BG: How do you give background on the women who raised you? My whole life has been one big guilt trip. I am the only child of a single mother who has been CO from her family and has NO friends. She is a miserable, angry, bitter human being who seems to believe the world owes her something. I have believed for a majority of my life that I am solely responsible for her happiness, that I am all she has to live for. She raised me in filth as she was a compulsive hoarder. I would literally do whatever I had to do to keep her from being upset with me. FOR 31 YEARS. Now, after having my second LO, I'm done. I don't have the time or patience or mental capacity to deal with this woman any longer. She hates my husband for no reason (in her mind it's probably because he takes attention away from her) and she is obsessed with my DD. I'm seeing that she is beginning a relationship with DD like she had with me. She will not adhere to my parenting rules, consistently undermines me and DH, allows DD to do whatever she wants whenever she wants, if DD starts asking for 'mommy' my mother will frantically do whatever she has to do to keep my DD from wanting me. Its sickening to watch. (this is just a small excerpt of things, the list of transgressions would fill an encyclopedia) I have confronted her before, but as the daughter of an enmeshed narcissist and victim of emotional incest i never let it go very far. But you know what? I'm done. I want to be happy. I don't want to have this looming anxiety and constant worry of how to keep this psycho happy. Thanks to this board, ive finally grown a backbone.
The blow up: She's been attemping to hoard at my house. We live 3 hours away and she demands to visit every other weekend. When I tell her we are busy cue guilt tripping anger fit. She consistently brings over bag loads of toys, often of The same thing: 4 baby dolls, 3 different playdough sets... If another relative gets DD something she likes my mom will bring over a "better" duplicate. I have asked her not to do this and routinely go to goodwill and make sure she knows it. This also always caused a guilt tripping anger fit. So, a year ago she brought over a ride on toy car, ride on trainset, and child size gas pump that were all from my childhood. She did not ask permission. When I got annoyed she said "I can always take it back". Flash forward and these toys are not getting used. They just gather dust and spiders in the backyard and now with 2 kids I don't need anything else to clean. Shouldn't be a big deal to have her take them back, right?
So I started grooming her to take back these toys about a week before her arrival. She said "we will discuss it". Throught out her visit she MADE DD play with these toys, just to show me that she 'loved' them. Everytime i made mention of her taking the toys she again deferred to "we will discuss it". As she was leaving to drive home I brought all the toys to the front lawn. Big mistake. Lawn tantrum. I will not recount the entire screaming match but I am apparently a selfish micromanager who takes away the fun of having a grand daughter and makes it miserable for her to visit. As I was walking away from the hysterical woman on my lawn she said "selfish brat" under her breath. That was it. In that moment of her having the audacity to use such a childish word on her 31 year old daughter I was done. I'm a grown women with 2 children who asked you to take some toys home. She drove off leaving The toys on the lawn and I walked back out to put a 'free' sign on them. The following day was my birthday and I heard nothing.
Here's where I blew it. We haven't talked since (this was about 2 weeks ago) but I decided to send her a mothers day gift, just so I wouldn't feel guilty. She received it today and this was her response:
Recieved the package. I guess this means I'll be spending mothers day alone. Thanks a lot. (with a broken heart emoji).
I'm BH. She's on a major TO with possible CO.
The problem: How do I not feel a constant sense of guilt!? I know it's been programmed into me, but it feels so heavy sometimes I can hardly breathe. I think I could just use some encouraging words to know I'm doing the right thing, as well as knowing I'm not alone in this fight. And knowing my mother, stay tuned for some llama noms because it's comin.
The blow up: She's been attemping to hoard at my house. We live 3 hours away and she demands to visit every other weekend. When I tell her we are busy cue guilt tripping anger fit. She consistently brings over bag loads of toys, often of The same thing: 4 baby dolls, 3 different playdough sets... If another relative gets DD something she likes my mom will bring over a "better" duplicate. I have asked her not to do this and routinely go to goodwill and make sure she knows it. This also always caused a guilt tripping anger fit. So, a year ago she brought over a ride on toy car, ride on trainset, and child size gas pump that were all from my childhood. She did not ask permission. When I got annoyed she said "I can always take it back". Flash forward and these toys are not getting used. They just gather dust and spiders in the backyard and now with 2 kids I don't need anything else to clean. Shouldn't be a big deal to have her take them back, right?
So I started grooming her to take back these toys about a week before her arrival. She said "we will discuss it". Throught out her visit she MADE DD play with these toys, just to show me that she 'loved' them. Everytime i made mention of her taking the toys she again deferred to "we will discuss it". As she was leaving to drive home I brought all the toys to the front lawn. Big mistake. Lawn tantrum. I will not recount the entire screaming match but I am apparently a selfish micromanager who takes away the fun of having a grand daughter and makes it miserable for her to visit. As I was walking away from the hysterical woman on my lawn she said "selfish brat" under her breath. That was it. In that moment of her having the audacity to use such a childish word on her 31 year old daughter I was done. I'm a grown women with 2 children who asked you to take some toys home. She drove off leaving The toys on the lawn and I walked back out to put a 'free' sign on them. The following day was my birthday and I heard nothing.
Here's where I blew it. We haven't talked since (this was about 2 weeks ago) but I decided to send her a mothers day gift, just so I wouldn't feel guilty. She received it today and this was her response:
Recieved the package. I guess this means I'll be spending mothers day alone. Thanks a lot. (with a broken heart emoji).
I'm BH. She's on a major TO with possible CO.
The problem: How do I not feel a constant sense of guilt!? I know it's been programmed into me, but it feels so heavy sometimes I can hardly breathe. I think I could just use some encouraging words to know I'm doing the right thing, as well as knowing I'm not alone in this fight. And knowing my mother, stay tuned for some llama noms because it's comin.