Overly critical mother

[waverly]

If I get into the story it will be multiple paragraphs long. Any tips on dealing with a mother who is overly critical and a complainer?

We have some resentment towards her for other reasons which doesn’t help. Having to do with promises that she made (without us asking) and then not fulfilling. We would never had an issue if she hadn’t brought it up in her own gushing about what she was going to do and then doing nothing.

We took her to Hawaii with us (and paid her lodging) and all she did is complain the entire time. We no longer want to vacation with her again.

We try the smile and nod method over and over again. We bite our tongue so many times. Confrontation and debating don’t help because she will just go on and on if it is a debate in order to be right.

Her nitpicking is very small issues. The latest is the bedspread is sideways. It’s just so many and so often that we no longer want to stay at her house. Where do we go from here?

When she visits she constantly questions why I do things a certain way and mentions how she does things. It could be something as simple as a hair product or how she dries her dishcloth but it’s very much like “my way is better than yours”. I could literally care less. I’m almost 40 and have lived on my own since I was 17 and have maintained my own crap for more than 20 years.

[sdlaura]

I think your choices are to bring it up to her sometime that you're not already annoyed and tell her how much it bothers you, or try to let it go as the way she is at whatever older ago she is. Personally I'd probably have some phrase like "thanks for your input" that I said every time she was critical, and like "that must really bother you" whenever she complained. And hopefully she'll get the hint - but then you can stop worrying about it with a default response.

[mommyatty]

Your options are to either suck it up and accept it won’t change or cut off all visits. I don’t see my mom at all. And this is why. She’s critical to the point that I get massive anxiety when I have to see her. So since she refuses to change or can’t change, and I can’t change how I respond to it, I just don’t see her.

What you can’t do is make her change. There is no magic incantation for that.

[mae0111]

I have a critical, overly political mom. She’s never wrong. I’m always wrong. She also used to make promises that she wouldn’t keep, or keep them and complain loudly about it during and after the fact.

I’ve been able to largely let a lot of it go. My sisters fight with her constantly. I just shrug and say “Ok!” And then I do what I want. I’ve definitely snapped at her a few times recently, but that’s pretty rare. Like, I told her we couldn’t go to the beach because the kids were grounded - and she proceeded to tell me all of the reasons why the kids should be able to go to the beach despite their sh!tty behavior. That resulted in me screaming “WE ARE NOT GOING TO THE BEACH!!!” But most of the time I just kind of let it roll off me.

It took me a loooooong time to get here. But now it’s entertaining to see my sister get all spun up over a ridiculous political debate with my mom. My sisters will never get here... but if I didn’t, I’d be insane by now.

You’ve gotten some good advice - some of those sayings might shut her down or make her realize how silly she sounds. But they might not... so only you can decide your reactions.

I’m sorry I’m not more helpful.

[waverly]

It is helpful to know I am not the only one. I know I can’t change her which is why we smile and nod and grit our teeth. I do say things sometimes and she listens but 2 seconds later it is something else like she just doesn’t comprehend. Today I decided not to respond to her text about the bedspread. Unless you put it with a smiley emoji I just don’t see the point in bringing it up. It’s just a weird criticism of an outdated ruffle thing. It would be haha funny, but now it’s like aha I caught you at, what?....Not being perfect enough. I know I’m not perfect, and I don’t care.

She doesn’t cause me anxiety (usually), and we will likely keep seeing her. It’s just hard when most of the options for seeing her are off the table like vacations or staying at her house since we don’t live close by.

I try not to have the same approach with my kids that she does with us. I know sometimes I come down on them because they are not using their brains, but typically I avoid the debating and saying my way is better. There are lots of different ways to get to the same place.

I have used pat responses before with very little emotion because I don’t care that she threw away a breakfast sandwich if something at that level, and she’s a bit onto me that I am just placating her. Sometimes I say I don’t know how to respond to that or just stare at her like wut? She sees that her comments are awkward but they just keep coming. She lost her filter and it’s like she doesn’t think anything through anymore. If she does refrain from mentioning it she will trot it out later and say well I wasn’t going to tell you but you made me so here it is. Lots of it is contradictory too and makes no sense like mad I didn’t wake her up in the trip then mad I did . I’m just venting at this point.

[rere]

Maybe not the best way, but I'd probably come back at her each time with something to the tune of that's your opinion, but it's not mine.

My moms not critical, but we dont see her much due mostly my upbringing and some of the choices she has made in life. She keeps wanting to have a relationship with the kids, which is difficult since we don't have a relationship. They don't need a babysitter and are at the age they have their own lives.

[ECB]

My take- don't feel bad if you don't see her as often as you used to/ as she would like. My FIL isn't critical but he's hard to spend time with. He complicates EVERYTHING. And he's just a very thoughtless person - in the truest sense of the word. He just doesn't "think" beyond himself.

We had a couple experiences that showed us fully what he was like and we now limit how/when we see him. He has this dream of either all of us piling in his RV and taking a long road trip, OR of us letting him take DS on a road trip. Neither will ever happen.

So - DH, for the past 2 years, took DS and met FIL at the beach for a camping weekend. He got to use his RV, he got to spend time with DS - it was what we were willing to do. We'll invite him up to see some game that DS is in, but it's in a tight timeframe that works for US. We don't allow it to turn into him just hanging around with us all day and just be in the way.

Both DH and I wish it wasn't like this, but his dad just isn't easy to hang out with. We give him as much as we're willing, that won't drive US crazy, and the rest of it - he's going to have to deal with it. I know it upsets him sometimes - like, he wants to "get to know" DS better, be closer to him. DH has told him SO MANY TIMES things he can do to help with this. ANd.... he doesn't do them. He thinks taking a trip together, just the 2 of them, will be THE MAGICAL event that bonds them. But - he just doesn't get that there is groundwork that needs to be laid first and we have truly tried to get him to lay that groundwork, and he just doesn't do it. So.... we've stopped feeling guilty and involve him in our lives to the degree that it works for US.

[waverly]

Thanks ECB. I don't know if we feel guilty. We just want to see her, but then when we do see her, it sucks a lot of the time. Especially on vacations or in her house. Our house still has issues, but we can control the environment a little bit better. She isn't the kind of host to be welcoming- she acts like she is "put out" all the time, but complains if we don't visit.

My dad sounds a lot like your FIL. He only thinks about himself and since he is retired and lives in another country, he is living in a totally different reality. One example when he was visiting is that he was trying to bully us into providing him transportation from MI to IL when he came to visit. He mentioned my car, which we had sold a year ago, and I said I don't have it. We were looking for a new car, but I didn't tell him because he would give us advice on it. He kept trying to tell us to rent a full size van for 1K for the month of August since our car (camping) would be too full for additional passengers. I told him to take the $30 bus which he did, but I got 50 messages about this idea he made up in his mind (we never discussed it) because he wanted me to transport him and spend 1K doing so when he could spend $30. There was just no reality there whatsoever. And whenever he wants something it is tons and tons of messages.

[186momx]

My in laws are time consuming both in person and emotionally. The only good thing that came from our marriage counselling was to meet that public places. So once a month when they lived locally (same state) I would invite them to something we were doing that I was okay with dealing with them. It was their choice to come or not and 99% of the time they choose to not come. They wanted us to come to them and sit at their house only. I could come back and say hey we invited you to XYZ and you couldn't come when they would bring up not seeing us.

My mom lives 10 minutes away and I do a lot of nodding my head and umming over the phone. I've learned over the years how much time I can handle for in person visits before I start going batty. Thanks to COVID those visits are less and I have less phone calls because her work has been busier so she has less down time. My mom also runs DD to practice and picks her up from school which hasn't happened since March which is why visits are less. I've also learned what topics to just avoid when talking with her something my younger sister hasn't figured out yet.

[ECB]

Jul 27, 2020 14:50:24 GMT -5 waverly said:

Thanks ECB. I don't know if we feel guilty. We just want to see her, but then when we do see her, it sucks a lot of the time. Especially on vacations or in her house. Our house still has issues, but we can control the environment a little bit better. She isn't the kind of host to be welcoming- she acts like she is "put out" all the time, but complains if we don't visit.

This is ultimately what we aim for- the environment or the situation.  We give what we're willing to give and... that's that!  

It's truly at the point where we know FIL isn't ever going to change or realize where he missteps.  It can still be annoying, but we at least know we TRY.  He may not see it, entirely, but WE know we're trying. 

[waverly]

ECB, I think ultimately the Hawaii trip showed her lack of ability to adapt to travel. We went together 20 years before, and she was fine. This time she didn't understand her plane reservations, couldn't deal well with not everything not meeting expectations that were not verbalized, and was very disorganized/ loosing things. Due to living by herself she is very fixated on certain foods and drinks as well that are expensive and hard to replicate on an island.

She did better when we went to places that she was more familiar with or shorter flights. The point of taking her used to be to help watch the kids, but since she wasn't helping with them at all, and they are at the age we could potentially leave them home for an hour or two and grab a beer or grab takeout- we don't really need her there anymore(and probably we won't be traveling for another year anyway due to the pandemic). So it definitely makes sense to phase this out.