My Mother

Yes, we have stopped trying. It's just we're young and it would not be a big deal for us to help her.

My husband has a pretty nice relationship with his mother. She accepts help and we do activities together. She also has a daughter who is my age and their relationship looks very normal, at least the way I see it. They don't avoid each other and do things together. I never noticed any tension between them.

I am pretty confused. I also feel very strange in front of my in-laws because we spent the Christmas time with them and did not visit my mother afterwards.

How accurate is the following? It sounds like a basic problem is that if you speak to your mother about personal things, she wants to judge and intervene. She directed you and did everything for you in the past and she still wants to. You on the other hand would just like to be able to speak with her, have her hear you out, and just be supportive without actually judging or trying to intervene.

That is pretty accurate! And to add to that, I think she wants to be involved in my life as much as possible and know everything there is to know about me.

And indeed one of the problems is that I hate being judged by her. I am not saying I cannot accept criticism, it's just like the way she judges me... For example she blamed me for getting a cold on several occasions as if getting sick was my choice. And as I mentioned earlier she finds a lot of things I do cute, silly or adorable. I am a grown person and I find it a little offensive that she treats me that way... I am educated, I am working and I am married. I mean, seriously!

If I asked her to spend all of her free time on being involved in my life and discussing my life she would definitely dedicate all her time to that. I think that would even make her happy. But I find that idea very scary...

I remember her telling me that there is nothing happening in her life and nothing will happen in her life, therefore we should talk about me and what I am doing, because my life is so much more interesting.

My mother was a great reader. Preferred that to company.
I was pretty isolated as a kid, probably contributed to my social phobia.

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I was pretty isolated too. And she didn't really allow me to invite friends over often. It's ok, I am not blaming her for that.

I don't really think reading has anything to do with her current behavior, I just mentioned it trying to analyze things. What Bill3 pointed out looks like the main issue that is bothering me.

What are your thoughts on ways to address/improve the situation?

Oh I see! That's different! Makes sense

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My general thought about the problem:

1. She doesn't seem to want to have a life of her own outside her work and her family. Ever since I stopped talking to her a lot, she started talking with her sister really a lot. They would spend a considerable share of time discussing and speculating about me and about my cousin (my mother's sister's daughter) and her child.

2. She would like to be involved much more in my life, but her way of being more involved makes us fight.

3. I feel bad for not being able to have a better relationship with her.

4. Staying at her place for more than a couple of days makes me incredibly nervous and anxious.

My solution for the problem:

Keep doing what I am doing: talk to her once in a while but keep my boundaries, send her postcards and birthday presents.

Maybe there is no better solution

I get the sense that you feel resigned to that solution: that you are not content with it but you don't see anything better to be possible. Yes?

That is correct, yes.

Would you be open to considering changes, ways that things might become better?

My mom would never change....I just had to accept her for who she was. Good times without stress we enjoyed together...the times when not we stayed away from each other until it blew over for her....sometimes we just need to know how to deal with that DBT term "radical acceptance". Not good or bad it just is what it is & learn how to work our way around it making the best we can out of the situation....accepting them for who & what they are & same for ourselves.....seemed like my only way around the situation I experienced with my mother.

In a perfect world - yes. But as I mentioned earlier, I cannot really reason with her. I often describe our communication as "working on different frequencies": whatever message I send out to her she will interpret it in her own way.

eskielover, I just looked up radical acceptance. I will try to learn it.

I think that the idea of radical acceptance here is that you don't try to reason with her, you simply accept how she is.

Instead of trying to change her, you try to change yourself.

Why would you do this?

You might reason as follows:

I hear you. And don't really try to reason with her anymore. I try to let things go, but some things really get to me. Example:

Last month I sent her my most recent picture. She looked at the picture as said I look nice. On the next day she calls me and says: "I was analyzing your picture. I think you are pregnant and you're not telling me. You didn't gain weight because your face is not fat, but your belly is protruding and therefore you must be pregnant. I discussed this picture with your aunt and she agrees with me that you look like you might be pregnant". I told her that I am most definitely not pregnant. Her response was that even if I was pregnant I wouldn't have told her.

Although we didn't have a fight and it wasn't a big deal, I felt bad after that conversation because
1. even my mother thinks that I look pregnant, therefore I must be fat (I did gain weight actually, thank you for noticing)
2. my mother thinks that I wouldn't have told her in case of my pregnancy

What I am trying to say is that her way of intervening is upsetting me. I can indeed use the advice above and respond with a neutral phrases to the things she is saying. I think I am doing that most of the time now actually.

"And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation -- some fact of my life -- unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment." - Dr. Paul Ohliger

Yeah, that was a challenging test of being accepting!

Good job of not getting into a fight!

How did you actually respond in the moment?

To the pregnancy question? I just said no. She talks a lot more than I do. After I said no she continued saying that it's probably the jacket that makes me look that way. When she said that I wouldn't have told her if I was actually pregnant - I think I didn't say anything to that. What can I say? She then switched the topic to something else.

Thanks! This is potentially really helpful then...even when she says something thoughtless, she speaks so much and so quickly that if you don't react in a major way the moment can pass safely and she is on to something else. How much of a general pattern is that with her?

Interesting too that she went on to blame the jacket rather that making a personal affront to you.

It sounds like sometimes she says stuff that she doesn't mean to be offensive but she is a maybe little clumsy verbally and it can come across as being offensive. How often does that happen?

Interesting for me, I worked so hard to be nothing like my dysfunctional mom that I came up with my own different dysfunctional crap dealing with my own daughter. It's so sad when we don't have a good role model or mentor to learn from.....figuring out how to deal with life on our own is definitely a challenge & we usually act out OD our emotional mind rather than logical.

Dealing with your mothers comments has to be difficult. Sounds like she doesn't think about what she's sayin g before it comes out of her mouth....given your reaction I'm guessing she's been like this. All your life & you are just now trying to learn a new better way to react to her.

Remember radical acceptance doesn't place good/bad, right/wrong on the person....it's just the way they are....it sounds like this is really the direction you have been moving in......but....

Just remember the more time you do spend around a person like that the more your frustration level rises & the harder it is to be successful with radical acceptance......best to limit the exposure IMO at least in the beginning of working on this so you can get some positive experiences in handling those situations....you are doing a better job than I ever did, probably because I ended up marrying a very dysfunctional H so my patience level was already maxed out when my mom would throw her stuff at me on top of everything else.

Good job working on this...lol....I don't have the problems with my daughter that existed between my mom....but then my daughter hates talking on the phone to anyone (not just me) & uses text to communicate to everyone. Back before smart phones & lower cell phone rates I refused to pay the cost for texting....we never communicated....now we communicate much more often about more personal things...especially after I left her dad.

Relationships with either insensitive people or overly sensitive people is probably the most difficult challenge in life.

It's like that most of the time with her.

In this case she didn't blame me for gaining weight, but on many other occasions she blames and shames me in some jokey ways. I find it much harder to deal with those because I take them personally. One example is that she would blame me for coughing and I ended up hiding my colds from her.

That happens pretty often. Outside a fight she would never say anything really bad.

*****

I just talked to her... for more than 40 minutes. Her share of the conversation in terms of word count was at least 90%. It all started with her telling me that she was getting notifications about a second connection to her email account. I proposed I change the email password for her, she agreed, and I did. Turns out she didn't have a clear understanding about what an email account password is and what it is useful for.

Then she mentioned that she would like to start renovating her kitchen. I asked her why wouldn't she finish renovating the rooms first. She gave me a long answer about how okay she is with the rooms being the way they are now and that she doesn't mind the scratched floors and the (ugly looking in my opinion) windows. Then she started doubting about what should be the priority in terms or renovations. Then she started telling me how much she doesn't trust the people doing the renovations. Then she asked for my opinion what would I change in her kitchen. Instead of saying "everything" (my opinion) I said "I don't know". It's her kitchen, she should decide how she wants it.

Then she started speaking in monologues where I would just occasionally say yes or no. She told me about her sister buying a coat and herself buying sweaters. She told me about the shops, what her sister thinks about the shops and that her sister prefers talking about her shopping experience rather than her daughter and her family.

Then she asked about my husband and I told her that he is on a work trip right now. She blamed me for not telling her that earlier. -- Ok, maybe I should have told her earlier. I don't really think it is a big deal though.

Then she asked me if I heard what has happened in Germany during the New Years eve. And then she started telling me the news about how women got assaulted by the asylum seekers. She would quote the news and blame the German government for not taking any reasonable actions. I didn't say anything to that. My response would have been that you cannot punish millions of people for the misdeeds of just a very small group, but that would have made the conversation even weirder.

Then we ended the conversation.

******

We didn't fight and I kept my answers brief. It was not a satisfying conversation for me, but at least we didn't argue.

Yes, she was like that as long as I can remember and she doesn't like coming out of her comfort zone to make any substantial changes. We used to fight because of her comments, but then I figured that the less she knows the less comments she can make. I started withholding information from her. I don't remember the last time I told her I had a cold (I get a pretty bad cold at least once a year. I am recovering from one at the moment), I try not to talk about my other health issues, I had a small driving accident I never told her about... I was only telling her the good things, like the trips I have taken or the nice people that I have met.

Some months ago I decided to give it a try and change this. I told her that I started taking an antidepressant to help me dealing with work. She accepted this information, took her time to process and research it, and discuss it with somebody. She would bring this up every time I would talk to her. She would tell me about the things she had read about it. She really liked discussing it and it drove me crazy. I had to stop the antidepressant and I told her. Then she criticized me for stopping it and there was another discussion.

I decided then that I should just keep some information to myself. Discussing some personal things with her just does not make me feel better.

I couldn't agree more!

My husband has a good relationship with his mother. When we talk she tells us what she did. She likes hiking, cycling and ice skating, going to dance classes and she is open to new activities. She became a grandmother a couple of months ago so she is really into knitting now. When we talk to her we tell her what we did and she tells us what she did and/or what has happened in the family. I am not saying there is never any tension, but it's a kind of tension that is easy to handle. I have never seen them having a real fight like between me and my mother.

Thank you for sharing that conversation with us!

You showed excellent listening skills in being able to report so much, and in such detail.

This conversation was not satisfying and would not be a goal, but it sounds like it was positive/progress in that no fight occurred.

What was it like for you when she blamed you for not telling her about your husband's trip?

How much do you enjoy discussing anything with her? --versus-- How much do you speak with her out of a sense of obligation?

Bill3, your questions are really insightful!

That was just a brief summary The actual conversation was really long

I felt a little guilty

Unfortunately, I hardly enjoy discussing anything with her. I do feel obliged to stay in contact.