SpaGirl,
It looks like your relationship with your mom is very close and intense, but not quite... fulfilling (?) for you. I really don't think that I should comment on you mom, because simply I don't know her.

I'm pretty much detached for my mom at this stage. Well, we were never so close, it was never an intense and emotional relationship. I was just drifting my way towards physical (I don't know if emotional) adulthood. I call my mom once a week, once every two weeks since I don't really have a lot of stuff to share with her. She would briefly complain that I'm not calling her, I say something like "well, I'm not a good child" and just go on chatting for a while about this and that... That's about it. I think she knows there is no point being too needy of a mom and try any guilt trip on me since it doesn't work. I'm bit of a bitch sometimes.

I really don't know if it is appropriate to give you any advise on your relationship with you mom, but the only one I have is: Don't be afriad to be a bitch sometimes
Hope I didn't offend. Take care and enjoy sunny Florida.

Spagirl hi.

I don’t know about the background with you and your mother (I’m assuming you’ve written about it before on here but I haven’t read all the posts yet) but I take from your post that you don’t have the easiest of relationships with her.

quote:

I'm at a loss for words.

Well I’m not! I could give you a few choice words to compensate for your loss though I expect you already think most of them

Not even knowing your mother I read her email as so utterly manipulative it makes ME angry and it’s not even directed at me.

What’s revealing is your querying why ‘small events’ bother you so much. These emails are not small events at all, there’s a lifetime in them of manipulation, emotional blackmail, guilt tripping and outright deliberate hurtfulness (under guise of ‘it’s for your own good/it’s because I love you/it’s because I want you to be happy/it’s because I don’t want to see you mess up blah blah blah I'm sure everyone could put in their own personal favourite here).

The whole interaction you’re describing, it’s not small at all. It’s one of those tricksy things that by the sheer seeming innocuousness of the needles and digs and apparently innocent comments actually hiding aggression, drip poison without your being able to openly pick up on any one ‘serious’ thing to broach her with. You’re in a lose/lose situation here, because unless you can get in touch with exactly what this is doing to you and hold your ground, no matter what you say it’s going to be twisted against you, you can’t argue with the words themselves, nor in fact with the negative underlying meaning of the words either.

I may be way off target here of course, just telling you off the top of my head the sense I’m getting from your post. I suppose I relate very much to it because I’ve had so much experience of these kinds of tricksy and hurtful situations ending up floundering in total bewilderment, guilt and self blame as a result.

I wonder, how do you usually deal with it when this sort of thing reoccurs? I get the impression that you’re in a real emotional double bind here and looking for a way to sort it to both you and your mother’s mutual benefit, and that you haven’t yet found a way of doing that?

Lamplighter

quote:

You should be grateful for all that I do for you – I do it out of love and it is certainly not my obligation.

Ooohh...I can totally relate to that comment. I've heard it from both of my parents, but my dad is not NEARLY as hesitant to employ it as my mother is. I can't really offer any advice or anything, considering that I'm trying to figure out how to deal with my parents, but I can say that I understand! To me, comments and actions like your mother's, which parallel some of what my parents do, distort my idea of "love." It unreasonable, and I logically know it's not true, but these types of things are like examples of love equaling manipulation.

K

This is why I come on this site ... not for cliches - you really have a sense of what I'm going thru and you give really great advice. I guess we're all kind of in the same boat.

Yes, my relationship with my mom is close and intense and not fulfilling. Good point. I told a friend today that I've never worked so hard not to get anywhere.

Question: What parts of her email sound manipulative to you? I'm so close to this I can't see sometimes.

Your right about it not being a small event, even though, in a normal relationship a barb here and there is okay because the foundation is strong - and frankly, most people will then eventually turn around and apologize for hurting the other person. She never has.

You know, it just sounds like contradictions to me - one after the other. "I asked why YOU were so HATEFUL - Love has nothing to do with it". That one just floored me. LOVE has EVERYTHING to do with it. If you love someone, as she claims to, then it hurts YOU to call them such harsh and cruel names. I tried it with my friend and it hurt my heart and we were just playing.

You know what I get a sense of? It seems like she isn't complete unless she is imagining infractions against her. MY MOOD, be it happy or grumpy or frustrated is NONE of her business. If I was frustrated why couldn't she accept that, instead of pointing a finger at me for doing something against her - which I obviously didn't. She's also done this MANY, MANY times. (Jackson Hole, and lots more). I do remember during our conversation telling her to stop making a big deal out of nothing. It's like she was trying to blow things out of proportion (heck, come to think of it, that is EXACTLY what she has done before ... see that Jackson Hole post, if it's one here ... I had taken the car out for too long and since she didn't get the message I sent to her room, she assumed, and then went on a rampage about how I took over the car leaving her stranded! ... ever hear of a TAXI, Mom?) Hmmm, that's interesting. I just realized that while writing this!

I don't know if there is an answer to all this. But thanks for hearing me out and offering your points of view. It helps IMMENSELY!

How do I deal with it? By doing this. I reach out to people I (hope) won't hurt me, and take some time away from her to heal. Thus the cycle. Once I start to scab over, I go back - for one reason only - she's my MOTHER! I have wished to be divorced from her many times, but you can't. So, I do my best to detach and reinforce that I AM a good person - that what she says and accuses me of are LIES.

There is such a L-O-N-G history of - well, let's call it abuse - that one more just strengthens my resolve to detach. I love her (sometimes). I feel sorry for her. I WISH it could be better, and I have told her so. But it never is. She is most comfortable in the role she's created in her own mind: she does "so much" for me, and I'm the ungrateful daughter who never appreciates what she does for me out of "love".

"I really wish I knew how I could help you change your attitude to others, including me. You should be grateful for all that I do for you – I do it out of love and it is certainly not my obligation."

I wrote her back:

"change your attitude toward me"

Stop calling me Hateful and maybe I will.


Oh, and it would also be nice if you stopped calling me "unappreciative", "ungrateful", and all those other cruel words you've chosen.


I've yet to hear back.

It doesn't matter. There is NOTHING I can do to change her mind. I'm NOT the daughter she is accusing me of being, and I remind her of that, but she is a stuck record. She can't see what a kind and thoughtful daughter I am because she is so busy trying to confirm how she sees me - as the "belligerent" "ungrateful" daughter of her mind. It's like two different worlds. (and I have data to back that up - probably on here, in fact).


I wrote this to my friend this morning:

There really is nothing I can say to her, is there? I mean she just contradicted herself - twice - in this one paragraph. (Did you LOVE the incorrect grammar? Thought so.) She "may" have good intentions, but so far, for the past 45-years, it doesn't come across that way. Shouldn't it "feel good" if the intentions are right? So why am I always crying whenever I have anything to do with her --- Walk in the Park, just one of MANY examples. I've never put so much work into a relationship not to show some advancement. Hell, even the client realized she was wrong and sent a "Sorry". God, this is EXHAUSTING. I'm trying so hard to not let it wear me down. I will be so glad when this is done and dusted. harsh words. But, god, I'm soooooo tired. N.


Well, thanks again for your words of encouragement and understanding. It does help so much!


If you'd like to add more, I'd love to hear.


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I have a question:

What effect have these relationships had on you?

Do you find it hard to develop other loving relationships? Friends? Do you isolate?

.

Hi again Spagirl

Well I did go back through forum threads and found one of your previous posts - what struck me was that that post (back in 2008 I think) could have been written yesterday - which tells me you really are trapped in this deathly dance with your mother. I wish I had enough insight to be able to say hey look this is how you can resolve this and all get on happily like you ought to be able to.

My immediate sense is that you have a LOT of feelings and needs invested in your mother more maybe than even you are aware of and that maybe it would be helpful to bring them out into the open and work through them. I am assuming you see a therapist and wonder how much you discuss the things that happen with your mother in therapy? I say this because I am in a similar situation with my mother (though her manipulative and emotionally blackmailing tactics aren’t as overtly hostile as your mother’s) and while I haven’t actually brought my mother into therapy yet I know that there are a lot of intolerable and really painful feelings and unmet needs and god knows what other stuff involving her that for now I’m quite happy to leave her out of therapy. (She also lives in another country, so that makes it easier for me to maintain the good daughter façade in the meantime.)

It’s interesting you can see that your mother holds a particular (negative) image of you as a daughter that is in no way an accurate reflection of reality - I am guessing that gives you the psychological strength to cope with what she throws at you. At the same time (based on my own experience) I have to ask whether maybe somewhere inside you, you aren’t still buying into her version of who you are? Or at least being made to experience yourself as someone other than you really are and that that is making you doubt your own sense of self when she makes these attacks on you? (Certainly your comments about other members of the family, and specifically your aunt, effectively ‘taking sides’ with your mother makes me think you’ve been forced into withdrawing from belonging in the family otherwise you’d have to adopt their view of who you are - untenable.)

Hm one of the most obvious ways to counteract some of the things she says and does is to tell her straight out how it makes you feel (of the ‘when you say that I feel this’ type of thing). Which means exposing just how much she hurts you. Ok so that’s received wisdom. Having experience with not just one but two manipulative and passively aggressive mother figures in my life (the second one my stepmother) I would personally be wary of that - your mother sounds to me like someone who needs to control (even if only her own environment and emotional landscape) and I get the sense that were you to open up to her and try and get her to understand just how bad her words and actions make you feel, that would be exposing you to some horrendous power plays on her part. (I could be wrong here, which is why that suggestion occurred to me in the first place.)

But it does strike me that what you are really wanting is for her to somehow understand what she’s doing that’s so hurtful and destructive to you, and in understanding that, she will modify her behaviour. Now that’s a thought, have you actually sat down with her at any time and tried to explain to her what it is about what she says and does that affects you? Because I know from experience (ha ha) that people like that don’t have any sense of how what they do and say affects someone else, and that sometimes telling them does help. (I know I’ve just contradicted myself there - that’s what happens when you’re dealing with tricksy people like this, I always feel as if I’m walking a quagmire and nothing is as it seems.)

I see I’m talking far too much here, as usual.

In reply to the questions in your last post - one of the effects this kind of relationship has had on me is that I have bought into the I am no good not good enough always in the wrong and to blame set up. And even being aware of that hasn’t changed anything. (Which is why I’m in therapy to change it lol).

And yes it has most certainly affected how I relate to other people - for the same reasons - whatever goes wrong in my relationships I always take responsibility for it, accepting that I’m not good enough, not giving enough, wanting and needing too much etc. And yes I tended to isolate - more and more over recent years when I found my relationships with people, friends, were causing me so much pain (and anger!) that I preferred to be on my own where I felt safer. (And even though I’m now married I still don’t have much contact with other people). Oh and I do have cats too

I hope I haven’t overwhelmed you with all the stuff I’ve written in this post.

quote:

Originally posted by Lamplighter:
And even being aware of that hasn’t changed anything.

Being aware has just made me more miserable! Because I know some of the things I do in response to others are ridiculous, but I can't help it. Well, I can, and that's why I'm in therapy, too. Haha. Another effect that these relationships have had on me is that I'm very, very quick to please, because I don't want manipulation to come into play, which passively implies that I've done something wrong. I try my hardest to get things right the first time, even though I really can't be expected to in certain situations. I'm super sensitive to criticism, and this has prevented me from putting myself out there and making mistakes, even though I know that I will benefit from the constructive criticism I will receive (in most cases, so long as it's constructive ).

I also isolate more, because I have unknowingly had the tendency to surround myself with people that make things all about them, because I serve to that. So I isolate, because I get tired of being, essentially, used by other people, including my parents. And I have this mentality that things will never change for me, so what's the point in trying to change? That's a huge thing I deal with, and it's the type of thinking that constantly wants me to high-tail it out of therapy.

And I have a similar question to something that Lamplighter said...I'm assuming you're in therapy? Talking to someone that can actually empathize with situations like yours is surprisingly helpful in just dealing with that person causing all of the grief. For me, it's helped me recognize a lot more of the dysfunctional communication between my parents and me, and it's also helped me deal with it, knowing I have someone on my side.

I do hope that you can get yourself out of this cycle..I know that it's not pleasant.

Lamplighter, You do have good instincts. I'll answer as I read ... Yes, each scenario is just like the others. One would think that since it just repeats itself, an obvious solution would be seen. But the problem is I'M the only one working on this. She is seemingly oblivious. That is one of the problems, and why I was wondering in those former posts if she is BPD. It's been a constant theme in her life: SHE is never to blame for anything. No matter how small. But that she is looking to me as someone to place blame on, is disturbing. One of the highlights of being "normal" is that you have enough self-esteem to absorb being wrong once in a while and it doesn't destroy you. Makes me wonder if HER self-esteem is poor. Her life is very isolated. Now that her husband is dead, she still gets up and goes to work (at 75) because that is where she is most comfortable. But then she doesn't really have many friends - she has phone friends who live out of state who call to check in on her frequently - and she has one golf-buddy who invites her on outings occasionally. But she basically just smokes all day and drinks chardonnay when she gets home from work. Then she's planted in front of the TV til bedtime. No other hobbies than Summer golf, and a walk or lunch with her sister. When people ask her out, she refuses - including me. The title of my book will be, "It's not me, it's YOU."

Don't we all have enormous feelings towards our Mothers? I mean, that's from whence we came, and we've been stuck with them for life. YES, I'd LOVE a mother who wasn't contradictory. Who when she wrote to me "I love you very much." I could believe she was coming from a healthy place. [OJ "LOVED" Nicole, too!] I would LOVE not to be criticized over E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G that is important to me, or special to me. I would love a Mother who didn't "should" all over me. "You SHOULD be grateful ... and so on." She uses that word a LOT! And she says "Most people", as if she's interviewed everyone and has a statistical average on every subject. I'd like to say to her, "MOST mothers build up their offspring with words of encouragement". She also tries to sound like an expert on every subject that comes up, even when she so obviously doesn't have the slightest clue.

Her "alternate universe" has gotten so bad lately. She'll tell her sister that I "stormed out of the house" when all I did was leave after she had insulted me - AND I leave with an "I love you, Mom, have a good day." in her mind, that is "storming out". And, of course, sadly, my Aunt believes her. Which only tarnishes how she perceives me, too. It's like I've been accused of things I don't do, and have been labeled a black sheep, and there is nothing I can do to correct my reputation.

I have seen MANY therapists over the years. None seem to help much, tho. They drain my wallet pretty good! During one go, the first thing I said to this therapist was, "I want to UNDERSTAND my Mother." I thought that if I could conceptualize where she is coming from I could make it work. (Still me doing all the work, see that?) Then, I realized that talking to the therapist alone - without Mom to hear what I feel - wasn't getting the relationship any better, so I asked Mom to come. Get this, I convinced her with this line: "If you go to therapy with me, you can tell the therapist what a horrible daughter I am." With that she agreed! (Sad.) So, we go into the session and I'm bundled up like a child with it's blanky, literally holding a pillow over me like a shield. At one point the therapist asks mom if she "has anything NICE to say about me" ... you know, her DAUGHTER. She sits there in total SILENCE for two-F***ing minutes - which seemed like an eternity - until finally saying, "She's nice to some of her clients." (!) That was it. Session was over, I felt more pain than ever, and just looked at the therapist with a "See what I mean?"

It's like Mom wants me to say, "You are the BEST mother EVER." to cure some sort of guilt she has. I had this conversation with her recently after yet another row. She started accusing me of stuff and I said, "But, Mom, do you not see what you do to get me to the point of rage?" It's cause and effect. I AM actually human, and I don't like someone berating me, insulting me, criticising me, telling me that I am ungrateful when ALL I do is kind things for her. WHO calls her every day to make sure she's still breathing? I do. WHO asks her to spend a Sunday afternoon together? I do. What do I get for all this? "What do you want? I've already talked to you." And the walk in the park was a total disaster. It took an Act of Congress just to find a compromise on where to walk, and IF she would go out with me at all - on a spectacularly beautiful day, BTW. Then, we drive into this gorgeous park, she is walking STEPS behind me. I try to slow down. I see all sorts of people enjoying themselves, but here she is not connecting with me at all. I do my best to make small talk with her ... "What do you and Aunt Jo talk about when you walk?" "Nothing." UGH. So, I ignore her, block her out and listen to the birds. Then I notice that she is huffing and puffing while we are going up a slight incline. I ask, "Do you want to take a break and sit down for a minute?" "There's no place to sit." UGH. I point her to a nearby bench. What does she do? "Do you want to know what Aunt Jo and I talk about when we walk? ... We talk about YOU - and why YOU don't want to be a part of the family." DOUBLE UGH. I then proceeded to tell her why. "Well, Mom, every time you and Aunt Jo get together you talk about people I don't know - people you went to high school with - you totally exclude me and it isn't any fun." Well, as usual, this escalated into a separation between us - I walked up to look at the flower, all the while feeling that familiar cold, icy sensation running through my cells. She finally makes her way up to where I am. I tell her I'm ready to go. She even has the balls after slicing and dicing me on our Sunday walk in the Park, to ask if I want to have lunch with her! Um, HELL NO! During the ride back to my house she continued in on the "You are an ungrateful child" bit, until I actually really wanted to HIT her in the face! I didn't. But it took all my discipline not to. How's that for a nice story? What started out with a simple intention of sharing a beautiful, relaxing day with my Mom, ends with me wanting to beat the life out of her. Ahhh, so nice. The good news is that after she left, I decided I was not going to let her ruin yet another happy place for me, so I drove back there and took pictures of all the amazing flowers and actually met and walked with a lovely lady who was celebrating her birthday. But, the ghost of mom's black cloud remains.

GOD, I'M ALREADY WRITING A BOOK!

Okay, back to the post. No, I don't take on her image of me. In fact, I know who I am inside, and so do others. Maybe when I was a teenager it was worse. But I do retreat from people when I've been stung by her. I begin to put everyone in the same barrel as her - that they don't like me, that they are going to be critical, etc. One other damaging thing she has said to me - as a child - is that the neighborhood girl that I would ask to come over and play with me "didn't want to be my friend. She is only being polite by saying she has piano lessons. She doesn't want to be your friend." (!!!!!!) Wow! Yeah, THAT has stuck with me. I asked her once why she said that. Didn't she know it would hurt me? Her reply? That was what her uncle had said to her once. I asked, "Didn't that HURT you?" She agreed that it did. "Then didn't you think that maybe you shouldn't have said it to me because it would also hurt me, too?"

We've fought, hmmm, actually starting from when she married my step-father when I was 11. Hmmm. That's interesting. When I was a child - and this I have realized before - as you can tell, I spend a LOT of time trying to heal. But, as a child, she had COMPLETE CONTROL over me - what I wore, what I ate, where I was at any given time, etc. And she was NICER then. She had a dating life and a work life that were satisfactory, and I had my darling Grandmother to take care of me - and nurture me. Mom has even said this before, "I never wanted to be a mother - I always wanted to be a career girl." And, yes, she said that in front of me!


I LOVE your comment about withdrawing in order to protect myself from having to agree with their position on me. So true, it's scary.


Another right on the nose comment about IF I share with her my truest, innermost feelings, hoping to hear, "Mommy will make it all better." only to receive more bullying is right on the money! That is also one of her problems: she can't share. (And yes, we've talked about that, too.) I'm starting to see how the ONLY solution to this is to keep doing what I'm doing. I just wish I could manage the pain a little better.


Ooooh,hell, I just got an insight! It IS the pattern that is causing HER "effect". It's always when we've had some good times that she begins to load her weapon again. SHE is most comfortable isolating where SHE is in control of everything. It's the outside stimulus that sets her off. That she might need me scares her. She is so fond of saying she can do everything herself - she won't let anyone pay for anything - she won't let anyone GIVE her anything. She uses words like "I don't want to be an IMPOSITION to any one." I mean, who else says that? She can't reach out and share a happy Sunday because it wasn't HER idea! God, this is good. So every time I think I'm doing something good for her, in her reality it is causing her to go off kilter - off HER schedule, where she is confident and comfortable. THAT'S why she can't go out with others, she has that social deficit thing, what's it called? Anxiety disorder? W-O-W a key to the problem!!!



.

And, do you know what else I want?

I wish it would be one way or the other. This deal of her being nice and then taking aim drives me crazy!

I am so dreading this Sunday, which is Easter. Yet another "holiday" where we are "supposed" to get together as a "family". I don't want to be around her because of the remembrances of things past. The Mother's Day when I wanted to take her out to a nice brunch and we were fighting before we ever got to the restaurant because I wasn't driving the way she thought I should. (I didn't have EXACT directions, but knew generally where the place was and it drove her insane!). Or the other one where I was on my way to pick her up to meet with the Aunt and her family and even though she knew I was heading her way, when I arrived she was getting into their car - completely dismissing me (again).

You just never know what you're going to get. Maybe it will go smoothly and we can remain neutral, but who's to say? She throws her darts at any moment. I never know what or when the assault will take place. THAT is what is also so TIRING. Like the Sunday walk in the park. I was SO HAPPY when we had finally come to an agreement I actually called my friend and proclaimed,"A miracle has happened! I'm actually getting to spend time with my MOM today!!!" It was "supposed" to be a happy day. Afterwards, I just thought, "If we can't even manage something as simple as a walk in the park, then this relationship is over.


It's so sad, because I WANT to have some happy memories of my Mom before one of us leaves this Earth. And, yes, I've told her that, too. I said, "Is THIS how you want our last 10-years together to be?"

Apparently so.

.

Sad.

.

Spagirl it sounds like you’ve turned yourself inside out, bent over backwards and done everything you could have to make the relationship with your mom work out better.

It also sounds as if the way you deal with it now does more or less work for you, in that you can detach yourself when she turns on you and come back to her later when you are not so much in pain. It’s not ideal but maybe that’s the best way for you to deal with it all right now.

I think that maybe what would help you the most is to do exactly what you have been doing, being able to ‘vent’ about the times when she becomes too much and you are folding under the weight of it all. At least you know that it’s not you, that it’s her set up, and with that knowledge maybe it’s possible for you to continue as you are without feeling the need to have to change anything?