I will never forget when I asked for a raincoat for Christmas (removable inner lining) and it was 2 sizes too big. I was shocked out of my gourd as my stepmother had been buying my clothes or insisting on going with me to buy them for the 20-25 years we'd known each other. It finally dawned on me that I was mentally/psychologically "bigger" to her, she felt inferior to me! Bits and pieces of past conversations came back to me; how she was jealous of my getting to go to college (her younger brothers got to go but it was the Depression and she was a "girl" so was sent to secretarial school instead) and I have nice, wavy hair and hers is straight as a stick, etc.

I don't think your mother knows how to cope/deal in an adult fashion (hence all the men to "take care of" her) so I'd give up that she will ever apologize for what she cannot acknowledge. She does not sound like a grown up, so cannot act like one?