I found myself angry at my mother for the first time in many months. I was angry on behalf of dad and not on my account. The apparent dissolution of our family is upsetting to him and he is trying to save us, as a family. Which means trying to reconcile mom and me, which is a lost cause as long as mom wants it to be. Which is why he’s going about it in the wrong way, because he’s after what I said to mom—or even what she thinks I said to her, or what I did say that she took the wrong way. But what I said or how she took it isn’t the point; the point is, mom is stewing in her resentment and acrimony because that’s what she does. She needs an excuse to do it, so she invents one or blows an event or statement out of proportion or context to feed her acrimony. The issue is not the event or statement; the issue is mom’s response.
Let’s review the last year or so in mom drama (it's a year if we start with Memorial Day weekend, when mom threw a fit and decided not to talk to me because I balked at taking the Chinatown bus to Boston). She chose to take that as “I’m not worth $30 to you” rather than “400 miles of the Chinatown bus is a terrible idea.” Nobody who wasn’t looking for an excuse to get offended would take what I said the way she did. She got over it when I did visit (by way of a quite expensive flight), and things were reset until I visited for Labor Day weekend. Over the five or so says that I was in Boston for Labor Day weekend, mom
hammered me relentlessly about my hair, skin, extremism, lack of warmth, and other crimes. Toward the end of Day 4, I
snapped and said something $hitty to my mother.
That I was only throwing back at her what she’d said to me is not important; I’m the adult here, and I choose the high road. But after four days of hammering, among other factors, I couldn't see the high road. As I wrote earlier, the more determined I am to take the high road, the more mom pushes to drive me off of it.) So, to mom’s “you will never find a partner,” I said, “if you did, anyone can.” This was $hitty because it hit a nerve. She was trying to hit one of my nerves by saying it to me, but she missed, because I knew it wasn’t true. I was at peace with my role in the demise of my last relationship (my behavior wasn’t saintly, but it was human). Anyway, I’m not proud of what I said to mom—but, again, I'm human. I didn’t say it under logical consideration; I said it because I snapped. Under enough pressure, I snap. So as mom threw emotional grenades and kept missing, I threw one right back at her, and probably hit. She shrugged it off at first (“me? What do I have to do with anything?), but I don’t know whether it registered. I later apologized; she essentially told me to f* off, told me I was dead to her. She continued to lob grenades until dad took me to the airport the next morning. She didn’t talk to me again until I called her on her birthday about a month later. After that, things were more or less normal until February.
In February, mom remembered or imagined a grave offense that I apparently committed against her, and hasn’t talked to me since. Dad has been trying to get to the bottom of this, but she won’t tell him what I said, so he’s been asking me. I’ve cooperated fully; I've repeated every statement I’ve made to mom that could be interpreted as unkind, starting with the actually-unkind one I relayed above. He said, “no, that’s not it.” He’s continued to ask her about it; she’s continued to demure. We talked about it again last night. He said he managed to get out of her that it was something that happened when they last visited me (which was years ago). I suggested that it was maybe the side table (that mom offered over the phone, and which I specifically told her not to bring, but she decided to bring it anyway in case I changed my mind and then called me an ungrateful pig when I said I didn’t want it). She added that it was much nicer than the one I had and that I had terrible taste. I acknowledged her opinion but pointed out that hers was nonetheless too big for my space. I brought this up because saying no to mom with regard to “gifts” has been a repeated source of tension. In fact, last Labor Day Weekend, she got angry because I wouldn’t take a skirt that she’d bought me. All I can say—as with RM—you can’t just shove things I don’t want at me (particularly things I specifically ask you not to give me) and then get indignant because I don’t just accept them graciously. It’s called boundaries: If you keep doing something I ask you to stop doing, you’re not going to get a “thank you, I now see the light.”
What did happen when
mom and dad visited was that mom would not for a second stop criticizing me or the house. When I called her on it, because it was grating, she retorted that I was too sensitive and it was of her essence to just say what was on her mind, and that if I couldn’t deal with it, we shouldn’t talk. She cited (Nina’s dad)—he shrugged it off after she berated him for bringing her a mask from Georgia that didn’t suit her style. That’s why they’re friends: he understands her.
That is who my mother is—I understand her, too—and I’m not angry or resentful at her for the constant barrage of criticism. That is the only way she knows how to be, and it hurts her more than it hurts anyone else. But it just makes it all the more rich for her to then hold against me whatever I may have said to her or did say to her, not least because I forgive her for the $hitty, often abusive things she says on a regular basis. And this is why Dad’s barking up the wrong tree—the tree of what mom thinks I said; the right tree is mom’s choice to hold on to whatever this is, because (she thinks) it serves her. You can’t assuage someone who feeds off of acrimony by addressing an actual issue; you have to address the fact that the person feeds off of acrimony. If dad could persuade mom to change the way she feeds—then, and only then, can we be a family again. Otherwise, she’ll always find something to feed her acrimony. The fact that she’s ailing doesn’t change any of that.
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