Mom has borderline I’m pretty sure

[Sad-daughter]

Hi everyone,

I’m new to this group and really need support right now. I’ve pretty much lost my will to live at this point. I’m not suicidal. I’m just hopeless.  For most of my life, up until I met and fell in love with my fiancé, I spent the majority of my life with my mom, mostly because I was in a miserable marriage for 17 years and I spent most weekends at their house or taking my mom out for fun days shopping, etc. That changed when I met and fell in love with my fiancé 3 and a half years. I actually had a life starting then. I didn’t call my mom everyday. I didn’t spend much time up at their house. One more important fact, my fiancé is from Turkey and I was born and raised in the Midwest to an upper middle class white family who don’t have relationships with any one not like them. Soon after the relationship started, my mom started raging at me and belittling my fiancé. Using every tool she could think of to get me to break up with him. I did for a short time. The minute I did, she was all happy and loving with me. When I went back home to him, that’s when it started in earnest. Fast forward nearly 3 years—I barely have any contact with her. If I do start communicating with her, she lures me in with kind words and shows love. But then she hits me with anything she can against him. I recently, for the first time ever, put up boundaries with her and told her not to text or email me. She’s absolutely ruthless that way she doesn’t have to see my reaction. I feel torn in two now. I had always hoped that my husband would be welcomed and be part of my family, but that’s never going to happen. We didn’t even tell my family when we got engaged because I knew they’d crap all over it. Now we’re planning our wedding that my mom refers to as a joke. I’m at such a low point. I really am hopeless. I recently told my mom and my family that they’re all prejudice and xenophobic and they all talk to me like they know better and are better than me. My mom actually compared me to my identical twin sister. Called me beer and her champagne. I feel better when I don’t talk to her at all but I feel soo guilty!  I just want peace

[beatricex]

Hi sad-daughter,

Welll...I prefer beer to champaigne...so.  You do have to consider the source, you know.

What is this power your Mom has over you, and why do you think you're still enmeshed?

Very happy for you, congrats on your engagement.  This is exciting, and good for you breaking out of the mold you were born into.  Acceptance, tolerance, patience and love are all good qualities, surely those are at play, as your future husband comes from a very different place.  Is it possible that your mom is simply jealous?

 

b

[PearlsBefore]

I'm sorry to hear about how rough this has been on you; my personal advice would be to simply plan a low-key wedding and focus on the marriage not the wedding. There's no need to invite your mother or other invalidating relatives to it, or even tell them what day it will be, if it will save you grief and ill feelings for them to be a little less informed - and give your mother a little less ammunition to try and drag you down to feel as miserable as she feels or thinks she feels.

Ultimately you might be right, that he'll never be invited to Thanksgiving dinners and they'll never attend Eid dinners at your place - but hopefully you'll be able to balance the two lives; 95% of your time to your chosen family, 5% of your time to your family of origin - and never the twain shall meet.