Thread: Mom driving me insane!

Ignore her...

Wow thats a toughie...
Have you ever sat down with her and told her all of this?
tell her everything how you really feel about it?

Kill her with kindness. I'm serious, the worse her nagging gets the more you have to act in the reverse. You'd think this will only encourage her to nag you more, but it will actually make her wonder what the hell you're up to. She'll worry to the point she won't want to have anything to do with you.

Become Obsessive-Compulsive.

Oh man I can't stand people who bitch.

GbC this is a simple problem.
Parents for some universally unknown reason which you will never know (until you become one yourself) are unable to comprehend that their children are growing up. They have a blind spot to it and are trapped in a parent-child psychology relationship. This persists for most right up to when they die. Don’t blame your parents. They simply do not see you as an adult and in their minds you are still under their care (and always will be). Very very few parents are able to step back and say “oh my – when did our child suddenly get all grown up and become an adult”. So, you will have to very gently break this to them because right now their entire identity is wrapped up in that old relationship and they will have a very very hard time trying to figure out what to do with the rest of their life if they let it go.

So here is what you do. Sit down and draft a little speech and practice it. Try to be very objective, mature and balanced. Now train like your whole future depends on it – since it really does. Talk aloud to yourself and speak as if you were speaking to your parents. Listen to how you sound, adjust your cadence and delivery and tone. Develop some talking points that basically always say the same thing “mom & dad, I love you and always will. I am at a hard point in my life where I must learn to be an adult and to make my own decisions and to take responsibility for my own actions. Please help me through this time in my life and be sensitive to me desire to grow into the best person I can be. I want you to take note that I am now an adult and I want to speak and interact with you as another adult and no longer as a child… etc.”

If you do not convert the parent-child relationship to an adult-adult relationship it will be impossible to be under the same roof. I myself when I was having the same problem after college opted instead to move out early on my own since it was impossible to change the relationship. They just could not get it. It was hard financially to do this but I could not run the risk of getting in daily fights over minor things and damaging the relationship just to save a few bucks by staying at home longer.

Good Luck,
-OD

I have a friend who is greek and she says her mom also is very naggy and wants her daughter to follow in her footsteps blah blah blah.

Originally posted by greekblondechic

I'm your mom, I'm supposed to criticize you.


I'm not criticizing you I'm just trying to make you better.

No offense, but your mom needs to learn a few things about being a mother.

On a side note...

Good luck finding someone to marry once he sees that crap going on. RUN FORREST RUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MOVE OUT ASAP!!!!!

Thanks everyone..

So you're saying nobody's going to want to marry me?

Thats not what he meant

this reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry's parents came back to visit for a while. He went on about having a 1200 mile buffer zone and I began thinking, that's just about perfect ... George then tried to get his parents to move away to Florida where Jerry's parents were. They both laughed about it and said they would visit every chance they got ............. every 5 years

Damn your mom sounds like my ex girlfriend. She yelled at me for mixing eggs in the wrong kind of bowl once..

Not much to offer here other than just be yourself, do the best that you can. If you know you are doing the best that you can then that's all you can do. She needs to learn to appreciate you for you.

Tolerate what you can, ignore most of what you can and start finding the means to move out.

Bro, you used a non poultry bowl for a poultry product? What were you thinking.

Exactly, its cause you werent thinking

Originally posted by Spitfire
Bro, you used a non poultry bowl for a poultry product? What were you thinking.

Exactly, its cause you werent thinking

That and it was all about me.. it's always about me

... you're not alone PB ...

and J

Sounds like its time to move out.

why is moving out not an option Greeky? sounds like its time get move on with your life, that is really the only way thinsg will change with the parents honestly. You aren't just going to change your mom now, its too late for that, she is how she is. Believe me I can relate all too well, my father is of jewish descent and they are the same way, always on top of you smothering and nagging and the whole nine, I totally know what you mean. I have tries to talk to him millions of times, they aren't gonna change. Time to move on, sorry to tell ya

Yeah, move to the middle of the Pacific Ocean like I did, now thats a buffer zone.

Damn are all Greek people like this, I had a g/f who is Greek a long time ago (well her parent are, she was born here), her dad argued with her so much for hanging out with me. He wanted her to find a Greek guy and nothing else, talking like if their race is some damn superior to everyone else, go figure… Her mom was cool though

[i][b]
Moving out is not an option, please keep replies serious

You are the one who needs to get serious. Get a job and live on your own, or stop complaining.

Going to pretend that last comment just isn't there..

It's not a Greek thing, it's a control thing. My mother's the exact same way -- with all of us (there are four of us) and dammit, we're all over thirty now! She treats my dad like that too, poor guy's like a remote shadow now, because she won't budge from anything once she has her mind made up.

Don't get me wrong. She's a good person, she loves us all and would die for us, and she only wants the best for us, except that she cannot believe that any way but hers is the best -- or even valid.

I think all of us found distance was the only way to deal with it. I moved out at 18 to go to school, and deliberately picked a school hundreds of klicks away -- simply because I thought that chances were getting better and better that we would have some kind of devastating and possibly bloody blowout.

If you can't, then do your best to let it wash over you, compromise where you can, and where you can't, DO NOT ARGUE. In my experience, this kind of personality gets a real buzz off a good argument. Don't fight with her above ground, just do your own way the best you can, do it well, and prove that other ways will work.

Above all, don't internalize her voice. Don't let that follow you round the rest of your life bitching and tearing you down from the back ends of your brain. My sibs and I can all testify to the fact that it takes years of insecurity and therapy to get over that shit.

Count your blessings, my mother left us when I was 5, then my father married a wonderful woman when I was 10 who loved me like her own son, but she died of cancer 3 years later then I wound up with an evil wicked step-bitch who drank too much cheated on my father, stole stuff from me to buy drugs and was overall a real BITCH.

^^ bummer maniclion...

Greeky I'm sorry about your mom. I think she sounds a lot like my mom- It's not a greek thing at all.. It's a Mom thing! My mom and my sister (who is a senior in college) are going through this same thing. my sis HATES coming home. I see what my mom does to her--and I know its because she loves her.. but the moms can't see what they are doing.

Your mom means well I'm sure. Hopefully you will find a job within the next few months. Don't worry sweetie, it will all workout. Maybe find a few hobbies where you don't have to be home too much?!

Also- I think Albob had good advice--Kill her with kindness--it Always works like a charm

I'm here for ya girl!

Thanks Akateros, your mom sounds a lot like mine. Unfortunately I already internalized it a long time ago and am trying to get past that, but it's kinda tough when it's constantly being aggravated by her presence...

As I mentioned, I have also found out that arguing back doesnt work, I just have to learn to let it roll off my back and not take it personally.

While the control thing may not be a Greek thing, I am definately expected to stay at home until I get married. I am graduating next week, and intend to find a job as soon as I can get one that'll hire me, but the truth is, I know moving out will cause more problems than it'll fix.. I don't want my family to stop talking to me, and moving out would be unacceptable. I know in most families moving out is ok... but not mine, I'd practically be disowned.

It's not a matter of being lazy as *someone* suggested.

Maniclion I am very sorry *HUGS*