Mothers Who Are Jealous of Their Daughters

[TelHill]

Here’s a Psychology Today article on this subject about disordered mothers and their daughters.

I think this envy was behind much of the abuse my dBDP mom threw my way. She projected her self-loathing and insecurities onto me. She put my gc brother on a pedestal where he could do no wrong. She’d make sure there was hell to pay if I outshone my brother, which actually wasn’t too difficult. He has not worked or tried too hard in his life. I know this sounds snarky but it’s upsetting to be put down.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-legacy-distorted-love/201310/mothers-who-are-jealous-their-daughters/amp

[Methuen]

This hits home.

Here’s a recent example:

In March, mother got accepted into assisted living.  Moving day was April 16.  This all fell on H and me as there is no other family. What ensued was a Herculean effort to sort, organize, pack, and move her life accumulation of things, and dispense of what she didn’t want or couldn’t take.  (Many potholes and landmines in all of that.)

In setting up her assisted living apartment, my goal was to make it look and feel as much as possible like the home she was leaving, so as to set her up for success in the transition to AL- as much as possible.  I can’t overstate the effort I went to.  For example, taking a picture of her fridge and arranging all her photos and magnets to exactly replicate as they had been at the house where she lived independently.

Workers at assisted living have told me mom has the nicest apartment in the facility.  We had it set up before moving mom.  It was important that she like it if AL was going to have any chance of success. On the day we moved her, she said “I didn’t know you could do this” when she saw it.  A backhanded compliment I suppose.

BS.  I’ve been doing kind and wonderful things for her my whole life, but it’s just never good enough.  She will always find something to criticize.

Last weekend after being there 2 hours doing “jobs” for her, we were leaving, and walking past her kitchen. She stopped us to look at her decorating. She had hung oven mitts above her range in a decorative way. 

She turned to me and said “You wouldn’t think of that”.

I had to get out of there.  Fast.

It was my husband who identified the word “envy” as we were walking back to the parking lot.

I have read your psychology today article.  It is bang on.

 “Do well so that Mother is proud, but don’t do too well or you will outshine her.”

[Notwendy]

I can relate to this and your experience Methuen. It seems like our mother's had to find something to be critical about.

Moving my BPD mother into AL was similar. Fortunately, some extended family did this with me. She needed to get her house on the market ASAP (she'd taken a home equity loan and needed to sell it). I don't live near her but had driven there to help her move. I could only take what could fit in my car. The movers had brought what furniture and belongings BPD mother was needing to the AL.

Although BPD mother had said she wanted to "downsize"- she also refused to let me have anything of hers in the house. Now, I had one day to get anything sentimental out of the house like family photos.  On the same day- we met with a realtor to get the house on the market and a cleaning service. BPD mother stayed in her room at the AL. The realtor was going to meet her to get the papers signed.

We went to the grocery to get some food and snacks for BPD mother and picked up some flowers to make her room cheery. While we were moving, we met a nice resident in the AL who made friends with her and was very welcoming to her. I picked up a bouquet of flowers for her too. On the way to BPD mother's room, I gave them to her. We spent the rest of the evening with BPD mother and I didn't think to tell her about giving her new friend the flowers. After we left, the friend mentioned them to her saying she appreciated them.

The next morning I get a call from BPD mother. She is angry "you embarrassed me". I was perplexed. The whole day was for her. "You gave the friend flowers and didn't tell me"

How is your mother doing in AL Methuen?

[zachira]

Telhill,
Good article.
With many disordered people, there is no real empathy for others and the ability to have whole relationships with people, accepting that are things we will like about a person and other things not so much. Everyone is either on a pedestal or a black sheep. This hurts especially when your mother, makes you the black sheep, and makes a sibling a golden child, who happens to not be a very nice person because he/she has never had to take any responsibility for their terrible behaviors. My sister with NPD is the golden child of the immediate and nearly entire large extended family. I am the black sheep and like every one of the black sheep from at least five generations, no matter how much good we do, we always are looked down upon and despised. The golden children can do some horrible things, yet are still on a pedestal, including one relative who killed her best friend.

[Notwendy]

That is horrible- murdering someone even.
 

Although there are parallels to the article, I don't know if it was jealousy or her need for attention. She was the central focus of the family. If someone else was getting attention, it would shift back to her needs.

In our family, even the GC was subjected to criticism. Other people too. I saw this as the classic- put someone else down to be able to feel better, or possibly projection.

Methuen- how is your mother doing in AL? I hope it's better for her and you. In my situation- BPD mother had similar dynamics with the staff and caregivers but it still was better for everyone that her medical and physical needs were being met there.

[Methuen]

While we were moving, we met a nice resident in the AL who made friends with her and was very welcoming to her. I picked up a bouquet of flowers for her too.

The next morning I get a call from BPD mother. She is angry "you embarrassed me". I was perplexed. The whole day was for her. "You gave the friend flowers and didn't tell me"

This reminds me of an incident that happened about 7 years ago with mom.  She was struggling with her typical “feeling of abandonment behaviors“ before we went on a trip to Hawaii. Her friends voluntarily stepped up to cover while we were going to be away. They were kind “people pleasing” types trying to be helpful to mom and fill in while we were going to be away.

We were grateful and so I brought each one of them back a box of chocolate covered macadamia nuts as a gesture of appreciation.

When we got back, I met the first friend in mom’s driveway as I was leaving.  The chocolates were in my car so I gave her a box. 

The next time I saw mom she freaked out at me in an all out attack, and “forbade” me to give any more chocolates to her friends.

They sat in my basement for years, and expired.  Then I threw them out.  At the time I contemplated giving them anyways, but couldn’t take the chance her friends would mention it to mom.  I was too terrified of her rage.

So mean.  And denying a gesture to the friends that helped her- actually taking that away from them. If only they knew…. 

Similar to your mom getting angry when you gave your mom’s friend flowers NW.

I still don’t understand what I did wrong.

[CC43]

Similar to your mom getting angry when you gave your mom’s friend flowers NW.

I still don’t understand what I did wrong.

Well, your mother could have been angry for any number of reasons.  First, she's simply angry that you left her, and probably had loads of fun without her, and anything and everything can set her off.  She resents seeing others happy when she's isn't.  Second, you gave someone a nice box of chocolates, but you didn't give your mom a box of chocolates first.  She felt you gave your friend gifts and attention, while excluding her.  Third, maybe your mom felt that she had made a new friend while you were away, and that friend was hers to dominate.  When you "upstaged" your mom with an important interaction with the friend while excluding your mom, your mom felt alienated.  How dare you?!?  You see, for your BPD mom, everything has to be about her, and when it's not, she probably feels abandoned and angry.  Maybe she felt you demeaned her because the token gift ought to have come from your mom, not you.  There's also a possibility that your mom felt demeaned because you felt you had to pay back your friend for taking care of your mom.  But I think this is a low probability, because your mom loves the attention, especially from people she considers important.

This reminds me of an incident when I had bought a friend a wedding gift, and I had wrapped it in white wrapping paper and left it on a table before taking it out to my car.  My adult BPD stepdaughter came for a visit, and her eyes lit up when she saw the gift.  Immediately she picked up the gift and asked, is this for me?--Before even saying Hi, how have you been?, etc., and I swear she was about to tear off the wrapping paper.  When I said, it's a wedding present for a friend, she looked absolutely flabbergasted.  It's like I could see her mind churning:  it's not fair, you mean you get to go to a wedding and I don't, and you spent money on someone else, not me, and you didn't get me a gift too?  Her mood changed from delighted to very irritable.  I bet the gift set her mind racing:  it's so unfair, other people have weddings, and I don't even have a boyfriend, nobody will ever love me . . . .It's as if she couldn't tolerate anyone else's happiness, because her life seemed comparatively miserable.  And she kind of made me feel guilty, like I had actually taken a gift away from her, and I should have hidden the present so as not to trigger her.  I guess my main feeling was that my stepdaughter seemed surprised and hurt that I would have a life with friends, weddings and other joyful events independent of her, because she felt entitled to 100% of the attention and gifts, even if she wasn't living with me.  I know this involves a lot of mind-reading on my part, but the mood flipped from elated to angry/petulant/passive-aggressive in a flash, in "typical" BPD fashion, and that's my explanation.

[Methuen]

Second, you gave someone a nice box of chocolates, but you didn't give your mom a box of chocolates first.  She felt you gave your friend gifts and attention, while excluding her. 

Dangerous assumption.  To clarify, mom not only got chocolates, but numerous other gifts from our trip. She had already consumed most of her chocolates when that happened.  One thing I am guilty of is overindulging her to win her favour.  You see I always wanted her to love me.

Which I have learned the hard way is futile.

To this day I continue to show kindnesses to her, but with hard boundaries for myself. 

My point was really, that despite her friends working together to check in on her several times a day while we were away and going to a lot of extra effort, she essentially said that they couldn't have a small box of chocolates as a thank you.  Just wierd.  Maybe it was about control.  Most things are.

[Notwendy]

It's hard to know what they are thinking. In my situation, I got BPD mother flowers too, so it's not that. In a similar way, we ran into the friend on the way to BPD mother's room and gave her the flowers. It was a busy day and we had a lot of things to do, so I forgot to tell BPD mother about that.

BPD mother wanted to be "in the know". One way she triangulates people "to her side" is to share information with them, and say "don't tell NW". She also felt embarrassed if other people are informed about something and she wasn't. The friend mentioned something about the flowers to my mother at dinner, after we left. Rather than assuming I just forgot, and had no other intent, she called me up in a rage and told me "I embarrased her".

BPD mother would get into rages over things we had no idea about and accuse us of something. It would happen out of the blue. Sometimes we had no clue what "we did wrong" and sometimes it was imaginary or a false accusation.

BPD mother also used money and gifts to solicit people "to her side". With gifts in general, they didn't seem to match the relationship. She may be overly generous in some situations and very tight in others.

My best guess to the flowers is that- since BPD mother used gifts to solicit loyalty and triangulate people to "her side", and I think she assumed I was doing the same to her friend.

Methuen, I think your situation is mainly about control and possessiveness of her friends to stay on "her side".   BPD mother didn't even like it if I spoke to her family and friends without her permission and at times "forbade" me to talk to them. It's like their friends are theirs, not yours, so you can't be friends with them too.

[Methuen]

Methuen, I think your situation is mainly about control and possessiveness of her friends to stay on "her side".   BPD mother didn't even like it if I spoke to her family and friends without her permission and at times "forbade" me to talk to them. It's like their friends are theirs, not yours, so you can't be friends with them too.

Yes.  Totally agreement here.  I think it's also about "secrecy".  Mom likes to have information others don't.  Perhaps that gives her attention, and status and control.  So "forgetting" to tell them about a gift we gave, may be a capital crime.  There was a time when mom forbade me to talk to her friends too.  But as her independent living situation became more and more compromised by her own stubborn-ness, they starting calling me with their concerns.  Which was interesting. 

[Notwendy]

The secrecy thing was a part of my BPD mother's dynamics too. After my father passed away, she told her FOO and some family friends to not speak to me. I knew that if someone was in her circle, it was best to just be polite with them.

It was when her FOO noticed that she was not doing well that they called me.