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anyone else find it hard getting on with mum??
hi this might end up being a long one, but here goes!!
basically i have always found it difficult getting on with my mum. to me, she has said some very nasty things thru my life, and messed with my head (maybe even unknowlingly) so in the last few weeks i have decided to try to distance myself from her, but not be nasty or ignore her or anything (which i never am anyway).normally i would see her a few times a week, she would come see me and my daughter.
basically to give you an idea..
i have a 3 year old girl from a failed relationship, and when i first started seeing my now HUSBAND (who is the daddy of my second child-bump) she told me "dont know why you think that man will love you, no-one would ever want you cause you have a baby".(my daughter was 10 months when we got together). .throughtout my life she has many times told me she wished i was never born, that if it wasnt for me and my brother she wouldnt have had to stay with my dad,(who is great to me) and loads and loads of other sick things!! i could write a book, basically!!
she also blantantly ignores me sometimes, when in my own house, walked in house straight past me on xmas day and didnt even say hi, when i was making her dinner!!its like she is only interested in my wee girl, and will cut me off, whereas i would tell my daughter its not nice to butt in and stuff.
anyway, for all my life i have always felt like something must have happened to her in her life/childhood or whatever to make her the way she is, and have mostly felt sorry for her, so have always forgave and forgotten altho she has never once said sorry or brought up anything she has said/done and it has always been brushed under the carpet.
i was not a bad teenager, i did drink, but went to uni got a degree, then got my own house bla bla bla, i did not do anything out of the ordinary or worse than the normal teenager, so i dont know why she seems to hate me so much. (i am now 26)
anyway, the point of my post is....the reason i am distancing myself from her is i get so upset everytime i am with her, or after she's gone becasue i dont have and feel i never will have, a good relationship with her. i see loads other preg people with close mums etc and i want that, but have just accepted i wont have that. last time i was preg i had this major feeling of wanting to protect the baby from her, cause i know how damaging she can be to my emotions, and i feel that way this prgnancy too.
thing is, i know the obvious solution is to talk to her, but i cant...she takes evrything so personally, and would make me the bad one for bringing up things that she did that hurt me.
what should i do, please help, any suggetions would be great.
i have tried talking to my dad about it, but this was hard because for all my life my mum has driven a wedge between us and kind of kept us on her side so i could never talk to my dad. its only been very recently that ive built up a relationship with my dad. he used to come round on saturdays himself when my mum was at work to see me and my wee girl, and it was great to get to know him, without my mum there (that sounds terrible i know). but now my mum off on saturdys that doesnt happen.
my dad has always said my mum just over protective etc, and didnt even know half the stuff i told him had gone on !! (he worked a lot when i was little).
i have talked to my mum thru basic texts over last few weeks as i dont want to cut her off completely, and today she asked if she could come round and see us, or if she could take elise for couple hours (which says to me she has noticed the distance as she had to ask), so anyway i have said that my oh will drop elise off at her tomorrow and i will come collect her , that way i am minimising the time i have to spend with her, but also not stopping my daughter have a realtionshiop with her gran. is that right?
[Modified by: lauragcam on 16 January 2008 12:35:19 ]
basically i have always found it difficult getting on with my mum. to me, she has said some very nasty things thru my life, and messed with my head (maybe even unknowlingly) so in the last few weeks i have decided to try to distance myself from her, but not be nasty or ignore her or anything (which i never am anyway).normally i would see her a few times a week, she would come see me and my daughter.
basically to give you an idea..
i have a 3 year old girl from a failed relationship, and when i first started seeing my now HUSBAND (who is the daddy of my second child-bump) she told me "dont know why you think that man will love you, no-one would ever want you cause you have a baby".(my daughter was 10 months when we got together). .throughtout my life she has many times told me she wished i was never born, that if it wasnt for me and my brother she wouldnt have had to stay with my dad,(who is great to me) and loads and loads of other sick things!! i could write a book, basically!!
she also blantantly ignores me sometimes, when in my own house, walked in house straight past me on xmas day and didnt even say hi, when i was making her dinner!!its like she is only interested in my wee girl, and will cut me off, whereas i would tell my daughter its not nice to butt in and stuff.
anyway, for all my life i have always felt like something must have happened to her in her life/childhood or whatever to make her the way she is, and have mostly felt sorry for her, so have always forgave and forgotten altho she has never once said sorry or brought up anything she has said/done and it has always been brushed under the carpet.
i was not a bad teenager, i did drink, but went to uni got a degree, then got my own house bla bla bla, i did not do anything out of the ordinary or worse than the normal teenager, so i dont know why she seems to hate me so much. (i am now 26)
anyway, the point of my post is....the reason i am distancing myself from her is i get so upset everytime i am with her, or after she's gone becasue i dont have and feel i never will have, a good relationship with her. i see loads other preg people with close mums etc and i want that, but have just accepted i wont have that. last time i was preg i had this major feeling of wanting to protect the baby from her, cause i know how damaging she can be to my emotions, and i feel that way this prgnancy too.
thing is, i know the obvious solution is to talk to her, but i cant...she takes evrything so personally, and would make me the bad one for bringing up things that she did that hurt me.
what should i do, please help, any suggetions would be great.
i have tried talking to my dad about it, but this was hard because for all my life my mum has driven a wedge between us and kind of kept us on her side so i could never talk to my dad. its only been very recently that ive built up a relationship with my dad. he used to come round on saturdays himself when my mum was at work to see me and my wee girl, and it was great to get to know him, without my mum there (that sounds terrible i know). but now my mum off on saturdys that doesnt happen.
my dad has always said my mum just over protective etc, and didnt even know half the stuff i told him had gone on !! (he worked a lot when i was little).
i have talked to my mum thru basic texts over last few weeks as i dont want to cut her off completely, and today she asked if she could come round and see us, or if she could take elise for couple hours (which says to me she has noticed the distance as she had to ask), so anyway i have said that my oh will drop elise off at her tomorrow and i will come collect her , that way i am minimising the time i have to spend with her, but also not stopping my daughter have a realtionshiop with her gran. is that right?
[Modified by: lauragcam on 16 January 2008 12:35:19 ]
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Replies
Sorry it's not much help
Lizzy xxx
At the time i was about 17-18 had been with my hubby 6 months at the time (not married then) and was finally starting to stand up for myself (come out of my shell) and actually tell people what i wanted instead of just agreeing with everyone else even if i didn't want to. It was the first time ever i had said no to my mum if you like. She just blurted all this stuff out about me being a mistake and i would regret my decision if it wasn't for me she would own her own beauty salon and be rich my dad wouldn't have been struggling to pay the mortgage etc etc etc, and that my OH was a bad influence on me and i should dump him and get someone better who could look after me etc etc. (He doesn't have any GCSE or qualifications apart from NVQ's and at the time was unemployed on the dole).
It's not my fault that my mum got pregnant when she was only seventeen and had to leave school, She seemed to think i was going to make all the same mistakes she had and regret things later in life. I did pass my english and did go to university and get a degree I don't regret anything even though i am still barely on speaking terms with my mum I don't know what the problem is but everytime i try to bring back the relationship we used to have before this particular argument I don't get anywhere and as far as she is concerned there is no problem. She still ignores my OH and he's given trying too.
I think being with my OH (14 years this year married for 6) has made me a better person and If my mum is unwilling to see that then it's her problem not mine. I not holding a grudge. My OH has been in full time employment with the same company now for about eight years and although he doesn't have top sales figures every week he is the most consistent seller and makes the company alot of money he might not bring home the biggest wage but I think he has done very well for himself.
Good luck with your mum
I'm sorry to hear you have this situation, but you sound like you've been coping very well so far.
Good luck with the letter - it's probably a good way to approach your mum, and I'm sure writing it will be very useful for you too. At the very least, she has to realise that she must not be dismissive or disrespectful to you in front of your daughter. Also, if she has been so hurtful to you, is there any chance she could be upsetting to your daughter too? I just say this because my grandma was a very strange lady and I wish I'd had less contact with her as a child.
My mother and I have a difficult relationship, although it's going through a mild and ok phase right now. Her mother was peculiar, as I said, and favouritism has always run strong in their family. It's a long old story! Last year my mother admitted that my brother is her favourite child, and it all came to a head when she told me I didn't matter - all she cared about was her son and his children. At the time I was angry and upset, but we taked and it got easier. I'm not sure I trust my mum to love my child as much as she loves my brother's, but that's a bridge yet to cross.
Frankly, I'm hoping we have a little boy so we don't continue this mother-daughter madness! Tho I believe I wouldn't be like my mum and I know my OH wouldn't tolerate the crappy behaviour my mother and her mother before her got away with.
Good luck with your situation - keep putting your daughter and you first!
xx
the letter just basically asked her to clear up some things i remember her saying/doing in my childhood, i nicely worded it and explained i just wanted to understand her better.
firstly she said she hadnt received it, then that it was all jumbled up (i had attached it in microsoft works) so i ended up just pasting it onto email page.
then she said it was all just my hormones from pregnancy affecting me and ill be better soon! how patronising!!so she just avoided answering anything.
she didnt answer anything i asked her in letter about her actions.
i then spoke to her for a while on msn, and she said what did i want to know. i asked her all the things again even tho she knew fine well what i wanted to know.
these were all things that happened during primary school age that i focussed on....she told me she didnt rmemeber any of them happening or saying any of them and maybe i was ILL!!
she said i should try breathing exercises and ill be fine soon!! i have been bothered by the things that have happened with her for years, not just when pregnant...they included that she told me bad things about her dad (she now says that didnt happen), bad things about my dad(she now says that didnt happen) and so much more.
now im freaking and doubting myself...is there some kind of illness where you make up memories!!??its funny how these memories are only from when i lived with her and im perfectly fine now tho.
i had arranged for my wee girl to see her tomoro as i said earlier, but have now said i cant face her tomoro, but she will still see my girl, just not tomoro and she was like "well i really hope you are bringing her tomoro, she hasnt been here for a week ... and ill be telling your dad that you have changed your mind!!...."
emotional blackmail or what. please help!!
could i have been ill and just made it all up in my head and have been thinking all this has happened for years?
also is there any way of retrieving an msn conversation?i want to read over it again and closed the window stupidly!!! (i dont have it set to save automatically)
[Modified by: lauragcam on January 16, 2008 04:41 PM]