Hello all.
I'm a new user, having heard a radio interview about this site last week. I almost had to pull my car over because what I was hearing brought up so many difficult feelings. I really need to get some things off my chest. I have an overbearing, controlling, difficult and criticising mother. I am 34 years old, and I have rarely known her to be any other way.
I am going to try to be succinct.
From the earliest age, I knew she did not love me, or even want me. She was more affectionate and caring towards my younger brothers, but even at that there was very little affection or tenderness in our home, in general. When I was around 10, she made it perfectly clear that I was the reason she and my father had to marry, and that I ruined her life. From then until I was in my early '20s, she took every opportunity to tell me that being in a relationship with a man would result in me ending up with an unwanted child and the death of my ambitions. It was extremely difficult for me to be open with her about anything. I used to sneak around all the time, even after I left her house at 17. It happened twice that I was in a long-term relationship, and she only found out over a year after it started. Then she would create a huge scene because I was "keeping secrets" and excluding her. Over time, I visited my parents less and less often, but maintained contact by telephone. Then I emigrated, living in two different countries in the space of 4 years. During this time, my brothers were also living overseas. I started to pity her, because she has no friends - I mean literally not one - so any time I was back in the country, I would visit her. Then I got married and moved back to the country permanently. For financial reasons, my husband and I ended up living quite near to my parents. Now I have to see her almost every weekend. She still tries to control the minutest aspect of my life, from what colour I paint a room, to how I organise my time. I try so hard to be patient, but I notice a pattern now - I go easy on her, because I pity her, but that frustration ends up being taken out on my lovely husband. He tries to be supportive, but he had a very different childhood and has an immeasurably better relationship with his own mother.
Aside from telling a young child that she wasn't wanted, my mother never ever encouraged me and took every opportunity to criticise. From as early as I can remember, I was yelled at for absolutely everything you can imagine: for making a slight noise when I spit my toothpaste in the sink, for having bad handwriting (when I actually won a calligraphy contest), for practicing new piano pieces ("Play something you are able to play!"), for the pitch of my laugh ... it goes on and on and on.
I was ten years old the first time she spoke kindly to me. It was a once-off. She has never once told me that she loves me.
She also failed to protect me from an abuser, who she and my father allowed into our home. I have never spoken about this with anyone in the family. It is the worst of all the ways in which she neglected me.
As a teenager, I was very depressed and suicidal. I was bullied mercilessly at school, and I would cry and beg not to go in every Monday morning. But she and my father just told me to ignore the bullies. They never even approached the school or tried to do a thing about it. I brought this up with both of my parents last year, and they had the face to lie and tell me that I never told them what was going on at the time. How could anyone see their teen sobbing at breakfast and coming home with red eyes, and pretend not to know something was wrong?
As I already mentioned, I left her house at 17. I put myself through university and am a high academic achiever. I am the first in my entire, extended family to get a university degree. I speak four languages and I've worked in some very good, well-paid jobs in several countries. But still, she can't let me have my achievements. When I completed my PhD, she did not say 'congratulations'. Instead, she said "I'm claiming half of this." Somehow, she has conveniently forgotten that I worked two jobs to support myself through uni, and that instead of encouraging me, she used to regularly demand that I "grow up", start working full-time and get a mortgage.
Now she has a grandson, by my brother. She worships this child and is a very nice grandmother to him. I think she knows she was a horrid mother and wants to compensate. But her horrible behaviour, and my sad memories, make it very difficult for me to imagine myself as a mother. I am very fond of children and my husband really wants to be a father, but I am terrified that I will "parent the way I was parented". I inherited some of her personality traits, especially the tendency to criticism - it would devastate me to repeat her horrible mistakes and destroy another person's happiness.
I regularly fantasise about telling her everything. I fantasise about making her feel the agony of the truth, of cutting her out of my life and never looking back. But there are others in the family who I do want in my life, and I know I will lose them too. I just need to find a way to stay sane, and not letting her ruin my marriage the way she ruined every other stage in my life.
My father is a whole other story. He never withheld affection from me, but he is a very heavy drinker and he was physically abusive with me several times when I was pre-teen. I will save that for another day.
Thank you for providing a safe place where I can get some of this off my chest.