I suspect some deception is afoot. People don’t pass out unless something is wrong with them. What do the doctors say?
I don’t understand why somebody else moving around makes you nervous enough to lose your appetite but everything else you mention would drive me nuts. If I saw somebody do the thing with the dog food I would stop eating food they prepare. If they do something like that at the table they’ll do it while cooking as well.
I’d eat out or make my own meals. Or move.
Why are you still there?
Free rent, I suspect.
It’s time for the OP to move out.
That’s kind of what I’m seeing here, too (unless this is some kind of cultural thing where an older woman is expected to wait on the men hand and foot). The behaviour is just…weird to me. I don’t know what to do with it.
As for the dog food spoon in the mashed potatoes - I don’t think it’s actually dangerous or anything, but damn, you just don’t do that. And pampering the dogs instead of having a meal and conversation and socializing with your family - that is just weird. Sorry, what do I type here - I don’t have much advice, but I do have sympathy for your situation.
Okay, this may sound like a weird jump but…Is your mom skinny, or maybe anorexic? Does she eventually sit down and eat some food?
My mom does the same thing with the rushing around, prepping things that should could be doing at another time (she doesn’t have a job or any other obligations.) When she does sit, she barely touches the food or rather lets it get cold, complain about how she always gets cold food from waiting on us :rolleyes:, and then puts it away to “warm up later.” This is all a part of her routine of not eating. My mom has always been like this so I can relate to how you feel anxious and just want her to sit down.
I’ve got a friend that is a little like this. No animals involved, but she just can’t sit still. She’s in the kitchen loading the dishwasher with cooking utensils, while the rest of us are eating. Down to 2 biscuits? She’s in the kitchen refilling the basket, needed or not. She’s clearing stuff off the table as people are finishing up. Like your mother, when we go out to dinner, she is perfectly capable of sitting still and eating and talking. Really hun, we came over to spend time with YOU. If all we wanted was food, we’d go to a restaurant.
I like this idea. I’d cut it off after “we can’t talk quietly and ask how your day was.” Don’t make it specific. Don’t make it about the dogs. Make it a request to have time to talk. If you try it, be sure to have some topics of conversation thought out ahead of time, so that you can keep it going.
Did she keep the mashed potatoes for over 3 months in the refrigerator so you would eat them?
I’ll private message you a link.
No private messages for you so oh well.
Her house, her rules, her manners. Move out if it bugs you so much, otherwise quit whining.
Talking about something bothering you is not the same as whining.
Give her a taste of her own medicine!!
If you and your Dad were true gentlemen, you’d stand up every time she did, and remain standing until she sat down again. I now see how this might actually be a useful tradition. . .
Everything she does is fairly rude but putting a spoon that clearly has dog food on it into human food is disgusting and puts it over the top. My mom is also the type who gets offended and gives the silent treatment if you’re critical of the slightest thing she does, so I can understand your aggravation.
Eh, I’m not getting the great outrage over the dog food thing, if it was dry kibble. There’s really not much of anything on the spoon after putting it in kibble, just dust really. And it’s not like the dog had already eaten out of it.
If it was the wet food, then yeah that would be gross, as the flavor would transfer over to the mashed potatoes.
My ex-wife’s family all did that jumping-up thing constantly. One would go get the salt and sit down, the next with bob up and get napkins, another a glass of water - there wasn’t 30 seconds in a row when they were all sitting down at the same time and it drove me freakin’ nuts. I specifically asked them to stop doing it which for a wonder did actually help. I think they were simply unaware.
Your mother however is a case. Either she has some mental health issue, or she is deeply unhappy about her life situation and this refusal to stay put or to ask someone to pass the peas is an unspoken protest. Are there, or could there be, problems between her and your father?
She can’t drive because she has “fainting spells”, she behaves normally eating out or with company, and she uses any discussion/criticism as an excuse to cut off communication with you. It sounds like she has some deep passive aggressive control issues going on, IMO. You are between a rock and a hard place until you move out.
Why does working require driving?
What kind of fainting spells are you talking about? My brother had petite mal seizures. He wrecked several cars that way. Eventually the medications got better and the seizures became less frequent.