Feeling love, compassion, or pity for mom?

[shabenanizer]

For the first time in a long while I was not charmed by Indiana when I returned "home" for my annual visit to CeCee, reintroduce myself to her staffs, and by default, visit Mom as well.  Maybe it was the 100+ degree heat, the resulting headache that didn't prevent me from falling asleep under the fireworks in the middle of Monroe County fairground

Comments

[annielately]

OK, I created a profile so I can keep track of my comments. =)

This is an interesting post - I'm glad you're no longer suicidal, by the way! I can't believe her response to your confession. It is nowhere in the realm of normal. It's good that you have Bree for support.

About being mean...I have noticed that my husband does this to his NM, too and he also said that he has to be "mean" or else she would walk all over him. I wonder what goes on in N's heads when we are more rude to them than the situation warrants...does it even compute in their brains?

NMIL also doesn't remember, or glosses over, any instance of abuse. Did you ever see the Selfish People episode of Dr. Phil with the N-mom? She looks and acts exactly like my NMIL, the way she deflects Dr. Phil's questions about her behavior toward her daughters, to the way she starts fake-crying to get sympathy.

"I hate her, and I love her, and I feel sorry for her." I know what you mean, I almost feel sorry for a "frail old woman" but I just have to remember how she treated my husband and my children (the one time she saw them) and the feeling passes. I asked my husband recently what he feels when he thinks about her and he said mainly guilt and pity. He feels guilty that he does not love her and has stated that when she dies, he'll feel relieved. What pathetic lives Ns have and they don't even see it.

--Ann

[shabenanizer]

I wonder too what goes on in Ns head when we have to be more rude and mean than the situation warrants, given how uber-hypersensitive Ns appear to be about criticisms, even expectations of common courtesy is seen as a personal attack on them. My thoughts and theories are the following:

1. Ns view these acts of meanness (our self defense really) as "proof" that they are victims and it validates their fantasies that everybody has done them wrong. Ns LOVES being victims and pitied and when their own victims/children defend themselves, it's just more proof in the Ns' minds that their children are ungrateful and selfish and are mean to their "poor desperate mothers" (my mom's own words in her nastygram to Bree)

2. Ns are recording and storing the rude and mean actions (again, our means of self defense) to be used against us later on, again as proof that we are ungrateful little bastards toward their martyr mothers. BTW, the definition of a martyr is "a willing victim".

3. Like how their abuse of us is no more significant than the lunch they had that day, our reasons for refusing to be further abused by them is no more significant than what they had for lunch that day. It's not personal, Ns treat their children the same as they treat strangers.

Like your husband, I'm sure I'll also be relieved when NM dies, and I'm almost certain I will be very sad, not because I miss her but because I'm sorry she wasted her life and rejected her children. My sister and I did everything for her until recently, we gave her more than she ever deserved, treated her a million times better than she ever treated us, but she rejected us and moved on.