Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom creates reasons to be upset. She gets bad at the dumbest things, things that in no way have anything to do with her. The way you know she is upset is she gets cold in the conversation or ends it all together, bitches to everyone else in my family but me and my sister will sometimes mention it and never actually address or admit her feelings about it. Even if you bring it up with her she denies being upset about it while making it entirely obvious that she is so upset about it. She is a nutcase.

I limit my interaction with her and this is one of a million reasons. I would try not to engage further when she continues the conversation about it. Your first response gave an apology, reason and confirmed that he was spending the night there. After she keeps engaging in that conversation, I would ignore or change the subject instead of keep explaining and keep apologizing.

My mom is also very competitive about everything with my MIL so she would be offended that MIL was babysitting and she wasn't. Even if she didn't want to she wouldn't want MIL to. And she NEVER wants to hear information from MIL, she wants to know everything first so if she knew MIL knew something before she did or heard something from MIL before she heard it from me she would be offended/upset/angry. Sounds like your mom might also be a little competitive and jealous of your MIL?

Op here. I identify so much with your last paragraph. Yes, she's so damn competitive even though they see ds more and ds prefers theme. She will subtly put down my MiL. Always wants to know What gifts she gave, Etc. My parents are away this weekend so we never even asked them. I still think she's miffed I didn't. It's just such a weird dynamic and it's annoying. I thought she was going to disown me when I told her it really didn't concern her how much they gave us when we got married.

NP here. My mom does that too with gifts. Always needs to know who gave what. It was ridiculous after my wedding when she asked me what her friends gave us as if she's the gift police or something. I chalk it up to old lady nosiness.

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't apologize. Once my mother got mad at me because I didn't tell her I bought dinning room chairs. I told her that it's her problem if she took that personally, and besides she would find something wrong with my purchase. At some point I stopped caring about whether my mother was offended. And once I stopped caring she stopped being so whinny. If you can get to a zen place where you realize that it's her problem and you don't really care anymore, somehow the dynamic will change.

OP, this is good advice. I also note you mention you're in therapy. I hope you and the therapist are already working on ways you can learn not to care so much. It's hard not to rise to the bait when your mom is so petty, but it's just that -- pettiness.

It sounds to me as well as if there's still way too much electronic togetherness since you say you contact her daily AND your son is doing Facetime with her daily. She now expects these contacts every single day from both of you Be aware, as he gets older, he will want to do that less and less, and as he gets older, his own increasing activities will mean he simply has less time to contact grandma every single day. Will she then expect him to text her daily like you do now? I'd start ramping back gradually sooner rather than later so he's Facetiming less often and you talk to her maybe every other day.

She is not going to adjust well to his growing up, and having his own preteen and teen life, if she's this possessive about his time and whereabouts now.

Therapist had a good idea in terms of texting rather than calling, so you can limit response to whenever YOU want to respond, but some people do think texts merit instant replies or at least replies within a pretty short time frame. That's why I limit contact with some folks to just e-mail, not text or phone calls. Easier with e-mail to let it ride, and the expecation of fast reply isn't necessarily as high, especially if you say, "FYI, I check e-mail once a day, so if you don't hear back from me the same day it just means I didn't see it yet that day and I'll get to it."

I wouldn't apologize. Once my mother got mad at me because I didn't tell her I bought dinning room chairs. I told her that it's her problem if she took that personally, and besides she would find something wrong with my purchase. At some point I stopped caring about whether my mother was offended. And once I stopped caring she stopped being so whinny. If you can get to a zen place where you realize that it's her problem and you don't really care anymore, somehow the dynamic will change.

I think you need to clear the air with your mom and call her out, while being reassuring and appreciative. Tell her point blank that you feel like she's oddly competitive with the other grandparents and that makes you feel bad and could you talk it out?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom creates reasons to be upset. She gets bad at the dumbest things, things that in no way have anything to do with her. The way you know she is upset is she gets cold in the conversation or ends it all together, bitches to everyone else in my family but me and my sister will sometimes mention it and never actually address or admit her feelings about it. Even if you bring it up with her she denies being upset about it while making it entirely obvious that she is so upset about it. She is a nutcase.

I limit my interaction with her and this is one of a million reasons. I would try not to engage further when she continues the conversation about it. Your first response gave an apology, reason and confirmed that he was spending the night there. After she keeps engaging in that conversation, I would ignore or change the subject instead of keep explaining and keep apologizing.

My mom is also very competitive about everything with my MIL so she would be offended that MIL was babysitting and she wasn't. Even if she didn't want to she wouldn't want MIL to. And she NEVER wants to hear information from MIL, she wants to know everything first so if she knew MIL knew something before she did or heard something from MIL before she heard it from me she would be offended/upset/angry. Sounds like your mom might also be a little competitive and jealous of your MIL?

Op here. I identify so much with your last paragraph. Yes, she's so damn competitive even though they see ds more and ds prefers theme. She will subtly put down my MiL. Always wants to know What gifts she gave, Etc. My parents are away this weekend so we never even asked them. I still think she's miffed I didn't. It's just such a weird dynamic and it's annoying. I thought she was going to disown me when I told her it really didn't concern her how much they gave us when we got married.

YES! The jealousy over gift giving. I try to avoid letting her know what they give if it comes up now.

Anonymous wrote:My mom creates reasons to be upset. She gets bad at the dumbest things, things that in no way have anything to do with her. The way you know she is upset is she gets cold in the conversation or ends it all together, bitches to everyone else in my family but me and my sister will sometimes mention it and never actually address or admit her feelings about it. Even if you bring it up with her she denies being upset about it while making it entirely obvious that she is so upset about it. She is a nutcase.

I limit my interaction with her and this is one of a million reasons. I would try not to engage further when she continues the conversation about it. Your first response gave an apology, reason and confirmed that he was spending the night there. After she keeps engaging in that conversation, I would ignore or change the subject instead of keep explaining and keep apologizing.

My mom is also very competitive about everything with my MIL so she would be offended that MIL was babysitting and she wasn't. Even if she didn't want to she wouldn't want MIL to. And she NEVER wants to hear information from MIL, she wants to know everything first so if she knew MIL knew something before she did or heard something from MIL before she heard it from me she would be offended/upset/angry. Sounds like your mom might also be a little competitive and jealous of your MIL?

Op here. I identify so much with your last paragraph. Yes, she's so damn competitive even though they see ds more and ds prefers theme. She will subtly put down my MiL. Always wants to know What gifts she gave, Etc. My parents are away this weekend so we never even asked them. I still think she's miffed I didn't. It's just such a weird dynamic and it's annoying. I thought she was going to disown me when I told her it really didn't concern her how much they gave us when we got married.

My mom creates reasons to be upset. She gets bad at the dumbest things, things that in no way have anything to do with her. The way you know she is upset is she gets cold in the conversation or ends it all together, bitches to everyone else in my family but me and my sister will sometimes mention it and never actually address or admit her feelings about it. Even if you bring it up with her she denies being upset about it while making it entirely obvious that she is so upset about it. She is a nutcase.

I limit my interaction with her and this is one of a million reasons. I would try not to engage further when she continues the conversation about it. Your first response gave an apology, reason and confirmed that he was spending the night there. After she keeps engaging in that conversation, I would ignore or change the subject instead of keep explaining and keep apologizing.

My mom is also very competitive about everything with my MIL so she would be offended that MIL was babysitting and she wasn't. Even if she didn't want to she wouldn't want MIL to. And she NEVER wants to hear information from MIL, she wants to know everything first so if she knew MIL knew something before she did or heard something from MIL before she heard it from me she would be offended/upset/angry. Sounds like your mom might also be a little competitive and jealous of your MIL?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She is sensitive and feels left out. Not a sign of dementia. It's pretty common for people to get fussy and difficult to get along with as they age. Sounds like she wants to feel more important to you. don't fuel her over reactions with apologies but do try to give her more attention if/when possible. My mother is like this also.

Op here. Maybe this is part of it. I talk to her every day and DS face times with her every day. And we usually see her every week or every other week. Sometimes things just don't occur to me to tell her.

Wow, that is a lot of time. My mother is like this, too, perhaps more so. I don't talk to her much because of it.

Anonymous wrote:She is sensitive and feels left out. Not a sign of dementia. It's pretty common for people to get fussy and difficult to get along with as they age. Sounds like she wants to feel more important to you. don't fuel her over reactions with apologies but do try to give her more attention if/when possible. My mother is like this also.

Op here. Maybe this is part of it. I talk to her every day and DS face times with her every day. And we usually see her every week or every other week. Sometimes things just don't occur to me to tell her.

My mom gets like this when she needs her meds adjusted.

She is sensitive and feels left out. Not a sign of dementia. It's pretty common for people to get fussy and difficult to get along with as they age. Sounds like she wants to feel more important to you. don't fuel her over reactions with apologies but do try to give her more attention if/when possible. My mother is like this also.

Anonymous wrote:I think text is not your best communication tool at this point. Give her a call. Apologize.

Op here. She acts the same when when on a call. My therapist is the one who said keep it to texts when these incidents happen because I can pause before replying instead of having a reaction. My mom enjoys trying to get a rise out of me sometimes and for my mental health, I won't call her until she's out of her mood.

You did nothing wrong.

I think text is not your best communication tool at this point. Give her a call. Apologize.

My mom has always been prone to over reaction and drama and while the instances are less than they used to be, the things she over reacts to just seem so odd. If she was experiencing any memory loss, I would be wondering if she was in the early stages of dementia.
Anyways, she is currently furious with me because I did not tell her DS is spending the weekend at my in-laws. I had casually mentioned that we were going away for a work function for DH this weekend but didn't really go into much details. I.e. I didn't even tell her where it was or anything about it. Just had mentioned that I needed to dig up some old dresses and hoped they still fit.

So she texts me last night to ask if DS was coming with us this weekend, if we were bringing a baby sitter, etc. I replied that he was going to in-laws on Saturday for the night. Her response (I am copying this from the text) "Why was that a secret? Geez, no mention. Odd"
I said "sorry mom. Didn't think it really came up in conversation. But yes, he'll be going there Saturday night"
Her response "really? The dress? Going away? No mention of DS? Makes us out of the loop and feel stupid".
I respond apologizing again and say of course it wasn't my intention to make her feel stupid
Her response "it is hurtful that I look like a doofus with [MIL] when you don't talk to me. Guess things are what they are. Your choice"
I apologize again and she doesn't respond back

I know this may seem like a minor thing, but its these little situations that seem to set her off. Its just the oddest thing. I guess this was mostly a vent but it still feels like something is just off with her behavior.