<p>My relationship with my mom is pretty positive overall, but she’s really been very difficult about the whole wedding situation. </p>
<p>I think she feels it’s a personal affront that we chose to have our wedding in the city where we live rather than my hometown, and she’s been incredibly negative about virtually every facet of the wedding and wedding planning. It’s been very hard on me, because I want her to be excited about the wedding, but she keeps getting bogged down in the way the wedding isn’t exactly like the weddings of her friends’ kids.</p>
<p>I’m hoping that after the wedding, she will realize that it’s silly to get so worked up over one day in our lives, and she’ll go back to being the great mom and friend she’s otherwise always been to me.</p>
<p>I don’t think that this is a question that can be answered in the abstract. I think one MUST insert the specifics into the equation to come up with a “soluton.” In <em>MY</em> case, it was best to severely limit contact (not that I had to work at that…my mother was no better a grandma than she was a mom and didn’t generally CARE to see my kids more than once a year for a day or two, if that, and she certainly didn’t care to have any meaningful relationships with them or input into their lives). </p>
<p>Even so, when she began to “scapegoat” one of my children as she did to one of her own (not me), my reaction was so visceral and drenched with PTSD that I simply could not allow it AT ALL. Not even for five minutes. It was when I pointed this out to her that she disowned and disinherited me (and kicked 8 of us out of the house during my brother’s wedding weekend). I never saw her again. And, ironically enough, her final words to me in her life, shrieked, as they were after me on the way to our car, consisted of, “YOUR CHILDREN WILL GROW TO <strong><em>HATE</em></strong> YOU!!!” A chilling prophecy (based solely on her pathologically jealous feelings of what my own children and I shared) that thankfully will not EVER come to fruition.</p>
<p>Biggest regret of my married life is that I allowed my mother to throw ‘her’ wedding for me–rather than doing my own, much less structured thing.</p>
<p>Stick to your guns mollie. It will be worth it.</p>
<p>You know berurah, if I were you I would have just given her less chance to interract. Couldn’t you just draw the line? Just say, " Mom I only have 5 minutes to chat" and monopolize the conversation ? Leaving on bad terms, in angst and misery is so bad. Couldn’t you just lie a little, get off the phone and move on? I don’t get it.</p>
<p>The thing is, I think the generation gap has a really big effect on parent/child relationships. It’s better to just make it pleasant, give just a little. That doesn’t mean lunch or babysitting.</p>
<p>Before my mother died over 15 years ago, I managed by (1) realizing and accepting (eventually, after many years) that nothing I did would ever be good enough, that unconditional acceptance from my mother could not be obtained; and (2) by living far away from her.</p>
<p>Relationships with parents, particularly at the end of life, can be difficult. The elderly have issues of biology which effect them and their capacities greatly. Mothers, women that is, sometimes can not handle the confrontatation with death very well. It is MOST IMPORTANT that we not take rants, temper, anxiety, critical behavior, their anger or their fear personally. It is most important we carry on calmly. Then leave and move on.</p>
BHG~
In the truest sense of this statement (and <em>NOT</em> the sarcastic sense), you really don’t. I am accustomed to this by now, and I don’t ask that anyone understand. Most simply cannot, and I respect that.</p>
<p>I don’t believe that a mother’s “biological giving of life” is sufficient for me to sustain a wholly toxic relationship. But that is <em>MY</em> decision…it doesn’t have to be ANYONE else’s. And I would never make someone feel like a lesser person for making a different choice than I.</p>
<p>For the record, though, I did attempt to contact her when she was diagnosed with lung cancer, but my father denied me any telephone contact. In addition, I called and asked to see her in her final days of life, and again, I was refused. What more would you have me do? </p>
<p>I’m so sorry for all of you, but kudos for becoming the parents you want to be. I had a great mom… her trademark words, “you poor dear!”, were provided at moments of stress, and always made me feel better. So I will pass them on to you. “You poor dears!” :)</p>
<p>This thread is sad. I hope so many can find strength in the realization that many others also have had to deal with difficult and emotional situations.</p>
<p>berurah- My dear, you are beating yourself up! You must not think of what upsets you concerning the realtionship. Look, my experience with dying parents is, they are NOT IN THEIR RIGHT MIND. That is NOT your fault. You made the effort. You can sleep at night because YOU made the effort.That’s all you need to think about. You did right!</p>
<p>Berurah, I’m so sorry to hear this, I truly am. I think I sort of get it though - I truly think that when we encounter something so abhorrant, so inimical, we somehow engineer ourselves to be as different as possible from the thing that causes us so much angst…I think maybe that’s why you’re so very different from your mother. </p>
<p>I knew my mother only for a brief time of course, but, one of the things I remember so vividly is that she truly believed, and communicated to me often, that “little girls are to be seen, never heard”, and she always spoke of my future as being married with children, and, when college was mentioned, it was in the context of finding a husband. I think I’m the opposite of what she envisioned, and I think I did that on purpose. I remember asking her once, in response to the married/children/housewife picture she painted for me, “does it absolutely HAVE to be that way”? - I was maybe ten years old or so at the time. I don’t know what made me ask; certainly I had no concept of a woman with a career, or for that matter a woman who was not married by choice, but anyway, my mother’s response was that I was not allowed to ask “those types of questions” and the discussion was forbidden.</p>
<p>In any case, I’m very glad that you’ve become who you are, and I am sorry that you experience such unpleasantness.</p>
<p>Yes, it’s very funny the relationship between mothers and adult daughters.I remember when my daughter got married I had this fabulous wedding cake for her. We had the reception at our home. It was only maybe 60 people as they had married earlier and this was just what I was doing for her and her old hometown friends. Anyway, I put this absolutely wonderful Antique Staffordshire figure of a wedding couple on the cake with a white rose in the vase. The figure was from maybe 1820 and I thought it was the most beautiful sentimental thing. Then, to my amazement, I heard my daughter commenting to one of her friends, “Look at that ugly thing my mother put on the cake…” At that point I knew, we are so DIFFERENT.Like black and white, night and day. So it goes!</p>
<p>Do we get to unload about fathers in June? I’m tempted to hijack this thread, but won’t. </p>
<p>Was I ever lucky to have an at least averagely good mother. And to everyone trying to tell people to JUST… These people have been hurt badly by someone who should have JUST behaved radically differently. Instead of criticizing the child, why not criticize the parent who is so horrible? The message sent is that motherhood is so sacred we should act as if the truly bad mothers are normal- the mother broke any parent-child covenants, no duty exists. It is hard enough to deal with the burdens (pile of badness) of a toxic mother without asking for them to deal with more. Kudos to those who stood up to bad behaviors and weren’t enablers.</p>
<p>B, I am so inspired by you. Absolutely your mom’s behaviour was so very bizarre. I can’t imagine my mom, as ill as she is, ever disowning me. She is impossible to get along with, thus the limited contact, but I know she loves me, and for that one thing I am thankful. I cannot imagine (well, I can, sort of), having to go through something like what you went through with your mom.</p>
<p>My mother is wonderful, she has her foibles, but she is a delight, and best of all, she is also a real mother to my H who has sick 7 twisted parents. Luckily his mother had a stroke over 20 years ago, removing much of the malignancy from our lives. H also moved us physically far away from his parents, but it took until last year when we received a great deal of feedback from THEIR lifelong friends which validated that it was not us being annoying, they really are strange and sick and, well, kinda nasty…or at the very least, completely self-centred, completely caught up in everything being about them, and they (mother & step-father) had no business being parents.</p>
<p>H was blessed with a close and wonderful relationship with my mother and has proven to be an excellent dad. I realized how to handle many many years ago when I decided the in laws HAVE NO POWER over me…no power to hurt, as I decided since i did not respect them, I should not respect their oft-given opinions! That made all the difference. My main anger towards them is the way they hurt their little boy (my sweet H)</p>
Suzy, I would like to thank you so much for the very kind words and most especially for the understanding that it takes “one who’s been there” to achieve.</p>
<p>Your post struck me like a bolt of lightning…there are <em>MANY</em> similarities between your mother’s behavior and my mother’s. Eerie, really. </p>
<p>
Suzy, have you ever read up on pathological narcissim? If not, I’d HIGHLY recommend that you do. Like you, I did not understand my mother for many, many years. I had my own descriptive terms for her behavior, but it wasn’t until the summer of 2000 when I was exploring a website on Narcissistic Personality Disorder that I fully realized what I was dealing with. The self absorbtion, the “pathological envy,” the rages, the irrationality, the lack of empathy (most especially the lack of empathy)–these can all be signs of this disorder, particularly when clumped together in a sort of pattern. </p>
<p>After that summer, I DID understand my mother. By that, I meant that her capricious behavior suddenly became predictable to me. It followed a pattern of dots that I had never been able to connect before.</p>
<p>
I have a HUGE amount of admiration for you!!! You have accomplished so very much in spite of your mother’s petty and un-mother-like behavior. Your strength and determination are inspiring! :)</p>
<p>
Ummmm, are you SURE you didn’t have my same mother??? Yep, that rant rings familiar <em>ROFL</em>. And you’re so right…there are some people who just shouldn’t have gone the kid route. </p>
<p>The site has literally thousands of pages, but the FAQs are a good place to start.</p>
<p>I’m <em>so</em> sorry for what you have undergone with your mother. You deserved MUCH, MUCH better… you deserved a “real” mother, as did I, as did all of us who have brought our painful stories to this thread. {{{{{{{Gentle hugs to you}}}}}}} I’m <em>really</em> proud of you for all that you have done in your life, including escaping the toxic relationship with the woman who was supposed to love you unconditionally and support you every step of the way–but didn’t. </p>
<p>Sometimes we have to rise above the situation with people. By this I mean, not concentrate on what is SAID but respond more to the TONE or feeling which is behind what is said. I remember with my mom when she was critical of me, on those occasions, I knew it was something going on in HER. And I would try to respond to that rather than what she said.</p>
<p>Many of us here have tried to do exactly this, but in some of our cases, this required moving OUT of a toxic relationship, which is, upon occasion, the best and/or only option.</p>
And, ironically enough, her final words to me in her life, shrieked, as they were after me on the way to our car, consisted of, “YOUR CHILDREN WILL GROW TO <strong><em>HATE</em></strong> YOU!!!” A chilling prophecy (based solely on her pathologically jealous feelings of what my own children and I shared) that thankfully will not EVER come to fruition.</p>
</p>
Yep, that rant rings familiar <em>ROFL</em>. And you’re so right…there are some people who just shouldn’t have gone the kid route. </p>