Published on 12, July, 2020
It would seem I have inadvertently ruffled my mother's feathers, which is something that I appear to excel at.
Yesterday, my mother had phoned and left a message to say that she had arranged a bank transfer for today (from her bank account to mine), and could I please let her know when the transfer had gone through. This was an unexpected act of kindness, which had been triggered by the fact that yesterday would have been my paternal grandma's birthday.
Since my grandma's death 6 years ago, this is the first time that my mother has chosen to mark my grandma's birthday by doing something kind and generous for me. Whilst I appreciated the gesture, I confess that I found it somewhat weird.
Anyway, I sent a message to my mother to confirm the transfer had gone through, and to thank her. In hindsight, I should have ended the message there. The thing with my mother is that she has a tendency to phone me when she knows I'm awake, which I just wasn't in the right frame of mind for... Not that I ever seem to be in the right frame of mind to receive phone calls from her... I made the mistake of saying I felt perplexed as to why she had made the bank transfer, and then dug an even bigger hole for myself by saying this was intended as a statement, rather than a question she needed to answer.
My message went down like a lead balloon. Oops!
It’s sad when a nice gesture becomes complicated in this way. I think often it results due to a lack of trust and good faith in the people involved. Trust and good faith can be re-built though - if the will is there. Also it can be rebuilt if people are willing to genuinely forgive past actions and disagreements. I think with true good will all these things can be resolved - especially if there are still some loving feelings between people. It’s worth working on this as it’s so helpful to have loving and kind people in our lives - whether they are friends, partners or family.
As neither of my parents are any longer with us, I do regret not showing my love and appreciation more.
How about messaging "Thanks for yesterday, Mum. I appreciate it and love you very much."
As you know, your relationship with your mother is similar to mine, what tends to go through my mind is, what is the hidden agenda, or why are you being nice?
I find I go into protection and probing mode, just saying thank you doesn’t always happen first, caution takes over and ruins something that was supposed to be nice and then leaves me feeling guilty.
I find I’m worse when ‘out of spoons’ and just need to be alone, at that time there often isn’t nice thoughts in my head. Time will heal, your chances of a gift next year maybe a bit low.
You've got foot in mouth disease, I have that too, often I get the other foot in my mouth as well, as I use it to try and extract the first.
Some people seem to need an excessive amount of thanks when they do things for your benefit, I often end up wishing they'd left things alone as it always causes an argument.
Speaking as a mother with an eldest (young adult) who often doesn’t reply to messages promptly (or at all!) I suppose I’m seeing your post from the ‘other side’! I’m guessing your mum put some thought and love into sending you the money because she wanted to do something nice for you because she loves you
Most mother’s just like to feel appreciated and that their kids still love them - and that’s pretty much all they expect most of the time (I think anyway!). if you feel you’ve upset your mum in anyway I (were I in your shoes) would just send her message saying thank you for her lovely gesture and that you hope you didn’t offend her (by accident) in your response, and telling her that you love her. Then I’m sure she’ll be extremely happy and content and you can rest easy knowing that your mum thinks you are totally wonderful