Relationships with your mother

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I've always had a good relationship with both parents. I won't claim that we never fought -- my mom and I had a few real humdingers when I was 15 and she started working at my school. This coincided with the first time in my life that my school friends were my primary friends -- before that, it had always been neighborhood friends. For the first time, I was getting invited to parties...and these parties included boys. (We usually hung out at the home of a brother and sister, and they had all their friends over so it was a co-ed group of friends.) These were very tame, nerdy parties...it was a clean and sober crowd (no drinkers, no smokers, no drug-users) and the parents of the hosts were always there. My mother thought I was spending too much time with my friends and not enough on my schoolwork, and I was humiliated when she wanted to call ahead and talk to the parents of the host of every party I went to. (As it turned out, everyone's parents were doing the same thing!) Usually, though we got along really well! My mother may be the only woman in history to say, "I hope you have a daughter just like you!" and mean it as a compliment. I'm very different from both my parents, but they have always been completely supportive of me...I think they knew even before I did that I was different from other kids, and they accepted that. My strengths lie in the arts -- drawing, painting, sculpting, singing, acting, prose, fiction, poetry -- and they never made me feel those skills were of less value than my brother's more traditionally academic skills.

One of the best things about being an adult is that my mother is one of my best friends. She is still supportive and is always there when I'm struggling. (Right now I am tremendously depressed, and talking to my mom is one of the few things that helps...she is always sympathetic, and often has ideas about things I can do to help myself.) My mother never makes me feel like I'm a disappointment to her or a failure, while being very encouraging about the steps I want to take to better myself. She is pleased as anything that I love to teach and wholly understanding about my decision to remain childfree. (My brother and his wife have three sons, so she's not totally grandchild-deprived. And who knows, they may have a daughter yet.) I love to spend mother/daughter time with my mom; now that I a more mature we never fight, even if we disagree. (Which we rarely do.)

However, most of my friends are men. I do have one close girlfriend, but most of the people I hang out with and most of the people I confide in are men. I have other women friends, but I wouldn't call them close, nor do I really trust them. This has nothing to do with my mom; I've always told her everything (except about sex), even painful things. Even silly stories that happened when I was drunk. Same with my dad, for that matter. However, my trust and love and admiration for and from my mother has not made getting along with other women easy. I'm no good at it; I have a much easier time relating to and having fun with guys.

You could say that we’re more on the ‘best friends’ side of things – not surprising since a lot of my former female friendships with my peers were based on intimidation/emotional bullying. But I have noticed that, whereas I know she cares about me and we do practically everything together, she doesn’t actively encourage me to go out and live my own life.

It’s like everything I say just flies over her head – she’ll agree if I want to take driving lessons, or apply for an interview, but she never follows it up with me like a normal mother would. I’m not saying I want her to harass me over ‘when I’ll be moving out’ or ‘when I’ll be getting a job’, but it would be nice to know that someone actually believes in me and thinks I can achieve something.

It wasn’t until the beginning of this year, when I opened up to my sister in law about how frustrated I feel with everything – the constant anxiety of living at home with no future prospects - and she basically told me that it’s up to me to cut the apron strings, not for my mother to do it. It’s true, and I have a set game plan in mind, though it’s really hard to get some sort of self-belief when your mother still treats you like you’re twelve.

My mother is a wreck and has more meltdowns than I do.

I had a hell of a time with depression, anxiety, loneliness and trauma as a kid, partially caused by her. (You don't tell a kid their epileptic dad is going to die unless it's actually likely, FYI)

Now she is older, and routinely has screaming meltdowns or impenetrable shutdowns, complete with threats of suicide.

She looks down on me, and tells me I'm the unstable one, as I clean her fridge and try to inject sanity into her life.

And my dad... is a disabled shut-in who rocks obsessively and perseverates over cassette tapes.

NOTE: For the aspies out there, investigate whether or not your sensory-emotional issues are hereditary. The insight is worthwhile. At the very least, it'll help you gain information on your relationship with your parents, as well as predict how you'll be when you're older.

EDIT:

To answer your original question (forgive me), I have a hard time interacting with other women, but don't know why. I have learned to be utterly self-sufficient and I don't "trust" much. As her emotions were always out of control as a child, I've learned to be as strict as I can with manners, image, and letting my feelings out.

How do I get on with my mother? Not good.

I don't even know where to begin. I wouldn't say she was selfish with her possessions. It was more she had to have complete control of the space around her. No one else in the house was allowed to have an opinion, or to do what they wanted if she suddenly took it upon herself that she didn't like what you were doing. She is loud and will shriek at you if you are doing something that offends her senses. I think I must have blocked alot out, I am trying to think of an example, but can only remember that jarring feeling of being shouted at unexpectedly.

If you have a different opinion to her she will not quietly listen, she will have to let you know that she disagrees. She doesn't understand that this may be offensive to the other person. Or push them away.

I've got to say to her family's credit they seem to be able to cope with this. They say you have to let her be and let her do what makes her happy. She's always been like that. I keep pointing out to them that she is their sister, not their mother and it's different for me. She let me down really badly recently and they saw it happen and I don't think they realised how on my own I am until that moment. They forgot that I'm not an appendage of hers, I am a complete person.

I imagine other people view their mother as safe not spikey and prone to errupt. She can't understand why I will talk to her family about things and not to her. They don't start conversations with me in a confrontational manner, that's why. I feel like she is always poised to start shouting at me. Conversations begin like interrogations, rather than conversations and then she gets angry when I don't want to talk.

I think my body is always in defence mode having grown up in that environment. I had one boss who was bewildered by me. I would do useful things, but not tell him and he would wonder why. It really used to frustrate him. Communication in my house meant you got shouted at. So I try and keep my head down and out of the way in all situations. I think it took me a long time to learn that generally people won't suddenly errupt into shouting for no reason if you tell them something.

I don't trust people easily. I don't expect people to do things for me. I expect that I will need to do things for myself because my parents didn't think about what my needs were. Although I was always well fed. Even when we had hardly any money, I never went hungry.

What about love? I don't get any comfort from her. If I am upset I expect her to shout at me. Somone in our family died recently and I couldn't cry around her. I cried as soon as I saw my aunt. I didn't even hug my mum as tightly as I hugged my aunt. I gave my mum a polite hug like when greeting an acquaintance.

She has a very childlike view of the world. She is full of ideas that have no grounding in reality. I find this tiring. She doesn't realise that some of her ideas are hurtful. She doesn't understand that she upsets me. If I try and explain she gets angry with me for blaming her.

I'm tired of having to deal with her. I stay away as much as possible. No one really understands what I have to go through.

I think that I have a very good relationship with my mother--sadly, she is one of my best friends--haha! I've always been very territorial over her... Even as a child. I would cling to her all the time, but basically would shut everyone out. She jokes around with me that I was very antisocial until last winter (I'm quite sure I'm still pretty introverted). She said when kids tried to play with me, I would turn my head and walk towards her. And that she had to force me to do things--like hit one of those punching toys for children. I was very awkward, but I was and still am around my mother too much

The reason why I have problems with other women is because of girls from grade school. I get along pretty well with women around my mother's age or older. Older people do love me.

I think I prefer older women because they're usually very nice and happy to have company. Most of them are very kind and patient with me. Women or shall I say, girls my age are not very understanding.

No, I've actually had a very tight relationship with my mom, more so than my dad!

Mom's okay but she is short-tempered and childish and materialistic. Well the thing is she has a way of making me feel un-loved at times and yet other times she is the sweetest person in the world. She has aspergers herself and so it becomes hard for both of us to be emotionally dependent on each other. I have not been dependent on dad much emotionally either. The only person that I've been very close to at home is my sister. I don't know if she is NT but she definitely doesn't have Aspergers. So my relationships with women are fine. With men I am a bit aloof because I haven't been around men much. I've no brothers and I only had few close guy friends, but yes once I get close to guys its easier to connect to them then women.

My mother and I get along fine as long as I 'behave'. We were close until I first got depressed at the age of sixteen. Ever since there has been a pattern of me trying to seek psychological help and my mother denying there is anything wrong with me. She refused to believe I was depressed, that I had panic disorder, that I have PDD-NOS. She seems to view my psychological flaws as personal slights and it takes professionals to convince her I'm not just acting out, but that I'm suffering. If I have a meltdown or a bad week, she rarely tries to comfort me. Instead, she emphasises how badly I make her feel by not behaving 'normally' and 'getting over myself', which only makes me feel worse and lash out towards her, which then spirals out of control pretty quickly. After I moved back home after living with my now ex-boyfriend, I decided rather quickly that I didn't want to live with my mother any longer (she and my father are divorced). It frustrates me too much and since my father is much more supportive, I now live with him. I'm on much better terms with my mother since I moved out and we can talk much more easily and freely without the stress of living together.

I don't think my relationships with other women are particularly influenced by the relationship I have with my mother, since I was on great terms with her when I started experimenting with social skills. Although I was pretty hopeless, my mother always gently encouraged me to push my boundaries, but she never forced me to be friends with girls. I never got along with women very well, I'm simply much more comfortable around men.

I have a pretty good relationship with my mother, although if forced to choose I'd prefer to spend time with my father, who is the gold standard for men as far as I'm concerned. I was a huge daddy's girl, and always will be.

Mom, I now know, suffered from some depression when I was a child. She managed to hide it well, however, and later on, when I was old enough to have understood, her symptoms seemed to disappear. I suspect she was taking medication, but I don't know that for sure and the subject never came up with her. Daddy hints at it, but won't give me details. Whatever the reason, she improved to the extent that today you'd never know she was ever depressed.

As far as relating to other women is concerned, I think it was the combination of my mother and my younger sister that influenced me the most. My sister is very pretty and artistically talented and has three beautiful boys, but she's never satisfied. Maybe it's the artist in her, but nothing seems to please her. I doubt that her marriage will survive. It was in reaction to her that a lot of my personality formed. I suppose it's strange for the older sister (me) to be that strongly influenced by the younger, but we're close in age and she was always the more grown-up one, at least until we reached our 30's or so.

My parents are both elderly now and daddy has had a couple of minor heart attacks (how can any heart attack be considered "minor"???), which will get your attention bigtime. I've been forced to face the realization that no, in fact your parents don't live forever. It upsets me quite a bit. Not that there's anything you can do about it, obviously, but the demon of mortality is a sneaky bastard and you never know when he will show up.

As a kid I had trust in my mom and my mom helped to guide me thru many things. She provided reassurance with social situations in saying I was just shy. What happen, is that her perception of me was misleading, false in many ways. I went off to college, found that out thru messing up majorly because I used to think, if Im just not shy then I can make friends and be normal. Boy was I sooo wrong. Since my relationships with others wasnt going well, I became scard of letting my mom know this or else she would start throwing all the blame on me. I felt like I was dissapointing her so the trust broke for several years. It came as very mixed feeling when I found out the truth. I was relieved in a sense that, this stereotype was unreal and me not reaching this level was not cause i wasnt trying hard enough. But i was angry at the same time at my mom for putting me in this stereotype and painting an inaccurate picture of me. I made so many mistakes to find this out.

Ive only started to trust her more lately as long as she knows very clearly to stop trying to put me in the "shy girl prototype box". I think shes only starting to learn. Its seems like she wants to relate to me but I want to tell her to stop trying and realize were 2 different people and theres no point in trying so hard to relate to each other.

I have a very close relationship with my mom. She's the only one I confide in and vice versa. We're best friends. I probably would have killed myself a long time ago if she hadn't been there to love me and support me through my darkest hours. With my older sisters married and living independently, my younger brother off to join the military when he graduates high school next year, and the possibility of my dad being diagnosed with Alzheimer's, in the end my mom and I only have each other.

My relationship with my mom is awful. We totally don't click and are not each other's friend. There are too many issues to list here and we have some conflict about every other week (we live in different countries). She's very insecure and paranoid and lack basic manners. I just gave her a pair of diamond earrings and she never said thanks.

A couple months ago I was very sad and wrote a long heartfelt letter to her begging her to understand me a bit and try to be my friend. She was insulted that I asked her to be a friend, thought it's a demotion or something. She said she'd rather we contact each other less (except she'd never let me off like that.) She frequently complain that now she's old nobody fears her any more, feel all degraded. She's one of the major source of stress in my life as she's totally unpredictable and I never know what I say would be wrong at what time. Like today I ticked her off by telling her the size 7 clothes she bought for my 10 year old son would be too small.

The good news is after being with her, most other women I encountered seem unbelievably nice. Sometimes I still can't believe that there are people out there who truly care about others and would listen to me. I rarely get upset or angry with anybody outside my family since I moved out, because everyone seems so good and reasonable.

I have a perfect relationship with my Mum. I see a lot of myself in her and she's probably got AS, ADD or a bit of both. But, my teenage years were the worst. She had a hysterectomy and was going through the menopause. I wasn't a typical teenager with tantrums and moods and was particularly well behaved. I tried to study and couldn't and my Mum would come into my room and ask what I was doing and go crazy with me, as my room was a mess. I'd tell her I was studying (I was trying to anyway). Eventually I gave up trying to do any uni work at home and went to my boyfriend's (now husband) office and found a spot in their dining room to concentrate. This sort of thing with my Mum went on for a few years. Other than that time, my Mum never saw me as anything less than perfect (I'm not sure if this was helpful) and she still sees me like this today. I did as I was told, got good grades and never broke the law, that's all she expected from me. We're now the best of friends and she's very proud of me. She's a very youthful 77 and would give me her last, if I needed it. She worries about me, as I've been through a rough time, trying to figure out my daughter (she's a handful to say the least). She's been so understanding about the probablity of my daughter having Aspergers and has supported me all the way. She totally gets it, probably because she's been similarly affected.

I have a good relationship with my mum. We do have disagreements though, mainly because she has a tendency to repeat several times what she has already nagged me about.
I'm more comfortable around women generally than men. Probably because I don't have contact with my dad and I only have aunts on my mum's side so I guess that's because I'm just not used to men.

Relationship with my mum is not good at all. She was the one that basically kicked me out of my house and called the police on my current boyfriend.

This all happened last year, a week before christmas. Why did this happen? I pointed out a serious problem and she didn't want to hear any of it. My boyfriend got the police called on him because he was defending me. Nearly a year later I'm still living with my boyfriend's family, his mum has serious problems and refuses to get any help for it.

She attacks me on a regular basis. As you can see I have terrible mother role models sigh

My mom and I are pretty close, I'd say. I have some friends an acquaintances that argue with their mothers all of the time, and it frustrates me. But yes, my mom and I get along fairly well, though she does not always understand what I am trying to convey, especially when it comes to mental health-related topics; she tries though, and that's good enough for me.