How do I accept my mum cannot offer more support?

Have you spoken to a therapist at all? I wonder if talking through your feelings with someone who isn't emotionally involved might help? Ultimately you can't make your Mum be the Mum you want. She's the way she is, and isn't going to change. She wasn't hands on with you and your sister, so she's not going to be with her grandchildren.

Unfortunately, not all women who have children, should have been a Mum. Sadly, your Mum is one of those women. She's too selfish and self-centred to put her own wants before the needs of her children.

Going forward, you aren't going to be able to rely on your Mum for any support or childcare. She's simply not interested. I know it's hard, but that's the reality that you and your sister find yourselves in.

In the kindest way, I don't think it is usual to suddenly acquire a mother figure as an adult.

Given your sister is autistic, I wonder if your mum is too?

My mother had a shit mum. She was a very good mum herself. But she struggled if I rebelled even slightly (I was a dream teenager really) because she saw it as a rejection. She was very very sensitive to rejection in any form. And tried to re-create this fantasy relationship with me, which often made life hard for me. Given that we are very different people.

The only person who can let go of this expectation is you. She probably doesn't want to re-do her time as a mum. I think she realises that saying that she didn't want to be a mum ever, would be too hurtful, hence her comments on what she would do the second time around. It sounds like she fell in with societal expectations and your dad's and had children. And truly struggled. This means it is unlikely she's going to be a very involved grandmother.

Sorry, I didn’t read all the way to the end.
There is a therapy called EMDR. It’s for trauma or possibly what you are experiencing from your Mum.
What you want from here is totally normal. Please know that.
But she maybe can’t or won’t give it. Maybe she is autistic herself.

More therapy for you and not asking her for anything is and sadly lowering your expectations is probably the best way to protect yourself.
Are you and your sister close ?

Oh, you poor love. The pain in that last line is palpable. Virtual hug to you. 💐
I don't know what else to tell you. You've spent 2k doing the work but the mother wound is still omnipresent.
I have issues with both of mine. I accept the same as you that logically they are who they are. It still hurts me though. I went LC with mine. Got fed up of being told they loved me warts and all 😬 but never walking the walk.
But it has affected absolutely my own relationships and my ability to parent well, if I am being very honest with myself. I guess that I am trying to save you from the They fuck you up your mum and dad poem becoming true for you too. I should have done more therapy before having mine. Or maybe not been a mum. I genuinely don't know anymore. I hope you are as okay as you can be and things turn out better for you.
All the best to you x

My sister and I very much depend on each for this role of emergency contact. I know 100% that she will be there for me in an emergency and she’s stepped up every time, as I have for her. She’s the only person I know I can depend on 100% and we are very much bonded by the mutual trauma of being raised by parents that just didn’t care and were unable to show any form of consistency.

And, OP: you have shit parents. I am so very sorry. But it's not your fault. And, as other people have said, you need to let go of that yearning and focus on people who will love and support you. You can even find older women who can play a more motherly role with you, if that's what you need. And try to go back to therapy when you can – many therapists have a sliding scale.

What a nasty post. The OP is not asking for a Disney mum, she's missing the maternal figure she never had.

As for the OP not being the daughter her mother wanted – the difference is that children don't choose to come into the world and it's not their responsibility to fulfil their parents' wishes, but parents are responsible for loving and caring for their children, because children are helpless. And as a previous poster said, you are a parent from cradle to grave.

Suggesting that the OP did something to deserve being shunned by her mother is frankly disgusting.

All of our parents are dead so we never had any support ever. It was particularly hard supporting DH through cancer treatment when DS was a toddler and I felt torn in two a lot of the time as both needed my attention.

I understand feeling envious of others and feeling a bit sorry for yourself when other mums talk about their parents babysitting so they can have a night out or when they have somewhere to visit at Christmas, but dwelling on these negative emotions is a real drain of your energy and ultimately pointless.

Learn to accept and focus on your reality, not some fake Disney style happy family.

You’ve not even got kids yet so use this time to nurture and make lots of good friends. Good Friends are the people who stepped up and were there for us when we really needed help. They’re far more important in the long run.

You need to grow up and realise everyone is different and accept your mum as she is. Stop fantasising about having a Disney mum. They very often don’t exist and you have no idea what your mum went through when you were children - she could have had un treated post natal depression for all you know and then your dad being away so much would have made her mental health even worse!!
id recommend having mindfulness sessions with meditation with a psychologist and look forward rather than back as that gets you nowhere!! Look at the positives in life rather than the negatives or you will just be miserable and wishing away your life🤷‍♀️
appreciate you have a mum. Yes she isn’t the mum you’d have requested on an order but you may not be the daughter she wanted - has that ever occurred to you?

I know this may seem entitled.
No, I don't think it does. It's completely normal to want a proper family where you can rely on your parents for things. And where they can rely on you, too. That's what families are and do.

How do I let go of this unrealistic expectation?
By accepting that your mother just isn't maternal, and that mothering was never her calling or her interest. She did the best she could with what she had, but now that you're adults she probably sees this season of her life as a time where she can live a bit more authetically according to her own wants and needs. It's understandable from her perspective, but I also understand why it makes you feel bad. I personally think it's shitty to bring kids into the world if you're not willing to be a parent from cradle to grave. Of course parenting changes its nature once kids reach adulthood and have families of their own, but I don't think it's right to completely check out of family life when you have chosen to birth children.

My mum is also healing from a trauma and has been in a bad way mentally for my whole life.
So this is another thing you need to tell yourself. Even if she wanted to be there for you more, she's just not in a place to be the mother you're yearning for. She clearly wants low effort from you, so stop pouring all of your energy into her. Do you have other family relations you could nurture instead? You mentioned siblings - how's your relationship with them? Spend more time with them, if you can, and you could all help and support each other the way your mother can't.

How about good friends? Friends are amazing to have, so...if there's anybody you're close to, nurture that relation more. Basically, "invest" your energy and efforts where you're likely to see a "yield" - in form of love, support and care.

If you don’t think you can raise this baby without help, or you don’t trust your own ‘village’-building capacity to acquire that help, especially if money is tight, then I think you need to think carefully about having a child. Wanting to be ‘looked after’ suggests you’ve not come to terms with the mother you actually have. Don’t imagine everyone has nurturing mothers, either. I certainly didn’t. Neither did most of my friends. We’ve all (eventually) come to terms with it, and parented very differently. I’ve become the mother I would have liked to have for my own son.

Ah, just read full thread.
You cannot afford any more therapy.
With kindness, how can you afford a baby? They are more £££ and you have to have your head straight first, not to end up in a worse position (PND, PTSD, broke, low, you name it).
Also your secondary support - MIL, dad - not available to you.
That leaves the family you made for yourself - your DP, friends and sister. Did you help her out? Will she be able to return that help?
Is your DP onboard? Has he got secure attachment himself? (Anxious/Avoidant is hell, that's why I'm probing).
Please tread carefully. Make peace with it all before it gets real xx

Truth?
Do not TTC if you feel remotely that you cannot do it alone.
Because you are going to be doing it on your own and boy, is it tough.
You will also be triggered by her emotional absence, once you have your own.
She has made it clear she is maternally ambivalent.
Nothing you can do will change that.
I'd also seek some counselling before you have your own baby. I wish I had.
Sorry to be so blunt but she's shown you who she is. You can only grieve what you didn't have and yes, it sucks.
It may be you have a DP or MIL that can help fill the gap but I still think if you are as vulnerable and fragile as you sound then a baby can wait a while.
I mean that constructively not to make you further down about the situation.
Good luck lovely 🍀

I think you have to learn how to parent yourself. Be incredibly kind to yourself, nurture and love yourself. And be at peace that your mother cannot and will not give you the love you would like. Make peace with it. I didn't have that kind of mother, and in my 20s and 30s would have loved a mother to go shopping with, afternoon tea with, that I saw my friends in warm and loving relationships. I would like to have had a mother to have fun with. But she was critical and could only cope with a viery distant relationship. I did without her, coped on my own, and it was difficult. Perhaps because I didn't learn how to love myself until only recently. i wish I had chosen a better husband (we are divirced), and valued myself more highly. However, I was lucky enough to have a daughter, who is now 18, and we have fun together. We are close and happy, and she is the better version of me. We make each other laugh, and even though I am exhausted from doing it all on my own, I have loved every second of it. Also, she was the first person who just loved me. She didn't want me to change, didn't want another mother, liked me from the first moment for who I was, and that was remarkable. And I just got on with that. I told her I loved her, I shower her with compliments, I do everything my mother didn't do. I also am looking forward to the future and being in her life. Be at peace with your mother not being the one you deserve and want. And please be good to yourself xxx PS my mother is now dead. It never got any better, and I think now that she really wasn't able for the emotional demands of a mother and daughter relationship. Oh well. Her loss.

She is never, ever going to change. Even if she becomes grandmother of the year, you’ll still sit there wondering why the fuck couldn’t she do that for me?

I would strongly recommend counselling now and especially if you are lucky enough to get pregnant.

My mum is a fundamentally crap one - everyone but her children were more interesting, and we also suffered through her serious mental health issues - and I’ve had to work hard to hold 2 truths: she didn’t have it in her to be any better, and I also had a shit childhood and I deserved better. That is REALLY hard to do without an impartial listening ear from a therapist.

Where is you dad, is he still alive or in the picture. As he is the one who has the instance for children can he be hands on and caring.

she sounds like someone who recognised she doesn’t have the capacity to be a good mum. It’s not worth setting yourself up for disappointment she is who she is. What she said is bluster about redoing life from a young age not who she is now set in her ways.

build a caring community through friends and chosen family. I don’t think your mum will be capable of what you want unfortunately

How well do you get on with your MIL?

If you have a good relationship with your sister you can hopefully be each others support system and family. I know distance can make it harder but just knowing there's someone who's in your camp and cares makes such a difference.

I saw my friend have very little engagement from her parents. It wasn't that she wanted or needed childcare but they wouldn't even come over for a cuppa .......she lived 15 mins walk away. All the while they'd be taking day trips across the country. Once each kid (they had three) turned 16 they completely disengaged. It was so weird. Her dad has gone off with another woman now but her mum isn't any closer to kids.