My mom is not an alcoholic but lately I am struggling the most with my relationship with her.   My mom raised me almost completely on her own.  I lived with her full time and saw my dad on some weekends.  We were extremely close.  My mom has a mental illness she has struggled with my whole life.  Two years ago she moved in with my family and  I because my grandmother moved to a nursing home (she had been living with and caring for her, and because she wanted to be closer to me).  She has her own space but I cook her meals and she joins us for them.  When she first moved in we really struggled.  She would come into my space and re arrange stuff, she would allow my daughter to do things she knew she wasn't supposed to do and then almost dare me to talk to her about it. She would make hostile comments about me and my AH and our parenting style etc etc.  When she felt I wasn't doing what she wanted me to do she said mean and hurtful things to me.  She would do things to help me that I didn't ask her to do (like pick my daughter up from school every day) and then throw it in my face later to make me feel guilty about the things she felt I wasn't doing for her.  I couldn't cope anymore so I cut her off.  We decided that she would stay in her space, I would stay in mine and we would not interact.  She refused for me to cook meals for her.  I refused to let her do much with my daughter.  We had a stand off for about 6 months and then after I started attending Al Anon I started to repair my relationship with my mom.   She expressed that it was hard to come live with us and not to own her own home and so she was crossing boundaries to try to feel ownership.  I apologized for withholding my daughter from her etc.   Things were going really well between us for about 6 months or so and then her mother passed away a month ago.  She was extremely close to her mother and she is grieving.  And in that struggle a lot of her anger towards me is coming out.  She doesn't want me to console her, give her hugs or support her.  She doesn't want to talk to me about it.  In the past she would do this kind of thing that felt like a test and then wait until she was better and use it against me in an argument to tell me why I was such a bad daughter (eg. she might say "you didn't hug me ONCE when your grandmother died").  She sits at the dinner table and makes passive aggressive remarks to my husband and myself.  She knows I am involved in al anon but I don't talk about it much.  She is an atheist and I am not.  From being part of Al ANon I have started to feel more in touch with my HP and even though I don't talk about it a lot I think she senses it.  Last night she sat at the dinner table and went on a rant about how religion is only for ignorant, stupid, uneducated people.  She acted like she was just trying to have a conversation but it was a very thinly veiled attack at me.  I didn't confront her about it.  I didn't say a word about it.  I just ate my dinner and tried my best to detach.  I remembered a line I read in the literature about not picking up the rope for that tug of war.  And I didn't.  Later when I was in her place doing laundry I remembered that she had stated a while ago how she wants positive feedback on her gifts she gave at Christmas.  So I thought I could do that for her.  I told her how much I needed some new PJs and how glad I was to get them (it was true and it came from my heart).  She snapped and me and said "It's nice to get feedback on the gifts you give you know" (and said it as if I hadn't said anything at all).  I didn't respond even though I really wanted to say "wow mom you didn't say one nice thing about the gifts I got you".   Even though she is not an alcoholic I recognize very clearly that I need to detach from her.  It's harder with her than it has been with my AH for some reason.  I think because we have been so enmeshed for so long.  I can see that I have been slowly detaching from her for the past couple of years.  In those couple of years of doing so she has been very VERY angry with me.  And her anger, her hurtful comments make me sad.  She has said things I don't think I can ever forget. I feel as though my mom needs to be able to feel she has control over me.  When she doesn't she gets very angry.  When I was a kid a teenager and in my early 20s I would just bend to her will (if I didn't she made my life a living hell) and do what I had to do to maintain our relationship even if it was very bad for me.  Now that I am detaching she is a different person entirely.  I don't feel she has unconditional love for me and it really hurts.     On the other hand my mom and I never have the screaming matches we used to have that would end in one of us acting even more ridiculous just to get the other to submit to what they wanted.  I can see how we would manipulate each other back and forth in a very sick way.  My daughter has a great relationship with her grandmother that I am so glad I stopped interfering with.  I no longer feel like I have to choose sides between my AH and my Mom.  I don't take her criticism nearly as personally as I took it in the past.   I have learned to use the slogans "how important is it" and "do the next right thing" really well with her :) This is all thanks to my involvement in al anon.   Thanks for listening.  I think it just helped to share this.