Relationship

15 Signs Your Relationship With Mom Is Toxic

We all love our moms, no matter how toxic they are, but there are times when we want to walk away from them forever. Deep down, we know that mom loves us, too. She just doesn’t know how to express it without causing hurt and pain.

Toxic mother and daughter relationships are more common than you probably realize. In fact, as we grow older, we are more like to get into a conflicted relationship with dear old mom. She is set in her ways and you are just finding your way. She may not approve of what you are doing with your life or she may be jealous. It is possible that she is very proud of you but just doesn’t want to step out of the limelight to make room for your greatness.

Whatever the case may be, toxic moms are very difficult to work with and the chances are petty high that the mother-daughter relationship may never fully heal. Of course, there is therapy, but both parties must agree to it and be willing to really work through some hard issues. Otherwise, the only options are to keep visits down to a minimum or to end contact with mom altogether.

15She Doesn’t Want To Hear About Your Feelings

Your mom just said some really ugly things to you and hurt your feelings. You have a good cry all alone and then decide to confront her about her behavior. You sit down with her and begin to tell her how she made you feel, but she quickly cuts you off. “Oh, grow the hell up,” she snips at you. “Don’t blame me for the way you feel. If you feel that bad, then the problem is with you, not me.” And that is where the conversation ends. Forever.

Mom doesn’t give a damn how you feel. She has done her job raising you and feels that she has the right to criticize you whenever she feels like it. You, on the other hand, are not allowed to blame her for making you feel like crap. She is not responsible for her actions or how she makes you feel.

14She Meddles In Your Relationships

Mom broke up your last relationship. You and your boyfriend were going together pretty strong until your mother decided she didn’t approve of him. She felt he wasn’t earning enough money to date you, which was a bunch of baloney as far as you were concerned. Your mom started sending him job postings and, afterwards, would say she was sorry for sending him a job he wasn’t qualified to apply for. She felt he wasn’t educated enough for you and that he had zero prospects.

You loved your boyfriend but he really couldn’t handle your mother. The relationship ended and you don’t blame him at all. You blame your mother.

Meddling mothers are difficult to tolerate. The only thing you can do is prepare a boyfriend for her behavior and reassure him afterwards that you love him for who he is and not because of your mother. If the relationship advances to marriage, you may have to write mom out of your new family.

13She Puts You Down In Front Of Your Friends

Your friends want to stop by at your place, but your mom is home and you know exactly what will happen. Even after you move out, you try to avoid eye contact with anyone you know if you have your mom with you. Why? Because mom likes to put you down in front of your friends. She will make comments that prove just how stupid you are or she will say something personal about you that you feel is embarrassing. She never compliments you unless she can also find a way to insult you. For example, she might boast that you finally dumped your previous boyfriend, but then she will throw in that she can’t wait to see the next piece of trash you drag home.

If your mom likes to embarrass you in front of your friends, I can honestly say that I have felt your pain. She will probably never stop doing it and the only thing you can do is avoid having her near any of your friends.

12She Judges Your Weight

I know of a few toxic mothers that keep tabs on their daughters’ weight. My own mother, for instance, used to call me Moose when I was little because I was sturdier looking than my older sister. The whole time I was growing up, she would always comment on how willowy thin my sister was. It affected me so terribly that I went from 120 pounds down to 105 pounds.

After the weight loss, she would say things like, “Why don’t you go eat a sandwich?” She never complimented me on being willowy thin. It took me a long time to realize my problem was my mother and I have since gone back to being 120 pounds. It was too much to stay so thin and I honestly felt like hell every day being so skinny.

Toxic moms will always criticize a daughter’s weight. It doesn’t matter if you are skinny, average, or overweight. The toxic mom will never be happy with who you are.

11You Have To Hide Your Problems From Her

Whenever something goes wrong, you fly into a mad panic to make sure your mother never finds out about it, at least not until the problem is solved and over with. Mom likes to meddle in your life. She also gives out the worst advice and then expects you to follow her advice exactly to the dot. If you would have followed some of the advice she has given you, you would probably be sitting in a prison cell right about now.

Instead, the best solution is to make sure she never finds out. That means, mom can’t learn about the problems you are having with a professor at college. She can’t find out that you are having problems with a best friend or even with a neighbor. Bill problems? Better keep those to yourself, too. The less mom knows about your life, the better off you are.

10She’s Passive Aggressive

There is nothing worse than a passive aggressive mother. I have one and I recently tried to have a conversation with her about passive aggressive behavior. She immediately cut me off and said that her passive aggressive nature has gotten her this far in life so she is not about to change it. I told her that passive aggressive people scare others away from them, but it fell on deaf ears.

When mom says, “If you want to,” you better figure out if she means she is okay with it or not, because the wrong choice will piss her off to no end. When she says that she hopes you didn’t mind that she went into your room, she is letting you know that she was snooping around again and there is diddles you can do about it without seeming like a paranoid jerk.

You could try and tackle mom’s passive aggressive behavior, but you will probably find that it is no use. I find that it is better to totally dismiss mom’s passive aggressive moment entirely to avoid the stress.

9You’re Forever Biting Your Tongue

Oh, she says the ugliest things to you, but she expects you to be quiet and accept her abuse as absolute truth. When she makes a mistake or does something stupid, however, you are not allowed to say a damned thing about it. You are forever biting your tongue around mom. Sometimes you feel like you are going to choke on your own words and you believe that you get these horrible sore throats because you aren’t allowed to speak up.

Toxic moms have a problem with their kids speaking for themselves. In fact, if one of their kids does try to speak up, she will quickly cut them off with a few short words. Some mothers feel that only they know what is best for their daughters and will smother their daughters with their overbearing ways. The only escape is to leave and never return home.

8She Won’t Let You Grow Up And Move Away

You want nothing more than to move away from home. You are not just thinking of moving out of town, but you want to move out of state, preferably over to the other coast. You want to attend university in some faraway city. You wish you could pack a backpack and travel the world, writing about your adventures and getting published for a fairly steady income.

You have so many dreams and all of them involve getting away from your mother. She won’t have it, though. When you were looking into schools in New York City, she pulled up the crime numbers and systematically killed those dreams. When you began looking into moving to the beach, she again went into all the reasons why you would never survive there and would never be able to find a job.

In other words, each and every time you have tried to grow up and move away, she has found a reason why you need to stay put.

7She Insists You Take Care Of Her

You hate your life, each and every day. You still live with mom because she insists that it is now your turn to take care of her. You almost feel like Cinderella, but you know that no prince is going to stop by with your mom hanging around. She wants you to do all the house chores and take her out grocery shopping twice a week. If you don’t do what she tells you to do, she reminds you that you are not paying rent. You tell her that you would rather move out and pay rent instead of work a full-time job and then take care of her. There is nothing wrong with her physically. She can walk, talk, drive, and she has her own source of income. Still, she insists that you have to stay with her. What if there was a burglar? Or what if she fell and couldn’t get help? You concede with her wishes and continue to live in absolute misery.

6You Get Bribed With Money

You tolerate your mother and her verbal abuse because when you go over to see her, she hands you much needed money. While you do have a job, it doesn’t cover the costs of your school bills plus food for each week, so you feel trapped. Put up with mom or starve and go deeper in debt. What is worse is that your mom is always telling everyone that she gives you money because you are poor or she makes you out to be a leech. She makes you feel like shit for accepting the money, but you know that if she didn’t offer it, you probably wouldn’t bother to see her.

Toxic moms will use just about anything to bribe their victims. It can be the promise of an inheritance, a car, or even family heirlooms that you would like to get to keep in the family, but worry that mom might give them to someone else.

5You Just Want To Run From Her

Before going over to visit your mom on the weekend, you give yourself a little pep talk. Everything is going to be just fine. Mom isn’t going to start any crap and we are going to have a nice visit. As soon as you walk into her house, she gives you this look and you know that trouble is brewing. You just want to turn around and run out of the house, but you know you will have to face her again some other time so you might as well get it over with now.

First off, do you really have to go visit your toxic mother? How would she really react if you got up and walked out on her when she was misbehaving? If you have never tried it before, why not give it a shot? If anything, you will feel better walking out on her than if you stayed for her verbal abuse.

4She Gives You Mean Nicknames

Jiggle Butt, Flat Nose, Bigfoot, Big Ears, and similar nicknames are often uttered by children in elementary school. You wouldn’t expect these sorts of ugly names to come from your mother, but sadly they do.

You mom is insecure and feels the need to fluff up her feathers by putting you down. The worst is when she calls you these names in public. Fortunately, people who behave like adults don’t find ugly nicknames endearing. It is your mom who will wind up looking like the jerk, not you, so ignore her to the best of your ability while you are in public.

In private, you might want to consider lobbing a few ugly nicknames back at her. Sometimes doing this will make her stop with the ugly nicknames. For other toxic moms, it will make them hold a severe grudge against their daughters so do it at your own risk.

3She Has To Be The Center Of Attention

She can’t stand it if anyone stops to talk to you and not her. In fact, if she ever feels that she is being ignored, she will literally step in front of you and begin talking loudly. She will put on her mom charms and act sweet and wonderful. She seems to want to steal your friends from you as she hoards them around her for her story telling escapades.

Mom has always been like this. She is jealous if you get more attention than she does and she will pull out all the stops to get you sent to the back of the room just so she can have the limelight.

A part of you feels embarrassed for her, but another part of you secretly hates her guts. Moms are supposed to put their children first, not grandstand them and throw them in the dark.

2She Still Searches Through Your Stuff

It does not matter that you moved out of mom’s house over a year ago, she still comes over and starts snooping through your personal belongings. You feel that it is partly your mistake. After all, you gave her the key to your apartment as a backup in case you ever lost your main key. Now she goes over to your place whenever she wants, even if you are not at home, and she will read through your bills and look through your drawers.

She doesn’t even hide the fact that she goes through your sh!t. Instead, she will come right out and tell you that she doesn’t understand why you have so much money on your credit card bill and would you please explain to her why you feel the need to wear such trashy underwear.

As long as she has access to your personal stuff, she is going to invade your privacy every chance she gets.

1She Blames Her Bad Mood On You

Mom is in the kitchen again, slamming the cabinets and crashing the pots and pans. She is not cooking anything. She just wants to make a lot of noise so you will wake up. You crawl out of bed and stumble into the kitchen to find out what she is pissed about.

It turns out that she is angry with you for not staying up to have breakfast with her. You try to explain to her that you work third shift. When you get home at 6:30 in the morning, all you want to do is fall asleep.

She doesn’t accept your reason for not having breakfast with her and blames you for putting her in a bad mood for the rest of the day. It is 9 in the morning and you have only managed to get in 2 hours of sleep, but you stay awake for another hour to have breakfast with her so that her mood will settle.

A little after noon, she will have the same angry fit and blame it on you again, guaranteeing that you will go to work tired again tonight.

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