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You don't have to like your Mom. I didn't want to turn out like my Mom and her sisters so I moved away. The daily influence of them in my life made it harder to stay true to who I am. I'm so very glad I moved away! My Mom and one of her sisters are two of the most toxic people I have ever met in my life. Sure, I loved her, she loved me, and in small doses we could get along. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that.
I've kind of gone this route. But she wants more closeness. Keeping her at arm's length - I'm not sure how long I can maintain that without things coming to a head again.
It's perfectly normal to feel this way. All you can do is take it one step at a time, if you so choose, and don't try to force things, and don't let her either. It will take time even if she has changed, to get over the past hurts and come to terms with your new and old relationship.
I've kind of gone this route. But she wants more closeness. Keeping her at arm's length - I'm not sure how long I can maintain that without things coming to a head again.
Pick your path to dysfunction ~ most of us grew up in a household full of some type of dysfunction.
So. What helped me in my relationship with a controlling mother was physical distance. That actually helped a LOT. It got so I actually missed my family from time to time and enjoyed visiting.
If I knew a person like your mother I would stay far, far, away. Since she is your mother, arm's length ought to do it. Impossible to have a "close relationship" with a person like that no matter how much they think they want it.
Thoughts: We don't get repeats in life. I suspect She did the best she could -- I believe that, with exceptions of truly sick individuals, that most mothers do try to do the best they know how. There's a pretty big genetic imperative. Consider how she was raised . . . people learn their parenting skills from their parents.
Very few of us were blessed with perfect parents. If we allow ourselves to play the blame game, we can always find something that our parents did to screw us up -- a thoughtless remark, insistence on something that we learned to loathe, expectations that we didn't meet, etc., etc.
Maybe your mother rejected the idea of ADD because your case didn't present as typical. Maybe she felt she was being blamed for your ADD. Maybe she simply didn't believe her child could be less than perfect. OK. She made a mistake. Forgive her, already -- you've moved on. You may not have had an idyllic childhood -- but you're here, you're functioning, you have a life. At this point, it's pretty much up to you, what you make of your life.
You can spend years blaming your mother for not being perfect. But holding this kind of grudge is the kind of thing that eats at your insides and coors your perception of the world and your life. Do you really want to give her that much power over your life? She is your mother -- you owe her respect. You don't have to be best buddies, but you admit that there is a lot to admire about your mother.
My mom was not a terrible mother. She was just very flawed.
I have severe ADD and while she had the professional training to recognize it, she was in denial about me having it. It caused me HUGE problems and setbacks (ESPECIALLY socially) until it was diagnosed and I learned to cope with it when I was nearly 30. But I hated myself and my life for a very long time, starting from when I was a kid.
She was also a critic and had a short temper. She was always picking at me and undermining me, or just lashing out at me and flying off the handle. My friends were horrified, and now that we're adults, they frequently joke about how traumatizing it was to watch me get picked apart by my own mother so often. Sometimes she'd wig out and smack me in the face - a few times, and not very hard (no one really ever saw this). I had horrifyingly low self-esteem and depression throughout my childhood, and a very distorted view of my worth as a person - all largely because of my mother.
I know she was very unhappy in her marriage, but I also know from her family's stories that she was also always kind of self-centered and selfish even before she married.
My parents made sure I got a great education and had a very comfortable childhood. I am very loved, and I love them both. I'm also a successful adult with a great circle of friends and a good career. But I don't want a close relationship with my mother. I just don't LIKE her. It's not just that I can't really get past her constantly running me down and making me feel like **** when I was a kid - we just don't agree politically, she frequently comes off as ignorant (and happy to be so), she's catty and snobbish, she's frequently childish, she's bigoted, she's frequently self-aggrandizing, she is incapable of apologizing or admitting wrongdoing... Need I go on?
But here's the thing: a few years ago, I set some hard and fast boundaries. I brought the hammer down on her after a particularly nasty incident in which she said some truly terrible things to me. And she has respected those boundaries for the most part. I'm really proud of her. Not only that, but she can be a very good person. She enjoys volunteering, she worked with children from at-risk backgrounds, she is very generous to her friends within certain parameters. But I STILL don't like her.
I get along with almost everyone. You have to be a pretty awful or supremely annoying person for me to shut you out. But I can't bring myself to feel more than a reciprocated duty towards my mom. I fully anticipate caring for her as she gets older, and I don't flinch from that idea at all. But she really wants a closer relationship. I'm just not feeling it, and it makes me feel bad for her and wonder if I should be making more of an effort.
Not only that, but I feel like I absorbed some of her worst traits. I work really hard not to be like her, and I feel like a closer relationship with her would make her worst traits seem normal.
Thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.
Your mother was toxic from the beginning and getting older didn't make her any better.
You're right about one thing; associate with her too much and you will try to satisfy her. Do that, and in the end you will end up like her.
Maintain your boundaries. Live your life. You are under no obligation to like your mother. Probably need to be polite, but you don't have to like her.
You may take charge of her care much later, as I have with my 93 year old mother. But you DO NOT have to like her.
Having ADD can be awful until you learn to cope with it and having a parent who ridicules you because of it makes you feel really third rate. I've been there; I know. And I think you are really on to something positive with your life. You have discovered that there is nothing wrong with you. Go with that!
Example? She once got an email chain letter that said silver was the investment of the future and I had to talk her out of cashing out her 401K and putting it all in investments in silver. She insisted that the advice was good because the man who forwarded it to her was a friend of her boyfriend's who was a lawyer. I tried explaining basic principles of diversification and sound investment practices, but she refused to listen. Keep in mind that she has repeatedly consulted with excellent financial advisors. But they weren't telling her what she wanted to hear. We had a pretty animated (not to mention very long) discussion about the stupidity of tanking her retirement because she didn't want to cut back on her spending.
She makes sweeping generalizations about ethnic groups she knows nothing about, and has advocated pre-emptively bombing all Muslim countries to protect the US.
She loves to tell me how patriotic she is, but as far as I can tell, that has mainly manifested itself in her boycotting Olive Garden (where she can't eat really anyway due to dietary restrictions) and occasionally wearing a flag pin.
Those are the highlights I can think of right now without getting into longer stories. But she's an educated woman with an advanced degree. She just chooses not to think. It's kind of her superpower.
i am good to my mother not bek i like her or she is or ever was a good person. i am good to her bek i have obligations.
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