OMG!  Sorry, Margo, but with L#2, getting another sibling involved is the LAST thing that will help the situation.  Being the 3rd in line, with a younger sib, there is always tension with my mother as she compares me with all the others.  What I do is never good enough - although I am the ONLY one who has been there thru her surgeries, family funerals, and general, everyday housework.  So, yes, any time my mother says anything than can even be remotely misconstrued as controlling or negative, the bristles on my back will stand straight up!

 No matter what I say to my mother, or how I try to explain it, she does not hear what I have to say.  My mother has her own perception of how I should feel or do things, and nothing will sway her from that perception.  Nothing!

 The best advice to that mother would be to get counseling for her controlling ways.

Ltr #2: I would disagree that being the youngest is always a negative experience. I was the youngest of three kids, and sure there were a lot of times where the older kids got to do something I couldn’t, but my Mom never made me feel inferior about it. I got a lot of benefits from being the youngest, too. My parents had better jobs than when my sister and brother were young so I got a lot of things they did not. They were also more relaxed about things and not as strict with me. So while there are drawbacks to being the youngest, there are also benefits. I think the problem has more to do with a clashing of personalities. My Mom and my oldest sister will clash far more than my Mom and I do. My Mom can be very opinionated but I’m more laid back than my sister so it doesn’t bother me as much as she does. So maybe the letter writer and her daughter simply have personalities that will always clash.

Ltr #1: My sister became anorexic when she was 23. It broke my parents heart, but there wasn’t a lot they could do. They couldn’t force her to eat. She got married and kept getting worse. It was only when her husband threatened to have her hospitalized that she finally realized she did have a problem and needed help. She will struggle with it all of her life (she is still very thin) but she is at least at a healthy weight now (5’9" and 125 pounds vs. 85 pounds at her lowest). But until your boyfriend realizes he has a problem and takes steps to get help for it there’s not a lot you can do except be there for him.

LW1 - yes, he has anorexia.  Refer him to your doctor.  Tell him you love him and want to keep him around.  Let him and the doctor take it from there. 

LW 2 - Every mother/daughter relationship has issues.  Each one has to eventually grow up and accept the other as a woman, not a mother  or daughter.  For all of those blaming the mother in this situation, I think you need to back off.  It sounds like she has good positive relationships with her other 2 daughters who don’t think mom is a ‘know it all’.  

The youngest daughter may be struggling with low self-esteem or personal issues, and is taking it out on the one person she knows won’t leave - her mother.   I know so many women who feel bad about themselves for whatever reason, and they will pick fights for no reason.  

Ex - "Oh, I love that dress!  Is it new?"

"Does that mean you hate the other dresses I have?  I know you can’t stand my taste in clothes and you’re always so critical!  Why do you have to be so mean!!!"

I think the problem in that exchange lies with the responder, not the complimenter.    

I too think the mother in letter 2 might be a larger problem than she lets on.  There is someone in my life that "comments" about what I do constantly.  If I’m cooking, "why are you putting in pepper now?"  If I’m driving, "why are you going this way?"  etc.  Then when I finally get irritated and say, "because I am"  They say, "I was just curious, no reason to be mad."  I don’t think they are just curious, they are actually saying, "you shouldn’t be putting in the pepper now" or "you shouldn’t go that way".  They don’t want to see they are nagging, and use the "curiosity" as a way to shove the problem back onto me instead of their own behavior.   I’ll bet the discussions and comments this woman makes toward her daughter are also disguised nags.

I highly recommend that both daughter and mother read "You’re Wearing That?" My mother and I read it, and I underlined some passages in there that meant something to me before I handed it to her. It helped me a lot in seeing how she was communicating, and while I’m not sure it helped her understand why I took things that way, it was a start. Essentially the book explains the special communication methods unique to mother/daughter relationships—that psychic radar, the implied and inferred meanings, how each conversation doesn’t stand alone but rather references every other conversation on that topic that was ever had, and the lack of boundaries between mother/daughter that isn’t there in other relationships.

And for the record, this can be true for any mother/daughter relationship, not just the last out of 3. It is not ALWAYS worst being the youngest. I and my best friend are the oldest daughters and we had it much worse than our younger siblings. Sometimes it has to do with which daughter is most or least like the mother.

LW2 has my sympathy.

My now-20-something daughter never liked to help around the house.  My husband supported her, either tacitly or openly.  I had, and still have, this peculiar notion that family members should help each other, that there is nothing wrong with expecting her to set the table, sweep the floor, or even pick up after herself.  Several years ago, she and one of her friends came here for Thanksgiving.  While the friend, my husband, and I were putting the last-minute touches on the dinner, she watched TV.  And told us what a good show it was and we should come watch it.

She has fabricated stories about things that prove I’m horrible, and, if she should mention some perceived insult, won’t listen to the truth.

We are now at the point where, if I say anything, it means I’m criticizing and, if I don’t say anything, it means I don’t care. 

Maybe someday she’ll grow up. 

 

 

All parents/children please take a deep breath and count the many ways your parent/child has been kind, thoughtful, done absolutly wonderful things for no reason.  My mother passed away when I was ten so I never got to have her there when my children were born or did something that I wanted to ask her a question about.  My daughter (15 in December) almost died last year due to a blood clot (she spent her 14th birthday in the hospital). Yes, we still have disagreements, we are very similar in looks and personality and she is struggling to be herself, probably more than most teenagers.  We count the blessings everyday no matter how small knowing that tomorrow is not guaranteed.

LW #1  Run to doctor with your loved one.  Don’t walk, don’t delay.  Anorexia is the first and most obvious choice but there are many more medical conditions that will cause you to lose weight, depression, cancer are the first that come to mind.  The doctor is the only one that can give a proper diagnosis and treatment.  Just be there to hold his hand thru treatment.

I don’t know about your response to LW1 Margo, it could be that the diagnosed bulimic in this relationship is projecting his own problems onto his partner, or it could be that he is actually creating the partner’s problem by focusing so much on his eating habits.  I knew a diagnosed (but supposedly recovering) anorexic once who hovered and policed their perfectly healthy relative’s eating habits "to prevent them from becoming anorexic too" so much that I actually worried for one relative’s sanity.  Whether the partner in question has a disorder or not, I would definitely question this person’s part in enabling or creating the current situation.   

#2) my side is just SO REASONABLE and my daughter is SO MEAN and i just CAN’T UNDERSTAND why me DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG would make her get so mad!

just the tone of this one is a big red flag that mom is not DOING NOTHING exactly…  and she knows it, but its more fun to be clueless and passive agressive.

i’m sure the daughter is being mean… but mom needs to get a little self-awareness. there are other perspectives to things, ya know?

take some responsibility. and stop being such a passive-agressive victim.

#2 - I totally agree with Leigh, and I have one of "those mothers" myself. I hate to call my mom controlling, she’s not like some matriarch on a Soap Opera - pulling the strings and laughing evilly, she is more of a micro-manager.

She comments on everything, you can feel her tension if something is being done differently than she would do it. 

She has an opinion on how to do something, when she has no knowledge of it, and the person doing it is an expert (i.e. "why are you taking this street instead of that street?")

I love my Mom, and she’s always been this way, it just gets worse as she ages. She is also kind and a very selfless person. She has a great sense of humor and can be so fun to be around. But, she’s a micro-manager, just like her mother before her. 

I try to be kind, and just bite my tongue since nothing I say can change her, but mostly I watch for signs of this personality trait showing up in me!