How do you deal with a parent who see you as a competition instead of their child?
Sometimes I think my mum & I have a close relationship then she does & says things that makes me question how she feels towards me. I recently brought a house, it’s a bit of a project but we are slowly getting there. Last time she visited was 5 months ago and we had no flooring and walls weren’t painted. She’s currently visiting us and when she first came in, I was showing her what we had done so far with the flooring and walls. Instead of saying something nice or great job guys or something nice, she walks across the carpet doesn’t say a word for a good 3 mins then out of no where points out a little corner that is a little raised. It’s so unnoticeable that you would have to go looking for it to find it. And she kept saying how it’s an issue and probably not safe, which isn’t true at all. Then I was tell her about the paint colour and chose and why and she completely ignored and start talking about how their holiday home is a lighter colour and not once acknowledged what I said or even brought the conversation back to what we were talking about. The only thing she notice was all the ‘issues’ that’s only existed in her head, not one nice things.
When my MIL came to visit, it was completely opposite, she was complementing about how hard we’ve worked to get this far and how proud she is of us. She would even notice things that I forgot she did and say how nice it was. I felt like I was the one pointing out the issues and she would always meet me with, “oh that’s okay, that all comes with experience. You guys are doing great”.
I have never experienced that level of positivity from my mum. My mum used to be the only person I would let touch my hair and since moving away, I start going to the hairdresser and i remember coming feel absolutely on top of the world. The first thing I did was FT my mum to show her my hair, her immediate reaction was “oh you let someone else do your hair, it doesn’t look as nice as when I normally do it”. I had my makeup done for my wedding and my makeup artist also did my mum’s make up that day. I was very happy with it, she did absolutely amazing, so I still went to her to get my eyebrows done. Got it done for my holiday and I showed my mum who has never done brows in her life and she didn’t say anything nice but instead kept saying how she did it wrong, my brows shouldn’t look like that! Then she asked who did it and I told her my makeup artist who did my wedding makeup (3 years ago) and she start saying how terrible she was at makeup and how she made it way to dark and cakey. Which was all a lie because all my bridesmaids had their makeup done and all loved it and said how amazing she was. I remember forget I even had makeup on my face and going back to my hotel 15 hrs after the wedding and my makeup had not move or anything. I was still taking pictures at the end of the night.
I don’t understand why she can’t just be happy for me??
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I’m sorry you are going through this. As daughters, we want our mother’s approval in everything. I think the issue here is with your mom. Not you. Not sure if there’s anything you can do to make it better apart from putting everything on the table with her. The consolation is, your mil is the opposite and that offers some comfort. My mom was never the usual momsy type and that affected me growing up.
I have been no contact with my mother for 3 years, not because of this but because boundaries being crossed and just the way she was when I was being raised by her. She was very abusive and I didn't know that until I was an adult because I thought it was "normal". Sometimes it's best to cut ties for your own peace even though it's the toughest heartbreak I've ever been through.
My mom does crap like this too, especially around personal achievements. When I told her how I’d made tenure, she completely changed the subject. On the low, she has always been secretly jealous and competitive.
I don’t have a relationship with my mother for reasons just like this type of trait, amongst many other terrible traits a mother should never have. She’s been more out of my life than in it throughout as a result. So that’s a long time. Because she just never changes. It’s damaging to your sense of self.
And for the sake of my daughter not being damaged, with how she damaged all 4 of her now adult children that don’t have a relationship with her. Made the hard decision to cut ties for good.
She just brought more bad than good.
Your MIL is what hope to find in a MIL one day 🤍 embrace that relationship.
We can’t change our not so great / damaging mothers unfortunately
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