Tired of Validating My Mother

[Anonymous]

Here awe some reasonable boundaries for you:

- talk twice a week either on phone or Skype or FaceTime
- send pic once a week (which is even a lot, once a month is more reasonable)
- visit two or three times a year total
- she must stop comparing to birth mom. Each time she does, you say "this is not a competition and I refuse to indulge your attempts to make it one.

Op you must be firm. She will be hurt but she will get over it. I suggest you let the therapist know you are implementing healthy boundaries you and your husband have agreed work best for your family and you would appreciate the therapist helping your mom come to terms with them. Do not let the therapist talk you into giving any more than is comfortable for you. Then the therapist is not respecting your boundaries.

[Anonymous]

My father who was only slightly present in my life growing up was like this. Your mother lacks boundaries and sounds manipulative. its your job to firmly enforce the boundaries. However, it sounds like she isn't going to listen even if you spell them out clearly. So, you'll have to show your boundaries through your behavior. If she says, "call me after the drs appt," just be silent and don't call. If she says send me pictures, why didn't you send me pics, I'm the grandmother...the response is silence or "I'm busy. I need to go now." It may take a while though for her to catch on. It took my ILs 5 yrs. My dad never caught on and decided the relationship had to be on his terms or not at all.

[Anonymous]

Some new grandmothers just don't get it.

OP, do you have a good relationship with her otherwise? I think you need to be kind but clear. Tell her that you love her and that you're glad she's in your life and in your child's life. And then tell her that between work and the baby, you're drowning right now. Tell her that you don't have the time and energy to meet all her expectations and that the combined effect of all the messages is stressing you and hurting your relationship with her. It makes you want to see and talk to her less, not more, and you don't want to feel that way about her.

OP, my parents are in Europe and my mother has always been the controlling/smothering kind. This is why I moved so far away!
You can tell her what PP outlined, but what will work much better is following through whatever boundaries you decide on, and refusing to defend, discuss or explain them every single time. Don't get sucked into her dependency.

I send pictures every 3 months (kids are 3 and 8). When the firstborn was less than a year old, it was more like once every month.
We talk on the phone every 2 days. This is because I stay home. When I worked, it would be one phone conversation every weekend.
We visit each other once a year for 2 weeks - some years they come to us, other years we go to them.

These are my boundaries. If she doesn't like it, she can lump it. Otherwise it's no end of a drama spiral.

[Anonymous]

How hard is it to put a pic in a text or email and hit send? Or have a 2 minute convo about the dr appointments? I call my mother AND mother in law after my baby's appointments and give them the highlights, no big deal. The vacation stuff is more annoying but at least you can do the little stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How hard is it to put a pic in a text or email and hit send? Or have a 2 minute convo about the dr appointments? I call my mother AND mother in law after my baby's appointments and give them the highlights, no big deal. The vacation stuff is more annoying but at least you can do the little stuff.

NP. How hard is it? Very hard when it's manipulative and suffocating. You either didn't read all of OPs posts or you don't get it: this isn't about regular "excited grandma enthusiasm", this is grandma having issues and needing an exhausting level of validation and throwing guilt trips if a busy new mom doesn't send pictures every.single.day. OP does need to set firm and strict boundaries and tell her mom she loves her and wants her to be close to her grandson, but she has to stop with the extreme expectations about contact and the guilt trips.

And one more thing PP, we all need to understand that different levels of contact are manageable for different parents. The contact you have with your child's grandmas? That would drive me nuts. No one but the other parent of he child needs updates after every doc appt. and I adore my mom and MIL but no, not posting pics every day of my kids. I find it annoying when others do it and I don't do it myself. But that's just me... I would not judges other mom (like you) who's comfy with it because hey, whatever works for you. But you sound juggle mental that OP can't figure out a way to meet her moms demands because they sound reasonable to you. Many of us got tired just reading OPs post and would never do all that, so to each their own.

[Anonymous]

Hi op here,

Thank you for all of your responses.

Sunday my mother and I actually had another round of you never post anything on my wall. It ended with my boundary setting (?) that if she ever mentions anything to me about my activity on Facebook again - I will defriend her. She responded "ok-so many rules!" And that was that. No mention since! I'm sure it will come back at some point but for now the issue is done.

14:44- I feel exactly like you! I've decided to do an in person therapy session with her and set up boundries. As for personal therapy solo- I liked it but not sure it helped as the shrink mostly agrees with me. Seems like sessions together have the most hope as therapist can modify our interaction in real time. A good massage is also a worthwhile use of my therapy dollars.

16:27- you are spot on! Posting a photo to Facebook is more upsetting to her, because she doesn't get a special photo. Again, it's not about the actual picture, but the validation I wrap it in. She didn't even comment on our christmas card, because of course that photo is meaningless as it was created for mass distribution!
As for being more secretive, yes I do consider it. Do you have children? I wonder about setting a precedent that could burden my son. It seems unsustainable in the long run but definitely attractive!

18:16- love this quote:
"this is not a competition and I refuse to indulge your attempts to make it one."
I will start using it immediately!

7:43, maybe I've been too impatient and need to give my strategies more time to work

To all who've suggested specific boundaries and shared theirs, thank you! They are all more than reasonable and doable.

I've decided to visit birth mom this summer as I will be in a neighboring town. Trying to figure out how to share this information. If I share this July trip too soon, there will be lots of opportunity for crazy. Thinking about sharing it during therapy. Also thinking about drawing a hard line, "if you cannot accept my decision to visit birth mom, DS and I will not attend beach vacation the following week". It feels cruel to threaten the vacation, but I need to create some consequences so she will keep herself in check. I can't handle weekly meltdowns about this decision.

[Anonymous]

14:44 i have started getting massages regularly! so funny! i wonder how many massage therapists know their clients are there because of their mothers?
and i can totally relate to 16:27. she wants the public info and a secret stash of private info to keep her feeling special. as if being mother or grandmother doesnt put her in that position naturally.

good luck to you. i would def mention july trip in therapy. even if she handles the time prior to the trip well i would be worried that she would ruin the vacation you are going on with her if it is immediately following. i would consider discussing that in therapy as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:14:44 i have started getting massages regularly! so funny! i wonder how many massage therapists know their clients are there because of their mothers?
and i can totally relate to 16:27. she wants the public info and a secret stash of private info to keep her feeling special. as if being mother or grandmother doesnt put her in that position naturally.

good luck to you. i would def mention july trip in therapy. even if she handles the time prior to the trip well i would be worried that she would ruin the vacation you are going on with her if it is immediately following. i would consider discussing that in therapy as well.

Yes I'm totally worried that the "threat" would just lead to her holding it in and unleashing during the vacation. Which has me wanting to rake 16:27s advice and not tell her. However if she found out through other channels, it would never end. Also I am somewhat resentful that I have to hide this from her in the first place. In any case, I agree these are all issues to lay out with the therapist.

Other people are attending the vacation (inlaws etc) and she tends to hold it together better in front of outsiders (including DH, which is great bc keeping him close can keep they cray in check). She is very worried about perception (as an old southern lady should be!) (her thinking not mine).

Good luck to you

[Anonymous]

How quickly our mothers forget how little time they spent talking with, vacationing with, etc. their mothers. My mom feels abandoned that her mom was never around when I was a baby and didn't help her or spend enough time with me. Now I know she is going to smother me - thus she will be rejected by her mother and her daughter. I kind of feel bad, but not really. It is not my fault she made me an only child and then smothered me making me always want to shrink away from her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How quickly our mothers forget how little time they spent talking with, vacationing with, etc. their mothers. My mom feels abandoned that her mom was never around when I was a baby and didn't help her or spend enough time with me. Now I know she is going to smother me - thus she will be rejected by her mother and her daughter. I kind of feel bad, but not really. It is not my fault she made me an only child and then smothered me making me always want to shrink away from her.

Hi pp, I think it is harder for only children with single mothers as there is no one to disperse the need onto as the child is the only primary relationship. It is very very hard.

[Anonymous]

Carolyn Hax had a good answer for the "how often" questions.
First: figure out what would be ideal for you (if the answer is "never," this won't work)
Then: back up the time until you start feeling physically ill (phone call every two weeks, no problem; every two days, barf)
Then: go forward to where it's something you can handle (phone call every week, 5 days, whatever)

Your mom has a lot going on. You can't fix her problems. I found that being exhausted finally made me put limits on my boundary-stomping mom, as well. I was too tired to care about her guilt trips as much.