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My mom is so jealous and controlling.
My mom is very controlling and easily jealous. My freshman year of highschool I did very bad in school. Ever since then I have worked very hard. My cummalitive gps is now a 3.6 I worked really hard and pretty much gave up a big portion of my social life. I've always wanted to go to college away and live there. I'm a junior now and I was talking to my mom about colleges I'd like to attend. Her response was "what you can't leave me, if you go away I'm not giving
you any money for college" so I later said to her "me and Hillary are going to get an aparment and go to a college close by and it will be cheaper anyway." my mom says "what no I don't think so, your not living with her. If you two want to live at our house then that's fine and you should just go to the college down the street." it's literally right down the street, I could walk there. That was how the conversation was
pretty left. But then one time we were talking about where i'd like to live after college and I move out. I was like "when I'm older and married I'd like to move to south Carolina, or somewhere like that" my mom had a very similar response
to the one about college. I can't tell her when I have boyfriends or anything because she gets crazy jealous. She also tells me way too much and wants too much from me. This one time my friend and I were going to this concert we were excited about for months. The day before my mom goes "I don't really want you going there I'll buy you a new coach purse and matching wallet if you don't"..how could I pass an offer like that up? She does this all the time and I just don't
know what to say or do anymore...help!?
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Want to answer more questions in the Relationships category?
Maybe give some free advice about: Families?
I am a great deal older than most of the advisers on this site, so my advice will be somewhat different from what you have received and may continue to receive from others.
As you have already found out your mom has a controlling personality. I say this not to remind you but I too have been a controller and it takes one to know one. My controlling ways almost cost me my family, fortunately for me I have a loving family who over time helped me seek help. You can ask someone to get help, you can threaten someone to get help but until they themselves are ready they will not seek help. Why? Because we do not see ourselves as others see us and until we hit bottom we won’t. This is not unlike being an Alcoholic, until you accept being an Alcoholic you cannot begin any meaningful recovery.
What I found is part of the problem of my controlling personality, was an underlying depression. Once I started treatment for my depression I started seeing things differently. Depression causes a person to see thing not as they are or as they where meant. They are received in a colored manor based on how the underlying depression is affecting their processing at that point in time. Medication and clinical therapy has helped me recover. Like an Alcoholic I feel I will always be in recovery for I must always watch for the triggers that bring out my depression.
Saying this I am sure does not help your situation, but maybe it will help you understand your mother a little better. You will not win any fights with her over this. You cannot force her to seek help. What you can do is lead her down the right roads and hope like leading a horse to water she will drink from the trough. Call her doctor and tell the doctor what you suspect based on what I have written. Then see if you can get your mom to go for a checkup. Her doctor may have more influence over her than you do.
If the doctor is unable to get your mom to try some medication and therapy then you have a limited number of choices. You can allow hour mother to continue to control you until you finish your education. Not the worst choice in the world but could lead you to making a future bad choice. That choice would be to marry for the sake of getting out from under moms thumb. Do not say it will not happen; it can and has happened to others. When you finish High School you can find a job, move out on your own, attend a local community college part-time and get an AA Degree. During this time you will be saving money so once you have your AA you can go to College for you Degree full-time. This will add two to four years to the time it takes to get a full College degree. Not a bad choice and there are financial programs at both schools to help you. Downside is you can expect your mother to continue to try and control you and harass you into coming home to her.
The last and choice I like the best, but may not be the one you like best is to join the military. Why? Mainly because mom cannot get to you to harass you if you are in the military; once you finish basic and advance training you can also start your college education thought the military extension program on base. When you finish you commitment to the military you will have benefits to complete your education and you can relocate wherever you chose; just something to think about.
You cannot change the way your mother is unless she wants to change. You are the one who will have to decide what you want and how you are going to get what you want. Your choices really come down to two: Stay under mothers thumb or break away from mothers controlling ways. How you decide and what you decide is when your choices start to become limited or limitless.
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My parents were somewhat the same. I never got male equivalents to a coach purse, but funding for stuff like college was dangled and removed and given back depending on my cooperation and "attitude" and such.
I've got some bad news, in that regard. Stopping my parents required a complete cessation of contact and enough bad shit between us that I haven't spoken to them in a year and probably won't initiate contact ever again.
If you don't want to do whatever the fuck they want, that's your option. Put yourself through college, make your own way, and tell her to go fuck herself. You have to show her anger, and resentment. Not because it's going to "set things right" but because you've got to make her feel like a burden just to make her stop what the hell she's trying to do. To recognize that you neither need nor want her input, her money, or her condescending idiot advice about how she'd live your life for you if she could.
The second option, is to do what you have to to get a college education, swallow what shit you can, and hope to God that she remains rational enough that your concessions eventually get you where you want. This is a shitty choice, what happens when your fourth year in college she pulls the check because you tried to assert yourself again and she freaks out at the idea of being alone in the house? Regardless, once you have what you need you'll assert yourself and she won't handle it well, and unless you're incredibly mature about it you'll end up somewhere near where I am.
The third option, which isn't really an option, is to do everything she wants until you're married and you can use her own views on the world against her, finally getting some small recognition of your adulthood which you'll always resent because she'll be trying to tell you what to do past the years you give her grand kids, and will try to re-parent through you.
There is only a very small chance, no matter what you do, that you will ever win the adult respect that you want behind all the bullshit. Parents who cannot let go of their kids as "kids" are not uncommon and absent a respected source from among people they'd consider adults, no one will ever be able to dissuade them that they know better than you do what you need in life.
Something I want to point out real quick. People have mentioned therapy, etc.
Be careful with that idea, and consider _very_ hard before you consider telling her that there is something wrong with what she's doing. Your mother has used college as a threat to keep you in her house. Not "if you fuck up" which is even what I got, my parents constantly beat the "we know better" drum and just changed what amounted to "me not doing what I was supposed to do" on a weekly basis to ensure I always failed.
Your mom isn't even doing that. She's just threatening your future so that she can keep you around and control you.
_This_is_not_rational_
Seriously. Treat her like a land mine that can destroy your future and plans at any moment. Don't act like she's a rational person you can reason with. If she were, she wouldn't openly threaten to not pay for college unless you meet conditions like not leaving her, and then follow up offering to give your friend a place to stay.
If you decide to confront her in any way, assume that it's going to lead to option 1, putting yourself through school and likely not talking to each other much if at all. Parents who think they're right can be the most stubborn people in the world, no matter how stupid and illogical the things they want and try to force are.
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this is a hard one. she loves you very much and wants to be close. maybe when you answer her questions or make statements about your future you should always add something about her into them. like when i get married i want to move to where ever and i will come see you all the time. or if you have plans to go out go and then tell her that you want to hang out with her later or the next day. and when you have a bf ask her opioin and try to always make her feel like you to will have that connection. the college one is hard some times you have to decided if you can afford and want to live on your own if you can do it all by yourself go ahead and then work slowly on building a new realtionship with her but just not as close.
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First you need to try to communicate with her. Sit down and have a real heart to heart. Offer family therapy even. Open up and let her SEE the pain she causes without anger. If this still doesn't work and she is stubbornly unreasonable you have to cut the ties and when you're 18 do what you need to do for yourself.
If she refuses to pay your college ( I doubt she actually will, I believe it's just a ploy) you will be able to apply for finacial aid as an "independant". You may have to start at a JC and work part time, but many kids do it this way and there is nothing wrong with that. You'll become a wiser woman.
Father? Aunt? Grandparents?
In the mean time try showing her the pain she causes and how she makes you feel. She sounds scared to death and fears being alone and losing you. Approach her letting her know how much you love her and you'll always be there. It's sad you have to be the adult one here.
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Hi Dear,
You're going to have to learn to pass up offers like a new coach purse and matching wallet. If you don't understand yet that all offers come with strings attached, then you will be accepting gifts from people who are up to no good.
You want your mom to change and become more flexible, less controlling, less jealous and less needy. Well she has to want to change, you can't change her.
But I agree that you should go away to college. (assuming there is money for that) And that of course you should spend some time sharing an apartment with a friend so you learn about supporting yourself and all the responsibilities that go along with that. You're mom should be encouraging you to do that. Not holding you back.
If you were my daughter and we working hard to keep your grades up enough to get into a good college, and/or were living on your own and supporting yourself by working hard, I would buy you a matching coach bag and wallet as a gift to show you how proud I am of you and to acknowledge that you are smart enough to realize that you have bills to pay and responsibilities, and they come first...before you can buy your own coach bag. (I hope I am making myself clear.)
Your mom's problems with neediness and control started long before you were born. You can't fix them. Be sure that she will also start to use guilt to keep you at home with you, when the promise of gifts stop working.
If you let your mom win this control game using guilt or wonderful gifts, you'll never have a life and you'll never be your own person.
Stand up for yourself. This world is a wonderful place and with an education you can go far and have control over your life and destiny.
Don't settle for anything less.
- Michele
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