"Act like an adult and you'll be treated like one"

[EasterJoy]

Um, no. I don’t think we do.

I think you misunderstand what I meant in what I said - it was more of a challenge to the OP than a defence of the mother. It is a challenge to the OP to see that she should change the way she interacts with her mother. To no longer act as she used to - as mother and child engaged in back and forth argument. To now act as an adult - who chooses when and how to have discussions.

And rest assured if the mother was reading this thread, I’d have many choice words for her. But we’re only talking to the OP, and so hopefully we can help her find tactics to deal with her mother, whether she’s appropriately characterised as a bully or is simply a typical mother who struggles to deal with the changing relationship with a child who has become an adult (I suspect the truth lies between these extremes).

No, I don’t think we’d disagree, because I doubt very much that the mother is a bully in the sense of getting pleasure out of tormenting people. That doesn’t mean that she does not, in fact, torment people. OTOH, few of us could examine our consciences and accurately estimate what a torment we can be when we are, ahem , less than our best. Of course, we have all made excuses for acting as we feel inclined instead of acting as we ought. So, no, I don’t think this mother is likely to be worse than the normal course of humanity. She may work like a tiger and give the shirt off her back to the needy. I just don’t want the OP to think that she’s not a grown-up until she is patient with the normal course of humanity. The person who is *that *patient is not merely an adult. That person is properly called a saint!!

 

[DarkLight]

Honestly, I think part of the problem is she never really learned to control her temper. She grew up in a household with a lot of yelling and anger issues. She doesn’t yell, but she lectures and says a lot of hurtful things. The way she does it makes me think the lectures are more about expressing her own feelings, justified or not, than about the specific issues. Even as a kid I remember that being the case - lectures were generally more about how awful a child I was in general than whatever specific thing I’d done. She feels hurt and rejected and it seems like that takes over, and the way she talks to me seems more about proving she’s right than anything else.

 

[EasterJoy]

Honestly, I think part of the problem is she never really learned to control her temper. She grew up in a household with a lot of yelling and anger issues. She doesn’t yell, but she lectures and says a lot of hurtful things. The way she does it makes me think the lectures are more about expressing her own feelings, justified or not, than about the specific issues. Even as a kid I remember that being the case - lectures were generally more about how awful a child I was in general than whatever specific thing I’d done. She feels hurt and rejected and it seems like that takes over, and the way she talks to me seems more about proving she’s right than anything else.

This could have been the way she was raised–that is, complaints were lodged by sarcasm, personal attacks, and expressing contempt. Rather than one person raising a complaint and everyone trying to decide what, if anything, was going to be done about it, she may be from a home where the person complaining went on the attack, going for the soft underbelly, and the attacked person either got defensive (counter-attacked with complaints of their own) or just shut down and stonewalled. If this is the case, she may simply have inherited a very bad communication style and a bit of a self-centered way of problem-solving.

You might want to look at the marriage books of John Gottman. He talks about how he found that couples that use personal attacks, contempt, defensiveness, and stone-walling were the most likely to wind up divorced. That communication style destroys relationships. It is very important to learn to recognize bad habits of “complaint solution” that were the norm in your own home, so you learn other ways of doing things. More to the point, though, he puts examples in his books that show the difference between constructive problem-solving and counter-productive problem-solving.

You may also learn to listen to her actual complaints and her standing to complain about them, and learn to ignore or reject the counter-productive way she has of complaining. That may give you more confidence when it comes to deciding when to stick up for yourself, and how to do it, something you may need to learn independently before you marry (because the methods were so poor in your family of origin).

Your main problem, however, is to learn how to reject her habit of giving herself standing to complain about decisions that are not hers to decide nor to complain about. That is a skill, and learning to use it is a bit like driving a car. It is a bit hair-raising the first few times out. You get the hang of it, though, and when you do, your life goes along much more smoothly. You can watch other people go bananas while you behave in the way you decide to behave, and feel confident that their decision to go bananas is just their decision, and not something you are “doing to them.” After all, your mother is not going to be the last “steamroller” you are going to meet in life. Her tactics are not fair, but they are also tactics that you can learn head off at the pass.

 

[revert_jen]

Your main problem, however, is to learn how to reject her habit of giving herself standing to complain about decisions that are not hers to decide nor to complain about.

This. And to remember that even if she has no authority over particular decisions, she still has a right to an opinion about them (however rude it is to express it), and you have a right to reject that opinion, whether she throws a hissy or not.

I mean, I may tell a friend that her shirt is hideous. It may or may not (depending on the nature of our friendship) be rude for me to do so. But anyway, it doesn’t mean that I should or do expect her never to wear it again. If I am lacking in tact or self-control, or if I have a very damaged sense of humor, I may mention it each time I see her wearing it. It still doesn’t mean I expect her to stop wearing it, just that I still think it’s ugly.

You know in your head that your mother has no more authority over your clothes than I have over my friend’s clothes. You just need to feel it in your gut as well, and then you may be able to feel that the things she says are more like comments than like orders. Even if she means them like orders, if she doesn’t (as in this case) have the authority to issue orders, they’re still just comments. It might be less upsetting.

–Jen

 

[EasterJoy]

This. And to remember that even if she has no authority over particular decisions, she still has a right to an opinion about them (however rude it is to express it), and you have a right to reject that opinion, whether she throws a hissy or not.

I mean, I may tell a friend that her shirt is hideous. It may or may not (depending on the nature of our friendship) be rude for me to do so. But anyway, it doesn’t mean that I should or do expect her never to wear it again. If I am lacking in tact or self-control, or if I have a very damaged sense of humor, I may mention it each time I see her wearing it. It still doesn’t mean I expect her to stop wearing it, just that I still think it’s ugly.

You know in your head that your mother has no more authority over your clothes than I have over my friend’s clothes. You just need to feel it in your gut as well, and then you may be able to feel that the things she says are more like comments than like orders. Even if she means them like orders, if she doesn’t (as in this case) have the authority to issue orders, they’re still just comments. It might be less upsetting.

–Jen

I *mostly *agree with you. The daughter can’t be the thought police, ferreting out her mother’s opinion and then taking offense when her mother complies and the daughter doesn’t like what the mother thinks, or taking offense at what awful things she believes her mom thinks but won’t say. In that sense, yes, the mother has a right to her own opinions. The daughter has every right to expect that her mother must keep her negative comments to herself as a condition of her daughter’s company, though. Period. No one over the age of about two is entitled to throw hissy fits, either.

People who want you to count them as inside your social circle have a right to expect you to keep your advice to yourself when it was not solicited and especially to control yourself with regards to critical comments and personal comments. To take the mother’s maxim, an adult had the capacity to keep her mouth shut, and uses it*, and ought to expect herself to use it whether she wants to keep her mouth shut or not*. Yes, friends and loved ones can expand the boundaries as they mutually agree to do, making what would have been rude into acceptable conversation. That is not this case, and I’m thinking it never will be. The daughter seems to have heard enough rudeness out of her mother to last a lifetime.

 

[revert_jen]

The daughter has every right to expect that her mother must keep her negative comments to herself as a condition of her daughter’s company, though.

I’ve never heard of this rule before, and I’m @#$% sure that my mother has never heard of it. To be honest, I don’t think most people would agree with it. I’d like to think that if I had an adult daughter, I would expect that behavior of myself, but I can’t even try to expect it of my mother.

You have one mother. You aren’t going to change her much, or quickly. If she is the sort of person who makes negative comments, you can’t just say, “I’ll never see you again.” My grandmother, for example, said some really hurtful things to me, and a lot more to my mother (her daughter). That didn’t give my mother the right to cast her off (nor did she).

–Jen

 

[DarkLight]

I’ve never heard of this rule before, and I’m @#$% sure that my mother has never heard of it. To be honest, I don’t think most people would agree with it. I’d like to think that if I had an adult daughter, I would expect that behavior of myself, but I can’t even try to expect it of my mother.

You have one mother. You aren’t going to change her much, or quickly. If she is the sort of person who makes negative comments, you can’t just say, “I’ll never see you again.” My grandmother, for example, said some really hurtful things to me, and a lot more to my mother (her daughter). That didn’t give my mother the right to cast her off (nor did she).

–Jen

The reality though is, fair or not, I’m dreading interacting with her. At some point you’re sitting back wondering “do we have a relationship outside of you criticizing me?” Especially when you can get jumped on even in casual conversation (e.g. telling a cute cat story could get me jumped on for not caring for my cat how she thinks I should).

As far as some of the earlier comments…I think my mother is one of those people who grew up in a dysfunctional family and while managing to avoid their dysfunction stumbled into another one. I know she grew up in a family where yelling and raging and hitting were ways to solve things. She avoided that but I don’t think she ever managed a proper healthy sense of how to handle things. And of course she’s always dead certain that I’m ruining my entire life…

 

[ThyKingdomCome]

One incident I remember about religion, for an example. Mom would approach me and quite calmly ask why I don’t believe a certain thing. I’d explain, and then she’d ask another question. I’d explain more and she’d have more questions. Often the questions would repeat or come down to just “I don’t get x because obviously y” when I don’t agree with y at all. The discussion would drag on and on until I finally found a way out. Often as it continued it would be more and more of her talking and less and less of me, but of course if I interrupted her or walked off while she was talking I was being rude (even if she’d been talking for 10min straight).

So here’s what you could have done at that time. Once you realized what was happening you could have done one of two things:
a) begin to nod and smile, and just change the topic or find an excuse to leave the room quickly (excuse me I have to go to the bathroom)
b) say, “oh wow, I didn’t realize we were having a discussion about religion. That really snuck up on us. Time to change the topic. So how’s the weather?”

And then it would happen again - she’d approach me the next day with the same question about why I don’t believe the thing. And the next. And the next. And the next…you get the picture. If I said I didn’t want to talk about it then she’d ask well when could I talk and want a firm date and time. If I said we’d been over it she’d say she just didn’t think I had real reasons if I didn’t want to explain it. Or she’d cry and ask why I didn’t love her enough to explain my own views to her.

But this second one wouldn’t catch you by surprise. After the 2nd day approach, you’d reply, “remember mom, we’re not going to talk about this.” And when she asked when, you’d reply, “remember mom, we’re not going to talk about this.” And when she said she didn’t think you had real reasons, you’d say, “remember mom, we’re not going to talk about this.” And when she cried and asked why you don’t love her, you’ll say, “I love you mom. Remember, we’re not going to talk about this.” And when she replies with “but if you loved me you’d____” then you reply, “remember mom, we’re not going to talk about this.” If or when her words become heated, you leave the room. If you feel like the broken record is making you lose your composure (like if you think you’re going to cry), you leave the room. You can say, “I said we’re not going to talk about this and you are not stopping. I’m leaving the room now.” Or you can say nothing, and just walk out.

As you see, it’s not complicated, and you don’t have to be good at clever responses. You just have to have a rote statement ready to use whenever you realize (even late in the game) that the boundary has been passed. And yes she is going to continue to guilt you, gossip about you, etc. But it doesn’t matter. As long as you respond to those things, she will continue to use them. If you play it tough like I am suggesting (even if you go to your room and cry), eventually either she will learn to not press you on it, or you will learn to not care so much.

 

[revert_jen]

The reality though is, fair or not, I’m dreading interacting with her. At some point you’re sitting back wondering “do we have a relationship outside of you criticizing me?” Especially when you can get jumped on even in casual conversation (e.g. telling a cute cat story could get me jumped on for not caring for my cat how she thinks I should).

As far as some of the earlier comments…I think my mother is one of those people who grew up in a dysfunctional family and while managing to avoid their dysfunction stumbled into another one. I know she grew up in a family where yelling and raging and hitting were ways to solve things. She avoided that but I don’t think she ever managed a proper healthy sense of how to handle things. And of course she’s always dead certain that I’m ruining my entire life…

Well, at least she cares enough about you to be really concerned about you ruining your life. She has an inappropriate way of showing it, but it might help to remember that at least she does want you to be happy. (Yes, I know, she is actually making you less happy, but at least she means well? It’s not much, but it’s something.)

Anyway, I don’t mean that you should live in her pocket or anything, but if you can keep the lines of communication open, then you have something to build on if she backs off at all or if you get to the point where it can roll over you without upsetting you, or at least not upsetting you so much. She may back off a bit (eventually) if she sees that your choices are working out OK for you, but it will definitely take time.

In the meantime, I don’t know if you said how often you were visiting in person, but maybe less time doing that and more time on the phone would be better.

–Jen

 

[EasterJoy]

I’ve never heard of this rule before, and I’m @#$% sure that my mother has never heard of it. To be honest, I don’t think most people would agree with it. I’d like to think that if I had an adult daughter, I would expect that behavior of myself, but I can’t even try to expect it of my mother.

You have one mother. You aren’t going to change her much, or quickly. If she is the sort of person who makes negative comments, you can’t just say, “I’ll never see you again.” My grandmother, for example, said some really hurtful things to me, and a lot more to my mother (her daughter). That didn’t give my mother the right to cast her off (nor did she).

–Jen

You can say, “I am not sticking around to be talked to like that. Call me when you can treat me as well as you do total strangers–you know, the people that you are too polite to talk to like that, because I know you can bite your tongue when you have to.” Then you leave, and you give her another chance on another day. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

You can’t change her, but you can change whether she puts you in Category B–“people I allow myself to abuse verbally, because they allow it”–and moves you to Category A–“people I don’t abuse verbally because I don’t like the cost they impose when I do.” You don’t make her into someone who never says a bad word. You make yourself one of the people around whom she minds her manners. You expect her to give her the best that Category A people get from her.

If you don’t do that, then that is your right. Just realize that you are being indulgent with her faults and accepting that she has assigned you to her lower category of treatment. She has no right to expect that anyone will stand for being in Category B, even if her husband, children, and siblings do. If you are as upset by your mother’s attacks as the OP is, there is no reason you have to sit around and listen to that, feeling your heart erode away a little at a time as she does it. If you get B treatment because you won’t impose the consequences that people have to impose to be in Category A, well, you don’t deserve it, but it is what you will get. If you want to escape the erosion, those are about the only two ways to do it.

It is worthwhile to count the cost, because sometimes a verbal abuser HATES all the people in Category A, avoids them at all costs, bad-mouths them behind their backs instead of to their faces, and does what she can to spite them. In that case, face the fact that your mother is a dangerous woman, and get as far away from her as you can. If she is like most people who abuse their relatives, though, she does have people whom she doesn’t abuse because they have her respect for their boundaries. If she is that kind, then you have to draw a boundary before she’ll recognize it.

You are right, though: This mother is unlikely to have a Damascus moment and become a new woman. Until that happens, resign yourself not to changing her, but changing how she regards your boundaries. Getting treatment that is as good as anyone else gets from her is the best that can be reasonably hoped for.

 

[EasterJoy]

The reality though is, fair or not, I’m dreading interacting with her. At some point you’re sitting back wondering “do we have a relationship outside of you criticizing me?” Especially when you can get jumped on even in casual conversation (e.g. telling a cute cat story could get me jumped on for not caring for my cat how she thinks I should).

As far as some of the earlier comments…I think my mother is one of those people who grew up in a dysfunctional family and while managing to avoid their dysfunction stumbled into another one. I know she grew up in a family where yelling and raging and hitting were ways to solve things. She avoided that but I don’t think she ever managed a proper healthy sense of how to handle things. And of course she’s always dead certain that I’m ruining my entire life…

The only thing you can do is to refuse the part of the relationship where she belittles you, and see what’s left when you do. You won’t know until you try.

Hang on, because no matter what our age, we fight back when people try to change their boundaries on us. There will be a border war, because if you tell her you expect the best treatment she gives anyone else, she’s going to test whether you really mean it. That’s going to be very hard, because she’ll lob all sorts of guilt trips to get you to give in. I’d definitely want someone who agrees with my plan of action to have for post-battle debriefings, not to mention hugs and a little laughter. (Even in war, people have to find something to laugh about concerning their adversaries, or they go nuts. The more you love your adversary and hope for an eventual cease-fire, the more that is true.)

 

[underacloud]

But this second one wouldn’t catch you by surprise. After the 2nd day approach, you’d reply, “remember mom, we’re not going to talk about this.” And when she asked when, you’d reply, “remember mom, we’re not going to talk about this.” And when she said she didn’t think you had real reasons, you’d say, “remember mom, we’re not going to talk about this.” And when she cried and asked why you don’t love her, you’ll say, “I love you mom. Remember, we’re not going to talk about this.” And when she replies with “but if you loved me you’d____” then you reply, “remember mom, we’re not going to talk about this.” If or when her words become heated, you leave the room. If you feel like the broken record is making you lose your composure (like if you think you’re going to cry), you leave the room. You can say, “I said we’re not going to talk about this and you are not stopping. I’m leaving the room now.” Or you can say nothing, and just walk out.

As you see, it’s not complicated, and you don’t have to be good at clever responses. You just have to have a rote statement ready to use whenever you realize (even late in the game) that the boundary has been passed. And yes she is going to continue to guilt you, gossip about you, etc. But it doesn’t matter. As long as you respond to those things, she will continue to use them. If you play it tough like I am suggesting (even if you go to your room and cry), eventually either she will learn to not press you on it, or you will learn to not care so much.

Perfect!

Easy (by which I mean straightforward) to implement.