Relationship with my mum

[Annconfused]

Name change as it feels a bit too personal

This will be long and probably boring. I don?t expect anyone to get through
this but I think I am in need of venting. I feel so sad, confused and broken about it all at the moment and I need to decide what direction to go in next.

In a nut shell my relationship with my mum is in tatters, from my point of view, after several upsetting episodes during my wedding planning and on the day itself. She has apologised for her behaviour but I can not seem to forgive her. I go from feeling numb, to sad, to cross. I can?t look at wedding photos without crying and I am having nightmares about it. Every time she rings me up to chat or invite us over I am distant and make excuses and I can?t bring myself to act normally with her. I can tell she is hurting and that make me feel even worse. The thing is if it were only about the wedding maybe I could get past this more easily but it isn?t.

For the last few years I have been suffering with mental health issues and through trying to ?get better? it has become clear that I have attachment and abandonment issues stemming from my adoption, the loss of people close to me and from the way I was treated by my adoptive parents, especially my mother. After I was adopted she went on to have my brothers biologically and I have always felt that she treated my differently. It?s only recently that I have been able to admit to myself that some of her behaviour towards me may have bordered on being abusive. Up until this year I have always thought that there must be something wrong with me but I think I am slowly coming to realise that I was just a child that needed love and affection that I did not receive. She was hypercritical, aggressive and controlling. I have recently had access to my adoption records and have found the social workers visit reports for the few months after my adoption. My mums behaviour towards me at the time was described as ?distant? and her and my father spent most of the time talking about the little boy they wanted to adopt next. To the point where the social worker recommended that they were not put forward for another adoption as she feared how that would effect me! Needless to say a couple of years later they got what they wanted with the arrival of my brothers.

Growing up I had to do a lot of house work that my brothers didn?t have to do, even ironing their clothes. I was always told I was useless and lazy and no good. She lamented the fact that I wasn?t as good or as helpful as her friend?s children, when I knew damn well I did hours more work that they did. She put me on a diet at 13 ,even though I wasn?t fat ,and was critical of my appearance. I was punished if I didn?t do well at school. Writing that down I guess it sound normal but it was incessant. I would be hit with a garden cane if I put my elbows on the dinner table. I can?t remember the triggers but several times our arguments would end with her hands around my neck and her knee on my chest until my brothers dragged her off me. I could go on but I wont. There where worse times and there were also really good times.

Not sure what I am expecting from replies. I just feel lost and don?t know what to do. Before the wedding we would call each other and chat but now I cant stand to be around her. I hate hurting her but I don?t know how to be good to her until I can stop hurting too. I feel like I have opened the flood gates and I can?t close them again. I don?t want to drown. I don?t know how to resolve this. I swing from think I need to talk to her to thinking I am overreacting and should just get over myself.

[EldritchCleavage]

It's not something I have any experience of but I didn't want you to go unanswered.

It doesn't sound to be as though you are over-reacting at all. It sounds as though you had a very very hard time as a child with a mother and father who treated you really badly. With her behaviour at the wedding as a trigger, perhaps your true feelings about it are finally coming to the fore.

For the time being I would just put your mother on the back burner and concentrate on looking after yourself, plus working out how you feel about her. Can you confide in your DH? Perhaps consider talking to a therapist as it sounds to me as though this would really help you.

Once you feel a bit stronger you could sort out how much contact you want with your mother and whether it is worth trying to talk to her about any of this. Bottom line though, if she continues to be unpleasant to you, is there really a relationship there worth continuing? Some parents are very good at the guilt trip and emphasising your family obligations, but is she ever going to fulfill hers?

[Annconfused]

Thanks for the reply. I can confide in DH, he knows all the ins and outs and obviously saw her behaviour at the wedding. I think he is only just realising how bad things in my past have been and is seeing my mum in a whole new light. I had been having therapy for mental health issues up until moving a few months ago. I think that is when I started to realise that my mother's behaviour towards me was not nurturing. I have always made excuses for her in the past; she didn't mean it, she was busy, she found dealing with a large family stressful etc. I am now beginning to come to terms with the fact that I can not excuse all her behaviour and maybe I shouldn't.

I just don't know where to go from here and I am frightened that I will never get the mother daughter relationship, I thought we had at some points, back.

[EldritchCleavage]

Have you looked at the Stately Homes thread? I think you'd find it helpful.

The trouble is I think that often what dominates the relationship with a dysfunctional parent is how YOU ought to be and what's wrong with you (in their eyes) and all the excuses about why they acted as they did (rather than any acknowledgment of how the manner in which they acted made you feel). In that situation, the relationship can really continue to be damaging.

I don't know the answer for you (though I'm not sure in your shoes I'd want her around any more) but perhaps the short-term goal is just to recalibrate the relationship if only in your own mind so it's at least about you, what you want and how you feel, as well as about her. The problem is she is likely to be very resistant to that-she will deny what she did and its effect, because it is SO awful.

She must know what she did at the wedding, and realise it upset you. Has she brought it up and apologised? If so, that's a good starting point with her. If not, is it part of a pattern of sweeping things under the carpet? How will she react if challenged?

I can't really give you concrete advice except maybe put your mother on the back burner until you are clearer about things.

[lucy101]

I have had a similar experience with my mother (and sister by extension)... which all really came to a head around my wedding (and a year later sadly the subsequent funeral of my baby) with some devastating and unacceptable behaviour.

Weddings in of themselves are a ritual which in some ways are about splitting from you parents and committing to a new family... and with controlling/aggressive/dysfunctional mothers, let alone normal ones, this can really push all their buttons!

I feel very sad about parts of my (lovely) wedding too but also realise it was an important step in moving away from my mother. I also found calls etc. difficult and in fact still do two years on (and don't know when this wil change,if ever)... but as you recognise you can't go backwards and one has to be brave to move on (and you are already being very brave I suspect from everything you have managed to find out about your early days).

Have you considered having therapy/counseling for a while to help support you? It has made a big difference to me. There are lots of good books too like "Toxic Parents" and "The drama of the gifted child" which make you realise how common what you are experiencing is.

I want to tell you it will be better, but it might take a long time...

[lucy101]

Sorry, I didn't read that you were already in therapy (which is great). I had an abject fear of being left with no relationship with my mother (which is as more the fear that she had put into me that I couldn't survive somehow without her)... and you might or might not have a good relationship with yours in the future.

If you do, and she makes some changes, marvellous... but it is more likely that she won't change and you will (hopefully) put boundaries in place around her as you grow and will concentrate on the rest of your life and other relationships you can have which will hopefully be better for you: your DH, children, kind and wise friends etc.

You may well be mourning the relationship you thought you had rather than the actual one IYSWIM.

[toadinabathingsuit]

OP, I'm sorry you grew up in these conditions. It was abuse. Weddings can trigger the release of buried hurt from childhood; for me, the trigger was having children.

The book, "Toxic parents" by Susan Forward helped me immensely. Also, read and post on Stately Homes, you will get a lot of support and understanding there.

Try to get some counselling, because this won't go away. Maybe keep a bit of distance between you and your mother until you can process what happened to you and decide how you feel about a future relationship with her. I've just started counselling, after years of thinking I can't have had it that bad. I did and so did you, the fact that you feel as you feel is proof. Just talking to someone has helped me.

Take care of yourself and good luck.

[Annconfused]

Thank you everyone, your support and understanding has made me feel quite emotional. I don't really know what else to say as I am feeling quite drained about it all right now but will certainly be taking all you advice on board.

Although I feel so sad that other people can relate to what I am talking about it is kind of nice to know I am not alone, if that makes sense?

Thank you

p.s I think I feel worse because my mum doesn't know about how I feel about the past or that I know about my early adoption, she just thinks its all about the wedding. I feel that I am being unfair to her in a sense.

[atswimtwolengths]

I think this is one of those occasions where a letter would work really well.

From what you've said here, it's obvious that you weren't treated properly as a child. I know a lot of adoptive parents find it difficult to bond with their child and maybe that's what happened there, though it does seem (from the SW's comments) that the problem lay with her earlier than that.

If you speak to her, you'll get upset and probably won't get the chance to say everything you want to say. Write to her and be kind but honest - tell her how you feel, how you felt about your childhood and how much you want a relationship with her.

I hope things go well for you.