Dear Joanna:

You are welcome!  “My mother too couldn’t ever … do this simple thing. Perhaps that would mean giving up the role of victim and guilt-tripping the other person“-

– you got it, Joanna: this is exactly it! If my mother asked me (your words): “Could you please clean you room and wash the dishes today?”, there would have been a high probability that I would have done what she asked, and if that happened: what would be her excuse to guilt-trip and humiliate me? So she never asked.

But when I took the initiative and washed dishes, she guilt-tripped and humiliated me anyway, complaining that I was making too much noise when washing the dishes, or wasting water, or leaving dirt on the dishes, and now she has to wash and rinse them anyway… There was no Winning with my mother, a no-win ongoing situation.

anita