Misguided ... Well ... Everything ...

So, after some though and some conversation and a few more tiffs with my mom, I have come to a few understandings ...

First and foremost is that I will never convince her that my priorities should be important to her, however, that doesn't mean that I need to make them unimportant to me ... that means that we need to come to some kind of understanding ... and I have no clue how to do that ...

Second is that she is not being honest with me, for whatever reason she isn't ... all along her main argument as to why my boyfriend can't stay here is that it is a matter of her privacy .... a matter of her not being used to have testosterone in the house, her  not being able to walk around in her nightgown, etc., ... these are her main reasons ... but, she's going away for a week in February, close to Valentine's Day, so I say to her, well since you won't be here, can he come stay, since your privacy won't be an issue ... she tells me that she still has a problem with it ... so what exactly is her problem? If this was standard behavior of parents with grown children in the home, I may understand, if she was holding a moral high ground, I may understand, but it's not and she's not. The standard among my friends who have had to move back in with parents due to this lovely economy we live in (the number of friends that are doing that seems to be growing exponentially by the way), is that they are basically just living there like they would live anywhere else; friends, lovers, etc., all visit like normal, and they continue to maintain their lives. But, regardless, she is not being honest with me ... she is having issues with something else, whether it is me not being single and miserable (sidebar - I did at one point ask her if she was jealous and her reaction with her no, and the expression on her face, was downright insulting, then I clarified that I didn't mean about him in particular, but that I wasn't alone, that I had somebody to call mine, someone to hold, someone to talk to, and then she shut down), whether her issue is just him period, as mentioned before I kind of get put in the middle of really both of them not having any respect for the other, and really not being able to push it aside for the purpose of my sanity ... but she is not being honest with me ... and honesty is big with me ... I have walked away from more people over dishonesty and hypocrisy than I have anything else ...

Third is that I think that she may be misguided in her thought process as to why exactly I moved in with her to begin with. This speaks to her undermining my parenting, the other day my middle child was upset, we had been talking in the car for a good 45 minutes before we got home and we got home, my mom said something to her, she said something under
her breath and then went downstairs slamming the door behind her, my mom opens the door and says "hey, what's that about?" ... I guess this is maybe a typical reaction to some, but to me it was overstepping boundaries, if someone is going to say something to her about storming off like that it needs to be me, in that situation. There was the Santa Claus incident and then many, many other examples of her undermining my parenting ... the worst of which being to actually flat out tell my children that they didn't need to listen to my boyfriend when he told them what they needed to do or couldn't do ... she doesn't know I know about that one, but my boyfriend overheard it and several weeks later my daughters both told me she had said it ... that he had no idea what was going on with them or this house and that he didn't get to make rules or tell them what they needed to do ... this is what she said about a man that they introduce to people as their stepfather, that they have lived with for two years off and on, and physically spent more time with than their own father, a man who has had far more influence on their lives and far more to do with raising them, than she has, to completely undermine that well ... it's just completely and totally wrong ... and then I she had received a package from UPS with clothes in it for them, I told them they couldn't have it until their room was clean, and then later I told her "I told them they couldn't open the box until their room was clean" ... so a few hours later my daughter was wearing PJs from the box, I said nothing but a few weeks later when we were fighting about something else I brought it up, her answer was like that of a twelve year-old trying to get out of trouble "they didn't open the box, I did" and "what was I supposed to do she came in and saw it all there I had to give it to her" ... ummm no, you didn't, you could have used it as even more motivation to get her to clean her room. Instead she undermined my parenting ... so anyway, back tot he beginning of this paragraph, she has somehow been misguided as to why I am here, as to why we are here. I didn't move in here because I needed someone else to help me parent my children, I didn't move in here because I needed help with their laundry, I didn't move in here so that I could have someone else help my daughter with her homework or listen to her read, I didn't move in here because I needed someone else to do the cooking or the cleaning or decide whether or not the meals I feed my children are nutritionally balanced, I didn't move in here because I needed help being a parent, I didn't move in here because I needed help living my own life, I didn't move in here because I needed my mother to dictate whether or not it was an okay time to have my boyfriend over or to go see him, I didn't move in here so my mother could tell me that going out to a restaurant is acceptable, but going to a bar is not (even though going to a bar is cheaper), I didn't move in here for any of these reasons ... I moved in here because I needed a place to live ... period .. that's it ... because my life that I had established in my previous two homes was disrupted by my father ... I moved in here to have a roof over my head, over my childrens' heads ... I didn't move in here because I wasn't living just fine in all other ways on my own ... I've lived away from my parents for 11 years, and despite the fact that they don't seem to remember that I ever lived self-sufficiently, I did so for the bulk of that time ... yes, my ex-husband was laid off 3 times, yes, I lost my job when I had my second daughter and we had to walk away from a house ... yes, we had issues communicating about money, that got worse toward the end of our marriage and resulted in us being behind on the mortgage ... BUT ... for the bulk of those 11 years, I was self sufficient, requesting & needing nothing from my parents, although neither of them remember that, but why would they remember the good parts ... the good parts don't give them anything to hold over my head, that's why ... but my point still is, I lived on my own, I was the homework-helper, I was the laundry-doer, I was the cook, the housekeeper, the disciplinarian ... for the most part alone, my boyfriend was very helpful when he was there, my ex-husband never really was there, but did what he could when he was ... but I've been doing these things alone for 11 years ... I didn't move in because I needed help with those things ... I moved in because I needed a home ... that's all ...