That's what I ended up doing - got gma's stuff and got the heck out of there before the landlady decided to show up. Not that it really matters but my mom never paid a cleaning deposit (bad move on the landlord's part) as she moved into the house on a rush type thing - after her 3rd husband left her a couple years back and she could no longer afford the mortgage on the house they were in. Additionally, the landlord WAS her assistant at her job, can you imagine? My mom was/is such a bully that the assistant/landlord was probably afraid not to rent her the house. Knowing the landlord the way I do, this wouldn't be a big surprise. And the house was a pit that needed to be cleaned for sure.l

 

I do know how lucky I am - mom landed herself a job several states away and there is really no reason for her to come back to where I am. We do not have a close relationship and she is no longer close to our kids; my husband avoids her as much as possible. She no longer has a relationship with our extended family members who happen to still be in the general area - she really has no relationship with anyone in the family, come to think of it. She actually can only keep the friends that typically have very low self-esteem - once she has them hooked she does her best to keep their self-esteem in the gutter. Up until a few years ago my self-esteem was pretty much in the same gutter - once that and my life started improving, I 'woke up' and realized what a monster she really is. Sometimes I still feel guilty for avoiding her but I am learning to work through that, albeit it seems to take a lot of time to wade through all the BS that surrounds being in ANY kind of relationship with her, even a severely limited one.

 

Another thing I feel a lot of is anger. Once I realized her narcissism and got my head wrapped around everything, I was/am beyond resentful and p'od. I can name a million situations, and different ones pop into my head all the time. However, when I was in the 8th grade I remember being bullied quite a bit by two different girls; one of them was a friend, one wasn't - she was just a run-of-the-mill bully. Mostly they were just verbally abusive - I would go home and try to confide in my mom about it; she either wouldn't listen or in a weird way would end up reinforcing what the two girls had already said. Generally she would do this by saying the same thing they had but using a different tone, different words, etc. The worst one was being ignored by her at that age - being a bully target by day and ignored at night by the one person who should have cared made for a pretty miserable experience. I try not to dwell on these things but when I do think of them it really p*sses me off.  I have kids and I can't imagine being so cold and callous as to act in this way towards them, or most anyone else for that matter.

 

When thinking about the 8th grade bullies, just that situation alone, makes me wonder why I would ever feel a shred of guilt over my mom - and it's frustrating to me that I still do sometimes. Hopefully with her a few thousand miles away that will get less and less???? I hope.......

Hi Windy,

 

I can definitely relate to your living situation - my husband, kids, and me were once in the same position - we also lived downstairs from my N mom (ugh). We were waiting for another house to sell and at the time we were very financially stretched. We got out of there as soon as we could and it's been since then my husband has avoided her like the plague (prior to our living there he didn't really understand that I meant it when I said she was crazy - he def knows what I mean now, and believes it). My mom is the master of putting on a VERY, VERY good act.

 

Is it hard having your kids around your mom? I hated that part because when my kids were very young my mom took a lot of pleasure in doing things with and for my kids that I would implicitly ask her NOT to do. For instance, I would ask her not to buy too many gifts for my kids at Christmas, just a normal amount. Instead she would buy them so many gifts that my daughter (3 at the time) ended up crying because she was so overwhelmed with stuff. It was crazy........par for the course, apparently :(

 

Heather