Hello from a newbie

[Guest guest]

Greetings All!

I've done a lot of reading (and thank you all) and I'm especially interested in

the idea of confrontation before forgiveness.

I'm a little confused about just what my mother's diagnosis might be - I saw

somewhere a list of possibilities that ended

with, " or you might just say she's a crazy bitch " ! I like that one. She has

never apologized for anything in her life or validated others'

opinions or feelings (though she is quite well-versed in psycho-babble and uses

it a lot.) She does things like empty her car trash out onto parking lot

pavement because 'they pay people to clean this up.' That sucks. She's a

Republican. I'm a Democrat. She's religious. I am not. She was a Skinner box

kind of mother (and a disciplinarian fond of humiliating) - I am attachment

style.

Sometimes I wonder if I have not deliberately made myself as 'not' her as I can

be - and if so, does that make me nuts?

I'm worried that I might be on the spectrum due to my continued feeling that I

need to confront her about some of

her past words and actions and have her sincerely apologize for them - not the

'I am sorry if you understood something I said to be hurtful' kind of apology,

but a real one.

I've been low contact for years for (as I see it) my mental and emotional health

and to protect my children.

Could write the usual volumes about my childhood (her 5 marriages, chaos,

alcohol abuse, physical and verbal abuse and a good

degree of neglect), but it's the present relationship that matters right now.

It was not until I met my husband and his siblings and parents that I saw (and

experienced) unconditional love and mutual

respect within a family. It was then, for the first time, and increasingly as I

had children, that I began to call my mother on her behavior and insist that I

(and my husband and my children) be treated with respect. Since she never

accepts any responsibility for her words and her actions, this has resulted in a

very rocky relationship these past 20 or so years.

Here is a small sampling of unresolved conflicts:

1. She offered to take the groom's cake home from our wedding and freeze it for

us. When we went over for it after our honeymoon, she laughed and told us she

had fed it to the neighborhood children - and it that it was awful, to boot! We

paid a lot of money for that cake - dark chocolate and cherries and rum -

meaning we wanted it (silly newlywed stuff!) and she laughed at my dismay! No

apology and ridiculed my caring about it.

2. One of her employees (one of her rare jobs) 'forgot' to lock in our loan rate

when we were buying our first house - the result being that we closed at a 2

points higher rate - which cost us for years. No apology. Her employee,

despite the fact that we made the phone call to her specifically to lock the

rate and no other matter was discussed, claimed we never asked to lock the rate

(probably afraid for her job) and my mother sided with her (!!!) and refused to

lower the rate! Said it would hurt her monthly numbers. We had no choice but to

settle or lose our deposit on the house (and the loan origination fee). She

believed the employee over her own daughter!

3. When my oldest was 5 or 6, she once deliberately teased him and goaded him

(he was very very shy) at a family gathering until he blurted out that she was

being 'stupid' - which was actually a pretty accurate description of her

behavior - though 'meanie' might have been more politic. My husband and I were

around the other side of the house at the time. She pulled down his pants in

front of everyone and spanked his bare bottom, all the while saying very hurtful

things about him (not his behavior - him). We left, after telling her to never,

ever, touch one of our children in anger again or speak to them so! She said he

deserved it for being so disrespectful and it was her right as a grandparent and

she would not hesitate to do it whenever he needed it. She added some snide

comments about our mamby-pamby parenting style and that we'd be sorry when he

was a teenager. (He turned out just fine.) He was never alone with her again.

4. She offered to pay off my student loans with $10,000 her mother had given her

as a surprise (another dysfunctional relationship). I think she meant offering

it to me to be a slight to her mother. She then reneged, as I refused her demand

that my husband pitch in the $1000 he had been given. The debt was mine, and

only existed because I could not get Pell Grants due to my mother and

step-father wrongly claiming me as a dependent throughout college. I paid my own

way entirely with work and loans. I even went home with friends for vacations

and holidays and worked summers at places with boarding.

5. When our children were 3, 5 and 8 we were visiting at her home for a family

birthday. The party started winding down after midnight and our children and

their cousins were settling down. She was very drunk and sitting in the sunroom

smoking and listening to (very) loud music. Everyone else was trying to sleep.

My husband several times asked her to at least turn down the music before

finally turning it down a bit himself about 2 a.m. She flew into a spitting

rage and we decided to leave. Before we got out of the house, she leaned down

and hissed in a super-evil voice directly in each of my children's faces, that

she despised them and wished never ever to see any of them again. She then

punched my husband in the face - an act my daughter sadly witnessed (age 5.)

Would that her fellow DAR members could have seen that! Since a lot of the

family was there, she had to acknowledge the incident to some degree, but it was

token and dismissed as her needing to relieve a little pressure and our not

respecting her right to do as she pleased in her own home. No apology to anyone.

6. When my daughter finished high school my mother asked what she needed for

college. We told her a new laptop (and this is what she had given our oldest

for his graduation.) She asked for a suitable model and where to buy it. Before

she purchased the computer, she received her invitation (a proper 2 weeks out)

to the celebration we were hosting. Having had to coordinate several

out-of-town families, we had settled on a date that suited everyone - and it

turned out she had a cruise planned that conflicted. She had not mentioned the

cruise and had, in fact just returned from almost a month in China. She had also

just returned my birthday gift to her (restaurant gift certificates for places

near her home) because she 'never went anywhere or did anything and so they were

useless to her' She was very angry that I had not consulted her about the date.

I am ADD and screw up a lot - but, as I told her, I had no idea that she could

possibly be traveling again so soon - and she lives nearby and does not work -

so? I was horrified and offered to host an entire 2nd crab-fest upon her return

(or at any date whatsoever until crabs went out of season in October). She

ignored every invitation and punished my daughter by withdrawing her offer of a

computer, saying she had no idea they cost so much (really?) and she certainly

could not afford one (really?), but would send $200 toward one, and then sent a

$50 check without even a personal message about her grand-daughter's

achievements - just a note about life being hard and wishing she had had such

opportunity. (She does not even accept her own life decisions!)

There's more, of course - much of it very similar to the experiences I've been

reading here.

I'm sorry this is so ridiculously long. Flash forward to the present. She has

just returned from an island cruise, to which my siblings and their children

were treated, in celebration of her 70th birthday. I was initially to be

excluded, but when I contacted my brother and sister a couple of weeks ago to

ask about our pooling resources to get her a very nice birthday gift, they asked

her to reconsider. I had no idea until then. She then left a voice mail

'inviting' us to come along at our own expense, as she did not feel comfortable

paying for us as I refused to attend counseling with her to 'establish

guidelines for healthy communication'. Though that's not exactly true - she

suggested it to my brother - not directly to me (triangulation?) - it is true

that I cannot see how I can ever trust her sincerity without her addressing and

validating (truly) my feelings about these incidents and others. My feeling

right now is that she is only making the offer for appearances, so that she can

sigh and tell everyone that she tried to help me - that she reached out.

We could not put together vacation requests for everyone in time - much less

afford $7000 for a 5 day cruise! So now everyone else had a great time and has

all these wonderful memories while my family was punished because of me! They

kids are all 18 or older and so she could have invited them without inviting me.

I have been a very good mother because I knew firsthand how not to do it - and

spent a lot of time educating myself. I was a La Leche League Leader for 10

years and took care of our group's library for all of those years so that I had

access to all of the great parenting and nutrition books - Dr. Sears was my

hero! I think maybe she (correctly) assumes that hurting my children is an

excellent way to hurt me.

Mom has renewed the invitation to meet with a therapist, but her attitude is

that she is doing this to help me (she bears no responsibility) and she wants

only to establish guidelines for contact so that I can be welcome to enjoy the

family and perhaps participate in future celebrations. She does not want to

'dredge up the past', as that would in her opinion, be 'a waste of time and not

effective'.

That's why I am intrigued by the idea that some people maybe need the

confrontation before the forgiveness. I'm relieved somewhat, too - as I think

it means maybe I'm not crazy to let these unresolved things bother me so much.

BTW, my siblings have both had similar relationships with our mother, including

long periods of no contact. She had a poor relationship with her mother and

there is open animosity between her and her only sibling, my aunt. Now that she

has come into gobs of money and is flinging it about, my brother and sister are

now okay with her. They lately seem to be more able to just brush off her crap.

My brother lives very far away, but my sister lately is like Mom's best friend.

I swear they remind me of Mean Girls sometimes. For instance, they called on

Mother's Day and left a message telling me they were treating themselves to a

full day at spa and hoped someone was doing something nice for me (all the while

giggling insanely!) WTF?

I'm allergic to wheat (2 epi-pens allergic) and she sent me Mrs. Fields cookies

for my birthday... and so on.

I'm worried that my continued need to be seen and accepted as I am is extreme.

My husband, my in-laws, my children and my friends all find her behavior

disturbing, and I do sometimes have to remind myself of that.

Sorry so long - did not know there was so much simmering!