Dealing with someone (mom) who won't take "no" for an answer?

In My Humble Opinion
21

I like what aruvgan/mustard suggest above.

One minor question from a parent’s perspective, tho. At times in the past, my daughter has said that we “do not respect certain boundaries.” Often, this criticism comes just in what we consider to be discussions about our ongoing lives between close friends/family members. Sometimes we’ll just be discussing something innocuous, like our weekend plans.

We are not attempting to pry, we are just seeking what we consider to be a close, authentic, loving relationship - as opposed to polite superficialities. We have been confused because we did not understand where potential boundaries were drawn, or why they were drawn. Hell, we could just talk about the weather, but we’re not really interested in such banal interaction w/ our kids. We can get that from the grocery cashier.

We would have preferred our daughter clearly indicating her reasons, and would have respected her wishes. One difficulty, tho, if one attempt at communication is criticized for stepping over a line, it might be helpful for the daughter to initiate ANOTHER line of communication that WOULD be acceptable. Absent that, the parent in the OP might feel (rightly or not) that there is NO topic on which they can communicate.

But yeah, some parents can be intrusive and persistent. Give a good reason, and stick to it. I’d even include references like, “Don’t you remember that I said this before? Nothing has changed, so it is frustrating that you keep bringing this up.” In the OP’s situation, even reference to mom’s prior transgressions. You are both adults. Treat each other as such.

One other wrinkle. My wife and I often remark that our adult kids have a lot more interesting stuff going on than we do. This year, 1 kid is pregnant, another is buying a house, and the 3d is getting married. Meanwhile, mom and I are just continuing in our very comfortable and predictable daily existence. We aren’t trying to dictate their lives or live vicariously through them, but we ARE interested in our kids’ exciting life events. It can be tricky to strike the balance.

Good luck.

22

You are being verbally and emotionally abused and it’s about time you got outraged about it.

M: Give me the phone number where you’ll be staying
P: No, that would be inappropriate.
M: But why?!?
P: Because the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, and in the past you have abused the contact information I have given you. Now, let’s talk about your extreme anxiety problem and when we are going to the doctor to get you treatment for it.
M: What? I’m not anxious! I’m fine!
P: No, a woman who can not trust that her 40-year-old daughter can go away for the weekend and be all right is not “fine.” She is suffering an excess of anxiety and needs treatment.

I guarantee that once you point out to her that her demands are symptoms, she will stop doing it. She fears treatment (admitting she is flawed) far more than she fears living with her hellish anxiety. Either way, you win. She gets treatment and becomes a better person to deal with, or she doesn’t, but becomes determined to hide her symptoms better. Whether she chooses the option that leads to her having a happier life is up to her, as she is also a grown adult.

But that’s your strategy, a simple “no” followed by pointing out her objections as the symptoms they are and asking about her getting treatment. Perhaps now and then a gentle, “Mom, you don’t have to live in his constant state of fear. The doctor can help you with that.”

23

Saying “Not Gonna Happen” and hanging up the phone (per your suggestion) sounds pretty close. PHS is apparently launching on a precarious journey to new digs involving a cross country move. I merely suggest this might not be the best time to take a hard line on the control issues with her mom. I don’t know for sure, but what I’ve read from her indicates a minimal support group at a very tenuous time. Hence my question about whether Mom is going to be first on speed dial should something go wrong. And something probably will go wrong, based on my experience. Don’t misunderstand, I hope I’m wrong, PHS arrives and everyone ends up laughing at my caution. I would welcome this outcome with a raised beer glass.

24

While this might be true, or might feel justified, this is not a good tactic. It’s just the opening round of an argument that OP has presumably had many times before.

Short, simple responses that don’t assign blame or suggest a reason that can be argued with are much more effective. Repeated several times, possibly with a “why do you keep asking for this? I told you I’m not going to do it.” thrown in every once in a while, and attempts to change the subject.

Note that, just like little kids who learn to whine to get what they want, if asking repeatedly has worked for your mother in the past, it might take a while to train her out of it.

25

PHS’s mom wants to know if that beer glass will have real beer in it? :smiley:

26

This. No is a complete sentence.

Just keep repeating “No thanks” and “No, sorry” and “Sorry, no”. Nothing else.

Regards,
Shodan

27

Pretty much what others have said.

You have to recognize when you have the agency in a situation.

You’re an adult. You have a car. You don’t need your mother’s permission to visit friends.

So you have no need to argue the point with her. Tell her your plans as a courtesy but don’t accept the implication that you’re asking for anything.

You don’t have to say anything to her to counter what she’s saying. By arguing the point with her, you’re creating the illusion that you need to get her agreement. You don’t. Just tell her you’re going and then go, regardless of whether she agrees or disagrees.

If you develop this pattern, your mother will hopefully come to realize she is not in a position to control your life. Then she may be willing to discuss things with you on a more reasonable level; she may start asking you if you can do something rather than having you ask her if you can do something. And even if she doesn’t change, you’ll at least have taken control of your life.

Of course, all this assumes that you do have agency over your life. If there’s a situation where the other person does have control over you - like if you’re living rent-free in your mother’s house - then you need to decide if you are willing to accept that control or if you should be working on getting out of the situation you’re in.

28

I’ll echo the answer being “No”, and that’s it as it’s a complete sentence. It requires no justification, just like consent with anything else in life. No means no.

Where I’ll differ is that there’s no use repeating it. I will tell you no one time, the second time I’ll reiterate it and add that I’m not discussing it. The third time we won’t speak until you get some damn boundaries, with someone like that. She has no boundaries so you need to instill some. Man, sometimes I like being shunned. That is some toxic mothering.

29

My BFF is twenty years younger than I and her mom and I are pretty much contemporaries and she used to go through something pretty similar with her mom back when we first started taking road trips and adventures together. Freaking out, calling too often, trying to dictate the route or destination based on her own paranoia, etc. BFF would catch her mom’s anxiety and communicate that to me and I’d just be “Nope, I’m a grownup and this is what I’m doing and where I’m going and I don’t accept anyone else’s dictates about it. Wanna come? That’s how it’s gonna be.” Over time her mom learned that when BFF goes places with me there’s not gonna be any discussion over it and BFF got really good at setting boundaries for her mom. I did pick up on some commonsensical measures like texting someone with destination and approximate route in case I have a mishap so they’ll know where to send the rescue party and letting someone know when I get there and leave, etc., but BFF’s mom has chilled out considerably and learned to accept that independent SmartAleqs don’t take bossing around too well. Now she just confines herself to lending her nearly brand new car to us when we’re going someplace remote, which is fine by me. Heated seats and A/C, what’s not to love? :wink:

30

Well, my mother has leverage. My birth certificate and naturalization documents are at their home. Without them, I cannot prove citizenship. Drivers license, Real ID … I would be fucked.

I’m about to drive up to say “goodbye” and get those fucking papers back. I fully anticipate hearing “No phone number for your friend? No citizenship papers for you!”

… AND THEN WHAT

31

"Mother, I realize that you have never even once gotten over the shock of me saying the word “No” to you more than 35 years ago. You have pretended not to know its meaning and have weaseled around it’s meaning like a worm for decades. Today, I am 40 years old. Today is not when I teach you the meaning of ‘no’, which you should have learned in the last century.

No, today you will learn the meaning of the phrase, “Hell No”… for if you disrespect it, you will have many, many hours… possibly years… of silence to contemplate it. "

32

There’s a good deal to be said in favor of this as well. “I’ve already answered that” and then very determinedly changing the subject no matter how often Mom keeps trying to circle back, or saying “I’ll call you when I get there” and hanging up. My experience is shaped by the fact that my Mom can be pushy but she will eventually take the hint. Likewise with other members of my family who think they know better than I do how I should live my life. (Why is it always family who can drive you crazier than friends, or strangers?)

I bet most of us have had these kinds of conflicts while, or shortly after, growing up. And certainly my dear mother is no stranger to guilt-tripping. But somehow or other we have come to an arrangement over the last forty years. Kicking down a few fences, and putting up with a certain amount of “why won’t you listen to me? I’m your mother!!!” is, or was, part of the process. Not necessarily a pleasant part, but necessary.

Good luck in the move, purplehorseshoe. Sometimes geography helps a relationship, if there’s enough of it.

Regards,
Shodan

33

Then you ransack the house to get your papers.

Or, you give her your friend’s number, then ask your friend to block her number from their phone, if you simply must be non-confrontational.

34

Not to beat this to death (as the discussion has moved on…), but this is a mischaracterization of what I suggested. I didn’t say to tell Mom “Not gonna happen” and SLAM the phone down. I said to say, “Not gonna happen,” and then “The issue is closed, I’m hanging up now.”

HOWEVER, what purplehorseshoe posted later about her papers being at Mom’s house AND purplehorseshoe’s intimation that her mother might be enough of a [del]bitch[/del] control freak to hold the papers hostage over the phone numbers… these waters are too deep for me. <Retires from the field>

35

And GPS tracking so she can follow you via computer wherever you go in her car! :smiley:

36

When’s the next time you need to prove citizenship? If it’s not very soon, you get replacement naturalization papers from USCIS - there’s a fee, and it’s not nominal, but it beats the hell out of being held hostage at 40 years old. I’m sure you can also obtain a replacement birth certificate by mail/phone/online. If you currently have possession of a passport and driver’s license that will work until you can get copies of the other documents - although with a passport/DL/naturalization papers you may not need a birth certificate. Please don’t take this the wrong way- but if your response to your mother saying “no citizenship papers for you” is “AND THEN WHAT?” , you might want to consider some therapy. Because she has no doubt taught you to have that reaction to ensure she has a hold over you. After all, if you need those documents and can’t imagine what to do if she withholds them, you’ll probably give in to her demands.

Just to give you some perspective- my son has been traveling out of the country since he was 24 or so. I have never asked him for the phone number of where he was staying or who he was traveling with. The closest I’ve come to crossing that boundary was telling him to give his friend my number.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

37

Call the police. They are your papers, not hers.

I used to follow JustNoMIL on Reddit, finally quitting as I couldn’t handle the constant need to punch some of the MILs described therein repeatedly in the face. What you describe are some of the tactics mothers use to keep control of their baaaaby when that eeeevil wife is trying to take them away from their control.

The fact that you suggest this is a possibility from her makes me think that she is overly controlling in many ways beyond what you’ve described so far.

38

Yikes. Give her a fake number if you have to. Get everything from her that she could use as leverage and never entrust her with it again. I was going to say that I sympathize because my wonderful, loving mother is also a bit boundary-challenged sometimes and I could see her making a similar request. But if your mother would really pull something like that, preserving the relationship while holding firm on your boundaries is no longer your biggest concern.

39

PH, you have a cellphone, I presume? Why do you even tell your Mom that you’re going anywhere? Just Don’t Tell Her Anything. Don’t tell her when you go visit friends. Don’t tell her you’re going on vacation. Don’t tell her who you’re friends are or who you are seeing. As far is she’s concerned, you come straight home from work each day and spend your evenings with a good book. Just don’t share anything.

40

The things going on with you and (how you see) Your mother appear to be beyond what a message board can help you with in any meaningful way. There are people trained to help you deal not so much with the specific situation(s), but with what is bringing them about. Talking to one of those could possibly help you find ways to deal with - or avoid altogether - situations like this.