Mother/daughter relationships.. how do you get on?

Dark Storm

Dark Storm

Well I'll be a Krampus's Auntie! :D!
Jan 4, 2009
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Hadfield
Having an apparent lack of this in my life, I was wondering what makes being a mother so special in a daughters eyes? I often see really close relationships, which leaves me thinking why my mum cut herself off from her kids:unsure:..
Me and my dad have never been close either, I can only work out that he see's my mum in me, as my auntie once said I have similar mannerisumsto her..
At my Nana and Granddad's golden wedding, one of my mums aunts (I think?) actually called me by my mums name, thinking I was her! REALLY SCARY:cold:!!
As being brought up without the closeness of parents, I struggle to understand how families work, even my Oh's.. why his kids only seem to appear when they want something, which annoys me no end, as I believe they should also come to visit when they don't want something, then I'd feel they appreciate their dad more..
 
I think I have an ok relationship with my mum, not clingy, not distant, just about fair to middling! OH's mum has a REALLY close relationship to her daughter though, it is weird to me, but perhaps I just don't understand? When daughter used to live over here, they saw each other EVERY day, twice a day, her mum used to go and cook meals for daughter and hubby, driver daughter to work, do her ironing, cleaning etc. That would be too much for me, even if it were my own mum!lol. Her mum knows when she's due to see dentist, doctor, hairdresser etc etc. Knows what she eats for breakfast tea and dinner (you get the picture!!!). I can't get my head around that - its too close for comfort in my opinion.
 
Hated my mum when I lived there but we get on so well now, I always go round, she helps me with the horse, we have loadS in common and are more like best mates! We went to an Anne summers party together once and she is the same with her own mum.

The three of us will often go out into town for a boozy lunch. We all went to see the lady boys of Bangkok last year.

The rest of my family is a bit harder, I have to really make time for them to go and visit them.

I don't know what makes my mum special, we just share similar views, she's funny, have lots in common.
 
I get on better with my mum since leaving home and love to remind her of how often she said "I cant wait for you to move out", the day I did she stood crying saying"if you want to come home just call and I will send dad to get all your stuff".

She has her moments when she has weird flips about nothing, like she had the boys for me when OH took me away and propsed then when we got home she had a strop because I didnt say thank you. We had only just got there and made cups of tea etc and sat down. She was tired and in a bad mood and basically took it out on me.

But if I need a moan she is the person I tend to call, she will stick up for me but will tell me if she thinks Im wrong or over reacting(pot kettle black). I turst her with the boys, my house keys etc. I can go for weeks without seeing her then she is on the phone days in a row.

I do find it strange those whos mother speak to them every day, know where they are going and when......
 
I'm not close to my mum and never have been. Neither am I particularly close with my dad. I see them maybe every 12 or 18 months and I don't miss them at all. That probably sounds very cold but it's just the way it is ;)

I went to my mum when I started my period, and I cried on her shoulder once when my friend moved away. I can't remember ever confiding in her for anything else.
 
I spent many years in denial and constantly forgave and stuck up for my Mum. In fairness she changed entirely (for the better) in my teens but only from psychopathic to plain nuts. She has caused me no end of trouble and it all came to a head when I found out that she had told my, at the time, 11 year old daughter that her father (whom I am still married to) was a c*&t and the worst thing that ever happened to me. Sometimes you just have to draw the line so about 5 years ago I wrote her (and my sister jointly) a long letter saying these are the things I am really pissed off about, heres what you need to do if we are going to start rebuilding bridges (mainly apologising). My sister sent my letter back with some notes scribbled on the edges and my mum phoned me 6 months later and tried to pretend everything was fine. I declined to pretend it was so.

Truth is I am much happier without the constant hassle. I am very close to my sisters eldest son, more than the normal aunty/nephew scenario and he is virtually a son (even if he drives me crazy) and I am close to my brother's daughter. No contact with either siblingfor a long time. Thats how I like it.

Blood ties arent all they are cut upto be sometimes. I dont care if they are my family. I dont like them as people.

I have a much better bond with my daughter but i find her super independant and difficult to be physically close to but I always try to give her quick squish and tell her i love her. Im sure we will maintain our relatonship. My son is much more demonstrative and easier to hug but I love them equally. I am not a very touchy feely person at best of times and do have to 'remember'!

I am horrified at the number of our kids friends who are throw out, locked out and generally abandoned. I would never do that and may get bloody angry but would never throw them out or do anything to make them feel anything but unconditional love.
 
I have absolutely have no relationship with my mother at all, she always favoured the men in her life over her kids. Everything was about her and she would do whatever she wanted no matter who would affect in the long run. She has 5 children, i'm the eldest and the youngest is 13, guess how many grew up living under her roof......0!

However, i do have to say that my own mothers actions have made me more conscious of my own actions towards my own children. Yes they are hard work but they are my world, i love them dearly and would do anything for them. They are not spoilt but they certainly don't go without and if they want something specific i will try my hardest to get it for them.
 
I love my mum to bits :o

Couldnt imagine life without her. She knows all there is to know (within reason) and her and my dad are first people I call other than OH if in trouble :)
 
I was always really close to my mum. Not in each others pockets kind of way but close.

Then when I wanted to get married to someone "I hardly knew" in her eyes, she turned into a complete bbbbbbb and I saw a side to her that my dad (her ex) had told me about for years. She is very selfish and controlling and was horrid throughout it all. She was involved in the wedding but was so rude and upset me over and over again. Including leaving me to make my own way from the hair dressers in the wind and rain on the morning of my wedding so she could go and get ready. :throwball: and really embarrassing me when we were wedding dress shopping (which she only did because my dad had warned her she would lose me if she didn't do something). I put up with it all at the time but it has changed the way I feel about her. She said she only had my best interests at heart but she went about it all in the wrong way and I will never forgive her for putting such a dampner on the man I love and our wedding day. She hated not having control over what was going on in my life and that I could stand on my own two feet.

Basically, after we got married we moved away. My relationship with my mum has slowly got better but it will never be the same. I know she was upset (pretty sure the whole thing made her depressed and I feel bad about that) but I can never forgive her for 1) not trusting me and treating me like a child and 2) being malicious and going out of her way to make things not work.

Funnily enough, nearly 2 years on, me and my husband are doing really well together, are really happy and- my mum agrees he is the right man for me for life. She now understands how special the bond between me and OH is. I just wish she had seen it at the beginning.

I do love my mum so so much. We have a lot of fun together too, it is just this incident changed my level of respect for her.
 
popularfurball said:
I love my mum to bits :o

Couldnt imagine life without her. She knows all there is to know (within reason) and her and my dad are first people I call other than OH if in trouble :)
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Same here!

Couldn't have asked for a better mum in all honesty and I hope my kids feel the same way about me!!

Just wished she had pushed me a bit more when I was little as I was very shy/clingy and she was too soft LOL.
 
I have a distant relationship with my mother, she would love a close relationship but seeing as a) she's 10,000 miles away that's kinda hard and b) to be honest I find her hard work, we can't be under the same roof for more than 3 days before she and I start to irritate each other (never mind her boyfriend :mad: but he just has lazy, disgusting rude habits, he's a nice enough bloke) she always falls back into the 'I am your mother, your my child' type conversation and it inevitably ends in me being stubborn and just saying 'No'. She speaks to my sister like this and at 27 my sister still does as she is told, we're like chalk and cheese. Our relationship is that different to your ususal one that should anything happen to my daughter she won't be living family, she'll stay with friends in this country. As I get really upset knowing how she would 'turn out' if she were to live with my mother and her boyfriend.

I'd like to think my relationship with daughter will be different, I'll encourage her to be independant but still offer the support when needed - always.

Reading that back, it sounds awful, I love my mum as she is my mum and the only one I have. But I can't do with the amount of interfereing she likes to do.
 
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:redface:My Mum had me when she was 16, and 47 years ago in a small ruaral community this was NOT socially acceptable. She was basically a kid herself and I was brought up by my Nan and Grandad. My mother went out with various boyfriends, and had a more or less normal teenage life. I always thought I was a disapointment to her, because I was far removed from a party animal and she is life and soul.

I was never close to my Mum as a child and even called her by her first name, like a sister, still do. The thing is, when I had my babies she appeared and was quite frankly pretty intrusive in my life. Well thats how I saw it anyway, having been used to going my own way since I was about 9, it was hard for me to accept a close relationship.

Now we are both adults, and Nan and Grandad have both passed away, we get on better and she comes over about twice a month or I go to her, we walk dogs together or go grocery shopping. Pretty mundane, but I can cope with this level of intimacy, and have even got to the stage now were we can have a day out together. She will still embarass me though, but I think this is a characteristic of being a Mother.

Are we close? don't know really, I am as close to her as I am able to be, and when I got my degree she told me that she was really proud of me for the first time ever. That meant a lot. I am never going to win daughter of the year, but we are both trying. This reply sems to have turned into therapy!
 
Interesting topic.

I have a good relationship with my Mum - not great, but good. We have some things in common, but she lives in the US and I'm here (UK) so we only see each other about once or twice a year.

However . . . I have a fantastic relationship with both of my teenage daughters . . . we do things together (mostly horsey), hang out and they tell me they can trust me/confide in me (although I'm pretty sure they don't tell me EVERYthing and I don't think I would want them to). Em (15) came with me to Tweseldown last weekend with several of my adult friends and had a ball (and was a huge help).

Part of it may be generational . . . but I'll be willing to bet that my relationship with my Mum has been coloured by my having gone away to boarding school when I was 11 (until I left school at 18). Having daughters of my own, I now realize how much time/togetherness we missed. I can't imagine not having my girls here . . . and am dreading when Em goes off to Uni (followed two years later by her little sister!).

N
 
I'm very close to both of my parents. They live about 2 hours away, but I talk to them most days and see them about once a month (for a few days at a time). They don't know everything about my life (and would be horrified at some of the things I did in my younger days!) but we are pretty honest with each other and I like to spend time with them. We go on holidays together and they enjoy their role as grandparents. I couldn't ask for better to be honest.
 
I would say I am close to my mum, possibly not as much as my younger sister, but my mum and I have more things in common, we both have horses, dogs and want a smallholding.
We are more like friends, sometimes I feel like the mother in our relationship.
 
I get on very well with my daughter...but not in a mother/ daughter sort of way if that makes sense? Since she has grown up and we work together a totally different sort of relationship has evolved.

Sadly I never really developed an 'adult' relationship with my mother even though I visit her frequently she has never really understood what I did in my life as it was so different from hers which makes any conversation, other than about relations or people she think I may have known in her small town, very difficult.
 
I didnt have a fab relationship with my mum. She died when I was 16.

My daughter is nearly 5, she is the apple of my eye! We have a really strong bond & I can only hope that it stays that way as she grows up. I think that because I had a bit of a rubbish childhood I wont make the same mistakes my parents did.
 
I am really close with my mum, not in a 'we call every day' kind of way, but in the way where we will sit up together really late, drink wine and put the world to rights. I have found getting older that we are more and more alike (scarily so lol) and we have been through some tough times together. I also get on really well with her boyfriend, he is intelligent and pretty sorted as a bloke really.

My dad on the other hand ... I decided after years of his compulsive lying and deceitfulness from when my parents split up (I was 11 at the time and remember a lot about it) and the times when he didn't turn up for visits etc that at 21 I decided to send him an email and cut ties with him a bit like annareeves did with her mum. Haven't seen him or spoken to him except in a cursory way for 5 years now. Quite sad really, but I honestly think it was for the best, like Ruskii says, if I am in the same room as him for any length of time we will end up arguing. He still sees me as his baby and thinks he can manipulate me. I honestly think he will die a sad lonely old man as my sisters have also become less close with him and haven't visited in a few years. He would not be invited to my wedding if I had one ... he doesn't know what I studied at uni or met my OH of 5 years. He doesn't know who I am.
 
I don't really have any kind of relationship with my mother any more. She is an alcoholic and the drink always came first with her even when my brother and I were kids.

We lived with her and my dad in a fairly dysfunctional/violent family set-up until they divorced and social services got involved when I was 10 and my brother was 4. After that we lived with a variety of foster carers and became closer to each other than either of our parents.

A couple of years ago my mother decided she wanted to get herself sober and I moved back in with her to help her do it - lasted about 2 weeks before she went back to her old ways and started ranting and raving all night long and locking me out of the house when I went to work and not letting me back in. It took me a while to find somewhere else to live and she made my life absolute hell while I was there. That was when I decided I had had enough and now I refuse to have anything to do with her.

If she ever gives up drinking and sorts herself out I might consider letting her back into my life but for the moment I think she would do more harm than good so I have moved away and have nothing to do with her at all now.
 
my mum and i had an up and down relationship when i was a teenager. She (and dad) could be pushy when it came to competing the ponies and i do remember snapping and hurling my whip at her on an occasion. however now she and my dad are always the first people I phone in a crisis. I spend most weekends with them having lunch/shopping etc. I'm closer to mum than my sister, sis is more of a daddy's girl whereas I went through a phase of loathing my dad. It's improved now but he can still be an a*se. Mum and I have the horses in common and they keep us together. If it wasn't for my mum i'd never have got into horses in the first place :)
 
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