How do I M 22 deal with my mum F 48 deal with her sudden changes because of her boyfriend?
My mum got a boyfriend in January. He’s great, he’s a nice guy. Genuinely have no bone to pick with him. However my mum was gone through a metamorphosis.
Yesterday she got upset at my sister because she didn’t want to go over to her boyfriend’s house, f 20, for dinner as she failed an exam and wanted to lick her wounds. When she initially asked to stay home (as it was last minute, we didn’t know we were going over until 20 minutes before) my mum was fine with it, but then the day after she lectured my sister saying how rude it was because boyfriend spent so long cooking. Now boyfriend is mad at sister and so is mum.
She also keeps asking me and my sister for relationship advice “why do I feel xyz about xyz” kind of questioning. We give her responses but we tell her she should be talking to a counsellor or psychologist, not her children about her relationship worries. She also keeps giving us details about her sex life under the guise of a joke. My youngest sister, f 18, asked her to please not do that and our mum started whinging that we’re no fun and we’re all prudes.
Yesterday really went over the line for me, boyfriend is going away for a couple weeks soon and mum wants to take f 20 sister out for breakfast at the cafe they go to every week. And then she said “if the waitress thinks boyfriend is your father, we’ll just say he is.” My sisters face immediately screwed up in discomfort.
We don’t associate with our father but now our mum seems desperate to make her new boyfriend our father. My youngest sister isn’t opposed to it, but my middle sister and I are. We’re too old, if we were 12 we’d be open to the idea but I’m turning 23 in June and my sister 21 in November. He’s our mum’s boyfriend of like 4 and a half months, not our dad.
My sister has confessed to me once she has enough money she fully intends to move out and go low contact with our mum. I haven’t gone into great detail but my middle sister has been receiving a lot of flack from my mum the last 4 and a half months. Things about her weight, university, career choice etc. I haven’t so much, I just worry about my sister.
So that bleeds into my question, how can I try and help my sister in this situation? What can I do to try and get our mum to stop forcing this relationship down our throats? Because we try talking about it calmly, we try telling her we’re uncomfortable and she will start screaming and yelling and calling us selfish. I desperately need a new strategy because being nice isn’t working anymore.