I'm 43 and I feel my mother still controls me!

I have been married for 5 years and live about 2000 miles away from my mother. However, I still feel she controls my actions. She is 82 years old and very good for her age. She still mows her own yard, shovels snow does all the outside work on her own. I am going to go visit her in 2 weeks and I dread it because I feel I revert back to my old self. Already she is saying things like "What is the one thing you are going to remember to bring?" She is referring to the hat she always asks me to bring because she doesn't think I should step outside without one or I might get burned. I NEVER wear a hat, in fact I can't stand to have one on my head for more than 10 minutes, but I keep this one on the shelf and bring it out once a year when I go visit her. I can't go and work in the yard in my own clothes when I visit because she doesn't want me to get them dirty so she has me put on these old clothes she keeps in the basement that have holes and are stained so I look homeless when I'm working in the yard.

She is afraid of travelling 5 miles beyond where she lives and she never liked it when I had to drive to like the other side of town. She made it seem like it was totally unnesscessary like it was just an unfathomable distance. And this is when I was 27 years old! I was still living at home with her because she didn't want me to leave because I kept her company. But I mean there were times where I'd tell her on Wednesday that Friday I am going to go and see my boyfriend. Well she'd be all watchful on the weather because she always has to know what it's like. If they were predicting 2" of snow that night she'd start saying "Oh wow, they are talking about snow that night. The roads will probably be bad." I'd shrug it off. The next day she'd mention 2 or 3 times "Oh they say it may snow a lot tomorrow night. Oh and they say it may turn to ice too.". Then it would be the day of and like an hour before I was going to leave and she'd bring up how bad it was going to snow, but yet never say "I want you to stay home" and if I still went out, I could expect the silent treatment for the next couple of days. I hated that so I always broke my plans with some lame excuse and ended up staying home while all my friends would go out. The funny thing is, if one of my friends wanted to travel across town in a snowstorm to pick me up and then take me back across town and then take me home a few hours later, she was perfectly happy with that. But if I had to drive she would do everything in her power to make me not go.

I know when I'm home I will want to go out and see people but even then she gets snobby with me because I am going to meet up with friends at a bar in the evening and then the next morning the first words out of her mouth are "What time did you get home last night?" I'm 43 years old! Why does it matter. Then I tell her 9PM and she has a sigh of relief "Oh I must have been sound asleep I didn't hear you." She's always afraid I'm not going to come home until 2AM. I haven't seen 2AM in at least 10 years! Does she think I'm going ot go out and meet a man and go back to his place or something? I'm married as are all my friends!

She was always telling me what to wear when I'd get ready for school. I'd come out with a skirt on and she'd tell me 'It's too cold to wear that. Go change." She never had a job when I was growing up and was always there. I'd make my lunch the night before and she'd be sitting in the kitchen watching me and I got an onion out to slice for my sandwich and she said "Oh I don't think you need to have an onion on there. It will make your breath smell bad". I have just always been under her watchful eye. It doesn't help that she barely has any friends and never goes anywhere. I f she was fun loving and got out of the house I'm sure she wouldn't care what I did, but I could never even go to the mall by myself in my 20s because she always wanted to come along for something to do. I would literally leave work 30 minutes early just so I could drive around downtown by myself and see what was going on because I could never be in the car without her unless I was going out with friends!

This may sound harsh, but I mean it with best intent. Have you considered talking to your mother about how you feel? You are an adult, and married and out of the house. YOu control what you do. You may just need to tell her straight up that you aren't a child anymore and are capable of having a thought process. You are also capable of acknowledging the consequences of any action you take. I really don't think your mom is trying to control you, but doesnt realize that she is causing your strife. You really need to let her know that this needs to stop, or she will continue to do it.

Two weeks is a really long visit! You absolutely have to schedule time to see other people and do things on your own. That will make the time you do spend with your mother a lot better for both of you, whether she realizes it or not.

One thing that might be effective with your mother is not telling her about your plans to visit friends until you are leaving to see them. Then you won't have to listen to her moaning about you going for two days beforehand. If she gives you the silent treatment afterwards, you could tell her 'Since you seem like you want to be left alone, I'm going to go shopping,' and just leave.

Keep reminding yourself that you are not the one who is being unreasonable. If it's easier to just give in for the two weeks, that's fine too - but if you don't want to, you don't have to. I don't think she is going to change at 82, but you can still change how you interact with her.

Set boundaries. Enforce said boundaries. Its not easy, but its the only way to get her to lighten up. That means you tell her how you feel, you tell her what is and what is not acceptable, and you tell her the consequences for crossing those boundaries. When she crosses those boundaries, you enforce the consequences. (Most people fail the boundary thing in the enforcement part. Without the enforcement, everything else is useless.)

Hmm, she sounds like Everyone Loves Raymond's mother. You have the typical sitcom mom. Or the mom where you only hear her voice on The Big Bang Theory.

At 82 years old, I don't think you are going to change her tbh. She never had a job? Well, yes she most certainly did, she was "your mother" and she doesn't know how to retire. That does not compute with her hard drive my dear.

You are doing your duty and visiting her, but she will not be retired as "your mom". Sorry about that. But you can try, leave the hat home, and if you want to do yard work, pack your own "better looking" yard working clothes. If she asks about "where is that hat" be honest and tell her your scalp is tough enough now so the sun doesn't bother it.

Women her age did wear hats in the sun, as I said, part of her hard drive.

It sounds like she's just very lonely and is still trying to baby you, which although annoying, doesn't sound like it's done out of ill-feelings or harm to you. Matter of fact she's trying to keep you safe, albeit in a very controlling way. My dad told me that his mother would "talk down" to him even into his 30s, she was a very feisty woman who was harsh and authoritarian in her own old-fashioned (loving) way. He said he eventually had to sit her down and tell her that he was all grown up now and didn't like the way she talked to him like he was still a child. He said after that talk, she never treated him that way again. I guess she just needed a reminder. Maybe this is what you need to do with your mom as well. And consider yourself lucky - my mom couldn't care less where I was, who I was with, or what I was doing.

Is there any way you can tell her you'd just rather wear your own clothes and don't care if they get dirty? She sounds like kind of a mommy dearest.