Thank you all for listening (err, reading!) to all of this and giving your feedback. It really helped me understand what is really bothering me the most.

It is indeed possible that my mother had a similar relationship with her mother. I don't know much about it, but I do know that when my mother met my father, my grandmother told my mother that she has to choose between her and my father. What kind of weird condition is that? Strange relationships must be running in the family...