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You have reached the age of maturity, where you have recognized things as they are, not how you wish them to be. That is fine. Accepting that your mother is not the one you would want is the first step to freedom. Accept her as she is, or don't accept her at all. Either way is fine, if it works for you.
As for the money, I must say that I see why your mother got angry. It sounds like you are wealthy, compared to most people. "Things are a little tight this month" doesn't mean anything. That's your mother you're speakng to. Be specific about why you can't contribute to your father's gift or dinner. One month of being tight isn't very persuasive. Everyone in the world has a tight month now and then, and then next month things are back to normal. In other words, if it was something you really needed or wanted, you wouldn't let one month's "tightness" stand in the way. Your mother knows this.
I suggest you just tell her that you think that cost for a gift is too much, so you don't want to contribute to it. You'll get your own separate gift for him...or she can choose a lower cost gift. Her choice. But don't try to say "things are tight this month," since that doesn't mean anything, really.
She was being unreasonable about the father's dinner, IMO. So let it go. You couldn't go. You couldn't get off work early, and it's an hour away. That's unreasonable to expect you to travel two hours round trip after working all day. I'm guessing she doesn't work, so she doesn't relate to that.
I wouldn't cut ties completely. If you lessen the contact, the relationship will wither on the vine, but it will still be there for the future, which I think is important for blood relations (unless they're serial killers or drug addicts).
I relate to your situation, since I, too, was the least favored one, as you were. When my mother passed away, we hadn't spoken in several years because she had done something that was hurtful to me, so I cut off the contact. I regret that. So I don't suggest that you do that. Still, it doesn't change the fact that she had been a bad mother to me, and I still harbor bad feelings about it. All the slights, not helping me when she helped the others, the little criticisms over the years (death by a thousand cuts), the physical things she did (like bleaching my hair and putting makeup on me when I was four because she didn't think I was pretty like my sisters - this absolutely traumatized me, and I still have a problem with having anything done to my hair). In the end, though, each of us is responsible for creating a harmonious, happy life for ourselves. If that means lessening the contact with your mother, so be it.
Definitely all of this. Do you think your mother never heard of credit cards? Maybe she wanted to buy your father a Ferrari, I don't know, but being 'short this month' was a crap excuse for someone in your situation.
Well, having money doesn't mean you have to give it away for any reason.
Definitely don't agree with a couple of posts here.
Yes I don't agree with the posts of people saying I should just give money. For their information, we are not wealthy, we were comfortable, but then I lost my job (was unemployed for 6 months until recently) and we paid thousands of dollars for our sick dog to get care after needing surgery, that was very recent.
Moderator cut: delete
Last edited by Miss Blue; 10-11-2015 at 01:27 PM..
Reason: do not discuss mod action in open forum. Use dm.
Definitely all of this. Do you think your mother never heard of credit cards? Maybe she wanted to buy your father a Ferrari, I don't know, but being 'short this month' was a crap excuse for someone in your situation.
I'm 35 years old, have an amazing husband, a nice house and a new job I enjoy, but I have little to no relationships with my immediate family members. Over the years my mother has picked on me, has got in the way of family relationships, played people against me, and excluded me from family get togethers. Nothing I do is good enough. We buy her gifts, take her out to dinner, but it's not enough. So after 35 years I have decided to stop trying. My husband is tired of the dysfunction and all the fighting with my mother, was starting to affect our marriage.
My mother was pregnant with me at the age of 21 and my birth father wasn't interested in having a part in my life. He signed away his rights and my mom married when she was 22, the man she married became my father. He raised me. They then had 2 more children. Since I was a kid, she treated me unfairly and picked on me for any reason. I was not perfect but I was not a "bad" child. I always chased this feeling of "acceptance" which I never really got from her. My sister is her favorite and is definitely the "golden" child. My sister and I aren't close at all, because of the damage my mother has caused and is still causing. She is always a victim and she thinks she can say whatever she wants to me, no matter how awful and if I defend myself, I'm "disrespectful"..
I have been my mothers dumping ground for so long, and I'm just done. The latest example of her mistreatment was my fathers birthday dinner. It's his 65th. Three weeks ago, she pretty much demanded a large sum of money for a purchase for my dad's birthday. My mother doesn't "ask" if we can contribute to a gift, she "tells" me. I explained to her that money was a little tight this month, (due to our new home purchase) and she didn't like that answer. She got loud and yells " are you telling me with your husbands salary you can't give money for this gift!" She is just impossible. I got up and left her home and haven't been back since. My father would never ask for a gift - he never wants anything.
She then calls me a week later and says she is planning a dinner for my dad at a very expensive restaurant on a specific night. We would be responsible for paying her own way and I again reminded her that money was tight this month. I told her that we could figure something out but that particular night my husband had a client dinner and I had to work until 630 and this restaurant was an hour away. She said the dinner was at 7. We wouldn't get there in time. So I suggested how about a Saturday night..and she said "Your sister is working that night", So I suggested Sunday and she got agitated and said " oh well, too bad if you can't come, this dinner isn't about you." I told her to "expletive" off and hung up the phone. I never said that to her before but I just lost it and broke down in tears.
I called my father the next day and of course she had already gotten to him, so he wasn't receptive. She picks and chooses what she tells him to make herself look innocent. I love my dad but he enables her bad behavior. My mother has excluded me from other events or made it very hard for me to attend, my sisters high school and college graduation I was not invited to. My sisters bridal shower and wedding I hardly made it to, and only knew about because of my father. I got married (after my sister) a few years ago and made attempts to include my them in my wedding planning. And they did a nice job on flowers and a few other things, but that kindness was short lived.
Even though money is a little tight right now my husband does well financially, and over the last 6 years we have traveled around the world and lived very comfortably. My mother always had something negative to say, so I don't really share many "happy" details of my life with her. My parents have always struggled financially. I think she is a little jealous. We are currently trying for a baby and I don't want to bring a child into this dysfunction. I'm at the point where I'm thinking about cutting ties completely, but that means I will also lose communication with my father, and that hurts my heart. But he isn't receptive to what I have to say.. So what choice to I have?
Cut it off. I swear to GOD, cut it off. If you do have a kid, allow them to communicate with their grandparents, but YOU, and your husband? Just stop.
Why would I say this? My bio mom is the same way. She will say one thing to you, and then she'll turn around and say something totally different to everyone else to make it look like she's a saint, and you're satan reincarnated. She is evil, vindictive, narcissistic, a liar, a manipulator, and an abuser.
Lucky for me, in my early childhood I was adopted out and got to live with different people. BUT, my sister wanted to find me, hired a detective, found me, and that meant that bio mom shoved herself in to the picture. Why? To try to control the situation. So that she could manipulate my memories, tell me that what I remembered was wrong, steer me in to feeling sorry for HER, keep the truth from coming out. She doesn't like me too much because I have let her know that she cannot manipulate me, she can lie all that she wants, I don't give a -----, and that my siblings and I were and are going to talk, no matter what she thinks about it. Additionally, I have talked to other relatives, which sets her off because she can't control anything.
This hag mentally abused my sister for a very, very, very long time. Bio dad molested my sister, and while bio mom went to court to get bio dad arrested, (which was NOT for the sister, as she would have you all believe, it was her revenge on bio dad for up and leaving her), she would call my sister all kinds of vile names, that she wanted it, etc. She, in her manipulative way, had even convinced other family members that this was all true.
She would make up injuries...she would INJURE herself and tell others that my sister did that to her. My sister can be grumpy, but she wouldn't physically hurt a fly. Jeeezzz, I could go on for days.
So let's get to the point: My sister finally found me in 2001. We talked a lot on the phone and mainly through emails. Bio mom, as I said, also shoved her way in to the picture without MY consent, and certainly not with my sister's consent. So I got to hear both sides of each story...more drama than I ever wanted in my life. While SOME things that bio mom said are true, (my sister really is a lazy slob, and yes, her house IS disgusting), most of it was false. And I also know what bio mom has done to me, to my brothers, to other family members. But it took me so. stinking. long. to convince my sister to stop. Just. Stop.
For some reason, these people have it in their heads that, "but she's family, you don't turn your back on family..."
Why not? She turned her back on us when we were tiny children, she doesn't deserve to be considered family. She's been at it for years, decades. My older brother finally figured it out on his own when bio mom went after his then fiancee, now wife. Wrong move.
My other older brother is so messed up, he will never figure it out. And you know what? Cutting that hag off meant I had to cut him off. Yes, it does hurt, but THEY ARE ADULTS, and if they want a relationship with you, it's on them. My older brother, your dad...THEY need to decide what they want to do. If they choose not to be receptive, then too bad for them. Too. Bad.
My younger brother hasn't spoken to her in years, they have a mutual hatred.
My sister clung so hard to the family thing that it wasn't until 2011 that she finally, FINALLY kicked that wretched hag out of the house, (which is why she's now living in my older brother's house who also has that belief that, "but she's family....). From that point, we have talked a lot. My sister still reacts poorly to a lot of things because of how bio mom treated her. Everything is a damn insult, everyone is out to get her, everyone is going to take her kids away...it never ends, it's exhausting. She's very, very, very, very slowly recovering, VERY slowly.
I swear to GOD, do not do that to yourself. Cut that crap now. Your choices are: continue to deal with it far longer than you should, and suffer for it, or cut it out. People will say, "You're an adult, put up boundaries". You and I both know that those types of people NEVER respect the boundaries. Ever. You will never win that battle.
Cut. It. Off.
Last edited by Three Wolves In Snow; 10-11-2015 at 01:52 PM..
Reason: at least put in blanks instead of nothing
Well, having money doesn't mean you have to give it away for any reason.
Definitely don't agree with a couple of posts here.
I took those posts to mean entirely something else than to "give it away". It all ties in to how the OP reacts to her mother.
It sounds like the mother believes OP to be pretty well off, so of course "money being short this month" is going to sound like a crap excuse. There are ways ways around to get around that which is always easier for "rich" people to do. The OP just gave her mother another opportunity to paint her as an ungrateful selfish wretch. And it sounds like Dearest Mommy is going to enjoy knowing she's got the complete upper hand here.
It doesn't really matter whether the OP is actually rich/wealthy-- her mother believes that she is. The OP is going to have to start understanding that NO is a complete sentence. And if Mommy Dearest is going demand a reason, then "I will do something else." But the OP needs to step back and disengage. There's no need to defend her position, no need to give Mommy the upper hand in the situation. She needs to accept that she'll never satisfy her mother and stop trying to engage her in the manner she always does.
OP, this has to be what, the third time you've posted this issue here? At some point, you're going to have to recognize YOU are the problem here. Your mother is what she is and she'll keep doing what she always does... You need to actually start the change for yourself and stop allowing yourself be so easily baited.
When I stopped trying to gain the love and approval of toxic people, they lost control over me, and I was much happier.
It would be so awesome to have the Norman Rockwell apple pie family, but you aren't going to no matter what you do. Accepting that fact and seeking happiness elsewhere is probably your best bet.
My mother saw me as a narcissistic extension of herself. If I made choices that she would not make - all hell broke lose.
I do not believe that she loved me in any way that I could define as "caring" or "concerned".
I was like a possession - and not a person.
She was a sick woman and I do not miss her. She screwed up many lives. I apologize if this sounds cold. She specialized in "cold".
This is her legacy.
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