Embarassing NMs

[Nonameanymore]

I am sure this have been mentioned before but I was wondering, can you remember an occasion when you felt pretty embarassed to be associated with your NM? I can remember quite a few but I just thought of a very simple example, not even dramatic, but something that has stayed with me for many many years now. She is really stingy, I mean REALLY stingy. She could come up with ways not to have to pay for things for as long as I can remember. Anyway, she was a travel agent and we were once sent on a promo trip somewhere in Switzerland (like forever ago). On the departure date, a bus came to take the whole group to the airport and as we were checking out, I asked her 'should we not remind the receptionist that we need to pay for the mini bar charges' to which she did this stupid and nonchalant 'no' with her head. So we leave and board the bus outside the hotel. A couple of minutes later, someone runs out of the hotel, they board the bus and shout 'room no .... you forgot to pay for your mini bar charges'. As she heard this she did a fake 'silly me, where did I leave my mind today, I was about to pay but forgot' grin, head nod, whatever, that didn't fool me. I didn't care if anybody else understood what she did, and I m pretty sure a lot of non-Ns try to get out of paying for things but to me it was another one of the times when she thought of herself superior to pay for the charges or that she could get away with everything.

I just wanted to share this...

[gratitude28]

I remember the feeling of being dreadfully embarrassed often by NM. My biggest fear was having people see that we lived in squalor. My NM never cleans. And she won't let anyone else clean either. So the house is condemnable. And while they could have purchased a decent house, they bought a hovel to begin with so that they wouldn't be "house poor." That just means they wanted to have enough money to buy junk all the time. Now I get very embarrassed by how loud she is - especially in restaurants and stores. She just has no respect for others in any situation, and it really shames me if I have to be with her... or even know someone who knows her. It took me many years to separate myself (my esteem) from her behavior and lifestyle.

[Nonameanymore]

Gratitude, I completely forgot about the 'being loud to attract attention'. It also went hand in hand with 'being nasty to waiters at restaurants' - after all she did see herself as special who needs royal treatment... The root of the disease,right?
You mentioned stores - because her self-image is also distorted, she is something between a big medium to large. A designer friend took her shopping few years back and she insisted the salespeople bring her size small to try...My friend said she laughed and didn't really get it why she did this... Go figure...
Sometimes I am worried I am like her, I am turning to a full-blown N, then I look back and see how she behaved when I was around and I don't see myself having - thank God - similar behaviours...

[Sealynx]

One of my biggest issues now with my N mom is her embarrassing me in restaurants by abusing the staff and making loud racist comments that other tables can hear. I am well defended against her on a personal level but I'm still hurt by her treatment of others.

[Logy]

Whenever we would travel, she would make all of us kids but one hide on the floor of the car so that they wouldn't have to pay for extra children in the room.  I was always terrified the clerks would find out and we would all get in trouble.

I dated a guy in high school, literally for only six months, and she decided he was the one for me.  Not only did she make all over him whenever he came over but she then invited his parents over to play cards and acted like we were engaged.  For crying out loud, I was 17.  The whole thing was really sick and all I can remember from that night are the looks on his parent's faces, like "what kind of nuthouse are we in?".  (FYI, he was a freshman in college majoring in engineering.  NM was a secretary for an engineering firm before she got married and has some weird fascination with engineers.  And he told me later that his parents told him I was not right for him.  Hmmm.  Me? or the family?)

And, of course, ALL the times she treated salesclerks and waiters rudely.  Too many to count.

[gratitude28]

Logy,
My mom also picked out my boyfriend. She said she was crushed when I broke up with him. He was a weenie. She adored him because his parents were wealthy and connected. Ugh. She has a fixation with doctors... like your engineers. But they have to be certain types of doctors - surgeons, especially, rank highly among her fantasy people. They can do no wrong. Why do they fixate on a group like that?

[Nonameanymore]

I am terrified every time I read how similar N behaviours are. My NGM (yes, it runs in the family, did I really skip it??) made me sit on her lap when I was 6 and told bus conductors I am 4 so she wouldn't have to pay for a ticket. I am not talking about a 20 minute journey, but 2-3 hours and she would get really angry because I couldn't sit still and hurt her knees....

It's funny you Logy and gratitude mention about choosing our mates and I think it's ironic that she didn't think I was worthy of love and that I didn't deserve anything nice, yet she matched me with some of our clients from our travel agency, mainly rich people and set me up on accidental encounters (she once told a client that he won a fake competition we run at the agency and the prize was a date with me - how sick is this???)

[Hopalong]

Fantasy:

Sealynx stands up in restaurant, looks the person Nmother offended (or calmly, with great peace and self-comfort--looks around the room at everyone nearby) and says in a neither loud nor soft voice:

"I cannot control her, but I would like to apologize for my mother's behavior. It is offensive to me as well. Thank you."

Who cares who hears?

I think it would be awesome.

Man, I'd love to hear a story like that. (No pressure, Sealynx!)

Hugs
Hops

[Sealynx]

 Hops,
Actually I've mastered a complete collection of eye rolls and hand signals for just such occasions! The waiters always remember me and usually relax when they see that the dynamic N duo of my mother and aunt  are not alone. The only trouble with your idea is that it would start a series of N soliloquies that even Shakespeare couldn't compete with and each would start with a repeat of the offensive words.