Giving up on my mother

I edited the link--and here it is again:

Edit: Moderator: link removed to return page to normal width - (see next post for link to cartoon)

It's the cartoon with two harried matrons, each with a gray-haired, cantankerous mother in a back pack, meeting in the park.

Caption: "Seventy-seven. How about yours?"

I don't know why the link won't work--or why it has distorted the entire page. Author is David Sipress.

Go to www.cartoonbank.com. Search "Parents" and then "Sipress".

Click here for cartoon

Sometimes posted links munge the ampersands into <code>&</code>. I got around it by deleting the amp; part from the url. I don't know what causes that, but like DrewDad did, sometimes the link tag works when copy and paste doesn't.

That's funny as hell.
And tragic.

Drew Dad--

You are a knight in shining armor! Thank you.

Hold your dominion.

I can't believe how much your experiences w/ your mother sound like mine, freeduck.. I too havve been manipulated and messed with for so many years that I could very comfortably just not have her in my life any more. It would be a huge relief to end the drama. She also goes thru cycles of not talking to me and then affter weeks or months gets in touch w/ me again so that she can start the cycle again. She says the same sorts of things about how she is just going to leave me alone so that my life will be easier, stops answering the phone, and then tells family and friends that I have cut her out of my life and that I won't stay in touch. I wish I could end the relationship, but she has no one else ( she rejects all her friends who try to stay in touch, and tells me that I am the only person she has ever really liked) so I feel so much guilt when I think of ending my contact with her. I wish I could give you some ideas of how to deal with it, but all i can say is that I know very much what you're going thru, and I sympathize. It is incredibly painful to live with a relationship like this.

Cringing to hear, Dora. I'm older and my mother was a mess and I suppose I was too. Looking back at it all now with no way to talk.

So, that is the possible gift I'd give any of you -
figure out what you might want to know twenty or thirty years from now, think hard on that, and ask it while you have a chance. This may of course lead to the usual mess, but still...

Re: Giving up on my mother
I too feel extremely uncomfortable in my parents company. I live in England and my mother lives in New York with all of what little family we have left. My father died of a sudden heart attack last year but my parents have been divorced since 1968. Both my sister and myself had an insecure and unstable childhood with a single mother who thought nothing of bringing a succession of sometimes very unsuitable men into our lives. My father was a selfish man who's second wife resented our presence. He of course sided with this woman and in turn gave us little financial nor emotional support. So here I am at 42, a mother myself feeling as though I need a lobotomy after my mother's last visit. I'm in need of a long term break from my mother's company or for that matter my sister as well as she also came to visit along with my mother. I once read that siblings who suffered bad childhoods tend not to be close. In my case sadly this is true. I had my mother and my sister reminiscing about the "good old days" and all I wanted to do was scream "do you have amnesia?" What good old days? I was a sad and depressed child who often felt a sense of panic when my mother appeared with her current partner to pick us up from our grandparents. Where do you go with this problem? I can't afford to spend the rest of my days paying analysts to talk this through. Can I truly cut myself off from my family?

I'm sorry to hear of your situation, JodiB. It sounds like you went as far as possible to get away from your family. I don't blame you.

But welcome to A2K. I think of this place, and this thread in particular, as free therapy. I hope you will treat it that way too. I still don't know the answer to whether or not it is every possible to truly cut off your family. Unfortunately, it seems that family is impossible to escape from because they are a part of you. But I'm still hoping there is a solution.

Ugh my mother
I posted this already in another area so I will put all of it up for you to read. I need some help, and letting go of my Mother is just not an option right now.

Hello Everyone. I am new to this, but I am outraged and needed somewhere to vent. I am a 19 year old college student. My grades are great, my health not so much. I was diagnosed with cancer in January, but refused to let it stop me from getting an education or stop my life. Some people don't have a choice and I was fortunate to be able to have that decision. My parents are paying for my schooling with money they have put away and also a loan I had to take out. My Mother and I got in a huge fight today about the loan. The loan is in my name and a piece of mail came about the loan who knows when because my Mother opened it. My loan had started to collect interest even though I was under the impression that I had deferred interest, well I just had deferred payment not interest. My mom and I fought about when she was going to start making payments. I am in no hurry for her to pay it off, but it is under my name and my credit, I can't afford to pay it off, and my Dad has already paid his portion of the loan. My mom is a big spender, credit card debt like you wouldn't believe, she makes a good living. My parents are divorced and she is remarried but my Dad is not. I just wanted to know when she was going to start making payments even if it is 3 years from now, I am a worrier and I just needed some reassurance like most people do from their parents. Well one thing led to another and all of a sudden I'm "ungreatful, and a poor excuse for a daughter." She tells me how her parents never helped her with college and I'm lucky. (yes i am lucky and very fortunate, I am very aware but the only way to prove this is by thank you's and doing great in school which I have been doing) Well her parents didn't pay for her college, my Dad did. When my parent got divorced my mom until that point was a stay at home mother of two girls. My Mom says she deserved that money for being a stay at home mother, and in most cases it would, except for the fact my Mother had an affair for months, and that is why my parents divorced, she left him for the other guy who I met and was lied to about for years until they broke up. I think my Dad was pretty considerate for letting her have the house and everything, also paying for her to go to nursing school at an expensive private college, and paying for all her living so she didn't have to work while in school, he also gave her a year after she graduated to get a job and he would still pay for living until then. I think stay at home moms deserve the world, in her circumstance with the affair I think she deserves nothing. I love my Mother so much. She also sent me an e-mail telling me how much a study said a stay at home mom should make, and she hopes that my "husband and children never treat me as terribly as I do her, but the world delivers cruel blows to people who deserve them"
Need support and honest opinions...help

And a reply I wrote to someone's comments...

Thanks for the reply Noddy. The loan is in my name, you are right I am an adult and its my responsibility. The thing is I just want to know when and if she plans to pay it because if she doesn't I can start making payments on it. The thing with my Mom is when I say that she says she will pay for it and stop saying stuff like that. Then five seconds later telling me to sell my car to pay for the loan, and she doesn't care how I get home from college if I ever even come home.

Her behavior in the past, as far as I'm concerned is in the past besides the effect it has had on my life. The thing is she brought up that her parents didn't pay for her college, and thats where the fact that she was right, but my Dad did pay for it came in, and how she deserved that money. I replied back saying I didn't think she deserved it (I left out that the reason I don't think she deserved it was because of the affair, I knew it would just make things worse) So she sent me an e-mail last night (we live in the same house but sent an e-mail) "gee, what was it you said about me not "entitled"to anything? Seems to me, I have some money coming my way. I've never counted pennies, but you've put me in that position. Hope you never have to do the same with your
husband or children, by the way, never say never.... life can deal you some cruel blows, ......" I can't tell if she is wishing bad things on me or not lol. The e-mail goes on to say stay at home moms should make like $131,000 a year if they got paid. I don't disagree, but considering I the circumstances with her, I do in her case disagree. I will keep that to myself though.

I don't need to move my wedding date up so that she can move. My dad lives in the same area and he would be more than happy to have me move in until I got married, because i don't want to live with my fiancee before marriage. Also I could just move in with friends up at school in their apartments, it is not like I NEED to live with her or anything.

As far as sitting down and having a rational discussion, it is Father's day and she has stayed in her room all day so far. She will not discuss anything unless I come with an apology, and even then she will refuse to do anything but say woe is me, and how she doesn't have the time to deal with this stuff, she has enough going on. I can barely get her to look at places for a wedding, but yet she insists on going to look at everything with me. I am ready to elope at this point.

I am so intensely frustrated with her. I have no idea what to do. Is it awful that I dream of the day where I don't have to talk to her if I don't want to? I still have to talk to her because of college, my parents put away 40 grand for me to go to school when I was little and in order to receive it I have to be in good standing with both of them. Let me tell you how bad that sucks.

I want to SCREAMMMM!!!!!!

bm

Re: Giving up on my mother
I have probably said this in this forum before.

I have, like some others here, cut off all ties with my mother. We didnt have just mother-daughter problems. In fact, she was "closest" to me, in her own selfish way. Of course, she was loving (and domineering and abusive). She cheated my father and slept with other married men, and she never made the slightest attempt to at least hide all this from a 8 - 14 yr old me. She always justified her affairs and said they weren't wrong. I half-believed her...and was too mortified to even tell my dad. Oh, even thinking of it all is traumatic...

For my own good, I cut all ties with her a few years ago. Since then, It's been a relief - not be manipulated into doing something that she wants. She left my father after wiping his bank account clean - he must be lonely now but quite relieved.

However, her memory haunts me, at times. She taught me the alphabet ....looked after me when i was sick...I truly wish I could forget.



I sure hope this's not true, in my case....

Reminds me of the saying I used to quote all the time...

"If it's not one thing, it's my mother."

Started reading this thread last night, and some again this AM.

It's so nice to know one is not alone.

It's too early here to write much, emotions to close to the surface, but I think it's very brave to hear others say that this sanctity of motherhood thing is not always all it's cracked up to be.

I'll be reading, and perhaps post more later.

Yeah. Ditto Chai.

One thing I've strongly felt while reading the thread is: Wow, I do not regret putting distance between my mom and myself for the time I did.
Moms have so much power: for good and ill.
If I wouldn't have put those strong boundaries up, I am convinced now that I would have went absolutely mad(der).

Sometimes to preserve love and any sort of relationship, it requires walking away. Just my thoughts.

To wswesey: Consider the cost of allowing your parents to pay for you. Sure, it will be tougher it you go it alone: but what are the costs if you accept? You are already expressing worry and a need to 'keep in good' with them. (or else - no money?). Do you want to live like that?

My mom has OCD. She spends hours cleaning herself and her things. She has arthritis too. She leads a painful life and it hurts to see her like that. I have taken her for treatments of OCD but she does not stick to the plans charted out by the councellor. When I talk to her, she tells me endlessly how much pain she is in. But she does not want to take steps to correct it either. She loves to live in the misery of her pain. She has been to many councellors but ..

My dad has been a true husband. He has supported her through all her bad times. He has compromised his social life to be at beck and call to my mom. His patience surprises me. My lack of patience guilts me. She has done a lot for me and our family. She left her teaching job to be with family. My parents have been through a lot of hardship to ensure me and my sister had a good life. They are very supportive of us. Always willing to help when we ask. My sister and her husband lost their job few months back. My parents offered them to stay with them until their finances stabilized. They attended upon me when I had my son and will be there to help me when I have my second kid.

Things get uncomfortable around the house with my mom around. Her nagging habit, wanting to find fault with everything, determined to get things done only her way when we know it is not right.. etc etc.. I love the company of my father. We do things together and talk of endless stuff. My mom's world is confined to her house. With such lovely parents I feel guilty when I want them not to visit me or not stay for long with me. I can't handle the pressure of being around my mom more than 7 days continously . I would love for my dad to be around longer though ..