Mother of a problem...

bugaha1

Save yourself now. Find a good counselor to help you work through this. Stop visiting your mother. Move on and create a wonderful life for yourself and stop tolerating people who treat you badly.

sorry =(

keem88

i cannot relate to this with my mom, but i can with my sister.
she has always been nasty to me, and always will be, 25 years later. i have a nephew who i never see and he has no idea who i am. she once attempted to make ammends and appologize, but quickly went back to how she was treating me.
you don't deserve that, and if your mom isn't putting forth the effort, and has always treated you like that and resents you, then you need to just cut the cord and move on with your life. it may hurt, but don't feel guilty. you deserve to be treated better than that, and if your own mother can't love you then she doesn't deserve to have someone awesome like you in her life. also, talk therapy may benefit you for dealing with this, it did for me.
good luck and don't let anyone ever define you.

6550mom

There is a middle-of-the-road way that may work or be helpful if you are looking to have a better relationship (ie: if you have any more energy to put into it- understandable if you don't). At the very least, it will ensure that you have done all you can to save your relationship. If you are willing to do it, maybe try. If you really can't take it anymore, then put some time and space between you and her.

Visit her alone. Remain VERY calm and collected the whole time. Tell her that you are hurt by the way she treats you. Make sure she knows that you notice the eyerolls and smirks and so on. Don't let her debate whether or not it happens.

Tell her that you will continue to visit her, but the moment she does or says one of these hurtful, disrespectful, unloving, unkind things, that you will excuse yourself and leave- calmly, without explanation or fighting. If this happens for 2 visits in a row, double the time before you visit again, with the same rules.

Decide ahead of time how many of these visits you are willing to give her- one, three, five, a month's worth...

And stick to it. This means that the terms and future of your relationship is in her hands. HER actions determine future interaction. SHE decides.

I had to do this with a family member and it worked for me. Not sure if it will for you, but it is an alternative to just cutting her out (my MIL would have used that for her martyr image for all it was worth, and I wasn't going to give her that satisfaction).

Pixi_Rex

I cannot relate to this with my mom as her and I have a really great relationship but my dad on the other hand we were really close until I turned 16 and then he started treating me really really poorly.

I had to eventually cut him out of my life, I tried to limit our time together but it never helped I did everything I possibly could to make it work but in the end I had to put myself first. It has been 11 years since I cut him out of my life, and in the beginning it hurt a lot and it really sucked, now its just a fact of life. My dad is a *kitten* and thats the end.

I am really very sorry you have to go through this. I do suggest finding a good therapist to talk to and to help you work through the issues that this has or is going to pose for you.

Alex_is_Hawks

i have a friend that was in this boat.

she stopped talking to her mom. cut her out of her life.

got some therapy....learned that she was not her mothers problem nor was her mother her problem.

she went back to her mother and learned to say i'm not listening to this, and won't tolerate this...essentially speak up for herself.

her mother did not think she was serious, so she cut her out of her life again, stating she would come back when her mother was ready to act like an adult....

it wasn't easy, it wasn't nice all the time...but after a few tries, her mother learned that she won't tolerate abuse...

but it took quite a while.

UnderCoverShyGirl

I can relate in many ways and while i won't get into the story here, you can certainly PM me if you'd like to chat. I left home early (before a legal age) and have never gone back to live. Most of my adult life, i visited as little as i could and contacted my parents as little as i could get away with. My Mom was a very mixed up person, i believe. Maybe due to abuses she suffered as a child, i really don't know. Suffice it to say that i know what living in a cold and manipulative environment is like. I know what it's like to never be good enough and to feel unloved by your mother.

I also worried about regretting my lack of contact later. My mother had metastatic stage 4 breast cancer for 12 years and while i tried to be kind, i still didn't visit much. I tried calling more, but honestly, her situation never humbled her or made her more compassionate or loving. Therefore, i didn't increase my contact much. I tried to be a kind and loving person, but i still had to do what felt right to me. And being around mean people didn't feel right.

I went through much therapy and much inner searching. My mother passed away 2 years ago. I have learned much. While here and there i did struggle with "could i have changed the relationship?" or "was i a bad daughter", i have also learned that there was a reason i stayed away and those reasons were valid. I have learned that certain people can really only be in your life for a certain "percentage" before it is unhealthy FOR YOU. With my parents, i could visit for two days once or twice a year. After that things went to hell in a handbasket very quickly. I considered them my "5%"...meaning that i could share about 5% of my life and time with them without feeling hurt, abused, put down, etc....once i realized that and kept with my short visits and phone calls, it was okay. I can tell you that I am now able to realistically look back on life and see that i did the best i could with what i had. I also believe that they did "the best they could" with what they had (perhaps their capacity was truly limited, i do not believe they were malicious, i think they thought they were doing right, even when it was abusive). It was one of the biggest epiphanys i had ever had....that i was not "obligated" to be what my parents wanted me to be or to be what society might deem as "a good daughter" by doing all the right actions, even if i hated every minute of it. i did what was healthy for me and I was an honest and true person. I personally feel that is better than going through the motions and pretending to like it, etc.

I do not regret not visiting more, not being the better daughter. I wish our relationshiop was different, i really do. I missed out on a lot that i saw other girls have with their mothers. Lunches out for fun, or shopping together, or just enjoying each others company. But in my situation, it was not healthy for me to be around my mother or my parents. They weren't healthy people. Period. Looking back, I don't regret my limiting contact at all.

From your description, it seems that your mother acts uncaring and in fact is even belittling. How is that healthy for you? How much are you feeding her behaviors by continuing to visit? Do you psychologically "need" to be a good daughter for some reason? Is it perhaps because you are guilted by your mother when you are not? Sit and think about what the real reason is that you feel you can't disconnect from someone that is treating you that badly. Would you keep a spouse like that? Would you allow your children to treat you or another person like that? I know it's easier said than done, but you must think deeply about this and try to understand your own personal reasons for putting up with it.

The hard part is that our parents are at the very core, the people we are supposed to feel safe with and loved by. If they don't love us, who will? I yearned for love from my mother for 45 years (i still do, even though she passed away). The three year old in me still cries for a momma i did not have when things are tough. That part, i think, will never go away. Simply because it was my parent...and feeling unloved by a parent makes many of us feel unloved overall. We often spend our years trying to please them, get them to love us, even when we don't realize that is what we are doing. I think all does not feel right with the world when you feel unloved by a parent. The one person who is supposed to love you unconditionally.

You must realize that some people are not capable of that kind of love and it has nothing to do with you. You may never understand your mother's behavior or why she is that way. But in the end, it doesn't matter, what matters is that you get healthy and happy and that your life and feelings do not depend on how you are treated by your mother.

I urge you to get some therapy....you don't have to think of it as counseling, think of it as brainstorming with someone who has seen family dynamics a million times and has experiences and thoughts to bounce off you. I recommend to start working on accepting your mother's faults and forgiving her (which has nothing to do with seeing her, by the way). I would also recommend to limit your visits with her to the point at which they are tolerable to you and you don't walk away feeling like less of a person. The fact that you are thinking of it so much, means you won't take these actions lightly, and to me that means you will not regret those decisions later. What you might regret is spending so much of your life energy and time trying to fix something that wasn't yours to fix.

Here are a few quotes that i found inspiring during my journey (forgive the lack of sources, many are from Pinterest, if they didn't list the source, i don't have it):

"Forgiveness doesn't excuse their behavior, forgiveness prevents their behavior from destroying your heart."

"New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings." ~Lao Tzu

"Stop letting people who do so little for you, control so much of your mind, feelings and emotions."

"Respect yourself enough to walk away from anything that no longer serves you, grows you or makes you happy."

"Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you'll be criticized anyway." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

sarahertzberger

there comes a time when you've tried on your end hard enough and you just have to cut ties and let them decide what they want to do if they want a relationship with you they will have to go after it and earn it, we just recently had to cut my mother-in-law completely from our lives but you have to do something for you and she's not good for you just move on.

runzalot81

My grandmother treats my mother the same way. It took WAY too long for my mom to finally write her off. My mom did go to therapy for a year.

LuciaLongIsland

You all have given great advice. I have the opposite problem.

MQ0811

I agree that you should seek a counselor, for sure, but then also visit www.daughtersofnarcissisticmothers.com and get some advice from her too. Get the weekly emails. Take, and use, her advice. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you have this happening to you. As someone who suffers with a mother of similar traits, I can tell you that it's hard to cut her out of your life...but you have to set up boundaries. For your safety, for your sanity, and if you have a family eventually, for their safety and sanity too. Trust me. I am 33 years old and it wasn't until a few years ago that I figured this out. This will not come easily, and it is continuous work. Continuous. But I would tell you that having sisters makes this FAR easier than if you were alone, like I am.

Good luck.

Fab30s

Dear Giovanna, I am sorry you have to go through that with your mother. You absolutely need to get her negativity out of your life. You're only hurting yourself by visiting her and being around her. She is an adult and needs to stop being selfish and hurting you that way. Learn to love her from a distance. Endeavor to be around people that make you feel good about yourself. Trust me, you'll feel better and you won't regret it. It's crazy, I was just thinking of how to let out my frustrations about my mother and then I came across your post. My mother has been an alcoholic since I was 10 or so. Or at least that's when I understood what her problem was. I have a hard time searching through my childhood for happy memories. She is a heavy handed woman that would beat us hard for little wrongs. She embarrassed my sister and I terribly when she came to visit us in boarding school drunk. Imagine what that does to a 10 year old when your classmates are making fun of your mum for smelling like booze and talking nonsense. Being in boarding school my entire life helped me be away from her. I moved out of home and to the states at 16 and that's when I was truly able to heal. Being far, she was good to me. Then when I returned, she called me a failure, and had several theories about why I was not married at 28. When she's sober she overcompensates by being overly nice, but I have learned not to make excuses for her. She blames my dad for everything, even though he's a good man who's worked so hard to give her everything (once it's she doesn't have a car, then when she gets it, its something else), then she blames her kids coz she apparently dedicated her life to us instead of concentrating on herself. Obviously I don't recall any dedication, everything I know I didn't learn from my mother. It gets so bad when she gets drunk in the street and my little siblings have to be called coz she's passed on the road. My dad is a prominent man so you can imagine the shame he's put through always. Anyway, I have learnt to cut her out of my life. Today I was supposed to be at a pre-wedding/introduction event and my dad called me to tell me not to go coz my mum was at it, embarrassing us all. My heart hurts for my dad, I wish he'd had a good woman in his life all these years. He works so hard for us. My entire childhood I prayed, and prayed, and prayed- she would stop for a month or two and then get back at it. I was so angry this morning I spoke to God and said that if He chooses to take my mother, I won't be sad, and I won't miss her. Anyway, bottom line is we're all adults, we choose how we treat people, and how we let them treat us. Tell her straight up how you feel and then stay away from her until she comes to you with an apology and changed behavior.

iwannabeonthebeach

No normal person deliberately sets out to hurt another person. You have so much going for you, don't try to compensate for your mother's failings. Get on with your own life.

fannyfrost

Absolutely seek counseling. The problem is not you, which you recognize and that is the first step. My situation is not quite the same, but my mom is mean. She thinks she is this wonderful nice person, but reality is downright mean to me. She criticizes everyone, no one lives up to her standards, etc. While I keep her in my life, I suddenly have to go when her talk turns toxic, I try to change the conversation, etc.

It seems to me that you acknowledge it already and I definitely recommend finding a way to get past it. You may not want to cut her out of your life, but you can minimize the contact and find better ways to deal with it.