Any moms of grown daughters with a strained relationship?

[Anonymous]

I just typed a post and lost it. So I'll retype a shorter version.

I am 50. I am neutral and emotionally numb when I think of my mom. She is 75. She is self-absorbed, gossipy, and blunt. I don't dislike her, but I connect with her emotionally in about the same way as a distant aunt.

I'm much closer to my three 20-something daughters. I've tried to be warm, emotionally available, confidential. I don't solve their problems, judge, or fix things for them, but just listen and provide support at any time of day or night. So far, so good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I was a kid, my mother ignored me. When I was a teenager she smothered me and made me feel like I was never good enough. I didn't actually have that terrible a relationship until around the time I was planning my wedding in my late 20's. I think there were a lot of unresolved feelings from my childhood, just never really feeling like she was capable of loving me unconditionally. I actually see some of these traits in my own parenting style and I work really hard to be a better parent. My mom and I get along now, but there are definitely times when our relationship is tense and I no longer even try to get emotional support from her.

Can you elaborate on the ignoring part? Smothering part?
I try so hard to spend time w my 7yo but of course there is dinner dishes laundry another sibling etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I was a kid, my mother ignored me. When I was a teenager she smothered me and made me feel like I was never good enough. I didn't actually have that terrible a relationship until around the time I was planning my wedding in my late 20's. I think there were a lot of unresolved feelings from my childhood, just never really feeling like she was capable of loving me unconditionally. I actually see some of these traits in my own parenting style and I work really hard to be a better parent. My mom and I get along now, but there are definitely times when our relationship is tense and I no longer even try to get emotional support from her.

Can you elaborate on the ignoring part? Smothering part?
I try so hard to spend time w my 7yo but of course there is dinner dishes laundry another sibling etc.

Examples of smothering for any age child include forcing the girl to wear hair/make-up/clothes not chosen by child. I hated bangs and until I was large enough to grab her arm I had bangs. The hair issue even sprouted on my wedding day. I friggin hated my gown but she had fits about the one I chose. Smothering is also insisting on over decoration of rooms , apts, houses. Mine even bought unsolcited furniture for me as part of being a shopaholic. Not out of generosity since I was then charged for that stuff as part of the estate.

[Anonymous]

Sorry to hear OP. My 25 year old dd is the love of my love next to my dh. I wan't super close to my mom. We had 8 kids in the family. She was a saint but I just never had a lot of closeness with her. That is why I'm happy I'm close to mine.

[Anonymous]

OP, I don't think you're going to hear from the problem moms on here. They are generally in denial about how much and why their daughters hate them and fairly delusional about the whole thing. They're not going to be sharing info in a thread like this -- that requires a self-awareness they don't have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just typed a post and lost it. So I'll retype a shorter version.

I am 50. I am neutral and emotionally numb when I think of my mom. She is 75. She is self-absorbed, gossipy, and blunt. I don't dislike her, but I connect with her emotionally in about the same way as a distant aunt.

I'm much closer to my three 20-something daughters. I've tried to be warm, emotionally available, confidential. I don't solve their problems, judge, or fix things for them, but just listen and provide support at any time of day or night. So far, so good.

This is great advice for ensuring that you create good relationships with your own daughters. My mom was/is the same way and we're very close. She maybe did too good of a job. My sister and I like to call her daily but she's pretty busy herself!

[Anonymous]

My mom is about 70 and she is still bitterly, bitterly resentful of my dad whom she divorced 30 years ago. She also resents that we kids didn't pick "her side" in the divorce, but instead, continued to have a relationship with my dad, his new wife (Affair partner) and new kids.

She is very self centered. A common theme with her is, "I am entitled to my feelings". She gets insanely angry over trivial things, she can't handle stress, she has terrible anxiety, she won't visit, she won't take planes, (and hasn't for years). She whines, "why isn't OUR relationship like such and such has with HER kids". Well, have you ever though about the possibility that YOU are 50% of your relationships?

She's an alcoholic who gets completely shit faced every night.

She's erratic, one year she's selling Avon, the next year she's raising Emus for the meat, the next year she's doing something else.....

She's bitterly resentful of having lost her looks. She was very pretty and that's about all she had, no education or skills. Losing her looks is a torment to her.

Nonetheless she thinks she's very smart and is constantly lecturing the world on Facebook about politics.

She is simultaneously supportive and worried about her kids and yet very critical of our life choices, whether it's where we live, what we do, or how we raise our kids.

She comes up with incredible ways of changing the past "well MY kids never ate bologna!" she'll say, although I remember quite clearly that's not true.

She never calls because she says the long distance is too expensive.

I could go on and on and on... I love her. And she drives me absolutely nuts.