For any of you with parents going through the whole mid-life crisis thing, how do you deal with it? Just humor them, ignore the new weird stuff, talk to them about it, or what? My mom is going through it, and she throws tantrums all the time now, pouts, manipulates, exercises like a fiend, expects me and my sis to hang out with her all the time, buys stupid crap then gets mad when my dad spends $50 more on a plane ticket to come home from a trip early to be with his family, and other weird stuff. The worst is when she berates my sister, calling her lazy, selfish, out of shape, and such. That really makes me mad, because I'm not even around most of the time to be there for my little sis! My mom didn't used to be like this (at least not so much)! I don't really want to humor her, because it just encourages more bad behavior... blah. So I guess I'm asking for advice, but I also want to know how any of you personally dealt with it. Thanks! ~Nova
My dad left us, moved to california and dated a girl 2-3 years younger than me...mom married some fundamentalist baptist and had another kid...
Menopause does strange things to women, it's true. But you can't blame that sort of abusive behavior on hormones or anything else. Verbally abusing her own child is inexcusable, and is probably not a new development though her methods may have recently changed for whatever reason. Manipulation and emotional abuse of the people she claims to love aren't things you can simply justify away. When my mom was going through her change of life? I simply put on a sweater and layers of clothes when she was opening windows and walking around in her underwear in January. I tried to be a good listener when she needed to talk and offered her my shoulder when she needed to cry. I was also menopausal at the same time as Mom, due to medications I was given, and probably understood things a bit better than most daughters would. And most of all, we knew to give my poor DH his space when the mood swings got too out of hand! (poor DH, living with two crazy women at the same time...)
My mother was psychotic when menopause first hit. Scares the hell out of me, because that could be me someday. She tried to ignore it awhile first..Bad way to go about it. She needs to see a doc if she hasn't already. It takes some time for a woman to learn how to deal with something like that. They don't call it change for no reason. I also remember some real bad mood swings. She used to seriously bite my head off. The good news is the worst of it passed. Now she seems to be under the impression that it was no big deal, & that she handled it well. Yeah, right Ma. We love you anyways! Is it menopause in your mom's case..How old is she?
She's 53, and has definitely announced to the whole household that she's menopausal. That could definitely be a part of this whole problem. ~Nova
