Hello all,
My updM and I live on different continents and in different time zones (thank goodness). However, that doesn't stop her from bombarding me with messages through Viber and What's Up every single day.
If I don't respond, she will frantically message me using other means - Texts, Facebook etc, or will even start messaging my husband to find out where I am !
It's absolutely suffocating and overwhelming. It's like she has me by my throat. By the way I am 39 and have 2 kids of my own.
She lives alone, divorced and not working ( retired). Spends 99% of her time alone. I get it she is lonely, but I can't stand this anymore. It is making me absolutely livid.
I don't know how to change things. I tried to explain that it's too much and that I do not need to report to her when I get to places ( like cottage or another place I drive to) but it doesn't work. She gets supremely upset, starts whining and tearing up and tells me that she is just so worried and does it out of love.
Has anyone been in this situation before?
Does anyone have any advice?
Thanks al!
The suffocation here is for real. Yikes. This sounds like despite extreme physical distance, your m is attempting to remain utterly enmeshed. Which, is honestly not healthy for either of you.
I highly recommend you decide on one platform that she can contact you through and block the rest. Have your dh do the same. Limiting to one avenue will do damage control, and it will allow you to decide how often you want to talk to her. If at all.
She will demand, she will probably waif, you'll get the "but I'm so lonely!" Card. However, you can ignore the extreme behavior in favor of only normal conversation. Instead of responding to the bad behavior comments like "wow, the weather was great today " or something equally boring, normal, and not drama.
Now. She is lonely because she chooses to be. She is an adult. If she wants company she can go out and meet people and make friends. She doesn't need to bug you every moment of every day. It's very invalidating to you, as though she's denying that you have a life of your own separate from her. Which, pwPDs function on that assumption.
Keep posting, we're with you.
Hi Marinette
could you say that you'll contact her once per day on your terms?
that if she doesn't agree to once/day, you might have to switch to weekly
if she realizes contact could go to weekly (even if you wouldn't) , maybe she would accept once daily?
My updM does this, except she only lives 10 minutes from me. I refuse to share social media with her, she's blocked. She only has access to my phone number.
She does work. However, she calls daily and leaves very long vms. On weekends she calls multiple times and leaves multiple vms, and then she begins calling my dh and my ds and spamming them.
Typically I ignore it and answer either once per week, or once every other week, or just in some sporadic fashion. My dh rarely answers, and my ds answers in the same sporadic manner. To get ds to answer, she will say she has work for him. He's a teen. She has no real means to get me to answer with consistency. Sometimes she picks up groceries for us, and I will go get them when she isn't there. I'm working on LC with her, she's not good for my mental health right now, or probably ever, or probably anyone's.