Thread: Mom hates me AND my daughter!

My Mom not just hates me but also seems to hate my CHILD!

Long story short: my youngest brother is Mom's favorite child. The "golden one". All my life, I've lived in his shadow. Punished, abused, made to feel bad about myself because she thought she was "evening things out" and
"compensating him" for his "weaknesses" by weakening me, the stronger older sister. Incidentally, this is EXACTLY how HER Mother treated her to make things "even" between Mom and her younger sister, Grandma's favorite. Grandma's father apparently treated her older half-sister specially because she lost her Mom young, to the detriment of Grandma and her full siblings (whose mother was around), so this dysfunction goes back a few generations....

Anyway, after years of suffering with Mom and her abusive favoritism, I married and had my daughter and am expecting a son in a few months' time. My MIL is a bit of work all by herself and DH & I moved far away to be away from her. In the meantime, my brother married a woman whose widowed mother lived in my MIL's neighborhood. The two women quickly became "best friends". DB's MIL began to believe all the vicious lies fed to her by my MIL. When DH & I bought a house far, far away from MIL, DB's MIL called my Mom up asking her how I could abandon my MIL - after all, elderly people need their adult kids' moral and emotional support and I had "stolen" an old woman's son away from her!

Mom promptly told me this - and from then on, our relationship quickly deteriorated. I blasted SIL's Mom and told Mom that she should have told her off. After all, this is a woman who has NEVER lived near her own MIL and whose daughter (SIL) does not live to close to Mom. Mom got mad when I told her that she should have stood up for me. She told me that she won't hear anything against her poor son and his poor wife - and that I was a mean hag for even suggesting that I haul B's MIL over the coals.

After that, our relationship is all downhill. She won't talk to me reasonably and accuses me of being after her money!!!! None of this was so bad but I sent her pictures of my daughter from a Christmas party and she told me not to send any more photos of my kid! BTW, she dotes on B's 1-yr-old daughter and thinks she's the cat's whiskers!

How do I get over this hurt? I never want anything to do with this woman again, I just want to be at peace with the idea that I have been motherless all of my life.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by N01

it's not fair, and there's not much that you can do but focus on what you can have influence on...

your kids and husband.

Absolutely! I am a very happy and positive person. I too came from a verbally and physically abuse mother. She was never home and when she was, it wasn't pleasant. I never had a role model in either of my parents and moved out at 14 to raise myself. I have been financially independent since then. I went to school and received two degrees and put myself through counseling to work through childhood issues. Now that I am older and have a child of my own, I try to be a role model and I "deal" or put up with my mom on short visits because I want my daughter to know that family is family no matter what. My child has grown up around my mom because I have chosen to include her and now that my child is a teen, she has formed her own opinions and knows right from wrong. My child is assertive and stands up for herself, but is not disrespectful or rude.

My mom is a child and is needy and picks fights all the time, but I just take the authoritive stand and tell her to stop. If she doesn't comply, which most of the time she does, then I tell her I need to leave or if she is at my home, then I tell her that I need to take care of something and get away for 15 min. and by that time the tension with her is bit died down.

Like your mom, my mom plays favorites, except I am the favorite, but I never "let" her get her way and I don't play into it. She also acts mean and makes up stories about my favorite aunt whom I'm very close to, but I always put her in her place when she acts "highschool" with or about my aunt. She knows that I will not tolerate any negativity, especially when my aunt is around. My mom has done a good job of curbing her attitude recently, but only after constant conversations about what I will and will not tolerate. I have learned to put up boundaries and will not accept any less.
Trust me, it's not always easy and she upsets me and my family quite a bit with her behavior, but that is why we only have her over for 1-2 nights, if at all, but not past that. If we visit her, it is a day trip, no overnight stays.

Through my Psychology education and through professional counseling, I have learned to distance myself from her or anyone else emotionally and to concentrate my efforts on my immediate family - my husband and our child. Since I have done this, nothing anyone does or says hurts me. Sure I get upset sometimes by their words or actions, but I deal with it much differently now. I know that I am happy and others are not so much. Since I have been distancing myself emotionally, and with the help of a lot of prayer, this has worked well for me. Sure there are things that my mom or other family may do or say that upset me, but I don't say anything, I just let it ride and then they get over themselves.

My best advice is to distance yourself - not physically, just emotionally. Limit your visits to be of a certain time frame - such as an hour or two so that you don't get frustrated, but that you know there is an end in mind and you won't have to endure or listen to this negativity for very long. Just control your emotions and be kind, that's all you can do. Don't indulge in conversations leading no where or arguments you know you won't win - just choose your battles. It sounds a lot like you need to be the adult in this situation and just continue to send pictures and continue to visit, regardless of what she says. And if visits only come around the holidays, so be it. That doesn't mean you can't send cards for other occassions such as her B-day, etc. Good luck!