I did try to suggest counseling. She's old fashioned (had me late in life - I'm 31 now) and doesn't believe in that stuff. I tried to recruit some family members to convince her. The response I got from them was "the only person you can ever change is yourself." Obviously, that wasn't a big help on their part.

It used to be much worse. When I decided to move 2 hours away for a job, it just happened to be near my fiance's hometown. My mother was exceptionally verbally jealous of this. When I did live w/ her for a time after my dad died, she'd clean my bureau's & my closets while I was in work! It was ridiculous. Fiance & I went hiking once & got home an hour later than we said we would, she flew into a rage...she thought something had happened to me. Don't I know that she's lost enough already?! All these are reasons WHY I took a job 2 hours away.

Since the move, our relationship DID improve. But, I've noticed in the past year or so that she's funny about my social life. If I tell her I'm going out after work on a weeknight, she reminds me that I have to be up early for work the next morning. When we're out visiting her, if I make plans to go out w/ friends in the evening, she'll corner me & my fiance before we leave and remind us not to drink too much (I get a hangover about 3 times a year...I'm NOT a frequent drinker).

When fiance & I moved in together my mom started this campaign...came up w/ a million excuses to tell family as to why we decided to live together w/out getting married. I couldn't even buy my godfather a card for Father's Day this past weekend? Why? Because my mom has been known to by cards FOR ME, forge my signature & send 'em out. So, w/ her not talking to me this past week, I didn't know if she had sent him a Father's Day card in my name or not! Didn't want to show up @ his house w/ a card if I had supposedly already sent one.

And no matter how much I ask her to stop this stuff, she doesn't listen. But I digress. The main issue here is her silent treatments. Her tactic for punishing me (like she used to punish dad) whenever she's displeased with something we do. I don't respond well to that strategy. Right now, I'm in patient enough to keep calling her to talk this out - it would just lead to an argument.

But when we do finally talk, it is NOT going to go well.

I love my mom, but I really don't like her much. I just wish I could find a productive way to sit her down & talk to her. But she takes everything tremendously personally. To the point that if you make a criticism of the town she lives in, she looks at it as a personal attack on HER. If I may a criticism of a pregnant lady I saw smoking @ a bar, she feels the need to detail how careful SHE was when she was pregnant.

Umm...mom? I'm not talking about You. Talking about someone else.

Yup. There's a couple sentences I say pretty frequently.