Mothers....
PJSiren
Salem, OR Posts: 5,863
Does anyone else have a weird relationship with their mom?
Ok, here is the deal...I dye my mom's hair...highlights/lowlights, been doing it for a while now...well, she wants me to come and do it this weekend and I told her no, because I'm exhausted, I've been working a lot. Last week I worked 6 days, this week, I did house cleaning and errands all day on my day off and didn't get to relax. So last night I decided no I'm not doing her hair this weekend, I'm too tired to travel up to Portland and do her hair and whatever else she wants to run around and do and get a shitty night's sleep on her couch...I need to rest and sleep in my bed. So I texted her last night and told her I wasn't coming...she got all pissy this morning, and she says ridiculous things when she gets mad...she throws awful shit in my face and says things like "I might as well just kill myself..." she's done this my whole life and I am so sick of it.
My hubby says I'm afraid of my mom and in a way I am...like I hate when she says things like that because when I was 11 she did try to kill herself so it opens up that wound all over again and shit. So I walk on eggshells around my mom...the whole fucking family does really...and she knows it and just laughs about it, but really it's not funny...it's hardcore annoying and frustrating to the rest of us.
She acts like a teenager half the time and I don't know why she can't just grow up, I'm 32 and she's almost 52 and I'm more mature than her...how does this happen???
And she's on our cell phone plan and can only pay her bill half the time, I dunno why, she has the money to pay it, but just doesn't pay us...like she thinks it's OK we'll just fund it for her...So my hubby has had enough of that and told me last night that I had to tell her she's off the plan...I just did this and of course she's pissy and thinks she's being treated unfairly...and she just pulled what my 13 year old daughter does... "whatever." Yes my 52 year old mother just whatevered me...you have got to be fucking kidding me...and she just said "Please mail my house keys to me..." see what I mean...she's fucking batshit crazy and says the most ridiculous things when she's angry...
UGH!!!!
Ok, here is the deal...I dye my mom's hair...highlights/lowlights, been doing it for a while now...well, she wants me to come and do it this weekend and I told her no, because I'm exhausted, I've been working a lot. Last week I worked 6 days, this week, I did house cleaning and errands all day on my day off and didn't get to relax. So last night I decided no I'm not doing her hair this weekend, I'm too tired to travel up to Portland and do her hair and whatever else she wants to run around and do and get a shitty night's sleep on her couch...I need to rest and sleep in my bed. So I texted her last night and told her I wasn't coming...she got all pissy this morning, and she says ridiculous things when she gets mad...she throws awful shit in my face and says things like "I might as well just kill myself..." she's done this my whole life and I am so sick of it.
My hubby says I'm afraid of my mom and in a way I am...like I hate when she says things like that because when I was 11 she did try to kill herself so it opens up that wound all over again and shit. So I walk on eggshells around my mom...the whole fucking family does really...and she knows it and just laughs about it, but really it's not funny...it's hardcore annoying and frustrating to the rest of us.
She acts like a teenager half the time and I don't know why she can't just grow up, I'm 32 and she's almost 52 and I'm more mature than her...how does this happen???
And she's on our cell phone plan and can only pay her bill half the time, I dunno why, she has the money to pay it, but just doesn't pay us...like she thinks it's OK we'll just fund it for her...So my hubby has had enough of that and told me last night that I had to tell her she's off the plan...I just did this and of course she's pissy and thinks she's being treated unfairly...and she just pulled what my 13 year old daughter does... "whatever." Yes my 52 year old mother just whatevered me...you have got to be fucking kidding me...and she just said "Please mail my house keys to me..." see what I mean...she's fucking batshit crazy and says the most ridiculous things when she's angry...
UGH!!!!
Music is my Religion and Pearl Jam, my Savior!
Tattooed Dissident!
Tattooed Dissident!
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Comments
First, thank you for such a candid post. Mothers and daughters can have these life-long rifts (probably an understatement), but I think in the end, it's on us as their children to not only take a hard stance with our parent(s), but to forgive them as well - for OUR benefit.
It's liberating and so necessary.
My 84-year-old mom attempted suicide last September. I was so angry with her, and traumatized too (will never forget asking her, "mom, do you know who I am?" because she was so fucking out of it). I cannot imagine an 11-year-old going through that. My adult self couldn't even work for the rest of that week. Just haunting, even now.
I finally wrote her a long letter (we've had other hurdles throughout my life due to her choices that affected us - our family), basically said I'll always love her, but get some help and get your shit together. I think, as she's in this late place in her life, trying to come to peace and reconcile past actions, she's turned a page. I'll never be less than completely and harshly honest with her. It serves us both.
You're young, and your obligation first and foremost is to yourself and your husband, and daughter. It sounds like you've taken the steps to show her this.
Selfishness is many times a good thing, a means of self-preservation. Keep it up, keep speaking your mind. You're under no one's thumb.
(an aside I hope makes you smile - this topic is obviously emotional, and my husband came into the room while I was focused on getting out my thoughts...told him what I was writing about, and he went to blast "Mother" by fucking Danzig)
Yes I needed to take that step and this was the first time I've done that...told her no...I normally do what she wants...which I just last night sitting on the couch realizing how freakin' tired I was and that I still had one more day to work...was like NO I can't go up there this weekend...I have to take a stance...
I love her to death, I do, she raised me on her own and yes had some help from her parents and my uncle, but with no man, my dad was not around...so I do love her for everything she did for me...and I know she sacrificed a lot for me. But she's also since I've been an adult seemed to try to use me...so it's hard.
And dealing with her suicide attempt was very difficult, I am just thankful that my grandparents were there when it happened and my grandma called an abulance and took care of everything...because if I had been alone, I don't know what would have happened, I mean I am sure I would have called for help, but it would have been even more traumatizing than it was.
But you're definitely right about selfishness and in this case I just had to be...and I don't feel bad about it...
Tattooed Dissident!
My Mom was miserable from her Mother up until she passed a few months ago. I know that was the one thing she wished she could change in life. Starting in her early 50's grandma decided she was old and required the family to come do her laundry and take care of her. She was still able to take care of herself but just said screw it.
I hope you are able to find a better balance than my Mom did and good luck.
Fuckus rules all
Rob
Seattle
See she just says hurtful things when she's angry...so I said right back, that she was a child...
Boys do definitely have it easier with their mother's than girls do, CD...it's not fair!
Tattooed Dissident!
When I hit my thirties, I had enough and tried to get her to acknowledge her behavior so that we could move forward. Each time there was a discussion and promises made and each time it took less than a month to throw it all out the window. About five years ago I came to the decision that enough was enough. Thirty years of being my mother's keeper was plenty. I cut off contact, why would I keep such a toxic person in my life strictly because of genetics. I haven't once regretted the decision, her behavior has not changed. Every bad choice she makes is someone else's fault, she still does whatever is best for her regardless of what it does to the people around her.
My mother is someone who shouldn't of had children but she did it because it was the thing to do at the time, when she was done with that (it was no longer getting her the attention she "deserved") she bounced. Simply walked out the door, said by to her 4 kids playing in the yard and went to her new boyfriend's house. To this day she doesn't see it as a bad thing. This is just how she is. I have finally realized that and stopped trying to help/fix someone who doesn't want it.
The best I can say is that if you want and can continue to have a relationship with your mom you have to have very tight boundaries. You can't let her hold you emotional prisoner so that she gets what she wants. That is not healthy for you or your family. It's a hard road to take, I still get major flak for taking the steps that I did "because she's my mother". You have a life, a job and a family that you need to take care of.
In your particular situation described above, I would say the most diplomatic thing to do is offer her an alternative that works with your schedule. If she continues with the emotional hostage crap tell her that until she stops you can't talk to her. Hopefully she will chill out and you two will come up with a solution.
You never really had to begin with.
Sometimes it's not the song that makes you emotional it's the people and things that come to your mind when you hear it.
I told her all this this morning too...and told her that I am tired, and I just can't do it, and that I feel like she doesn't care that I am run down and need to recoop...and she said she does care, but her actions speak volums in the opposite...I think we've gotten past the "mail your keys to me" and "no one gets my number" but she was behaving horribly earlier.
I am going to make things very clear from now on...I just can't let her scare me or walk all over me...I have my family and my job to think about...
Tattooed Dissident!
I won't go into details, but growing up was really hard when you go to school to be bullied, and then go home and get beaten up again.
As a young adult, I had a lot of anger issues, a lot of 'why me', and I realized it stemed from having no guidance. I limited contact and started feeling better about myself, and 7 years ago cut off all contact, my parent also refused to acknowledge their actions...I have never been happier.
I believe people who make mistakes, refuse to own up to them, and then blame others will never grow up mentally, they lack compassion and sensitivity. It's too bad because they are missing out on what it truly means to be 'free' and know what a true relationship is like.
- Christopher McCandless
Like four days on her phone, before my sister finally answered one day. Then she called me and told me what happened. Now mind you, my sister lived up in KC, and I was living in Joplin.. We discussed how we were going to handle things. We called her siblings, and they were exasperated. My Aunt, ( her sister) flew down to Cali, and was our relay in her progress. When she's gotten out of her coma, and put into a convalescent home, she called her brothers, sister, and my sister and I DAILY, to 'inform' us that we all owed it to her to come get her out of there.
At one point, the staff began to call my sister and I begging us to try to convince her to eat.. After like three weeks, my sister started telling the nurses to tell our mother to go ahead and starve herself. They were shocked.. But our mother was infamous for guilt trips.
We ended up moving her out to KC, and we took our inheritance monies from our grandparents' wills, and bought the house where I established the rescue. She made life MISERABLE! This is horrible to admit, but one day she woke up angry, and no one could fix whatever it was she was angry over, so she slapped me across the face. After living through the majority of my childhood with her and her male cohorts a using my sister and I, I snapped. I body slammed her to the floor and beat the God-fearing FUCK out of her. It took my sister, and four other rescue employees to
Pull me off of her. Now.. That was NOT right, but she was one of those people that just was never happy. And it made me sick with anger; more like rage.
When she died, I cried, out of shame; shame that I was filled with joy that her tyrannical reign over my life was finally over.. But your post made me think of her, because she did stupid shit like that all the time. She was the queen of temper tantrums, and guilt trips. The day I started laughing at her threats, instead of cowing to them, was a freeing step.
This is my mom. She never owns up to her mistakes, blames other people...like when she quit her job and made me take care of everything...it was never her fault it was everyone else's fault all the people she worked with their fault she had to quit...like she was being "abused" at work...
Honestly my mom has no idea what that's like I have a friend who puts up with way worse at work than what my mom quit over and she hasn't just quit and walked away because she knows she has to be an adult and pay the bills and find another job first...
And my mom hasn't even been in a relationship with a man since I was like 7...she probably couldn't hold one together...to be perfectly blunt about it. I don't think any man would stick around for her crap...
Tattooed Dissident!
Well. It went over like a lead balloon. And things were never really the same with us. I think she thought I thought she was crazy. No, I think therapy and medication are great things that can help people get through hard stuff. And my mother would have had a much better life if she'd done that, but she never did. She passed away a few years ago and our relationship at that time was better. But it makes me so sad.
What she could have been. How much happier she could have been. What a waste.
Tattooed Dissident!
I really feel liberated today, after having told her NO...you know? I feel better even though it made a huge fight with her...I think it was way past due and I am glad I said it and stuck to my guns this morning with her...and told her some of the stuff I told her.
Tattooed Dissident!
You never really had to begin with.
Sometimes it's not the song that makes you emotional it's the people and things that come to your mind when you hear it.
Fuckus rules all
Rob
Seattle
I glad you took that much needed step, Mandy, cause you're right.. You as your child's mother owe it to her, to be rested and healthy. Hopefully this brings about that much needed change in your relationship with your mom.
Tattooed Dissident!
Tattooed Dissident!