Can't Cope with my 80 year old Mother any more

Mojisola

SlimmingSusan wrote: »

No contact at the moment, but to know she is looked after and my son is not being put on is all I want and need, whatever it takes

Oh my goodness, gaslighting, now the light is coming on.

How do I recover from this?

Your son is horrible to you and is praised to the skies by your mother - why are you trying to protect him?

Let the two of them get on with it.

clarryd

I can only sympathise with you SlimmingSusan.

I think that some elderly women think they have a god given right to say what they want even though it upset's and annoy's everyone else.

They are fully aware what they are doing and even when you mention it is not nice saying these horrible things they just continue.

My mother died many years ago but I still have a MOL and she is the worse for belittling me. I think she intentionally tries to upset me and like your mother SlimmingSusan she has no problem saying exactly what is on her mind about me. But the difference is I don't have to take it she has no respect for me and tries to make out that we have this understanding. Well I told her we don't have an understanding, and you can't just say what you like to me and I'll take it.

I think this stem's from when we got married, 3 years ago, we had been together 18 years so just wanted to get it over and done with so we went abroad on our own and just did it.

But since New Year I have hardly had anything to do with her. She sent me a rather upsetting text message just before the bell's and I cried all night through the bell's and afterwards. I told her that was the last straw. I can hardly bring myself to speak to her now as she stepped over the line.

My sister keeps telling me that she is old and my husband doesn't seem to care that all she does is upset's me. Nobody else bother's with her in the family it was just me. I took her shopping, bingo, up to the cemetery etc, but I have put a stop to all of it now.

I think she realises that enough was enough and has tried to be nice to me lately but the damage has already been done. I will be civil for the sake of my husband but everything else has gone.

And the moral to this story is:::::

there will come a time when you have to think enough is enough and cut the ties as I did.

rach_k

If your son treats you in the same way, leave him to deal with her. I wouldn't see it as putting anything on him, I think you'd actually be doing him a favour. If he's gone through his life thinking it's okay to treat people like that, it doesn't bode very well for his own family's happiness. A good dose of being treated like rubbish himself might help him realise the error of his ways and may lead to a much better future for him, in pretty much every way.

SlimmingSusan

My son is the golden boy, he is never treated badly

his_missus

I have no experience of this but I didn't want to just read and run.

You MUST put yourself and your health first. If that means walking away from your mum for a while then so be it. There clearly are other people (your son, social services etc) who can support and look after your mum so you should not feel guilty for doing this.

Perhaps, if you are no longer there at her beck and call, she will begin to appreciate how much you have actually done for her.

I agree with missprice that whenever your mum is hurtful you tell her you won't accept it and leave/hang up the phone.

I hope you can find a way to cope with all of this but please, please, please look after yourself and put nobody before your health xx

pmlindyloo

I have great sympathy with you having a very difficult elderly mother myself.

The guilt is overwhelming because no matter how horrible they are you say to yourself 'she is still my mother'. This, coupled with the fact that she is elderly, allows you to make excuses for her behaviour.

Cutting her out of your life has to be balanced with the guilt you might feel for doing this. Such a decision can actually achieve just the opposite effect to what you were hoping for (and deserve) and make you feel worse.

Of course cutting her off is the obvious thing to do. No one should put up with such behaviour.

Someone posted about what you actually WANT to do. It is unlikely that you are going to change all of her behaviour at her age but what you can do is take control of the situation.

Some of us can do this quite easily. Others find it much more difficult and from your posts you seem to have difficulty with taking control and making your wishes/thoughts known. Being a 'victim' describes it well.

You are already receiving counselling and I am thinking that there may be some help available for you to become more assertive. You obviously have the beginnings of taking control and you are doing a university course. This no mean feat. You made that decision and acted upon it. The first step.

Here is a link http://www.bupa.co.uk/individuals/health-information/directory/a/improving-assertiveness

that explains a little about what I am talking about. There may be a course that your counsellor/doctor can recommend. It will not happen overnight but every time you 'take control' and say what you mean you are one step closer to not being the victim and can have a better relationship with your mum.

SlimmingSusan

I am getting very maudlin and angry now. I can never get my Dad's funeral,cremation or committal 5 months later back and it is destroying me.

I am playing the songs over and over, though she let my son choose not me, I love the song she chose, 'Time to say Goodbye' by Botchelli and Brightman, and she let my son choose the song on the way in, it was Let it Be by the beatles, bearing in mind my mother is Mary, then at the crem it was Grandad by Clive Dunn, and announced his grandchildren had chosen it, the hymn going out was theday thou gavest, and she glibly said I could choose who sung it.
It was also very important to me that he was carried not on a trolley, but mother has chosen to ignore the fact that this was my only request , and says it was my son who requested this. My beautiful daughter was a coffin bearer (how amazing is that for a 20 year old?) along with my son and 2 of his mates who thought a lot of Dad.

cheeswright

You do need to have some separation from her for a while.

She seems to have stopped seeing you as a person , or perhaps she never did. when you are so closely tied to someone , as you both have been, one can stop seeing the other as an individual , and sometimes a parent will simply never acknowledged the growing personality and individuality of a child ,behaving like the child is an extension of them.
They will never have acknowledged the validity of the childs own emotions. Never have pride in their achievements for their own sake - only competitively with other parents - not praise them for their self reliance and really only use them as a tool to bolster their own esteem and social position. They would often have difficulty believing the child has what they would regard as "real" feelings and so feel no guilt in saying hurtfull things. Sometimes even failing to acknowledge that they are in physical pain - because they - the parent - the "real" person - doesn’t feel it.

Any of that sound familiar ?

oh.. and and it is not - and could never possibly be - the childs fault if they were treated this way

SlimmingSusan

cheeswright wrote: »

You do need to have some separation from her for a while.

She seems to have stopped seeing you as a person , or perhaps she never did. when you are so closely tied to someone , as you both have been, one can stop seeing the other as an individual , and sometimes a parent will simply never acknowledged the growing personality and individuality of a child ,behaving like the child is an extension of them.
They will never have acknowledged the validity of the childs own emotions. Never have pride in their achievements for their own sake - only competitively with other parents - not praise them for their self reliance and really only use them as a tool to bolster their own esteem and social position. They would often have difficulty believing the child has what they would regard as "real" feelings and so feel no guilt in saying hurtfull things. Sometimes even failing to acknowledge that they are in physical pain - because they - the parent - the "real" person - doesn’t feel it.

Any of that sound familiar ?

oh.. and and it is not - and could never possibly be - the childs fault if they were treated this way

All is scarily familiar. I have rung my head of year who is a DR in social and developmental studies like this and she is so lovely and accessible.

meritaten

cheeswright wrote: »

You do need to have some separation from her for a while.

She seems to have stopped seeing you as a person , or perhaps she never did. when you are so closely tied to someone , as you both have been, one can stop seeing the other as an individual , and sometimes a parent will simply never acknowledged the growing personality and individuality of a child ,behaving like the child is an extension of them.
They will never have acknowledged the validity of the childs own emotions. Never have pride in their achievements for their own sake - only competitively with other parents - not praise them for their self reliance and really only use them as a tool to bolster their own esteem and social position. They would often have difficulty believing the child has what they would regard as "real" feelings and so feel no guilt in saying hurtfull things. Sometimes even failing to acknowledge that they are in physical pain - because they - the parent - the "real" person - doesn’t feel it.

Any of that sound familiar ?

oh.. and and it is not - and could never possibly be - the childs fault if they were treated this way

Do you KNOW my mother cheesewright? because you have just described her to a "T". my MIL was a classic 'poor me Narcissist" in my view. But, I never thought my mother fitted the 'profile'.

I need to think on this - I feel as if lightening has just struck me.

you have just put very coherently the feelings and knowledge I have been struggling to understand and express for years. how she can praise me to the skies one minute and put me down the next. of course, she wasn't praising me to my face, it was to others. The putdowns were all to my face and in private.
why I get no sympathy for a degenerative back disease while she 'worries' over my sisters problems. (which could be solved if she would quit wearing four inch high heels while working in a shop for six hours a day).