I am reading all the above and it makes me wonder if we have an ideal, media influenced image of what mom should be. Maybe all the stories above (with a few exceptions) are more what real moms are? Like, one of the poster complained that mom using her as a therapist. Isn't it what family for? To discuss all the problems together?

I love my mom a lot, but we are not best friends. She did a lot of things mentioned in several posts above, and I hated our relationship when I was a teen. However, once I had my own kids, I became more understanding why she acted like that. My older daughter is turning 20 this year and I am always thinking about what do I want our relations to be. I feel like this is totally a blank page now and even though we had great relations with her when she was a child, it does not guarantee that we are going to have it as two adults.

I would love to hear what people think mother should do to make relations better?

Anonymous wrote:My mom would love to have a close mother-daughter relationship but I have zero interest in that. She is one of those moms that lives vicariously through her children and whose happiness is derived from her children’s personal and professional success (as long as they align with her definition of success).

Oh that’s totally my mom. It’s funny because she just loves to say how great my life is. How I made such great choices. Have such great kids. Have such a great life. Fabulous is the word she uses. She says these things so often to me and it’s like her weird. I don’t know what to say.... thanks? I agree? I got lucky? It’s all because of you? But for whatever reason my blood starts to boil. It’s because I know if there was one thing that went wrong that threw things off she would just feel sorry for me and also judge me the way she judges everyone who married someone not great, or has kids that have problems, or whatever... the list is so long. It’s like masqueraded in her being proud of me. She is, yes but she is also smug. And unable to reconcile a world where people might have problems and still have a great life.

Anonymous wrote:Growing up My mother was both too dominating and negligent. Kind of like the title of that trump book! I think the term is insecure attachment. That’s definitely affected our relationship. Think my mom has BPD. She really wants to be bffs but we just don’t like each other very much. And being around her makes me feel bad about her, about myself, etc etc.

I’m the PP who mentioned “role swapping”.

“Both too dominating and negligent” is spot on for her too. I understand you perfectly!

Growing up My mother was both too dominating and negligent. Kind of like the title of that trump book! I think the term is insecure attachment. That’s definitely affected our relationship. Think my mom has BPD. She really wants to be bffs but we just don’t like each other very much. And being around her makes me feel bad about her, about myself, etc etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom views everything through the lens of competition. I don't share anything about my life with her as it turns into one-upmanship by her or she uses it against me in the future. Hard to be close to someone when the only topics you can talk about are the weather and slow cooker recipes.

This is so my sister.

Sorry to clarify..it is how my sister is with me. I can't even talk about recipes with her. Just weather.

Anonymous wrote:My mom views everything through the lens of competition. I don't share anything about my life with her as it turns into one-upmanship by her or she uses it against me in the future. Hard to be close to someone when the only topics you can talk about are the weather and slow cooker recipes.

This is so my sister.

My mom was very, VERY critical of me growing up. Typical of Asian parents, but she was just downright mean to me sometimes. Constantly compared me to other kids "my friends kids do this, do that, why can't you?!" or downright told me I couldn't do something (like asking her to teach me how to knit and she told me I wouldn't be able to do it; wanting to tryout for cheerleading in HS and told me I wouldn't make the team). It still hurts in my late 30s and she's still quite critical. She doesn't see it though.

Anonymous wrote:My mom views everything through the lens of competition. I don't share anything about my life with her as it turns into one-upmanship by her or she uses it against me in the future. Hard to be close to someone when the only topics you can talk about are the weather and slow cooker recipes.

Interesting. My mom and I discuss weather and recipes but that’s about it. OP, I hope you are learning that not everyone is close with their mother and that is healthy if you want to avoid the negativity & not repeat the same patterns.

My mom views everything through the lens of competition. I don't share anything about my life with her as it turns into one-upmanship by her or she uses it against me in the future. Hard to be close to someone when the only topics you can talk about are the weather and slow cooker recipes.

I love my mom, and she loves me, but if we weren't mother and daughter, I'm fairly sure we wouldn't be friends. Our opinions differ on just about everything - politics, finances, gender roles in the home/family, etc. She's extremely opinionated and can be downright nasty if you don't agree with her. There's very little room for differences of opinion in her life (my husband has described it privately as "her way or the highway" and he's not wrong).

My mom: what a complicated story. She was an illegitimate child back when that was really not acceptable. The 1920s.
She came from a relative well to do upper crust family. She was first shifted over to her mothers sister then to a fancy boarding school. She was very smart and got a scholarship to a good college and became protege to a famous person.
But she left that behind to marry my Dad. She was very pretty, elegant, and sexy. She had 5 kids with him. 3 boys and 2 girls.
Through lots of therapy I learned she had a lot of self hate — I look very much like her, and she really felt more comfortable with the boys.
We were not so close because she felt overwhelmed by having 5 kids and very wounded by her upbringing.
She was not emotionally trustworthy. Any weakness or confidence she would exploit to have a feeling of power. She loved to make me cry as a child. I guess to let me know how it felt? Or she couldn’t help it?
She embarrassed me terribly by pretending to be a falling down drunk in front of my DH family.
My DH always says my family has a cruel streak. They draw you in then slap you down. Don’t let your guard down.
So no we aren’t best friends. I wish things had been better.

I love my mother, but she can be very manipulative and guilt shame me all the time. She also never stops talking about my sister (my poor poor sister, according to my mother, who never can catch a break, who my mother paid for her college, her car, her house, takes care of her kids, buys tons of more stuff for her, etc). My mother just asked me to send my sister money so that her son (my nephew) could go to a speciality camp in a few weeks, my sister doesn't want to pay. My sister is a leech, and it drives me insane. If we could have a conversation or visit without talking about her, that would be awesome.

My mom would love to have a close mother-daughter relationship but I have zero interest in that. She is one of those moms that lives vicariously through her children and whose happiness is derived from her children’s personal and professional success (as long as they align with her definition of success).

My dad loved me more than he loved her. I could do no wrong in his eyes. Someone on dcum posted this when I posted something about my mom and how she treated me most of my life.
She accused me of ruining her life because when I was two years old, I told dad mom was kissing a man. This was allegedly a show I watched. This story is not true, she invented it when she was 71. Never before did my sister or I hear this story. And trust me mom keeps a list of wrong doings. Then she said I loved grandma that was an evil MIL to her, so she can't get over that and I should have hated grandma for her.
So...yeah. Not quite best friends, but close, I say? No?

My whole life, she told me I was dumb and would get molested.

When I left my abusive ex, she threatened to take my DD away because I’m a “bad mom” for leaving.

She meddles in all my decisions, even tries to tell me what I can/can’t put on social media.

She divorced my dad when I was 8. 25 years later, she still expects me to take her side and cut my dad off. When I didn’t, she got revenge on both of us by interfering with our jobs (including breaking into my dads house to get info off his computer)

I could go on.....