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?