Hi all,

I have a strange problem with my mother which is hard to describe. I would like ask your opinion about it.

My mother is almost 65 and I am 28. We live in different countries, don't see eachother often and don't talk too much (she would like to talk more though).

The Story

She has raised me alone: my father died when I was 3 and she never remarried nor dated anyone again. My grandmother died when I was 7, which made things even more difficult for my mother. My mother worked as a music teacher her whole life. She worked a lot and she had to listen to children playing bad music every day 5 days a week. We would do some activities together, like walk in a park or take a trip somewhere.

We were fighting quite a lot as far as I can remember it. But I am not sure what it was anymore. It was not the money, I never did drugs nor smoked anything, never hanged out with shady people... She was always very protective and very caring. Too caring actually. I remember some friends of her would say things like "If she (me) asked for the Moon you (my mother) would get it for her".

When I turned 18 I moved out to study in a different city. I couldn't really live with my mother anymore and I had a good excuse. I would come back for the weekends but we would fight frequently, so I stopped coming back often. I was getting along with the landlady (she was living in the same house) much better than with my mother and I prefers the landlady's company over my mother's... My mother did visit me a couple of times, but it was some sort of a mental struggle for me.

When I turned 22 I moved out to another country to continue my education. We would see eachother once a year. When I met my now-husband at the age of 25 she didn't take it well. She did say some mean things like "You'll get over this one and you'll find another one" and "You can't live without a d***". When she has realized that me and him were serious, she started crying about it.

Last year we got married. My mother was invited to the wedding although I had a bad feeling about it. Throughout the wedding she was obviously too worried (it was creeping me out a little): she played with her necklace until it got completely tangled and I had to untangle it. Then she offered me some pills (probably some herbal stuff) to calm my nerves. I found that offer really weird because I was only a little nervous (it's my wedding day after all). Throughout that day I had an impression she was treating me as a child, telling me to behave at the table and not speak too loud. Long story short, at the end of the day we had a fight where I said she should stop treating me like I am a small child and she told me what a horrible person I am, that my family in-law will soon find out how bad I really am and that every time she talks to me she wants to kill herself. I was shocked. I didn't want to stay in a fight with her on my wedding day so I went and apologized to her. We didn't visit her for Christmas this year (she wasn't really inviting us).

My husband is rather easy going and he generally wants to visit her. She made a big fuss about it when we decided to visit her together for the first time and started renovating the rooms. She did it in a very strange way - she didn't do anything with the windows and the doors, but she hired men to do the walls, and she didn't do anything with the scratched floor afterwards. She was very upset about the noise and the dust from the renovation, and that they have scratched the floor. When we arrived, the renovation was "finished". My husband thought that it would be a good idea to help her out and paint the windows and the doors the next time we visit her. The next time (6 months later) we went there and started renovating one door. Again, my mother started complaining about the dust and something else and made a really big deal out of it. She started saying things to me. I lost my temper and I screamed at my husband because it was his idea. I never screamed at him before because he is a sweetheart. I felt awful on so many levels.

Now she lives in this strange partially renovated apartment. A lot of things (like painting the floor) can be done, but she is not doing it. I decided to stop getting involved, whatever I will do it will probably make her angry. And I don't talk to her much anymore. I am afraid to tell her things because she overreacts to everything. If I told her that I had problems at work she would not sleep at night thinking about it. And then call me to talk bout it. Every day probably. She doesn't have many friends and she likes to gossip a little (although she would not admit it).

We don't seem to have any interests in common, but is that important? Once me and my husband suggested that she finds a new hobby and she found that very insulting. She immediately brought up 'a hobby' a friend of hers who spends lot of time on the internet dating sites. Oh, what a horrible thing to do for a single woman!

I keep telling myself that I cannot change her in any way, I can just change my way of interacting with her. My solution was to not talk to her much. But I feel bad about it every day. She lives alone and I am her only child.

So the questions is... How come we don't get along? She is still working, she is not drinking, she is caring and she did so much for me. I would appreciate any feedback.