OnTheWayUp
Senior Don Juan
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2010
- Messages
- 321
- Reaction score
- 9
Gents,
I'm at my wits' end with my mother at the moment. I'm living at home at the moment as I'm in the middle of my university holidays and she's really trying my patience.
As I have alluded to in previous posts, I have had a typical beta male upbringing. My father has many qualities and I will always love him for them, but he is ultimately a spineless beta. My domineering mother has always run the house for as long as I can remember. She takes all the decisions of significance and responsibility for the day-to-day actions of the family as a whole when we are at home, especially my father. My father (bless him) has major oneitis and tolerates everything.
The thing I find the most difficult about my mother is her constant negativity. She will very rarely give compliments, and even then these are often backhanded/ delivered in an insulting way. She rarely smiles, and most of these smiles are delivered in public as a means of sucking up to her friends or as a way of getting something that she wants. I can escape this when I go to university for 7-8 months of the year (and will escape it still further next year when I buy my own place), but the point still stands. I am worried about the mental well-being of my father and my brother living in such an atmosphere.
I also find my mother's attitude of constantly playing the victim extremely tiresome. Ever read any of the posts on here in which a guy talks about a gf who refuses to take responsibility for her actions? That's my mother right there. If you stand up to her, she will play the victim card, accuse you of rudeness/ ungratefulness, use guilt trips rather than rational argument, and (sometimes) even start crying. 95% of the time this will be enough to get my dad on side, and that is usually enough to get what she wants.
Similarly, she refuses to take responsibility for some of the negative things that have happened to the family in the last 15 or so years. She has put on a vast amount of weight since my childhood; this is attributed to "not having enough time to do exercise" rather than laziness. She has lost many of her friends in the last few years; again, this is attributed to an external cause (the nature of my father's job or even my anti-social childhood) rather than her personality or lack of proactivity. My father was a talented semi-professional sportsman in the first few years of my parents' marriage. When he stopped playing sport on a regular basis, he lost many of his best friends from adolescence as well as much of his mental well-being, and also put on weight. Whilst my father is not entirely blameless for this, my mother should also bear some responsibility.
Finally, she wants everything done on her own terms, and this is also highly irritating. To illustrate my point, there was one ridiculous occasion a few days ago where I was working on my bed. She wanted to change my sheets immediately because it suited her to do so. I was in the middle of typing something important and conceptually difficult, so I said I'd give them to her in 5 mins. So she started stripping the bed- with me still on it.
This has reached the point where it is dragging me down. I have an awesome life at university, but whenever I come home or spend extended time with my family, it is impossible not to be affected by my mother's negative influence. It has an impact on my mental health and confidence, which has negative repercussions in life as a whole and, of course, with women. Something needs to change.
If this were a simple matter of a girl I was dating, I would have been out the door long, long ago. For all their flaws, I love my parents and I don't want to see them break up. I am therefore left with the option of trying to change them. My father needs to learn to act like more of a man, and my mother needs to learn to act like more of a woman. Confronting my mother directly has proved unsuccessful. Reframing what she says and making fun of her has had limited success (it gets a laugh from the rest of the family), but ultimately has not changed her behaviour.
Thanks for reading. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
I'm at my wits' end with my mother at the moment. I'm living at home at the moment as I'm in the middle of my university holidays and she's really trying my patience.
As I have alluded to in previous posts, I have had a typical beta male upbringing. My father has many qualities and I will always love him for them, but he is ultimately a spineless beta. My domineering mother has always run the house for as long as I can remember. She takes all the decisions of significance and responsibility for the day-to-day actions of the family as a whole when we are at home, especially my father. My father (bless him) has major oneitis and tolerates everything.
The thing I find the most difficult about my mother is her constant negativity. She will very rarely give compliments, and even then these are often backhanded/ delivered in an insulting way. She rarely smiles, and most of these smiles are delivered in public as a means of sucking up to her friends or as a way of getting something that she wants. I can escape this when I go to university for 7-8 months of the year (and will escape it still further next year when I buy my own place), but the point still stands. I am worried about the mental well-being of my father and my brother living in such an atmosphere.
I also find my mother's attitude of constantly playing the victim extremely tiresome. Ever read any of the posts on here in which a guy talks about a gf who refuses to take responsibility for her actions? That's my mother right there. If you stand up to her, she will play the victim card, accuse you of rudeness/ ungratefulness, use guilt trips rather than rational argument, and (sometimes) even start crying. 95% of the time this will be enough to get my dad on side, and that is usually enough to get what she wants.
Similarly, she refuses to take responsibility for some of the negative things that have happened to the family in the last 15 or so years. She has put on a vast amount of weight since my childhood; this is attributed to "not having enough time to do exercise" rather than laziness. She has lost many of her friends in the last few years; again, this is attributed to an external cause (the nature of my father's job or even my anti-social childhood) rather than her personality or lack of proactivity. My father was a talented semi-professional sportsman in the first few years of my parents' marriage. When he stopped playing sport on a regular basis, he lost many of his best friends from adolescence as well as much of his mental well-being, and also put on weight. Whilst my father is not entirely blameless for this, my mother should also bear some responsibility.
Finally, she wants everything done on her own terms, and this is also highly irritating. To illustrate my point, there was one ridiculous occasion a few days ago where I was working on my bed. She wanted to change my sheets immediately because it suited her to do so. I was in the middle of typing something important and conceptually difficult, so I said I'd give them to her in 5 mins. So she started stripping the bed- with me still on it.
This has reached the point where it is dragging me down. I have an awesome life at university, but whenever I come home or spend extended time with my family, it is impossible not to be affected by my mother's negative influence. It has an impact on my mental health and confidence, which has negative repercussions in life as a whole and, of course, with women. Something needs to change.
If this were a simple matter of a girl I was dating, I would have been out the door long, long ago. For all their flaws, I love my parents and I don't want to see them break up. I am therefore left with the option of trying to change them. My father needs to learn to act like more of a man, and my mother needs to learn to act like more of a woman. Confronting my mother directly has proved unsuccessful. Reframing what she says and making fun of her has had limited success (it gets a laugh from the rest of the family), but ultimately has not changed her behaviour.
Thanks for reading. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
