Feeling Suffocated

[Guest guest]

I have been low contact with my mother for about a month, and moving

towards no contact (I hope). But as it gets close to the holidays,

it's been very difficult.

She lives about 5 hours from me, and fixates on my children, and her

fantasy of being a grandmother.

We refused to spend Thanksgiving with her. My husband recently was

laid off. I told her we did not have time or money to come because of

this. She offered to pay. I said no, we did not have time, my husband

was searching for a job. She wanted me to come without him. I said no,

Thanksgiving was also my birthday, and I would not spend the holidays

without my husband (who in their right mind thinks that a mother is

more important than a husband?). She wanted to come and pick me up so

I would come, I refused to come to her home without a vehicle to leave

in if things got tough. I won't be stranded with her.

Then she wanted to come and take my kids for the holidays. She stalks

my son's school calender online, so she thinks she has a right to

every day he has off from school. I said no.

Then she invited herself to come to MY HOME for the holiday, saying

that I should cook for everyone. I told her no.

On Thankgivng/my birthday, she called my cell phone repeatedly. We

spent the day with my inlaws. When I wouldn't pick up she called my

husbands phone. When he wouldn't pick up, she called my inlaws home! I

was so, so, so embarressed. The first time my husband headed off the

conversation, told her I was busy with the baby. The second time my

FIL answered and handed me the phone. I told her I was eating dinner,

and she got all weepy about and said things like " I can't even call my

own daughter on her birthday? I called you an hour and a half ago! " I

told her I was busy and had to go. She kept insisting she wanted to

talk to my kids. I told her they were playing. She made lots of

passive aggressive comments about how my inlaws must be so happy to

see the kids.

She insists on me sending her every picture I take of the kids. I

haven't sent her pictures in months. We have an online family blog

that I had to make invite only because she kept stalking the blog, and

then would call or send letters or emails about how she was missing

out on the kids lives while their other grandparents get to see them

all the time. She loves to keep a scorecard.

After Thanksgiving she immediatly started in about Christmas. I told

her no, and finally wrote her a long email detailing that I would not

be coming, the kids would not be coming, and there was to be no

further discussion on the topic.

She then TOLD ME that she was coming the next week to see the kids. I

told her no. A few days later she called like this had never happened,

saying she couldn't come because someone got sick and needed her help.

I guess that was her way of seeming to stay in control, I didn't tell

her not to come, she DECIDED not to come.

Yesterday she sent my husband and I a happy aniversary card saying

that she would come and watch the kids so we could go out. She has

called every day for the past three days wanting to talk to the kids,

and sent emails.

I told her that she was not to get more than two gifts for the kids,

so she has been sending 'little' packages here and there for the past

month, trying to sneak things in. Most of them have gone straight to

the trash before the kids could see them. Every time she talks to them

she asks what they want her to get them.

The sad thing is that when we go to her house, the only thing she does

with them is to take them to the store to buy them junk, or sit them

in front of the TV with junk food, or follow them around with a

camera. She doesn't really interact with them. And she doesn't want to

spend time with them unless it is on her turf, so she can show them

off to her friends or live in a fantasy world that doesn't involve any

one else telling her that she can't do whatever she wants with them.

She devolves into hysterics if I won't let her feed them goldfish and

french fries for every meal for a week straight, or drink soda with

every meal.

I am dreading Christmas. I know she will call my inlaws and try to

MAKE me talk to her again, and just be a mess. I won't let her talk to

the kids and grill them about what presents other people got them, or

try to make them feel guilty for not being at her house. And i don't

want her coming here either.

Is it horrible that I wish she would just die so I could live in peace?