My mum is a toxic, nasty woman

DEAR BEL,

I’M 26 and have realised I don’t like my mother as a person. She is argumentative, nasty and bitter.

I’m a nurse working on a Covid intensive care unit in London and was visiting her when my boyfriend sent me flowers. All she said was: ‘I think you’re really nasty to him sometimes.’ Why so negative?

She didn’t want me to move to London and refused to give me any furniture (some mine), saying I should buy my own and if I can’t afford it I shouldn’t be going. No help, no interest, constant criticism.

Self- employed, she relied on me to do her invoices. I said I’d teach her, as I wouldn’t be able to do them in London.

She snapped: ‘Yes you can’ and refused to learn.

During lockdown she couldn’t work, so my brother and I supported her without the need of her paying us back.

Instead of ‘thank you’, she implies we were merely paying her back for all she’d done for us.

My parents split ten years ago, yet she still abuses my father. I ask her to stop but she says I’m ‘forgetting’ what Dad did (gambling, an affair) and have moved on.

She lied to us about their settlement and now has a large house with no mortgage, yet acts like the most unfortunate person you could meet.

You can’t have a conversation with her; she shouts, says she’s bored and storms off. Do I give up and keep my distance or take it all because she’s my mother?

CARLA

Just recently I’ve noticed an increase in family problems, and wonder why. Could it be that the cumulative pressures of Covid and lockdowns have magnified the faults of those closest to us and made us more intolerant? In your case, your stressful job must have made this period exhausting and frightening. Your longer letter explains that the boyfriend’s flowers were to say: ‘You’re doing great.’ We’ll all second that.

But not your difficult mother. When I made a television series called Mothers By Daughters for the first Channel 4 season (1982), I had a ‘trick’ question for my well-known interviewees: ‘If she hadn’t been your mother, would you have chosen her as a friend?’

You’d be surprised how often I saw confusion on their faces, then heard the hesitant: ‘Er . . . no.’

there’s no law saying we have to like our family, still less love them. Of course, it’s possible to love without liking, too. You apologised for the length of your email, but your tsunami of feelings had to be written out.

I’ll remind others it’s often a good therapy to write out woes and moans, even if the document is ripped up or burned.

But what can you do? surely you need to throw yourself into your job, your life in

London and fun with your boyfriend, working on that relationship.

At 26, you should be more detached from Mum, I think. You can keep in regular contact by phone, text or email, but do you have to listen to all her complaints? I don’t think so.

to be frank, none of your examples seemed heinous to me — not when this column forces me to confront much meanness and unhappiness. there’s nothing unusual in a young person feeling exasperated by a selfish, demanding parent whose need for attention manifests itself in maddening behaviour.

After her marriage, your mother may have felt like a lonely failure and harboured resentments that gave her energy. Who knows? What’s clear is that she chooses to be an unhappy, intolerant person.

My answer to your final two questions is . . . both. I suggest you step back and put yourself in control.

At the same time, don’t make yourself feel guilty for neglecting her. the woman who gave birth to you is simultaneously the only mother you’ll have and a very annoying and disappointing human being.

so you can be the daughter who wishes she had a different kind of mother and one who is in consistent, breezy contact, fulfilling a duty. Later, you may be surprised by underlying love.