Wait until you hear this, my relationship with my toxic mother is all my fault for being an independent little girl

[sweetkitty]

I give up I honestly do

Bit of background, sorry is long, so I have always had a tough relationship with my Mum she favoured my younger brother big time, I felt no love or affection growing up from her, by the time I reached 19 I was really forced to leave home, I then sought help for depression, anxiety and terribly low self esteem, in my counselling sessions it came out that a lot of thos was due to my relationship with my mother never feeling good enough etc and also that she may have had jealousy issues which is apaprently quite common especially if mothers see their daughters getting more freedowm.education etc than they ever had. Anyway after I moved out our relationship was fraught at best, after the DDs were born she said some relaly nasty spiteful things always just to me to everyone else she was so proud of me etc but to me never a compliment always putting me down etc last year I decided enough was enough I was going to make no effort with her at all leave it up to her to contact me etc so since Dec I have not seen or heard from her until my birthday when a card arrived with a not in it stating that she was sorry I felt "it" was her fault and I was holding a grudge so I wrote her a letter telling her why I wasn't making contact and what had upset me (things like saying I would be better mcing DD3 etc)

So a letter arrives back today, in it she takes no responsibilty for anything she said but puts it back on me that as a little girl I thought I knew everything, was so independent and didn't need her, I think I am better than her and that it is me being a barrier to her having a relationship with her grandchildren. On and the fact she didn't have the benefit of a uni education

So because I had opinions different to her, had a work ethic that she lacks, have different moral values such as believing if you want something you work for it that's why she behaves the way she does, i.e. it's my fault not hers.

Now every little girl I know is like me, a little madam know it all, she still goes on about how I would push her away and do things myself yet my brother would allow her to feed and dress him, like she resents me for being independent and bright.

I have 3 daughters the same as me very bright and independent, instead of resenting them I encourage it I want fiesty independent women, my mother thinks women should only work un until they have children and never earn more than their husbands and that men are superior and even if they beat you you should stay with them as that's you job honestly.

What a head f* sorry for language

I just read that back and don't mean to sound as if I am against you at all,just hoping that maybe with a lot more communication and less blaming on both sides she may be less defensive and more positive towards you.

catwalk - oh my goodness I could have so written your post as wellit's my exact life as well, looking through my things I even had to stop writing a diary as she kept reading it, she used to use my make up and shampoo I would buy with my Saturday wages, steal my clothes and shoes. Even things like when I was 17 my Dad left her and one night after I got home she said "don't try and wake me I have taken tablets" I, of course, was hysterical, run to my aunts cuddled her in the back of a car on the way to hospital only for her to turn round and say she was only trying to sleep WTF? she even lef tme a note but of course waited until my brother was staying at his friends so it would be me that would "find her" When my Dad finally left I was 19 and she made my life a living hell. I met and fell madly in love with DP and I think she couldn't cope with me being happy and tried to find every way she could to try and split us up. It got so bad that DP took a crappy job and we moved into a grotty student flat just so I could leave home. A week before my final exams she phoned and told me that if I didn't sort out my cats worms she would get him put down (I had to leave the cat with her but sent her money for food etc) then a few weeks later she phoned and told me he had been missing for a week and that a cat like him was found splatted on a road. But you know in some ways that ended any dependence I ever had on her.

rebecca - I completely understand what you are saying and I knew that the letter coming back would be all about everything being my fault. Yes we do clash but I don't believe like she does that women are second class to men, that you should never earn more than your husband as he will leave you, that only real women can have boys, your husband will also leave you if you cannot give him a boy, that's it's ok to receive a slap or two at the weekend as long as he gives you money and that it's fine to claim benefits as everyone else does it. Her life involves getting up at 11am every day, doing a little bit of housework, sitting on the sofa, smoking and drinking tea until she ahs to get step Dads dinner on. She has never worked but moans about being poor, never has a nice thing to say about anyone, never goes anywhere or does anything. I said to her a lot before why don't you come for a visit during the week (we love an hour away) I will pick you up from thr train station, I even showed her which train to get but she said she couldn't afford it (lie) so I offered to pay for her train fare, she said she was a bad traveller (she's 55 btw and in good health) yet in her letter she said I was the barrier between her and the DDs. When I have gone a visited a few times she has still been in her bed (midday) and always seems to have a stomach virus at the weekend (hangover).

Anyway sorry having a wee bit of a rant, it's hard to understand isn't it as we love our DC so much, would do anything for them and I would hate to think of my DDs having to go through some of the things I have went through.

oops sorry x-posts I was too busy writing my essay

I do think it is a jealousy thing with a lot of mothers, maybe a kind of depression too, life was a lot different from them, they were expected to give up work (in my mothers case not a big decision) she was married at 19, first child at 21, husband went to work, controlled the money, you left school at 15 no chance of staying on, having a career, husband did nothing round the house, expected to be waited on hand and foot.

Then when you look at women nowadays, uni, travelling, I lived in different places, had children later, financially better off, husband who does his share of the housework and childcare it's a different world. Also I read that some mothers cannot accept they are growing old maybe putting on weight whilst their daughters and young and pretty (not in my case lol but you know what I mean)

So sad so many of us are like this but hey we will not allow history to repeat itself.

sweetkitty~it sounds from your last post as if she is not the most capable,together person and that you are totally different and struggle to understand her~it's very difficult and seems as if she is just not really up to the job~of life in general and being a good parent in particular.
so sorry and good wishes

Labrinthine - I find the older I get (and especially since becoming a mother myself) the harder I find it to accept the way in which my mother treated me.

I have no doubt as my DD gets older we will have conflicts and arguments but I hope that watever is said or done I will remember that my DD is the child and I will respond to her in an appropriate manner. In fact I think you hit the nail on the head when you said your daughter can be as hurtful as she likes but you have to take it. Our mothers did not just "take it". They criticised us/ told us we were useless/ turned off their affections for us/ stopped speaking to us etc. That is not a personality clash. At least for me, and I suspect many others it was emotional abuse. The sort that if it was perpetrated by a spouse would send this forum into a frenzy of advice along the lines of "get the hell away".

Fruitysunshine the reason your husband would describe you as different to the way your mother would is because you are not the person she tells you you are.

2rebecca my mother will ever be the "poor parent" much as she would like to imagine she is. She is the sort of person who as a child left me in hospital (having been admitted to A&E hemoaraging post op) saying that the emergency surgery would be fine but she needed to go home and get some sleep as she was going on hols in the morning. More recently she as refused to acknowledge to me the death of my stillborn son earlier this month but has happily played the grieving grandmother amongst her friends.

And Breatheeeeeeee!

I wonder if some mothers "look after" their sons more but see their daughters and eldest as potential helpers/allies and when that doesn't work out it turns into war?

Sweetkitty. Another I could have written your post. I'm so reassured that I am not the only one to experience the toxic mother.

I see my mother about twice a year, Xmas and DS's Birthday. I now genuinely feel nothing for her now. She is someone I know but no longer part of my life. Sad but it's how I deal with it.

It is not our fault, we were kids, they we the adults, they made the choices and we live with the consequences. You are doing amazingly

My mother has said the same of me - that I always was independent.

My therapist tells it a different way - he said I needed to be independent - because nobody was raising me.

2rebecca Agreed - more words of wisdom from my therapist - but he suggested that the reason these people (my mother) will never admit to the past is that they block it away. What sane and rational person is going to admit to child abuse?

FruitySunshine I don't understand why you're still allowing her in to your life to hurt you. She's not the mother you want or need and you wouldn't tolerate such criticisms from a passing acquaintance.

You really don't need this type of person in your life - it's all well and good being the "better person" and analysing their faults - but you really don't need that shit. She took your childhood - why are you giving her your adulthood too?

I think that in some women's case, my mum being one of them, that they are slightly "disappointed" when the firstborn child is a girl, not a boy (yep, me too - oldest one). Somehow boys are still seen as more "valuable" by these male-centric women.

In my own mum's case, she really wasn't that toxic most of the time but I always wanted a "real" mum, one who asked about me, cared about me, was interested in me and what I did, like other mums I knew. I was 26 before she said she loved me that I remember.

Anyway, I feel mildly fraudulent for posting here because my experience is in no way as bad as some here, but I too had counselling for it (and other things) and came to the conclusion that she couldn't help the way she was because she couldn't in any way see that she was in the wrong.

Sometimes it can help if you know the grandparents in the situation - what helped make your mum the person she is - and other times that is just even more bewildering. As I've got older I realise that my grandparents, despite being lovely gps, did contribute to my mum being the way she was because my mum was a bright, intelligent woman who wanted to join her dad's business but wasn't allowed to because it "was men's work", so she was forced into secretarial school instead. She was one thwarted being, from a young age (13) and she never got over it. Having a baby at 23 just signed the death warrant on her ever getting the sort of life she wanted, going to Uni etc. Somehow, the next babies just don't matter as much in the Thwarting of Life Plans - it's the first one. Or the one after a big gap ("just when I thought I was getting my life back, along came X")

My mum was never one of those who believed she could do it later - i.e. take an OU course or anything like that - no, her life had been Thwarted and that was it. She did do lots of things, designed to make her Dad proud of her, and it never really cut it with him, old chauvinist that he was. She was an only child as well, so I guess she felt the disappointment that she wasn't a son who could carry on the family business.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on it - it might be relevant to some and not to others on here.

SK, your ma sounds like a loser anyway who is looking for someone else to blame for all her problems and oh look, here you are. She seems truly toxic and best avoided.

thumbwitch You've just reminded me - I was supposed to be Andrew!

I read your OP, sweetkitty, and think: how sad that this woman has lived for decades and decades without sorting out the massive problems in her life. It has affected you enormously, and if you look closely I am sure you'll find ways that it has affected all her children and other relationships as well. How very sad.

You are far braver than her, having turned the spotlight inwards at a young age and sought the support and input you needed to dismantle the stuff she dumped on you.

If she felt she was unable to connect with you as a child, it was her responsibility to find a way to do so, not yours.

She reminds me in some ways of someone else I know with grown-up children. Very sad.

not exactly the oldest,but i am the oldest daughter and my younger sister is one of the two 'golden children',my older brother who was the first born and was the biggest letdown to our mum out all four of us,and the second born was another son who is 'the golden golden child' so probably in her case she disliked the first of each boy and each girl, my oldest brother who is almost fifty now has attempted suicide,has ran away from things and really has just had a massive hangup down to the treatment he recieved as a child,and along with me he has been described as highly strung and awkward by our mum!

redclover go on amazon,i got my paperback copy of 'toxic parents' for £1.95 it had to come from usa and was secondhand but vgc and well worth it

ski horse - I wrestle with this all the time, even my two sisters and brother have not spoken to her in years, but I just don't know why I have not made that decision - I accept people for who they are, warts and all and my children are very attached to her. I just could not cut her out of my life for something she clearly would not understand. It almost seems cruel. It is not something I have even ever seriously contemplated.

Don't ask me why.