felt unhappy about the situation as he understood more but that shouldn’t mean he needed to distance himself from me, if anything we should have been closer going through the same trauma

that shouldn’t mean he needed to distance himself from me, if anything we should have been closer going through the same trauma

You're trying to dictate a child's response to trauma many years later. Children cannot control themselves. They learn to and your mom was MIA.

He learned distance from your mom. That's what he was modeled and that's what he, as a child, did. Resenting him for doing what he was shown to do is pointless.

He's an adult now and he made his family elsewhere.

You’re making a huge assumption that your trauma and his were the same. In my experience events are never experienced the same way, and discussing this can lead to more misunderstandings.

please stop replying to every thread-I don’t appreciate any of your response’s nor is it helpful in anyway. Move on to someone else.

Yeah you’re definitely holding your brother to a higher moral code than your mum. I’m guessing there were obvious double standards in how mistakes fron different people were handled when you were a child, for example. Person A’s mistakes are because they’re stressed/depressed whereas persons B’s mistakes are because they’re a bad person. The situation you’re in is because your mum is probably disordered and lacks empathy. As I said up top it always tracks back to a parent(s) who lacks empathy but also self awareness. It’s a rough ride. Be kind to your inner child.

My guess is that your mum made you think you’re not a good person when you were little and couldn’t psychologically defend yourself, and you want to prove her wrong by tolerating what sounds like incredibly cruel behaviour. Plot twist. There is nothing on earth or in the known universe you can do about how she sees you. And she doesn’t get a little bit nearer to kindness every time she twists that mental knife in you for kicks.

Your mum and your brother seem to have a similar trauma response, to disconnect emotionally. You have a more “pleasing” response. They are all different sides of the same coin. Your family has been infiltrated by trauma. It is up to you to heal from this in a way that helps and heals you and any kids you have. What the other members do with their trauma is unfortunately up to them. But I do find that once someone has disconnected due to trauma it’s almost impossible to re/connect. You are in a better position to heal once you accept that you can’t control others. It is not your brothers fault that he is this way, he is a product of your childhood as much as you are. You actively visit a mother that has caused great pain and it keeps you stuck. Your brother likely sees you enmeshed with you mum and sadly paints you with the same brush. He’s knows little about you as you do him.