My mom had kids very young and experienced a lot of trauma in her own upbringing. She's gone to therapy very occasionally over the years but I think has a lot of unprocessed trauma and is very emotionally insecure. I am empathetic about the difficulties she has had in her life, but also recognize that because she does not deal with them, she will never be a part of my support system. She is unable to see me as a person independent from her own feelings about herself (constantly looking for me to validate her own life by making the same choices and then feeling similarly miserable about them, an awful game that I have finally figured out how to identify and not get drawn into). I thought I'd dealt with my disappointment over not having a mom I could really talk to or feel loved/validated by, and then I had kids and it all came back because I have worked so hard to be the mom to my kids that I never had. There's something wonderful about that but also terrible and sad. I try to focus on my relationship with my kids and not feel hurt by what I've missed out on with my mom.

Anonymous wrote:My mom had severe untreated anxiety that she managed by being super rigid. It took raising a kid with severe anxiety for me to recognize when my mom was triggered. That made it easier for me to assume good intentions on her part and to restrain my own urge to push back. She had a really rough life (death of a parent, extreme poverty, racial prejudice and violence, and a abusive marriage). The rigidity that drove me nuts was her attempt to keep herself and her kids safe.

She and I have a pretty good relationship now because I changed how I respond to her. She’ll never be my complete confidant because she would freak out.

The part here about the anxiety and rigidity is my situation as well. My mom loves me, but doesn't actually *like* me, is what I've concluded. We view the world through very different lenses. She is very black and white in her thinking and it makes it hard to relate to her and for her to relate to me. She also has shared a lot of her conflicted feelings on motherhood with me when I was a child/teen, and made it clear she didn't love the path her life had taken. A hill upon which many battles have been fought is her obsession with my weight. So.... it's tough.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom and I are close, but we aren’t best friends. I always found that creepy. She is my mother, and was never interested in being a friend.

This.

I love my mom - she’s got her issues (as we all do) but overall she’s pretty awesome. We have fun together and generally get along well. But she’s MY MOM. I am not talking about my sex life with her. I’m just not. I save that for my same age friends.

This is me too. I consider myself very close to my mom, but we don't talk about EVERYTHING. It's still a mom/daughter relationship, not a friendship like I have with my peers. Of course, my mom also has her own friends, so that helps. She's supportive and generous and fun to be with. I hope I can cultivate the same type of relationship with my kids as they get older.

Same here. I love my mom, she's great, we have a good relationship, and we enjoy the time we spend together. We talk about a lot of things, but she's my mother, and there are some things we don't talk about.

Op, because mutual respect means the acceptance that each individual has a different personality and not all personalities get along well, equally. There is nothing hurtful about it, nothing to lament.

Btw, I don't think best-friend is ever appropriate. That's a sure errosion of boundaries, and is not appropriate.

We're too different for that kind of relationship, and I'm not even sure I want it, along the lines of what PPs have noted. Another issue is that I have a younger sister with multiple mental health problems, and she and my mom (and dad) have a pretty dysfunctional relationship, resulting in boundary issues between us all. I don't trust my mom to set and maintain appropriate boundaries with my sister, especially not when it comes to my kids.

She is dead.

My mom told me I ruined her life, so that's hard to overcome. She openly favored my brother. She likes to rewrite history, and I suspect she's told these lies so many times she actually believes that this revisionist history is true. She's a relentless gossip. She resents that I followed my father into academia.

My mom is not my friend. She's my mother. I love her, I care about her, and right now I make sure we speak once if not twice a week as she and my father are basically housebound given that my mom suffers from multiple autoimmune diseases and they live in Florida. We can enjoy each other's company is small doses (say, a weekend). But I'd never describe her as my friend.

My mom can be very...abrasive. She was big time a yeller in terms of parenting style and it created a ton of anger and anxiety in us kids growing up. No physical abuse and over all a good parent, but the constant yelling and being on eggshells created a wedge that I'll probably never be able to fully surmount. Our relationship improved a ton when I left for college (aka when I no longer had to live under her roof).

We live near my parents now, and see them often, but my mom has never been my "friend". Regardless of the emotional baggage, she was definitely in the "I'm your parent not your friend" camp, which I actually agree with.

My mom has emotional regulation issues stemming from childhood abuse. She's emotional fragile and passive aggressive. We both want a closer relationship but it's difficult.

My mom has pretty severe anxiety and started using me as a therapist when I was a tween. Some of her choices and behaviors (mostly due to the anxiety, but also just general self-centeredness) have made it hard for me to respect her so that makes it hard to have much of a friendship.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom and I are close, but we aren’t best friends. I always found that creepy. She is my mother, and was never interested in being a friend.

This.

I love my mom - she’s got her issues (as we all do) but overall she’s pretty awesome. We have fun together and generally get along well. But she’s MY MOM. I am not talking about my sex life with her. I’m just not. I save that for my same age friends.

This is me too. I consider myself very close to my mom, but we don't talk about EVERYTHING. It's still a mom/daughter relationship, not a friendship like I have with my peers. Of course, my mom also has her own friends, so that helps. She's supportive and generous and fun to be with. I hope I can cultivate the same type of relationship with my kids as they get older.

My mom is so religious that she can't help but bring up Jesus all the time. I am not and she finds fault with that. My mom is Republican. I am very left-leaning. My mom is a terrible listener and can't sit still.

I am hoping that I will be close with my daughters.

Anonymous wrote:My mom and I are close, but we aren’t best friends. I always found that creepy. She is my mother, and was never interested in being a friend.

This.

I love my mom - she’s got her issues (as we all do) but overall she’s pretty awesome. We have fun together and generally get along well. But she’s MY MOM. I am not talking about my sex life with her. I’m just not. I save that for my same age friends.

My mom had severe untreated anxiety that she managed by being super rigid. It took raising a kid with severe anxiety for me to recognize when my mom was triggered. That made it easier for me to assume good intentions on her part and to restrain my own urge to push back. She had a really rough life (death of a parent, extreme poverty, racial prejudice and violence, and a abusive marriage). The rigidity that drove me nuts was her attempt to keep herself and her kids safe.

She and I have a pretty good relationship now because I changed how I respond to her. She’ll never be my complete confidant because she would freak out.

I've posted about my mom before. Controlling, prone to overreaction, and loved to guilt trip. As you can imagine that destroyed any type of close relationship we can have.