What is wrong with my mother?
I’ve always been sheltered by my parents, but specifically my mom who always seems to want to be the one in control of the household, everyone, and everything. So when I got into a serious relationship with my boyfriend (he is not Asian) and I said we are moving to another state for his job, she never believed me. During the process of saying I got approved for the apartment, saying I got my permit, I didn’t get any positive support and was just give an “Oh” or “Why” reaction.
2 years later living away (4 hours drive from my parents), I start to notice that people aren’t giving as much effort to see/visit my boyfriend and I. Although, I understand that because we moved farther where we don’t have any family and friends, I feel like I would want to see effort being reciprocated from the other side as well. So far in these 2 years, we’ve probably went back home at least 5-6 times to visit both our families. My boyfriend’s family and mine also live around 2 hours away from each other (NJ and NY) and we always try our best to see both every visit. But honestly, it’s tiring, takes time, and we end up spending hundreds to thousands of dollars on the travel and trying to satisfy our families on activities together. (Ice skating, food, charging for our EV vehicle, etc)
During our last visit at my parents’ house, the whole time it seems my mother has gotten comfortable insulting and belittling us. It’s always been like this on my end, but honestly I’m tired of it. She’ll call me fat because I’ve gained some weight since moving due to being in a car centric area vs NYC and walking. She’ll ask if my boyfriend thinks I’m a pig and tells me I should diet. (He does not) And she would repeatedly throw fat insults multiple times a day. I would tell her that she doesn’t need to keep telling me and she responds with that she’s worried that I’ll get obese like I will be immobile one day. (I’m 5 ft 130lbs btw) And this visit, it’s the same but to my boyfriend. She tells him he’s too skinny and has wrinkles and that he’s lazy. He bought pastries the previous day and it was in the fridge. The next morning he wanted to get breakfast and I told her we were heading out for that. She got annoyed because he still had pastries like cookies and cakes and told him to eat that for breakfast. I think it’s normal for an adult man to be able to decide what he wants to eat and what he spends his money on especially like breakfast…and this went on for 4 days.
On the last day, my mom wanted to grab breakfast with us but my boyfriend was so fed up that we just left early in the car. And later that day, she texted me that she cried the most this time. Which like… if you miss and care about people, you don’t spend the whole visit insulting them especially if we took the time and effort to travel there for THAT.
Now, my boyfriend’s birthday is coming up and he wants to have a dinner in my parents’ city and invited them as well as my brother. My brother has a trip planned and let us know he might not be able to make it, which is totally understandable. Then my parents never replied in the group chat so when I called my mom I asked if they were coming. She said no because my brother is not, so they won’t. And she said “He’s just a boyfriend. It’s not like you guys are married.” I feel like this is pretty disrespectful knowing that we’ve been together for 2-3 years and live together, he’s stayed at my parents’ house multiple times and they’ve stayed at ours once or twice before too. I feel like if there was an excuse to not come, or an actual reason, I wouldn’t feel this way. But just choosing to not come, even though the location is convenient for them, and the dinner date is over a month away is too much.
My boyfriend and I also have plans to buy a home eventually together and get engaged, but my mother just sees him as a “boyfriend” and obviously doesn’t give us any respect. Overall, I’m starting to think that I should stop putting in effort since it seems one sided. I also don’t need her validation on our life choices.
Can anyone else relate? I know it’s a lot to read, but just needed to get some steam out! Thanks.