advice re disinterested mum

bonjovibel_729

hi there just wanted a bit of advice have been dealing with this for few yrs now and am just wondering whether its something i can fix or whether i just have to live with it...

bit of background i am a 32 yr woman with 3 kids.....i moved out of my mums house as soon as i cud when i was 16 cos we werent getting on very well i bummed around for a bit and eventually settled down around 15 miles away from my mum....she visited id say once every two months....when i had my first child she was very attentive even to the point of coming to the scan with me and my partner....then when the baby was born she visited more frequently...i then had my next child a few yrs later and again she was more friendly towards my new family......in the meantime my sister who is 3 yrs younger was still living at home as was my older brother i also have a another younger sister who moved to blackpool when she was 15 but thats another story lol...

my sister got pregnant 3 and half years ago while still living at home...a few months later i discovered i was pregnant too again....however i found my mum becoming increasingly indifferent towards me making up silly lies about where she was going....who she was with....even to the point where she said she was in work...and i went to go see her and she wasnt there...i have never confronted her about this...my mum attended all of my sisters appointments with her and as it was her first i had no issue with this....apart from the fact that she now refused to see her first two grandchildren unless i brought them down to her which was now inreasingly difficult as she kept making excuses...

my sisters baby was born with a birthmark across her face and had to go up to a hospital in london...however instead of saving and paying for the trips herself my sister was depending on my mum to pay for the trips even tho she does not earn much...i found it increasingly hard to bite my tongue about this as my sisters partner was wasting money on computer games and then expecting my mum to pay to take his daughter to hospital....whenever i did see my mum she wud complain about having to pay for this so i stepped in and told my sister i did not think it was fair expecting my mum to pay for it when shes wasting money on rubbish....i then had the whole of the family turn against me and my mum even denied sayin that she was not happy about paying for the trips.....i did not contact anyone in the family for the next 6 mnths but slowly we have built up a releationship again.....

when my son was born my mum did not come and visit me or him in hospital even tho i had a caesarean and said seeing as i had had two previously i did not need her.....obviously when my sister went in to labour she took the week off work as the same with my younger sister...

we moved into a new house 2 yrs ago only a 10 min train ride away from where my mum lives and she has not been to visit us once....my husbands family live in glos and its now a standing joke between us that they have visited more times than my own family who live a train ride away....

my mum has just come back from visiting my younger sister in blackpool and i am finding it increasingly hard not to completely cut my mum out of my life altogether....she makes absolutely no effort to contact us or see us and think why shud i bother when she obviously does not care about us...

it makes me really sad when i think she is the only mum i am ever going to get (my dad died when i was younger) and i dont want to lose her but think i cant carry on feeling like this...i dont want to sound like a jealous sibling but i do feel that my kids deserve some sort of relationship with theyre nan as do i with my mum but am fed up of coming second best to everyone else in the family...

sorry for the long post but am hopin to get some of this clarified in my head thanks lol

LondonDiva

Before I can respond, it would be helpful to know:

How often you go to visit your mother
What non-kid things you've done for / with her over the past couple of years
How often you call / email her
Whether you have a partner
If you have a partner, is it a supportive relationship

ailuro2

Be happy your kids have one decent set of grandparents...?

I don't speak to my mother either.
There's no law stating you have to cherish your family members no matter what... some people are petty, small minded, prone to favouritism and can't see what's in front of their nose.
Sometimes those people are family, so we have to decide what to do about it.

you have a number of options.

1. Cut off contact.
2. Keep in touch by phone but not visit each other.
3. Keep in touch, you do all the visiting and keep shtum about how she visits your siblings.
4. Invite her to come to your house just for birthdays and you go to her the rest of the time. Don't hold it against her if she misses the train/ pretends to be working.
5. Go visit her and try to get them to change the way they have decided to live, fall out with them, go back to option 1 for a while.;)

Only you can choose how to handle it, because only you know what you Mum is like. All the people in the world telling you it's unfair won't change the way your Mum thinks, will it? As I said before be happy your parents inlaw are nice folk, your kids will benefit greatly from seeing them and having them in their life. Have you thought maybe your Mum thinks this way too, that you are already 'sorted' and the younger ones need more of her help since they have partners who are wasters sitting playing games all day so someone has to help her daughter?

SugarSpun

Have you talked to your mum about this? Why not go and visit her and tell her quite calmly, Mum, you seem to spend much more time with my sisters than with me, and it seems like you don't want to bother with me or my kids. That makes me feel like I don't want to bother with you either, but I love you and I value our relationship, so can we sort this out before it becomes the sort of problem we can't get over?

Edit: it's not wrong to cut off contact from a parent, but it's a big step and you should be sure you want to do it.

bonjovibel_729

LondonDiva wrote: »

Before I can respond, it would be helpful to know:

How often you go to visit your mother
What non-kid things you've done for / with her over the past couple of years
How often you call / email her
Whether you have a partner
If you have a partner, is it a supportive relationship

hi there in response to the above:

i dont really visit or call my mother that often anymore as when i do she always has my sister there even tho she has moved out now or is going to visit my sister or is looking after my niece or some other excuse so tather than go down there and be lied to i just dont bother anymore.

as i am a stay at home mum i dont really get to spend anytime with just my mum..that was another bug bear of mine i am the only one in the family with a car so whenever someone wants to go shoppin or watever they wud ring me up to get a lift even tho i was not invited on the actual shoppin trip just to drop them off

i do have a husband and he is very supportive of me but he really know what to say to my predicament as his releationship wth his parents is gr8 but my two sisters also have partners too

i think another issue they have with me is the fact i have my own house and car...theyre always sayin things like...ooooh how can u afford that or how can u have your own house....like i havent worked my butt off for the past few yrs to get these things...(i was working)

bonjovibel_729

SugarSpun wrote: »

Have you talked to your mum about this? Why not go and visit her and tell her quite calmly, Mum, you seem to spend much more time with my sisters than with me, and it seems like you don't want to bother with me or my kids. That makes me feel like I don't want to bother with you either, but I love you and I value our relationship, so can we sort this out before it becomes the sort of problem we can't get over?

Edit: it's not wrong to cut off contact from a parent, but it's a big step and you should be sure you want to do it.

hi thanks i have tried to address this issue with my mum before but she just denies that there is any problem and says i am imagining it to the point where i wonder if i actually am lol but when my kids come out with things like....when i say lets go see nanny they say whats the point she will only be out with auntie ***** if my kids can see it then surely i am not imagining it lol

myothercarisaferrari

bite your tongue and visit her

Indie_Kid

bonjovibel_729 wrote: »

that was another bug bear of mine i am the only one in the family with a car so whenever someone wants to go shoppin or watever they wud ring me up to get a lift even tho i was not invited on the actual shoppin trip just to drop them off

You need to start saying "no".

January20

You can't change other people's attitude and behaviour but you can change your own.

If you mother doesn't see that there is a problem, you won't be able to make her change. I'm not making excuses for her, as I believe she should treat all her children the same, but perhaps her having 3 daughters with children to visit is too much for her. Perhaps the demands of your sisters are too difficult to refuse whilst you living away are easier to fob off?

If I felt my family members were using me, for lifts in the car for instance, I would start turning them down. People will only treat you badly if you allow them. Whether they are your family or not doesn't matter.

Oldernotwiser

I can't see how you can complain that your mother doesn't visit you when you don't visit her. Why should she always have to come to you?

blabberwort

Theres no rule to say you have to like or need a relationship with your family. I would sit down and think about wether continuing to try and have a relationship with you mum is causing you more stress and worry than the alternative of giving up and getting on with your life. Be honest with yourself, as theres really no right or wrong answer, it's entirely up to you to decide. If you decide to continue trying to have a relationship then I think you need to sit your mum down and tell her how you feel. If your sister is always around then so be it, it wont hurt your sister to hear a few home truths.