"We only hear one side of the story"

[DarkLight]

There’s two sides in every conflict, yet the people in it only really ever have access to one. When there’s no mediator, how do you decide?

If you asked my mother, she’d say I don’t care enough about my family, I’m rebellious, I don’t listen to her or respect her, and I don’t take care of myself.

If you asked me, I’d say my mother still expects perfect obedience, thinks being my mother means she can speak to me however she wants, and ascribes the worst possible motives to my actions.

There’s no one I can go to that knows both of us and that everyone would trust as a fair mediator. How do you tell when you’re being fair to the other party?

 

[Trishie]

If you don’t have someone as conciliator or mediator, then that is sad.
There are undoubtedly many such people
There can be people who seem to have the gift. I couldn’t tell how many times I’ve acted in the above role as I do have a gift of seeing and understanding most sides.
The important criteria is to** really care about/love**t both persons, or person on both sides of the situation, that love and empathy with both enables one to give fair and loving support to both sides, leading to mutual understanding and reconciliation.

Unfortunately there appears to be an unhelpful dynamic there between you and your mother. We are not there able to observe you both and see what is really happening in your relationship.

You mother’s tendency to think the worst could be an expression of her fear for you. Parents can be very fearful, and this can give rise to unfortunate and unhelpful attitudes. I can also mean that the parent may try to control or direct to somehow save their teen or adult child from poor choices or unwelcome consequences.

It is possible that there is some truth on both sides.
None of us is perfect nor performing perfectly in relationships or in our own lives.

“Who can detect his own failings?
Wash out my hidden faults
And from pride preserve your servant,
never let it dominate me
So shall I be above reproach, free from grave sin.” [Psalm 19:12-13]

You may both need to try to understand each other more kindly.
You may both need to cut each other some slack.

God grant you both clarity of vision and mutual respect and empathy.

 

[DarkLight]

It is hard. I want to give her the benefit of the doubt…yet I also am wary because I don’t want to enable inappropriate behavior. I feel like I don’t know up from down when it comes to her. I want a relationship, but I don’t want the relationship we have.

 

[Trishie]

It is hard. I want to give her the benefit of the doubt…yet I also am wary because I don’t want to enable inappropriate behavior. I feel like I don’t know up from down when it comes to her. I want a relationship, but I don’t want the relationship we have.

That’s very sad. I don’t know your mother, but certainly it’s not for her welfare if you enable inappropriate behavior.
I ask the Lord to guide you in appropriate kindness and understanding where it is required, yet with the balance that this relationship needs.

I have adult children, and it’s important for parents of adult children to love and help within wise boundaries and where the young adults require and wish.

I’ll keep you, and your mother, in my prayers.

Look after yourself Love.
You have enough to deal with already.
God grant you peace,
Trishie

 

[DarkLight]

That’s very sad. I don’t know your mother, but certainly it’s not for her welfare if you enable inappropriate behavior.
I ask the Lord to guide you in appropriate kindness and understanding where it is required, yet with the balance that this relationship needs.

The hard part for me is that we both end up feeling the other person is being inappropriate. So, say, she might say she was just trying to be helpful and I wouldn’t listen to her. Whereas I might feel about the same conversation that she just would not let go until I did things her way. Or she might feel like I blew up and was rude to her for no reason, while I feel like she was talking over me and ignoring what I said until I had to raise my voice to be acknowledged.

Boundaries are another thing. She just seems to never understand them! So I feel like she’s super critical all the time and want to ask her to stop, especially on particular issues. Whereas she feels like I’m oversensitive and she can’t disagree or dislike anything I do without upsetting me. Or she feels like I’m always accusing her of things and saying she’s a bad mother, while I feel like I can’t set a single boundary without her being hurt that I would dare suggest she does such a thing.

 

[EasterJoy]

There’s two sides in every conflict, yet the people in it only really ever have access to one. When there’s no mediator, how do you decide?

If you asked my mother, she’d say I don’t care enough about my family, I’m rebellious, I don’t listen to her or respect her, and I don’t take care of myself.

If you asked me, I’d say my mother still expects perfect obedience, thinks being my mother means she can speak to me however she wants, and ascribes the worst possible motives to my actions.

There’s no one I can go to that knows both of us and that everyone would trust as a fair mediator. How do you tell when you’re being fair to the other party?

It is up to you to form your conscience and follow it, and up to her to form hers and follow hers.

It is entirely possible, by the way, that both of you have valid complaints and both of you are hiding behind defensiveness (counter-attacking) and excuses in order to resist the amendment you each need to do.

For instance, it is possible that you have a vicious cycle going on, one in which one of you gets peeved at the other, resulting in her being harsh with you and you resisting her harshness by withholding obedience. It may be that you are both far more concerned with your own hurt feelings than you are that you are committing offenses against the other one, or that you are both use your hurt feelings as an excuse for offensive and unacceptable behavior towards the other. That is the most common middle ground, not a sure thing but still a bit more likely than the possibility that you are a total brat with a saint of a mother or that she is an overbearing unrealistic tyrant with a beaten puppy for a daughter. All three are possible. In any case, the soul that is yours to worry about is yours. Concern yourself with examining your own conscience. Once you do that, you can let go of inappropriate guilt trips coming from your mother, and act solely on the guilt that hits a true mark.

My rule of marriage is this: If you are wrong, then apologize, even if you are not the most wrong. This will not always result in a counter-apology, and you ought not expect one. Still, it has these these features going for it: 1) very often the person most in the wrong has the hardest time apologizing, but will almost anyone, whether more or less wrong, will find apologizing easier when some of the blame for a round of hard feelings is shared by someone else and 2) if you use the bad behavior of others as an excuse for your own bad behavior, then you are setting yourself up to be one of the worst-behaved people others know, rather than the best-behaved and 3) to bear the wrongs of others patiently is a spiritual work of mercy, and one way to do that is to apologize when you have wronged someone who also owes you an apology, but isn’t giving one. The most admirable people stick to their admirable behavior even when others give them an excuse or a mighty temptation not to.

*You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect. *
Matt. 5:43-48

It is far easier to love an enemy you never see in person than to be loving and patient with a relative who seems to be using all of his or her knowledge of your red buttons to drive you over the edge!

 

[EasterJoy]

The hard part for me is that we both end up feeling the other person is being inappropriate. So, say, she might say she was just trying to be helpful and I wouldn’t listen to her. Whereas I might feel about the same conversation that she just would not let go until I did things her way. Or she might feel like I blew up and was rude to her for no reason, while I feel like she was talking over me and ignoring what I said until I had to raise my voice to be acknowledged.

Boundaries are another thing. She just seems to never understand them! So I feel like she’s super critical all the time and want to ask her to stop, especially on particular issues. Whereas she feels like I’m oversensitive and she can’t disagree or dislike anything I do without upsetting me. Or she feels like I’m always accusing her of things and saying she’s a bad mother, while I feel like I can’t set a single boundary without her being hurt that I would dare suggest she does such a thing.

It is very common for children to have some difficulty drawing the boundaries of adulthood with a parent. Children are notorious for wanting enough play in the rope to hang themselves with as adolescents, while parents are notorious for trying to use every trick in their arsenal to keep their one-up position on their children, even when their children are well into adulthood, on the grounds that the parent has still been around the barn more times, knows better, and “besides, I am still your MOTHER.”

I have recommended this book many times, but I’d suggest you go to the library and find “Co-Dependent No More.” I like it because it describes healthy behavior and boundary-setting. That makes it helpful even for persons who don’t have an alcoholic or addict in their life but who have some trouble knowing where and how to draw the line with others. Try looking at it; it could help you.

 

[oneofmany]

Have you read any books on assertive training? Boundary setting? That helped me to deal with my mother.

Also, after I got married my hubby and I went to a professional mediator with his ex wife on problems with the kids, etc. It seemed after awhile all the mediator did was give one ok to one side than one ok to the other side. Both parents really wanted what was best for the kids so it ended in a draw. Sometimes that is all you can do. Like one for and one for you type of thing to keep pressure down. Silly really we can’t figure that out for ourselves.

 

[DarkLight]

I’ve read some stuff but it just seems to not work. Like, I understand how to set a boundary, but what do you do when the other person seems literally incapable of understanding where the boundary is, no matter how clearly you put it? Or what do you do with someone who consistently forgets

 

[DarkLight]

I don’t know. I feel like I can’t set boundaries without a huge fight. It’s not that she challenges them, so much as that she forgets, or doesn’t understand, or something. Always something plausible, and it seems so reasonable when she says it…yet at the same time it feels a little too convenient. I don’t rightly know how to set boundaries with someone who quite literally seems to not understand them.

Same thing with apologizing. I feel like if I apologize in general, she’ll want a specific apology that I don’t feel is right to give, and then she’ll want a promise to never do that thing again. Often I don’t feel that I can give her the apology she wants. Or if I do it’ll come up next time she perceives me doing the same thing and she’ll be even madder at me because I apologized last time, and use that as ammo.

I don’t know. I know that I feel sick before seeing her, and cry after. Am I too sensitive like she says? Am I seeing things that aren’t there? Even things I’m sure of seem unsure when it comes to her, like black becomes white when she walks into the room.

 

[DarkLight]

Basically, half my brain’s saying try to be nicer and the other half is screaming run, and I don’t know which half to believe.

 

[mommamaree]

Listen to EasterJoy. She has given great advice.

Check out from the library the following books:
Codependent No More
Boundaries
Safe People
The Sociopath Next Door
(Not saying your mother is a sociopath, but the last book teaches how to recognize people with anti-social behaviour, those who manipulate, and what to do if your relationship with them is damaging for your emotional well-being.)

By reading these books, it helped me to become aware of my own mother’s tendencies to attempt to control, manipulate and abuse, so that she always “wins”. I was able to have a relatively pleasant visit with her a couple weeks ago, despite the fact that she was still up to her old tricks, because I spent the last two years reading these books and working through the issues she had burdened me with. But it takes a lot of preparation and sanity-building to deal with people who continually try to control you like a puppet. Do not feel bad about giving yourself a time-out from your relationship to become educated and grounded. You have to do so if you are ever going to be able to establish healthy boundaries.

 

[DarkLight]

Odd thought halfway through “Codependent no more” - I feel almost like I’m reading about my mother. I know that’s not the point, and I swear I didn’t go into it looking for her. But it makes almost too much sense. Like she still wants the sick little girl who needed her…

 

[jmcrae]

I don’t know. I feel like I can’t set boundaries without a huge fight. It’s not that she challenges them, so much as that she forgets, or doesn’t understand, or something. Always something plausible, and it seems so reasonable when she says it…yet at the same time it feels a little too convenient. I don’t rightly know how to set boundaries with someone who quite literally seems to not understand them.

It’s up to you to enforce your boundaries.

We have a rule at my work that the Office is closed after a certain hour of the day. Often, people stay later than that to finish up various projects, especially if there is a tight deadline.

People notice the light on, and they will pound on the door or ring the doorbell to be let in. Of course, the reason is that they have a new project that they would like us to do, at that very moment.

In order to respect our workers and their time, we have a rule that no one is to answer the doorbell outside of Office hours unless they are actually expecting someone.

See, other people won’t respect your boundaries - so, you have to enforce them, simply by making a rule, and then consistently following it.

We could answer the door every time the bell rings, and then complain that people don’t respect our Office hours. Or, as we do now, we can simply enforce our boundaries by not answering the door outside of Office hours.

We avoid arguments by resisting the temptation to go to the door and explain that we’re closed. We just simply. don’t. answer. the door.

If you don’t want your Mom to phone you at certain times of the day, or you don’t want her to invite herself over to your house, you need to not answer the phone, and not answer the door, at the times when you don’t want to deal with her.

Same thing with apologizing. I feel like if I apologize in general, she’ll want a specific apology that I don’t feel is right to give, and then she’ll want a promise to never do that thing again. Often I don’t feel that I can give her the apology she wants. Or if I do it’ll come up next time she perceives me doing the same thing and she’ll be even madder at me because I apologized last time, and use that as ammo.

You have to tell her, “I can’t be sorry for something I didn’t do. You are falsely accusing me.” Or you can say, “I have every right to do that, and I don’t need to apologize to you for it. It’s not hurting you in any way.”

I don’t know. I know that I feel sick before seeing her, and cry after. Am I too sensitive like she says? Am I seeing things that aren’t there? Even things I’m sure of seem unsure when it comes to her, like black becomes white when she walks into the room.

I had a boss like that, once. I left that place. I’m a lot healthier, now.

 

[oneofmany]

In assertive training I found this to be helpful with my mother. When she got upset by what I did I said, “I’m sorry you got upset when I-----” don’t say you are sorry for what you did because you are not.

Also repeating is good. Just keep saying what you are gong to do instead of letting her talk you out of doing something. Like “I won’t answer the phone between 2 and 4.” Let her talk then say over. “I still won’t answer the phone between 2 and 4.” She will try to give you reasons that is wrong but just keep saying, “I still won’t answer the phone between 2 and 4” or whatever you want to tell her and she doesn’t want you to do.

 

[DarkLight]

In assertive training I found this to be helpful with my mother. When she got upset by what I did I said, “I’m sorry you got upset when I-----” don’t say you are sorry for what you did because you are not.

Also repeating is good. Just keep saying what you are gong to do instead of letting her talk you out of doing something. Like “I won’t answer the phone between 2 and 4.” Let her talk then say over. “I still won’t answer the phone between 2 and 4.” She will try to give you reasons that is wrong but just keep saying, “I still won’t answer the phone between 2 and 4” or whatever you want to tell her and she doesn’t want you to do.

See, most of the time it’s not that she’ll try to talk me out of it. It’s more, if I said I won’t answer the phone between 2 and 4, she’d call at 1:59 every single day.

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

Odd thought halfway through “Codependent no more” - I feel almost like I’m reading about my mother. I know that’s not the point, and I swear I didn’t go into it looking for her. But it makes almost too much sense. Like she still wants the sick little girl who needed her…

Perhaps she does. This kind of thing is not uncommon.

My dad, for example, always made me believe there was something wrong with me, that I had psychological problems, that I was utterly incompetent and hopeless - despite my achievements, so he could be in control of my life. He proclaimed himself to be my saviour and loved to say that I would be nothing without him. My every achievement was somehow about him and he always claimed he was responsible for it. My choices and desires were always rubbished and doomed to fail. I was constantly ridiculed for basically everything, unless I listened to him and did things his way. He often told me I was an extension of himself. You get the picture. Not a pleasant person.

When I first read about the narcissistic personality disorder I honestly thought that the author was describing him personally. It was frightening, but at least I could put a label on his behavior and start to detach emotionally.

Basically, DO NOT DOUBT YOURSELF.

If what you have read sounds like her, then perhaps this is indeed the problem. Accepting this doesn’t mean that you hate her or something. It is good to be aware of what is going on, even if it sounds scary at first. Keep reading.

 

[Darryl_B]

There’s two sides in every conflict, yet the people in it only really ever have access to one. When there’s no mediator, how do you decide?

If you asked my mother, she’d say I don’t care enough about my family, I’m rebellious, I don’t listen to her or respect her, and I don’t take care of myself.

If you asked me, I’d say my mother still expects perfect obedience, thinks being my mother means she can speak to me however she wants, and ascribes the worst possible motives to my actions.

There’s no one I can go to that knows both of us and that everyone would trust as a fair mediator. How do you tell when you’re being fair to the other party?

Can I ask you one thing? I know wings must be earned, and until one has been a parent they will never understand, but if you could think for one moment, and think of one thing that you could possibly do to make your mother proud of you, could you then do it?

If you cannot think of one thing because you simply don’t know what could make her proud, then that is the misunderstanding. If you are unwilling to do it there is the misunderstanding.

 

[DarkLight]

Can I ask you one thing? I know wings must be earned, and until one has been a parent they will never understand, but if you could think for one moment, and think of one thing that you could possibly do to make your mother proud of you, could you then do it?

If you cannot think of one thing because you simply don’t know what could make her proud, then that is the misunderstanding. If you are unwilling to do it there is the misunderstanding.

I’m honestly not sure there is such a thing. Not that I don’t know what it is, but that I’m not sure the possibility exists at all.

Or if there is, I feel like what she wants is an obedient daughter. Our conflicts feel to me less about the actual issue and more about me doing things she dislikes.

 

[jmcrae]

See, most of the time it’s not that she’ll try to talk me out of it. It’s more, if I said I won’t answer the phone between 2 and 4, she’d call at 1:59 every single day.

Then you keep the conversation one minute long, and you don’t apologize.

You say, “Hi, Mom, it’s great to hear from you. O, look, it’s 2 o’clock, listen, I have to go. I’ll call you back after 4 pm, okay?”

And then you hang up.

At work, if someone calls at one minute before closing time, we say, “Oh, listen, let me get your name and telephone number. I’ll call you back first thing in the morning.” And then you do it, consistently. It works.

It doesn’t stop the customers from calling at one minute to closing, but it works in the sense that the worker is able to go home on time, without feeling guilty about it.