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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, I'm sorry this is happening.

Some context would really help us here. Is this a long-standing pattern she's used all her life with you? Or is it a recent tactic? If it's long-term, you might need to see a therapist to help sort through a lifetime of this kind of treatment (which some do see as a type of emotional abuse at some levels; it can be pretty cruel).

But if it's a new thing, is there some chance that she, herself, is changing -- maybe starting signs of dementia? (Unreasonable anger, if that's part of this, can be one possible flag of a mental health change in older people).

But all that's conjecture unless we know a bit more about the context of her and whether this is new or old; specific to one problem between you, or something she does over many things; or a tactic she's using to get her way because you've given in to it in other cases....And so on. 
[/quote]

Thanks!  It's such an ongoing thing, I was afraid I wouldn't know where to start or stop!

This is a long-standing pattern, since I was a kid (I'm 45 tomorrow).  I'm an only child and she was a SAHM, so I was alone with her when she would "turn" on me.  She generally has to have someone to be mad at, so she takes turns giving my father, my grandfather, me, etc. the silent treatment, without any provocation.  In this latest case, DH, my three sons, and I were on a two week vacation with my parents (we all stay in the same condo) in August when halfway through, she got mad and stopped talking to me.  From the spring until August, she wasn't talking to my father (as in, she'd call me to ask if I knew if my father's plans, etc. when he was sitting in the next room from her).  Then, on vacation, she was watching "RHONY" and I said that I didn't like Bethenny Frankel and she got mad about that.  I didn't ask her to turn it off and I certainly wasn't criticizing her for watching the show and even if I were, the silent treatment seems like a ridiculous response.  She hasn't talked to me since then, except for once when we both at my son's basketball game and she asked us to Christmas.  Before that, she sent me an email right before Thanksgiving asking us to Thanksgiving dinner and I replied that we'd already made plans with my ILs, but that I loved and missed her and hoped that we could talk about what happened.  I also asked that she refrain from giving the silent treatment in the future.  She never replied to that email.  In September, she was at my home for my son's 12th birthday and she acted like I was invisible.

[u]My father has an unspoken expectation that I will just start talking to my mother just as I always have to smooth things over so she'll come around, but I just am not willing to do that anymore[/u][b].  I'm also really disappointed that my father never put a stop to this when I a little kid and had to be with her alone with her acting like I didn't exist.  I don't want to be mad about it, but I am just not willing to subject myself to it.  Not to mention that it makes my DH and sons uncomfortable.  I've been a good daughter; not perfect, of course, but good.  I was the first to graduate from college in my family, DH and I are raising good kids (so far), we are self-sufficient, etc., etc.  My mother's behavior, which I see as bullying, has contributed to me feeling like I'm "off balance" most of the time, expecting people not to like or care for me.  I've decided that I don't want to feel that way anymore and that I don't have to, but then I don't know how to reconcile my mother and my expectation that I be treated like a worthwhile human being.[/quote]

My dad was like that.  When he got sick, she did it to him. He was in a lot of pain and I had to explain to him, because I had learned, that her anger has nothing to do with the person on the other side of it. In the past, he'd ask me to break the ice or fix it and I'd have to explain the backstory and the lies.  Then I realized he didn't like his home life when she was in this "mode". That wasn't my responsibility.

You can call your dad. Be you. If she doesn't want to talk, whatever. 
She may be jealous of you, on some level and you success may irritate her. 
A therapist told me that when I do things as a parent she did not to, it is a trigger for her to attack. So I say, "We went __ sports game," or "We had a scout event. Your grandchild won an award. I sent you a photo," She takes in as a jab or insult and needs to cut me down.

I minimize my chatter now. Our relationship is more detached but civil. [/quote]

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