How do I tell my mother to stay away?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My mother and I have never had a close relationship. When I was a child, I was in foster care more than I was at home. Now, as an adult, we have a civil relationship, and I do love her, but I’m not terribly comfortable in her presence. I live 3000 miles from her and we talk on the phone once a month or so, and that works well for both of us, usually. Every time I have a surgery, however, she insists on coming here and “taking care” of me. I have a very hard time standing up to her, over anything, and I know this is a carry-over from my trying to please her when I was a child. She views her time here with me as a vacation, more than anything, I think, and this, combined with my inability to say no, has resulted in such adventures as sleeping on the Boston Harbor cruise after hobbling along the Freedom Tral three days after being released from the hospital following surgery and radiotherapy, visiting both Plimouth Plantation and Old Sturbridge Village a week after surgery, and drives to NYC and Philadelphia within a week of surgery (Heck, I’m just the passenger and navigator, there’s no reason this should tire me out, is there?)

So, I’ve another surgery coming up, and have been told that I’m not to so much as do laundry for at least 2 weeks post surgery and that I may be allowed to drive after 4 weeks. This obviously puts a major cramp in my lifestyle, but I do think I can handle it. This is horrid timing for me, as I’d planned on moving out of state the 29th of this month, but some things just can’t wait. Anyway, this weekend, I’ve been majorly depressed and made the mistake of calling my mother for support and told her I’ve yet another surgery coming up. I made it very clear, stating at least four times, that I don’t want her to come, and just needed to have her moral support. Within an hour, she’d called back, stating that she’d made arrangements to take time off work and would be staying a month!!! I again told her not to come, several times, telling her I’ve no place to put her (my son and I are currently in a hotel, pending our now postponed move), that I can’t afford to get another hotel room for her, that there’s not room here for another bed, that I need to sleep and she’d just be bored, etc. etc. etc. but she still insists on coming and is hoping we can visit Niagra Falls and NYC while she’s here. I told her again today not to come, but she says it’s her right to be here for me.

I don’t want to hurt her, but I don’t want her here!!! I know how to take care of myself following surgery, and it doesn’t entail playing tourist, nor does it entail living in a hotel room with a petulant mother upset because I can’t or won’t play tour guide.

2

Your mother isn’t doing this for you, she’s doing it for herself. It sounds as if she is being selfish, to me.

If she isn’t listening to you, is it possible to get a different hotel room? And not leave a forwarding address? Tell her, “Mom, I apreciate the thought, but if you insist on coming I won’t be here.” Maybe just have a cell phone number for contact.

Sorry for you, this sounds like a real bummer of a choice to try and make.

3

Really sucks, but I concur, change hotels and leave a cell number. Have your kid answer the phone ALL the time, and if she calls with a chip on her shoulder, have him “take a message” and hang up. You do NOT want to be stressed out while healing!

4

Uhh, maybe it is selfish of her mother, wanting to spend time with a daughter she’s not close to.

But, Amberlei, I do think you should make the best of it. If you’re so negative about her staying over, the whole thing will just turn out worse. It doesn’t have to be an ordeal, just relax and take it easy.
For instance, she could possibly drive you to the hospital, or babysit your son while you recover.

But in case, good luck on the surgery! :slight_smile:

5

Don’t let her! Don’t don’t don’t don’t! Switch hotels, leave no forwarding address, don’t try to explain to her, don’t try to justify yourself, just tell her “Mom, I’ve decided that I don’t want you here, and since you won’t respect my wishes I’ve chosen to change hotels.” I know it’s tough, but if she can’t respect your needs, then you need to make sure she has no choice.

I hope your surgery goes well and that there are no complications, medical or family. :slight_smile:

6

Selfish to want to come for a visit, and make her travel and do touristy things while in recovery? Did you miss her posting
She views her time here with me as a vacation, more than anything, I think, and this, combined with my inability to say no, has resulted in such adventures as sleeping on the Boston Harbor cruise after hobbling along the Freedom Tral three days after being released from the hospital following surgery and radiotherapy, visiting both Plimouth Plantation and Old Sturbridge Village a week after surgery, and drives to NYC and Philadelphia within a week of surgery (Heck, I’m just the passenger and navigator, there’s no reason this should tire me out, is there?) \

Doesnt sound like she would be content driving her to the hospital and babysitting [though IIRC her son is like 18ish, he is getting ready to go off to university or something, isnt he?]

Having been through different operations and recovery times, sometimes after chemo getting to the couch from the bedroom is exhausting…and I have very clear memories of crawling from the couch to the bathroom because standing upright was pretty much out of the question, and one particularly nasty time when I discovered that an overnight ultra sanitary pad can hold enough piss to make it easier for me to get to the bathroom by ‘furniture’ hopping [ IE going from the bed to the desk chait, sit for 5 minutes to rest. From desk chair to stairs, down the stairs to the chair by the door, sit for 5, go from that chair to livingroom couch, sit 5, make it to bathroom. I hate recovery days in someone elses house=(]

7

Beats me, although I had to resort to threatening to call the police if my mother didn’t leave me alone under similar circumstances.

I don’t know if I would have ever done it, but they certainly backed down.

8

She’s wrong. Her “right” is to worry about you; to let you know she’s there if you need her. Your right is to be left alone when you say you want to be left alone.

IMHO, It sounds to me like she’s trying - at least in part - to make up for not being there all the time when you were young and doesn’t realize SHE CAN’T, because you aren’t a child anymore. She needs to accept the situation as it is and respect your wishes.

The hard part is, you need to be firm and make her understand that.

Good luck with her and the surgery.

9

Goodness gracious, dear, if your OP is an accurate account, you already have! The question you should be asking is, “Why is my mother completely insensitive to my wishes, and is there any way to get through to her short of a brick to the skull?”

Ordinarily I’d say it’s a bit extreme, but that switching hotels idea sounds almost reasonable, considering that you told her no so many times and she just wouldn’t listen.

However, if she comes, can you arrange some backup from the hotel staff in advance? For example, make it clear to them that under no circumstances is an additional bed to be brought into your room. If she won’t spring for her own hotel room and expects you to provide her with one for a month then she’ll have shown her true, selfish colors, won’t she?

And absolutely do not take off on some cockamamie roadtrip to the City!!! My God, you poor woman, trying to recover from surgery while being dragged hither and yon to tourist traps?!? Can you perhaps explain the situation from your doctor and get a note to show her that says that you absolutely must not travel?

You’ve got to stand up for yourself, here. Your relationship with your mother is not healthy for the body or the spirit. Enlist the help of others if you can, to make it easier on you, but ultimately you have to find a way to say no and make it stick or she’ll be walking all over you until one or the other of you is in the grave.

10

It’s her right to come and harass you for a month while you’re trying to recover from surgery? No, she’s not the least little tiny bit selfish. :rolleyes:

Well, since you’ve already told her that you don’t want her there, and she’s insistent, I only see three options. 1) You move to a different hotel and live in hiding like a criminal to avoid her, hoping like hell she doesn’t show up at the hospital the day you have surgery looking for you. 2) You let her come and stay in your hotel room, and put up with either playing tourist or her no-doubt endless carping and bitching about you not playing tourist. 3) You gather up your courage and determination and tell her that you can’t stop her from coming, but she is absolutely not staying in your hotel room, you are absolutely not paying for a hotel room for her, you are observing a very strict bedtime during your recovery per doctors’ orders and she’ll have to be out of your room by 8pm at the very latest, and you are absofuckingly not traveling during the time between your surgery and your move per doctors’ orders.

Personally, I suggest option 3. I know that these sorts of conversations are awfully hard, especially when you have confrontation issues, and the woman doesn’t listen anyway, so I’d seriously consider email. (I’d throw in something about her maybe coming up for a few days after the move, when you’re up and around and settled in and can be better company for her. Maybe suggest going some type or toursty day trip in your new area. This makes you look generous and accommodating, while almost certainly getting you off the hook. I mean, she’s never come to visit when you were healthy before, right?) She’ll be full of righteous indignation about it and call right off the bat (crying about how hard it is to have an ungrateful child, would be my guess), so just tell her that you refuse to discuss the situation. Just say, “Mother, I am not having this conversation with you. The subject is closed.” Then I think I’d probably just hang up and send another email reiterating that she is NOT welcome to stay with you or to drag you hither and yon during your recovery. Rinse and repeat as needed.

She seems like the type to show up at your hotel room anyway if she knows where you’re staying, bags in hand, ready to camp out with you, probably with a fistful of travel brochures from the lobby for you to look through. Shut the door in her face. After she finds a room of her own and leaves her luggage there, then she can come in. But only until 8pm, at which time you will already be in your jammies and tucked into bed with the lights out and the tv off. No, she may not watch television while you try to sleep. You need absolute quiet and absolute rest. Doctors’ orders, you know.

As an absolute last resort, I’d second Anaamika’s suggestion about the police. I know you don’t want to hurt her and threatening to call the cops is pretty extreme, but for a certain type of person that’s what it takes to get through their thick skulls. They absolutely ignore everything else. Then they get pissy about you going to some extreme measure that hurts their feelings. Sometimes, not often but once in a while, they’ll realize that they’ve been over the line and things will actually get better. Most of the time, though, they use the incident to paint themselves as victims, martyrs to their relationship with you. That’s okay, though, most of them tend to enjoy the victimhood as much as they would have enjoyed whatever was pissing you off anyway.

11

It definitely is extreme, but it’s like a wet slap in the face to some people. Some people actually back off and begin to realize what they are doing, that somehow they have alienated their adult child SO MUCH the kid is ready to call the police. It is going to damage your relationship but I can’t see how you have a healthy relationship anyway. As others have said, boundaries MUST be drawn, and quickly.

12

This is selfish as hell on the part of your mother.

IMO, she is trying to cram in all those lost years. She reminds me of my mother, who did this with my sister–broken ankle? Let’s go to Provence any way! Except that my mom didn’t even have the excuse of missing bits of childhood.
This is BS and you must get over the top firm–she isn’t listening to small voice, hesitant, is she? Call her-tell her NO. Tell her that you will not ge going out and about. Tell her to stay home.

When she arrives, tell it all to her again. Do NOT get up from the bed. Ask her to make herself useful–she can run errands, get food etc.

I know you want to please her, but really! Health comes first…

13

“Hello, Mom? Yeah, it’s me. Listen, I don’t want you to come. No, it’s not that I don’t love…no…yeah…no…Mom, stop. Just stop Mom. Mom? Mom, please stop crying. Mom? It’s not that I don’t need you, I just don’t need you right now. Mom? Mom. Mom! MOM!!!”

14

I have a very similar kind of mother, with a very similar attitude. (Or she used to have a similar attitude until she remarried, and her new husband is now able to talk sense into her about things like this.) She insisted on coming to “help” when both my kids were born, but she lived out of state, and we didn’t have room to put her up. I waited until AFTER each child was born to call and let her know, because I didn’t want to deal with the stress of dealing with her at the same time I was trying to give birth.

When she came for things like this, though, I had a list of exactly what I needed her to do for me–laundry, cooking, running errands, etc. It did help keep the “wanderlust” under control when she saw that there were specific things that needed to get done, and which I couldn’t do.

In this case, if you mother really insists on coming, do make sure that she understands that she has to have her own hotel room, and that you will NOT play tourist with her. If she’ll be there for the post-surgery recovery, have the doctor explain to her exactly what you are allowed to do, and what you are not allowed to do, and get the nurse to put it in writing. Then take the list of things you NOT allowed to do, and pass it on to your mother as her list of responsibilities. In fact, make it her primary responsibility to keep you from doing anything on that list.