Mother daughter relationship

Since becoming a mum myself, I’ve started to recognise some toxic traits my mum has and the way she communicates with me. I’ve definitely been aware of some things she does such as passive aggressive comments towards myself and my partner, meltdowns when something doesn’t go her way, extremely sensitive and emotional, she always has to be right and has a lack of understanding regarding other cultures and the way they live aka my husband and his family. Just very set in her ways and disagrees with anything that she isnt familiar with. We’ve always been very close, and I would say I’m closer to her than any of my siblings, we talk on the phone everyday and I tell her everything. She was recently visiting from interstate for my kids birthdays and it was the longest she has stayed with us since my son was born 6 years ago and I’ve started to notice something that I never noticed before. Everything i would do, so like cooking, cleaning, playing with the kids etc she would be watching over my shoulder and would make sure I would do it right and would always make negative comments or explain how she would do it expecting me to do it her way. Every decision I would make regarding what to do that day, what to wear, what to eat, what to buy, she would always try to redirect me to something else by making a negative comment. I’ve lived out of home for 8 years now, and it seems like she still wants control over every little thing that I do. I hate confrontation and find it hard to set boundaries with her but I ended up speaking up in the grocery store the day before my sons birthday. He requested donuts for his birthday and she knew this. When we walked into the store, I saw mini sugar donuts that were on special so I grabbed those and she said “DONUTS?” We then walked to the back where there were more donuts and I grabbed some iced ones for him as well as they were the ones he specifically wanted, and she responded with “ugh, more donuts are you serious?” I ignored her and then I went to look at the birthday cakes and she yelled out “don’t even think about looking at those” so i walked over and said “can you please stop telling me what to do, every single for thing I do you have to make a negative comment towards” she walked off and started crying, threw her basket on the floor and said, “ill wait here” as she continued to cry. Of course she had to make me suffer for what i said and I had to carry all the grocery bags back to the car on my own while she walked ahead of me empty handed. When we got in the car she was still crying and I was so angry at this point. Just the fact that she can put me down constantly and the one time I say something back and respectfully ask her not to do something, she cracks the shits. What is this exactly? Why does she act this way? I can’t recall if it was ever this bad when I was still living at home or if it has only started since moving out. Is this narcissistic? Is this her new way of controlling me now that I don’t live under her roof? She’s like this on the phone too and I’m that naive and obviously love my mum that much that I would just listen to her and make decisions based off of her opinions. It seems like she hates that I have my own family and my own way of doing things. I planned on taking her out everyday that she was here and was really looking forward to spending time with her but the whole time she was here I felt so depressed and anxious and didn’t want to do anything. She was obviously having the shittest time so she left to go home early which was a relief. I never thought I’d ever feel relieved to not have my mum around so that’s a new feeling that I’m currently trying to navigate. Is my mum a narcissist?
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Yes she's unfortunately a narcissist :(

She’s a narcissist definitely 💯

yeah definitely a narcissist, my mother does the same type of things. and the crocodile tears to guilt trip me into doing what she says 🤦🏻‍♀️

I am so sorry if had to go through this. Not sure about narcissism but it sounds like it. I would 100% recommend reading Adult children of emotionally immature parents. I read it and it was so validating and opened my eyes on a lot of things. It sounds like your mum is extremely emotionally immature and can't deal with disagreement or anything that isn't similar to her and throws tantrums like a child as she can deal with the emotions. You'll probably notice that you can't have an actual meaningful and emotional relationship with her and that everything is very superficial. I wish you the best of luck. Your mum sounds such hard work but I'm so glad you've finally realised it and you can protect yourself moving forward 🫶🏼

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