So I decided to stop making an effort with my mother I haven't spoken to her since Christmas

[sweetkitty]

Very very long history between my Mother and I, in a nutshell she is quite toxic, a nasty two faced person. She would never say anything nice to me try to bring me down and make me feel crap about myself at every opportunity whilst to the outside world making out she was so proud of me and that she is a great mother.

I have suffered from low self esteem, anxiety and depression in part because of my childhood, during counselling sessions this came to a head and basically the counsellor said that some mothers are jealous of their daughters and that she felt the need to belittle me whenever she could.

Anyway things have gotten really bad between us over the past few years, we live about an hour apart and the only time she would visit is if she gets driven there and back, she doesn't work (is very lazy) and cannot be bothered to get on the train to come and see her GC. The only thing she has ever done is be a mother and thinks she knows everything having had 2 DC, now I have 3 I think she feels I am a better mother than her now and in some ways I think she is jealous of me having 3 DC. When I had a mc a year ago she told me it was for the best and that I was stupid to have 3 DC no one has a big family these days.

So usually I would have phoned her maybe once or twice a month but the calls left me drained and angry. For instance it's always about her, how poor she is, how ill she is, last year she told everyone she had a cancer scare self diagnosed on google. So I phoned her after Christmas and had the usual rubbish phonecall so thought sod it, she's not making an effort neither shall I, so we haven't spoken since.

I don't miss her but I miss having a Mum if that makes sense, I know she did nothing for me except make me sad and upset but I lok at other people with Mums supporting them and it makes me sad that the DDS will never have a typical Gran relationship.

Don't know why I am typing this probably just to get it off my chest, no one will read it anyway.

oh kitty I knew from title this was going to be you

all I can say is hugs {{{{}}}}}

The bit about not missing your mother, but missing a mother figure is very true for me too.

I haven't spoken to my mother (other than hello at very rare family occasions when I was still trying to keep in touch with the rest of the family) in about 8 years now. I even regret inviting her to my wedding. Missing a mother figure has got easier over the years, even when I got pregnant (DS is now 14mo). In fact even though I wish I knew more about myself as a baby I realise now that I didn't have to endure any comments or criticism about how I've chosen to raise my baby.

The hardest thing about it all is that because my family believe that all of her actions are down to her apparently managed mental illness (I can't trust that as she used to tell me how she manipulated doctors and counsellors) they won't see me unless I will reconcile with her - which I won't do. I used to get quite upset about that as I was once very close to my sister.

Anyway, if you feel like that about your mother then whatever other people say to you, you've done the right thing. IME the worry about doing the right thing lessens as, over time, the worry and burdens she placed on your disappear.

chairmum yes i would have loved A mum

it is gutting but i did have a great grandma who sadly died last year ( although senile before so 'lost' her a few years back')

that has helped me actually sk as i know i CAN have really fulfilling loving relaionships with family despite having been given the worlds shitest parents

I have a friend who although only 7 years older than me - is a bit of a motherer

i take her advice and go to her with problems
......

obviously not a solution but it helps....

nao btw

morningsun you might be able to help on this thread.

Hope you are feeling a bit better sweetkitty?

I didn't speak to my mum for a months then decided last christmas to give it a chance, we had been meeting up once a week, she got to see DS. It was little tense but ok.

But this weekend it all fell apart again. She was horrible, and I feel incredably stupid for letting that back into my life after I had had the courage to leave it once. Last year was the worst of my life. When I left mum's, my dad let me down, monumentally, as well. I am lucky to have a wonderful Partner and parents in law. They are my family now, and the best in the world, but I still find it very hard to except that my own parents are so self absorbed.

I just have to suck it up, and move on...

Wow littlepurpleprincess I think we are living paralell lives. I let my parents back in at xmas after 3 years of no contact, fell apart again on mothers day. Was a big mistake, they have met my ds now too. Going to have to walk away again.

Me too, and stay away this time. I feel guilty but I've put up with it for 20 years, I've been on anti-depressants, I need a life!

I still see my dad but I never rely on him or expect anythinf rom him. That way I can't be let down.

Instead I think about how lovely DS and DP are and I am a lucky girl.

nomoreamover - sorry to hear you have gone through similar. I think I just got fed up of feeling like I should call her out of obligation and then when I did it was the most depressing phonecall ever and I would either come off the phone upset or angry so why put yourself through that?

dizzy - thanks I know it must be hard for you given last year

chairmanmiaow - thanks too and sorry to hear about you losing touch with your other family. I do speak to my Dad (they split up when I was 19 and she made my life hell through it so much so I had to move out) anyway he is not toxic like my Mother but pretty useless practically and emotionally but that's anotehr thread.

Littlepurpleprincess/Dalrymps - for you too and everyone else on this thread, I am leaving the door open for my Mother but are doing nothing to encourage her, if she wants to make contact it will be up to her I am adamant about that as just before Christmas it was me that phoned her and that was a mistake.

I am always trying to think what caused this and she is always going on about when I was little I would shove her away and say "I can do it myself" whereas my brother needed a lot more help and mothering IYSWIM (typical little girl/boy?) as I got older I got more independent and had a mind of my own and disagreed with a lot of her views, also I was a lot cleverer than she appeared to be and I think that got to her (but of course to the outside world she would brag about having the first person in the family to go to uni etc). So going to uni, getting a career and financial independence is something she never did and I think a lot of jealously comes from that. Also she was so against me having a 3rd DC, I think it is because she only had 2 children so me having 3 in her eyes makes me more experienced mother than her and being a mother is all she has ever done, does that make any sense?

With DD1 she was a lot more involved first grandchild and all that but still did nothing that actually involved any effort, DD2 she cannot be bothered with and well you know how she feels about DD3.

I also think she knows that I don't really have much respect for her from the point of view that I do think she is utterly lazy, she thinks claiming benefits and cheating the system is fine, whinges that she is so poor yet would never think of working.

Sorry I keep turning this into me me me and I don't want to do it but this thread is really helping me.

Tbh, SK, you are unlikely to find a cause as to why she is like this. She sounds a very self-centred person and there is not going to be a simple reason why she is the way she is with you, certainly not anything that you did as a child.
My mum used to claim that the reason she was not that affectionate towards me was that I used to struggle to get off her lap when I was a toddler (don't all toddlers do this? DS does, I don't get all upset about it, he doesn't hate me he just wants to play!) so she didn't think I wanted/needed tactile affection. Truth is, she wasn't a very tactile person herself (whereas DH, DS and I are all very cuddly/huggy types).

My mum was one of those people who simply could not step outside her own sphere of experience or understanding - her world consisted of The World According To M and nothing else. Anything that didn't correlate with The World According to M was "weird" and she didn't like it. I think I fell into that category quite a lot. I don't think my Mum was anything like as bad as yours is but I do think that there are similarities - and I expect it will boil down to your mother also being incredibly selfish/self-centred and unable to see things from anyone else's pov. Or accept that she is in any way to blame.

Littlepurpleprincess - I too have been on antidepressants and am now seeing a counsellor about them too.

Sk - I seem to have the opposite problem to you. My parents hurt me and upset me and are toxic towards me but when I try to walk away they won't let me. They 'track me down' and 'stalk' me constantly and leave hundreds of abusive answerphone messages. Whilst doing all this they refuse to accept any blame and talk to me like a child claiming I am being 'silly', 'stupid', 'petty' etc. It really is difficult. I moved house, and town to get 2 years ago and that helped. I didn't move because of them but it was helpful as it stopped them turning up at my home and workplace uninvited, out of the blue, wanting an argument

Sounds horrific Dalrymps I suppose my situation is a little better in that I don't get stalked, to stalk someone requires "effort" you see!

I hadn't spoken to my Mum for ages then she phones me up and I had a right go at her, trying to explain why I am annoyed with her, she is either too stupid to get it or doesn't want to get it as she will try to deny everything (I didn't say that you should have a mc, as if anyone would ever make something like that up) to "oh SK is off on one again" If any of my girls said to me what I said to her I would cry for a week.

thumbbunny - you are so right my Mum lives in this very narrow little world and if it hasn't happened to her or Betty down the road it hasn't happened.

HolyGuacamole - I too had to threaten her with the police . I even looked in to getting a restraning order at one point but it just felt so crazy to be getting one against my own parents that I couldn't bring myself to do it. She sounds a lot like yours, mine would ring everyone I knew, especially my pils and try to get to me through them. Thankfully they have been nothing but supportive to me and didn't listen to any of her crap . I know all about fake birthday cards, blackening my name etc too

Wow Dalrymps, are you my mothers secret other daughter?

Dalrymps and Holyguacamole - sounds utterly horrific, I think definitely when it gets to that case better to cut all ties for your sanity and well being. Sad as it is.

I believe in karma, what goes around comes around and I think there will be some very lonely old women one day maybe wishing they had been nicer to their daughters.

HolyGuacamole - I think so!

I don't have toxic parents (my mother died in my early teens), although I do have a toxic stepmother (a whole other thread and source of sadness that my father could marry someone who hates us), but I did have a toxic grandmother, so thought I could give you one grandchild's perspective.

Just one sample of behaviour, so that you know she "qualifies" for the toxic status:

• like the OPs mother, she wouldn't travel to visit my parents when I was born. So, in order to spend some time together, my mother and father drove hundreds of miles with me when a few months old (and our animals! ) to visit. She falls out with my father (and let me reassure you that having later witnessed these "fallings out", they were always about her losing it, rather than any fault of the other person). What does she do? Chucks us all out (quite literally - lobbing suitcases out the upstairs windows - a trick she pulled again and I witnessed a few years later, when I was about 7 and my sister 3 1/2, when my mum tried again to visit) on CHRISTMAS DAY! This was the 70s, so not exactly like today when you can pretty much guarantee to find somewhere to stay. My parents were broke at this point in time too, so finding somewhere to stay, with baby and animals...! Well. Not cheap or easy.

Anyway. My point (at last!). From the moment I began to sense what kind of person she was, e.g. from about 4 years old, I HATED visiting her. My parents did all they could to hide her real personality from us, and never badmouthed her in front of us. But they didn't need to bother: we could just tell that she was a horrid, selfish, bitter old witch. I used to beg my mother not to make us go there: we'd always come back in tears (usually because she couldn't resist slagging my dad off to us). But my mum persisted, apologising for her behaviour ("poor granny had a difficult childhood"), and hoping that we would have a relationship with our grandmother. I wish she hadn't. I have only bad memories of my grandmother, and feel so sad, knowing what my own mother went through when growing up. She's blighted my uncle's life too, in a different way, and tried to extend the same misery to my cousins (e.g. calling their mother a whore; then calling my cousin a slut when she was pregnant outside marriage - she's been with her DP for years ).

I didn't go to her funeral. And I don't feel a moment's guilt about it. I can honestly say I would rather I hadn't had a grandmother at all, than have the one I did.

Your DC may well be much, much better off without her, sad though that may seem at first.

Incidentally, the feeling you have of missing a mother sounds like a kind of grief or bereavement: I know, as I too miss my mother.

Pen - that sound shorrific your poor Mum and Dad.

Well I am thinking what is she going to do about Easter, I think last year the girls got £5 and a card sent to them, for DD2's birthday she sent a card with money in it up with my brothers presents, what a cop out. OK so she obviously has got some thing with me but to take it out on the DDs is just nasty IMO. I am just wondering what will happen in July when it is DD1's 5th birthday and DD3's 1st. Surely for the sake of other people she will have to make an effort to see them but if she cannot come up for DD2's birthday then she is not welcome for the other two's IYSWIM? That's the thing she hasn't realised is that I hold all the cards in that if she wants to see her GC she has to speak to me their mother but obviously she doesn't want to see them, still her loss. My MIL was up today, she stays very close to my mother and it is a long journey but she makes it about once a month (she is older than my Mum) and always says it is worth it.

The person who said this woman is expecting too much is clearly a shit mother herself. There is only so much you can do and so many times that you can try to build a relationship before only hurting yourself. Adult or not every bloody person deserves a mother, not just a mother but a loving one , not a manipulative one or one that aren't bothered about having a relationship with her kids adult or not!, you clearly have no idea whatsoever!. It's really damaging and heart breaking having a mum who isn't like everybody else's, you look around and see your friends and distant family with great relationships with their mothers and it makes your heart break into a million pieces. It's one thing to do things for your mum as an adult, obviously..but it's still give and take!, if you are always giving and getting nothing but brushed off in return or being made to feel not good enough then you are only hurting yourself and it is NOT NORMAL despite what this stupid witch said

Zombie thread.