mother daughter relationships

Badger -- I feel for you. Difficult parents are hard to deal with. Let me offer a different perspective. In doing so, I don't intend to excuse bad behavior, but just to offer a hypothesis to understand it and perhaps allow you to let it "roll off" without feeling battered from it. I think in some thread in this forum someone wrote that you cannot control how people act, only how you do (and feel).

From reading the thread, I understood your mother is Japanese and your father perhaps was not. If I was to make sense of her behavior, I would interpret it as being scared, afraid of the future. The Japanese culture is fairly closed and hierarchical. In particular, elders are held in very high respect, their opinion consulted frequently. Your mother did something unusual - to move abroad and perhaps marry a non Japanese (ever asked her about her life story, her family's reaction?). Her sense of loss right now might go deeper than the loss of your father. She might view you as the daughter she has kind of lost: you do not defer to her, do not seek her opinion. As she's considering moving back to Japan, she might feel terribly lonely and about to go back to an environment where she might be viewed as a failure. She simply sounds not emotionally equipped to process these developments in her life.

PS: "old person car"? My reaction would have been: yeah. I'm old enough for it!

thanks everyone. I LOVE my car, btw. took her for a spin yesterday and what a zippy little number; my '99 CR-V pales in comparison in every aspect. And yes, the trunk is MASSIVE! I can fit about 5 bodies :p And the numbers on the dashboard still say 700km til the next fill up, I started out at 750km - I've put in about 250km yesterday.

As for my mother, it's HER who needs therapy not me. Everyone but her seems to know that. She has plenty of issues she can address, but she's from a generation where therapy is for certifiable crazies (though some days that's debatable with her). I can go on til the cows come home. Outwardly she has/had a charmed life yet listening to her you'd think she was the Asian Annie. She never worked a day iin her life, bought whatever she wanted and my father adored her even though she was a b**ch to him most of the time.

Best case scenario for all involved is for her to move back to Japan. She's happy there, my brother and I are happy with her gone, so it's a win-win. It's the time before that is to happen that's a challenge. At least I have a brother in the same boat who understands.

VW's are the best, you are fine, and get her on some antidepressants if you have to slip them in her coffee.

I'd kill for a Jetta! My MIL and her (icky) boyfriend have his-n-hers Jetta wagons. REALLY nice cars. There is nothing old-ladyish about them, at all! Enjoy your car...it sounds to me like she's just jealous.

My folks are difficult...and horrible hoarders. I am dreading when they die. I live 10 hours away and that makes day-to-day interactions easy (since there are none), but when I visit I can't get over how awful their living conditions are--entirely by choice. Their stove is unusable, since it's covered in stuff. EVERY horizontal surface is covered...and dust everywhere. I am talking an opaque layer in corners, cracker boxes with dust (who has boxes of Cheeze-Its around long enough to collect dust?!). My siblings and I will need to rent a dumpster to deal with their mess, someday.

My mom is EXACTLY the person I don't ever want to become. Totally sedentary and injury-prone, because she is so out of shape. But she lets her injury ease and asthma keep her from doing things. Her asthma would be a helluvalot better if she didn't live in a dusty house, since that is one of her allergy triggers (as well as cats and mold--and their house is old and they have 3 cats). It's depressing being around her.

She lives to gossip, but because they have no internet she hears everything so late that it's no longer even gossip, then gets irritated when she's not the one delivering some juicy story first (it really makes her nuts that I know things about the locals before she does, ha!). :rolleyes:

Lots of Hugs. ((((Badger))))

Congratulations on the car. A truly independent intelligent woman made a decision on a fabulous car, and that is you!

You are not alone on the mom thing. When I read your posting it sounded exactly like my mother. I am coincidentially meeting tonight with my sisters to try to figure out a way to help care for our mom and not be punching bags.

Take care of yourself.

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Originally Posted by indysteel

(((Badger))). I know all too well how hard it is to have a mother who isn't the mother you need, want or deserve. The best advice I can give you is to accept that her negativity is all about her and has nothing to do with you. Try not to internalize it.

Congrats on your car! My husband works for a diesel engine manufacturer and he gives you a thumbs up for choosing that Jetta!

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I agree with Indy, it has to do with your mother's issues. It's so hard to be around people like that and, being your mother, its not like you can distance that relationship. Boundaries was a great book for me, really helped me develop healthy relationships with my own mother and others. May be worth checking out . . . He also wrote a few other books on the same topic: Safe People and Necessary Endings.

Badger, I hope things work out for the best for both of you. Sorry I can't really add anything more. Congrats on your car though.

I am minus my mother since I was 25 or so. So I miss all of the times that we could have been together to enjoy "girl" things. Not at my wedding...and other things that happen in your life. I have had my Dad for that. I have had to struggle with what I can tell him and what I can't because I'm a woman and he won't understand. I could talk to my mom about everything. For those of you who do have a mom, appreciate what she does for you, if you can handle (deal) with it.

Red Rock

I often feel like that, Red Rock. My mom died in 1996. Of course, she was cool, in the same way I hope my sons say I am cool. We had our moments, but nothing more than the usual. She missed my sons' graduations, marriages, our houses in Boxborough and Concord, and all of our cycling stuff. The best thing she told me was that to make sure DH and I had a hobby we could do together. This was about 2 years before DH started riding and about 4 years before I did. At the time, my kids were in middle school and quickly becoming independent. How true those words were.
On the other hand, if my mom was like her sister (the relative I have cut all ties with), I wouldn't have hesitated to keep those boundaries firm.

I'm in the camp with a difficult mother. She was physically, verbally, emotionally abusive toward me growing up. It wasn't until I met DH I learned what a mother is - I have the BEST mother in law possible. For all the cutting remarks I get from my mother, my MIL is my cheerleader and friend. I can confide in her, ask advice, spend a pleasant afternoon together. Were I to confide in my mother, it would be turned against me in the worst possible way, probably announced to family. If I were to ask her advice, I would be ridiculed or picked apart, or even snapped at for asking.

Right now, I am still recovering from a 5 day visit with the parents. Still picking myself back up, finding my self esteem and my drive, and let go of the barbs that were sunk in while they were here. Badger, I know how hard it is. Nothing is ever good enough. You will never make her happy - and something DH has tried and tried to teach me is, it doesn't matter. What matters is if you are happy, and feel you are successful. Not her.