Bad day...
Moms View Message Board: General Discussion: Archive January 2008:
Bad day...
I wish there were enough space here for me to fully explain why. I've been crying all day for my mother treating me badly again and I'm 27 years old. I hate it when I think she likes me, I let my guard down and it hurts more everytime. From my mother I have learned there are things that can't be undone and words that can't be unsaid. I've also learned how it hurts your child to blantantly favor a sibling. I need a hug. 
It's the best I can do so...{{{HUGS}}}. I wish there was more we could do for our internet friends.
(((((Rayelle))))) I *totally* understand how you feel, I finally cut ties with my toxic mother 2 years ago. It was honestly the best thing I could have done, but it still hurts, I still miss my mom, and when I look at how much I love my children, I wonder why she doesn't love me like that. Anyway, it's good that you have learned what not to do and say, although it's unfortunate that such a valuable lesson comes at such a cost. Vent here anytime, and try to keep smiling, you've learned to be a great mother from the mistakes of your own, and that is something to be proud of.
{{{HUGS}}}
I'm sorry, Rayelle. {{{{{Hugs}}}}}
{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}}}}}}}
Rayelle, I have lots to say to you about this, but don't have the time to collect my thoughts since I'm at work, but will get back to this later on.
Many {{{hugs}}}, Rayelle.
Rayelle,sweety ,I know all too well the pain you are going thru!! At 54 years old, there's hardly a week (and sometimes a day)that goes by that I don't "feel" the pain of my mother not loving me, and loving my older siblings more. And I'm the "Baby"! And in the south, that's usually the one that gets doted on!! One of my dgd's looks soooooo much like me when I was little, and MANY times when I am holding her I think" HOW could my mother NOT love me, if I was so precious like Hannah is !!" Try to do something nice for your self today.And above all, let your inner dialect with yourself be good, loving ,and soft.(((( HUGS ))))
(((Hugs)))
The more you study psychology, Rayelle, the more you'll understand that she can like you and still sound like she doesn't. Or who knows what. There's so many ways for people to be a mess. I'm sorry. And it's so good that you are aware of the problem and are trying to be a better mother to your children than she has been to you.
((((Hugs))))
Rayelle, I completely understand. More than you will ever know in a post... But I have been there, done that and know the feeling. I haven't spoken to my father in two years, the door is open, I just won't make contact. He lives over an hour away so I don't see him around. I deal with my mother on a very limited bases, she moved to Florida a year ago October and I of course don't see her either.
Things done and said can not be undone, is right.
Mlee, some people are beyond mess. Some people cause so much pain that they occupy your mind to the point that it is better to just not deal with them.
I had two brothers and my mother obviously preferred the boys, although I was labeled crazy to suggest that. On her deathbed, she finally told me. "I didn't love you less. I just never liked you". Amazingly that didn't make me feel bad. I had known all along that she felt differently about me. It made me feel good to know that I was right, and the discrimination wasn't all in my head.
She often told the story to her friends while I was around, of how my older, then three year old, brother and my dad would play a little game, when dad got home from work each day. Chuck would hide, and his Daddy came to find him. When they brought me home from the hospital, Dad came home that first day, and instead of searching for Chuck, he came right to my bassinet, and picked me up, while Chuck hid and asked, Where is Chucky, Daddy?" This was told with much venom and pointed looks in my direction, as if I had caused this gross injustice. She never forgave me.
I think I know why my mother is the way she is although I doubt she'll ever admit it. Once I was old enough to understand I heard about how I ruined her life. She was 6 months pregnant with me when she and my dad got married. My dad didn't want to marry her from what I've heard but his parents told him to do right by her. My mom's parents were devoutly Catholic and old fashioned. I thought the whole unwed mother stigma of sending your daughter off to a convent somewhere was gone by 1980, maybe not but they sure didn't think so. What also angers me is my mother was 20 years old. She was old enough to think for herself but passed it off as obeying her parents. That was her don't have sex speech to me, how she loved me but I ruined her life. She thinks of things she was supposed to do blah blah.
Part of me gets it part of me thinks it's crap!! Everybody is different. I had my son when I was 18 and I've never thought for a second I ruined my life. At this point I am going to college so being a mother is hardly a reason to not try to work on your own dreams. At least try!!!! Sure I've thought about how if I would have been older maybe we would have been better off financially and I could have given them more. I don't blame my kids! We've managed for them to have everything they need and some wants too. I have friends who were older when they had kids and they sometimes think about how it might have been if they were younger. I think "what might have been" is simply a thought everyone has about major life events.
Wow. I just tried to sum up the meat potatoes of it all and it was 6 paragraphs!!! I'll put it as basic as possible. I get treated like crap, my sister gets treated like a princess. The story of my wedding is long but it ends with my mom not coming and my wealthy parents not giving me ten cents towards anything since I was ruining my life getting married young. My sister is only one year older than I was and they are giving her the moon. This goes beyond petty materialistic things trust me. This stresses me out deeply and makes old wounds fresh. I've been trying to go about things thinking I can handle being a bridesmaid for my sister since it's not her fault. I told her I wasn't going to be someone fawning over color schemes with her due to the disparity she said fine. So my sister cried after the dress fitting the other day saying I didn't seem happy enough. I did nothing out of line. I tried on dresses and said dd didn't want to try on flowergirl dresses so just pick what she wanted she'd be a 5, etc. My mom got mad at me too for being jealous,get over it my wedding was 10 years ago. Words I can not say on mv, words I can not say on mv, words I can not say on mv..........
Oh Bea I get that! I often think maybe she's right and I'm the crazy one. I want to move away.
Now I'm able to think about it all differently. No, I never had a close relationship with my mother, and I guess I missed that, but then again, she denied herself a close, mother and daughter bond, that would have enriched her life. I have many wonderful relationships. She lost out on a good one. I feel sorry for her.
She was the product of a very dysfunctional family. I'm sure her parents came from their own screwy families. Resentment and anger don't benefit me in any way. Life is too short for that. I can't change the past, but I can change how I feel about the past, and how it affects me today. I refuse to hold that grudge. It was her loss.
Rayelle,
"Half the harm that is done in this world
Is due to people who want to feel important.
They don't mean to do harm — but the harm does not interest them.
Or they do not see it, or they justify it
Because they are absorbed in the endless struggle
To think well of themselves."
T. S. ELLIOT - The Cocktail Party
My parents suffer from different forms of personality disorder... No joke.
My dad was dating three women, told mom he wasn't going to get married to any, she got pregnant. He married her... 16 years later and many girl friends later, (she cheated too, don't get it wrong) they divorced when he got caught by a friend of my mom's parents...Ironically, with one of the 2 he had been dating when he got with mom, did I mention he was in the service for 14 years, so he had tracked her down. Long story short, she has spent her life mad because he didn't love her enough and I have taken the brunt of her crap for 36 years... and he just didn't want to loose his income to child support.
Rayelle,
That is NO excuse, and shouldn't be looked as such. I do not for one second have pity for people who stayed in miserable marriages they never wanted anyway, simply because they got pregnant/had kids, then took it out on the child/children. I don't really care what kind of stigma was attached, you *chose* your life, we are beyond a time, at least in this country, where people can force your marriage. There are couples who marry for love in foreign countries, and are killed for that choice.
Another reason that is no excuse, my mother had me at 18, then married my father. She left his lazy, abusive, drug-using behind when I was a toddler, and had her whole family there to help raise me. It wasn't until she had my half-sister when I was 12 that she started treating me different. By the time she was pregnant with my half-brother I was thrown out of the house. My step-dad treated me well, it was my own flesh and blood who had decided I was an inconvenience on her new family. I didn't ruin her life until she created a new, better life, then I was a reflection of a tarnished past. We tried to rekindle a relationship when my children were born, but it was short-lived, and I've only seem my brother, who is 3 years older than my children, once. My sister is 12, I loved her more than life itself, but she barely remembers me, so that means at least 7 lives ruined for such foolishness, not to mention my extended family, since I'm cut off from them now, too.
Bobbie and Bea, I'm sorry both of you have had such experiences, as I get older I hope it will hurt less, but I guess it never goes away.
{{{HUGS}}} to all of you! Yikes.
"Half the harm that is done in this world
Is due to people who want to feel important.
They don't mean to do harm — but the harm does not interest them.
Or they do not see it, or they justify it
Because they are absorbed in the endless struggle
To think well of themselves."
T. S. ELLIOT - The Cocktail Party
This is an awesome thing here Bobbie. It makes so much sense to me and goes along with what dh has been telling me for years. I think I understand my mother as a whole more than she does about herself. I wish things could be different but it's not completely up to me.
My mother's mother was toxic. One of the cute things she did was after my Mom was married, dear grandma sent Mom's old boyfriends around to Mom's apartment, but didn't tell them Mom was married. Grandma and my Mom's Dad moved to another city and later divorced. Dear grandma didn't let Mom know that her father had died until almost a year later. Shortly after my Dad died, dear grandma sent Mom a check for $80, saying "I'm sure you'll need this now." Some time in the late 60's, I got a letter from my grandmother, with pictures, and a check. I wrote back. The next letter I got from her said several unpleasant things about my parents. I wrote back saying I'd like to be in touch with her but that I love my parents and did not want her to say anything nasty about them. I never heard from her again.
My dad's father re-married when Dad was about 14. She was so toxic that when Dad was 16 he left home to live with the parents of a friend. At one point grandpa and step-grandma decided to put one of their children into a foster care institution, despite my parents offering to take the little girl and raise her - and step-grandma told the institution that my parents were not to be allowed to visit.
My parents bit the bullet, recognized that they came from unhappy family situations, and decided that they would create their own family - and they did. I had the best Mom and Dad anyone could ever have.
The one regret I have about my Mom is that to the day she died, she was bitter about her mother. She just couldn't let go, and I know it colored her life and made her unhappy in many ways. Which is why I urge you all to really try to let go - walk away, stop trying to make it work, and try really hard to put your toxic families out of your mind. I know it isn't easy, and it can be very painful, but it would probably be a lot less painful than what you now experience.
And Bobbie's quote from T.S. Elliot is so on point.
Rayelle, I would be so hurt if my parents paid for my sister's wedding and not mine. Especially if you're only a year apart...ugh. I can't believe they don't see the disparity. I can't believe your sister doesn't see it either. I wonder if she would be mature enough to give you half the money they gave her for the wedding.
If I had a sister, and my parents paid for my wedding and not hers, that's what I would do.
All you can do is be calm, proud of her and her future marriage, and realize that sometimes we have parents to teach us the ultimate lesson...to not turn out like them.
My mother has schizophrenia and always always always borrowed money from every person she met. She even guilted my brother and I into selling things at school at a very young age so we could make money for her. What did she spend it on? Magazines and fast food. It was almost an addiction. So, we were paying for the utility bills, rent, etc. We moved, I kid you not, 13 times and often had to live with family often. After I got a credit card, she guilted me into using it to pay her bills. I finally paid it all off a few years ago.
From that experience, I made it a VOW never to borrow $ from family or friends. Not a penny. Live within my means and budget. Learn to recognize what I "need" and what I "want".
And, recognize that no matter what I do I will never be the one that is "more loved" than my brother. There are those kinds of parents out there, ones that we don't understand, and they are never ever ever satisfied with us. Ever. The children they ARE satisfied with are the ones who give the parents everything and are not as independent as we are. Take pride in that...always. 
PS- If your mom is paying for her wedding, is she "in control" of everything??? I think that would drive me nuts if so...or, is she giving her the money to buy whatever she needs and isn't giving her opinion?
LOST AND FOUND
Who's child is this?
They asked.
Does she belong to you?
Who does she resemble?
Do you have a clue?
" not mine."
her mother said.
"She doesn't look like me."
"She doesn't have my
features,
not from my family tree."
Where then can she belong?
Who will claim her soul?
Who will hold her closely?
Who will fill this roll?
I'll claim this child.
I know
of her wounds and fears.
I'll let her know
I'm proud of her.
I'll help her dry
these tears
I have this need to nurture,
To comfort and to guide.
Why look outside myself
for this
When crouching deep inside
A child in need of comfort,
A child that needs to see,
Someone who really cares about
That child that still is me.
B. V. Dahlen ©
Oh Bea that made me cry!
My mom didn't send any old boyfriends around but she dug up every photo ever taken of me with a male besides my husband and plastered them all over her house. They were up until I told her I was pregnant with ds so that was about 6 months after we got married. Funny, the pictures were never displayed before.
She cares more about appearances than she does my emotional well being. I've been fooling myself into thinking things were the way I wanted between us for the last five years or so. I've talked to her nearly everyday telling her about the kids and such. I haven't talked to her since Wednesday. In the beginning of my married life I went months without speaking to her at all. I really don't want to go back to that. I also don't want to make myself vulnerable to her again. It kills me everytime her drama starts.
When I was in high school I had a job and a car payment. Most of the time she had a reason for me not to drive. When I moved out they told me I had to figure out something new because they weren't going to allow the loan to continue in their name even if I continued making payments. Then they told me I could keep the car and consider it a wedding present, they would make the payments, then back to me needing to do something. On a Monday I told them I was going to the bank the next day to see what I could do. That night I went to the er suffering from a miscarriage. I was in alot of pain and they came me medicine that left me out of it. My parents found this to be an ideal time to come take my car. It was in my dad's name. I was stranded at the hospital the next day until dh's mom got off from work. That would be bad enough but when my sister turned 16 they bought her a new car, she totaled it within a month and they got her another one. It's really not about her though. A side effect of my mom's crap is a strained relationship with my sister. My sister thinks I'm a troublemaker who exaggerates things. At the height of my difficulties with my mom my sister was only 10.
When I called to tell them ds was born, my first baby and their first grandchild they were annoyed I called and interrupted them sleeping. I could go on forever.
I'm all for second chances but I will not stand for my feelings being undermined and glossed over. I haven't received an apology without a disclaimer at the end. I've let it roll because I hate the drama of it all. I think I'm done but at the same time it makes me sad to realize this is likely the way it will always be.
Thank you everyone. It feels so good to be supported even through people I've never met in person.
That really was beautiful, Bea.
Rayelle,
That is just rotten.
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