How can I stop my mother’s constant criticism bringing me down?
I love my mother most of the time, but sometimes I hate her. She has always been critical of me; it’s as if she has to find fault (with my hair, my clothes, the way I do things). My brother is spared this criticism.
My mum is in her late 70s, and unlikely to change. It’s never worth arguing with her – especially now, as she is grieving and vulnerable following the death of my father last year. I suppress my anger, keep quiet and change the subject. I call and visit often, as I now have to help her with legal and financial affairs; my brother lives abroad and this isn’t his skill set. Mum lives in a different part of the country from me, and it’s not practical to go just for the day, so I am very much on her turf when I visit; if I don’t do things the way she wants, there is an explosion. She then seems to recognise that she has gone over the top and sends sweet emails a day or two later about how capable I am.
What I need is to find a way of not letting it get to me as badly as it does. I suspect that a large part of my hurt probably stems from recognising a lot of both parents in myself, and liking the bits that are all Dad, and not liking the bits of me that are more Mum.
I’m sorry to hear about your dad. Sometimes when one parent dies, you not only miss them but realise how much they diluted the other person’s less positive traits. However, I would be careful of eulogising the parent who died and demonising the one left behind; things are rarely that simple.
It is early days for all of you in your grieving journey, but it’s important to realise that while your mother lost her husband, you lost your dad. Sometimes in families one person can claim all the grief, but you need to grieve, too.
The way you describe your mother, the love and hate, is, psychologist and psychoanalyst Prof Alessandra Lemma (bpc.org.uk) said, “completely normal” and yet it’s easy to struggle with that ambivalence.
