Reply to When/why do mother-daughter relationships go bad?

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "When/why do mother-daughter relationships go bad?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]The PP's comment about it falling apart after elementary school is interesting.  That's exactly when my relationship crashed.  And it's not the awful story of abuse.  Just no decency in the relationship.

My mom is an adult child of an alcoholic.  So is my dad.  So they recreated an alcoholic family without the alcohol.  My mother was very superficial and cared about what other people thought of our family to the exclusion of how "we" felt about anything.

Everything was about appearances and nothing was about substance.

I was overweight, and so I was an embarassment to her.   She dragged me to Weight Watchers when I was 10.   Up until then, I didn't know there was anything wrong with me.  But from that point on, everything was about my weight.

I had my first bout with major depression at age 11 and was crying for no known reason one day in the living room.  And she yelled at me.  I was too old for that.  She just never could truly understand what I was going through.  Which is fine.  But she never even asked.   That wasn't so fine.

Affection was all for the sake of appearance.  No hugs, no kisses, no I love you, except when we left the house.  Then it was demanded of us.  Nothing spontaneous.  No hugs when scared or hurt.  When I was sick, she completely fled from me, terrified of illness.

She favored my younger brother to my detriment.  I remember studying hard for a calculus exam my freshman year, and she demanded that I stop doing that and help my brother with "his" homework, because he wasn't good at school and I was.   No regard for my fear of failing that exam, my budgeted time for study vs. my job, etc.   It was all about the boy.

She just had a constant disregard for my feelings.  They were worthless, meaningless.  "Do as I say, no questions asked.  Who cares what you are feeling?"

She had a fit once, when my dad called me "dear."   He wasn't affectionate in any way, either.   And I felt this great warmth when he called me that term of endearment.  For about a second.  Then she gave him hell for calling me dear, when he never called her that.  That was the end of his scarce affection toward me.

She kicked me out of the house at 19 because I had too many black friends (I had four).  But you know, what would the neighbors think?

She was also crushingly controlling.

The takeaway here was that she would like me if I kept up appearances, but she cared nothing for the "real" me at all.

My son is exactly like me.  Very sensitive.  Very emotional.   I validate his feelings as much as possible.  I genuinely listen to his troubles, his anger, his despair, his joy.   I give him respect. He has value just like every human has value.   And of course he has even more to me because he's my son.  And he knows it.  We are much more affectionate, tons of hugs and I love yous.

I admit when I'm wrong.  I apologize.  I show him how I try to make things right.  I show him how I try not to repeat my mistakes.

He's 9.  My confidence level in my success in not repeating my childhood?   It was very high when he was little.  I feel like I'm on shakier ground as he hits his tween years.

I am completely ready (intellectually) for him to pull away.  I know that I had to figure out who I was independent of my mother, and I know he will have to do that, too.   However, I see so many moms with great relationships with their tweens, teens, and college kids.  I do hope that I can let him go and still maintain a good relationship.

There's a lot of hope there.   But only about medium confidence.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics