Posted by sleepygirl on April 1, 2006, at 22:21:18
My aunt died today at 82 years of age. She was a good woman, thoughtful, but certainly not perfect. I am sad about it, especially for my mom (she was her sister). My mother and I have had an EXTREMELY difficult relationship over the years. My mother can be very hurtful, and say really awful things, act in really hurtful ways, so I have learned to detach, keep my distance. It keeps me from feeling too angry, then feeling guilty about it. She is quite unpredictable, and quite frankly abusive at times.
I got a picture of how she might have behaved with her children when I saw her with my 6 year old nephew, and the way that she spewed malice toward him, calling him a "little bastard". He is poorly behaved, really poorly behaved, but at that particular moment his mother (my sister) was in the hospital having brain surgery.
My mother can't seem to appreciate any one else's negative behavior though, being about anything other than hurting her. I love my mother, but she has hurt me to the core, and I just can't be close to her and protect myself at the same time.
I spoke with my mother on the phone today to see how she is doing. She said, with some sort of bitterness, that she wonders how her deceased sister's 4 children feel now, since my mother believes they did not respect their mother. I'm not sure what my mother thinks that means. I said, "I'm sure it's complicated", to which she admitted, "yes, she did have a sharp tongue, like my mother, like I do." I know my aunt fought bitterly with her husband for many, many years, and was not an easy woman to live with. I by no means want to imply this means that she did not deserve much love and respect, because I'm sure she did.
What my mother has never been able to understand though is that it can be impossible to live with the nasty moods and comments that she can have, that her sister likely had. And so I've "lost my rights" so many times to respond angrily to hurtful things she has done, because that would be wrong, I might be "disrespectful". My mother however is never accountable, only the "disrespectful" children whose mothers are always "suffering". I got off the phone feeling just "wrong".
poster:sleepygirl
thread:627653
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/relate/20060220/msgs/627653.html