My mother is 75 and since I remember she used to provoke jeoulsy between her children to force them to do things that she wanted....For example if my brother wouldn't study she would tell him how my sister was good at school.and if my sister was not obeying what she wanted she would tell her how wise and mature my brother was and if I was naughty she would tell how my brother and sister were and would never do such a things I were doing.....well the result is that none of the children have good relationship with each other and of course with her now....although she was a wonderful mother and was very caring and had sacrifised everything in her life for the sake of her children....even now when she wants something from me she does the same thing she first admires my brother or my sister in front of me because of what she desires and then she asks me what she wants me to do.she is old and fragile now ...so what can I do when I get angry with this?I need your advice about my mother's problem.....?
there are two ways to handle them and neither are very comfortable for you...first you can ignore her doing this and just remember she is your mother and you love her regardless and let it just eat at you till she dies and it will continue to bother you most of your life...
second...you can sit down with her and tell her that you love her and you need to discuss something serious with her...dont downgrade her way of talking with you...just tell her that you love your siblings and are very happy they do for her. It makes your mind relieved that she has them to help her as well as you. Then tell her that it does bother you when she compliments them over you to your face and you just want to have the relationship with her because you love her...not because of what your siblings do or do not do...
this will be a hard conversation because you have to be very cautious what you say and say it without anger...do not use the word BUT in your discussion...ex: don't say: i love you but...or i'm glad my siblings help you but...
when you say but you discount everything you said prior...so make definite statements...it may be good to practice a bit prior to going for the talk...i will tell you this is the only way for you to work through this and the only way to forgive this later on...also it is a way to start a relationship with your siblings...
the choice is yours and no one can judge you on what you choose just know what will happen if you do or don't do something and i wish you peace in this...it will take a bit to get it...but it is worth it...if you need to email feel free...I need your advice about my mother's problem.....?
much depends on what you consider to be ethical or moral treatment of your mother. my parents are in their mid-70s; i'm in my mid-30s. my mother has always been manipulative of me as well (although her tactics differ somewhat from your mother's).
i have resigned myself to the fact that i am not going to improve the last few years of our relationship by handling things as they ought to be handled (standing up to my mother and pointing out her abuse of my affection for her). she is simply too old and too great a project to take on. if she were in her 50s or 60s, i would definitely be exactly who i really am around her, and sacrifice a few years' worth of strife or alienation in the hope that she would eventually be forced to deal with me on my terms, or not at all. at her age, though, i find this to be a sad option, because i cannot change her treatment of me in a matter of months, or a year or two. i would risk the possibility that she would die while we were going through the 'not on speaking terms' phase, and never have the time to get on to the next one, in which she would ideally decide she misses her son too much to allow our differences to come between us.
i do not wish to contribute to the ruin of our relationship in these last years of my mother's life - so i simply accept that she is this way, and respond to her attempts at manipulation by vaguely agreeing with whatever it is she's saying to / about me. i find this a bittersweet way to handle the problem, but life is bittersweet, and nowhere is that more in evidence than in our relationships with loved ones.
i have been greatly shaped by the emotionally cruel manner in which my mother has treated both me and my father over the years. most of her abuse these days stems from profound religious differences, as well as her stony disposition toward the woman i married. i force myself to see my mother's cruelty as a positive, though - from a very young age, i determined to be exactly what my mother was not. this has helped me, since it has made me very sensitive to the feelings of others. because of her, i always try to view potential conflicts with other loved ones in an almost omniscient way, thinking through the way i need to act towards others in order to help them.
whenever my mother tries to argue with me or point out what she believes are my shortcomings, i make myself view her as though she were the child and i the parent - that is, i completely set aside my instinctive emotional responses (when i was little, these were typically anger or hurt feelings) and tell myself: ';this person knows less about how she really thinks than i do. what can i do to get us both through this situation so that she is happy and i am not upset?'; often, this may involve a certain amount of lying or behaving in a way that is not truly the way i would like to behave, but the benefit is that my mother - as well as other loved ones - view me as someone who at least cares about their feelings and is not easily provoked to point out their flaws (though i definitely will do this if i feel it will truly help them).
in short, i feel that it is best to salvage whatever relationship you can with your mother, if you still desire to have one, and divert your frustration with her behavior into your own self-improvement. take the sad lessons she has taught you and use them to become a better person. think like a god, or at least like an adult, and foresee what her type of manipulation will do to others' relationships. this way, the legacy your mother leaves you will in some small sense be positive, even though that was not her intent.
p.s. - my mother is not pure evil. there is much, much good mixed in with the bad, and there are many ways in which my own parenting (i have a 13 year-old son) falls short of hers. i have turned off my emotional responses to the bad, though, and i cherish the good. bittersweet.
My grandmother acted in a similar way with her eight children, then they'd talk to each other and find that their mother praised each of them differently to a different child. Just remember that, though she praises one of your siblings to you, she praises you to one of your siblings.
This is a form of passive aggression. You can't do anything about her. You can only do something about how you respond. The best thing to do is smile and agree with her that the attribute she is admiring is wonderful. Then when she asks for whatever it is she wants simply say, I'll see what I can do and then ignore it. Remember, she is your mother so there is no reason to hurt her feelings; however, that doesn't mean you have to do something you don't want to do. Just let her think you are going to do it. If she comes back later as says why didn't you do such and such you can simply say Oh, I was really busy, what was it again that you wanted?
I think you should just put up with her - is you never told her how you feel then, now is a bad time. And remember that such things increase with age. Sorry man.
pretend that you agree with everything she mentioned,be pleasant and polite with her and most important try to fix your relationship with your brother and sister,it will be very helpful.
i would just ignore her...do what she wants as you say shes old and fragile you wwant to make the best of what she has left
I am sorry to say that the problem is lying with you which I notice from your word 'jealousy'. Creating copetitive attitude
among the children is the mother's technique, but the elders could not understand the point that all the children are not fair in thinking. In your child hood she used her abilities to mend her children, and at her old age she is expressing her inabilities in this way, kindly cope with her.
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