Emotionally unavailable mothers - can you ever accept it?

[Motherlessagain]

I’m constantly grieving the fact that my mother is and always has been emotionally unavailable. As a child there was never any physical love or affection, in fact she recently told me that I “hated cuddles” which is not true at all she just never cuddled me!

I remember being about 10 or 11 sitting in my room crying over some maths homework and knowing there was no one I could ask for help or advice or to just talk it through with even though my mother was right next door.

She made sure I was fed and clothed but that was it. Now I’m older and have children of my own I just can’t get over how terrible a mother she was. Always bringing strange men home, going out at night and leaving me alone, once talking about pretending the baby she was pregnant with was mine (I was 13 😮) luckily she had a termination.

I see her maybe once a week and it’s so unsatisfying. I am going through some stressful stuff right now and just wanted to talk about it. As soon as I tried she shut me down telling me her life was more stressful. She’s always been like this. When I was exhausted from no sleep with a sick child I. Intensive care apparently she was more tired than me.

I’m so desperately sad I haven’t got the mother I deserved. I see my friends with their loving and supportive mothers and I’m stuck with her. It’s so unfair and I can’t seem to get over the unfairness.

I've reframed my experience into 'she couldn't give what she didn't know how to give.' I think that my mother parented the way she was parented - and GM wasn't exactly the cuddly sort. I think as well there was childhood trauma - war, evacuation when she was 8 and not knowing if she'd ever see her parents again - and made worse by DF dying when we were children. I've discussed this with one DB and we agreed that when he died she shut her emotions down completely, even towards her children. I learned very early that there was no point hoping for cosy mum/daughter chats or shopping trips or any sort of support, so didn't tell her stuff. Sometimes I feel that I brought myself up.

She did what she had to do. We were fed, clothed, housed, educated. I just don't think she had the bandwidth for anything else.

Dr Jonice Webb has written extensively about this, might be worth having a look?

💯 this excellent post.

I had two similar parents. It was difficult but they would have had similar or worse. I chased my mother’s input as an adult and then something Earth shattering happened and the scales came off my eyes about how emotionally neglectful and needy my parents were and I ended up going NC. It took years getting over what they did but I have moved on.

Really you have to change to manage unhealthy relationships. You learn to give yourself what you need and don’t seek it from people who can’t give it and keep the interaction to a level you can deal with. There is a lot of grief that goes with it. It is very sad.

My grandmother was an awful parent and I guess this is where my mother learnt it. However I broke the cycle with my own kids so why couldn’t my mother with me?

It is obvious to me that children need love and support not just clothes and food so why isn’t it obvious to all these emotionally unavailable mothers out there??

Its really rough OP. I have a very similar experience. She always plays the victim. So if something good happens for me, her life is particularly awful. If something bad happens to me, things are worse for her. Even when my dad died (her ex husband) she had such an enormous 'crisis' to demonstrate that things were way worse for her and she needed my attention - never asked me how I was feeling .
Its really tough. I find Pete Walker, Out of the Fog website and googling covert narcissist mother particularly comforting at times. Also grey rock. Hope you find ways to protect yourself. Im finding it getting worse as she gets older.

All of the previous replies are exactly bang on. You need to be kind to yourself. Reduce your expectations, and read or go to therapy to help with the loss of the relationship you should have had.
I would personally reduce or get rid of the once a week visit, a phone call should do, keep it very surface level.
It's very sad but you are not alone in this.

There's some excellent advice here already but I wanted to say you are not alone in your feeling of unfairness and wanting, even as an adult yourself, to be mothered. I would so desperately like to have this! I think that those of us who don't have it from our actual mothers need to look elsewhere. Can you articulate what you need (advice/unconditional support etc) and think about where else to find it? You may have to ask, quite unsubtly, and spread your needs out amongst lots of people, and get some of it from yourself. But it's healthy to acknowledge that you need some TLC and to ask for it.

Not everyone has the same personality or temperament I guess. Personally I think it is a gift getting the type of personality that allows you to break the cycle, but there is absolutely no thanks for it, your kids just experience being parented in the only way they know, your family resent that you are holding a mirror up to their way by doing things differently if they aren’t cycle breakers and can’t see the problem. It is worth it though.

I had a hard time accepting that other people wouldn’t want to make the changes necessary to them to provide for their children’s emotional development but they honestly cannot see the problem and are doing the best they can with what they have. I have a family member who has no children but absolutely sees the issues and has very deep awareness but even she cannot even make the changes necessary to protect herself not to mind if she had children. There is a price to pay if you don’t make changes to your environment and your culture and beliefs if they are damaging but that type of change is very difficult.

Perhaps she did break the cycle in some ways - for example, not being violently abusive if her mother was?

If that was the case, then her managing to not do that actually gave you the mental space and safety to further move away from your grandmother's environment - after all, to go from all you've known to then not respond to a child or any random frustrations by beating the crap out of a kid would be a pretty massive thing? She could have been telling herself that it was obvious to her that children to not be punched or beaten and need clothes and food, so why wasn't it obvious to her mother.

See, the thing is I don't miss the support because I never had it. I come on here and I read about the lovely mums and lovely grandparents and I get a bit of envy, but that's about it. DM went to live in Australia back in the late 80s, and someone asked me if I'd miss her. I said I would, but as I said to DB, how do you miss what you never had?

Ironically at the very end of her life she became the mother I always wanted, so it was in there somewhere; which is a shame, but there you are. I no longer hanker after what I didn't have, I make my peace with what I did have; which wasn't always cold and distant. Before DF died she was a SAHM, baked for us, made our clothes, cared for us - I always associate feeling safe with coming home and smelling freshly ironed sheets when she'd been ironing after lunch.

She tried. I just think she didn't know how. I feel a vast compassion for her.

Don't get me started on her mother, though.

My DM is the same and also had same type of (emotionally neglectful parenting herself.

Why could I break the cycle and not my mother? Social change is why. My DM (and DF who was awful too) did not have any, zip, no, concept of

Attachment as a concept
Emotional needs versus physical needs
Neurodiversity
Maslows hierarchy
Listening, empathy, child-cantered anything!
Therapeutic and counselling models etc etc
Trauma, generational trauma

We parented in a world so totally different from theirs. It's taken me decades to "forgive" my mum who tbh at least now sees and sorrows for her emotional constipation which has affected her whole life. She envies my ability to have friends, fun, support.

My mother is the same but I deal with it by not being in contact with her. Your pain will always be there because every week you are faced with seeing her and being reminded of that fact. Are you an only child? My mum is the same with all of us so I know it's not personal and not seeing her means that I never hope for her to change. I have not relied on her since I was 19 and she's never met my kids so they are unaffected by her coldness. This was how I ended the cycle of abuse.

Mine is the same however I realised she gave what she was capable of. She had a horrible nasty divorce from my dad and she was working and juggling

I think she had depression

She's in her 80s now. So different with her grandchildren

I dint hold anything against her. She gave what she could. I was warm , clothed, fed and loved in her own way. But I can't remember her ever cuddling me

If you could afford therapy - why a qualified psychologist who specializes in family dynamic therapy that’s probably well worth it. Not a counsellor you need a properly qualified psychologist.

Haven't you simply reversed it? You're doing to your mother the same cold emotional neglect thing, that she did to you as a child, in a way. What are you actually showing your kids? That they don't need to be with people who aren't xyz? Maybe that's good, I don't know. I just feel sad that "breaking the cycle" seems to mean accepting coldness and withdrawal and punishing is a legitimate way of responding to pain and suffering.

I think she had depression

SIL (health professional) came to the same conclusion about my mother and I agree with her. Self-medication with alcohol didn't help 🙄

I just feel sad that "breaking the cycle" seems to mean accepting coldness and withdrawal and punishing is a legitimate way of responding to pain and suffering.

This is such a terrible statement but it is also so true. I absolutely found I had to withdraw from my parent’s pain and suffering because they were damaging me which in turn was damaging my children. There was ongoing sexual abuse in the family and I was one of the victims. The other victim has been able to make her peace with my parents but as far as I can see she is emotionally unavailable to her own children. You cannot save everyone.

It helped when I stopped constantly asking myself why did she do this? Why wasn’t I enough?
I found out after her death (from the one close friendship she managed) that she had had a loving relationship with her parents but then she had been sent to boarding school aged seven, a very prestigious one on full scholarship as she was frighteningly clever - but the boarding school was on the outskirts of her village and she could see the smoke from the fire at home but was only allowed out at holiday time. It changed her. I think the coldness was in her, I see it in a couple of my children and my siblings, but her live experience in childhood affected her.
Nowadays, I accept to myself that she did what she was capable of - fed us, clothed us, ensured academic stimulation…the fact I was never, ever physically touched by her is a huge fact, and has had a huge effect on my life - but I’m now proud that I envelope my children with the love each one as an individual needs from me.
I’m lucky - I now have a very gentle, kind DP who appreciates I need holding when I do still need to grieve.

I wish I had known that about my mother before she passed away…I would say that if you can pluck up courage to talk to yours it may help you for the rest of your life. Good luck; you are so worthy of warmth.

I hadn’t seen my mother for years before she passed away. My sister chose to see her weekly. Are you seeing yours OP at an amount that is best for you personally, do you think?

It helped when I stopped constantly asking myself why did she do this? Why wasn’t I enough?

All my life I've been asking myself, is it me? what's wrong with me that even my mother couldn't be affectionate with me? and I just stopped after a while because it's futile. One day I told myself, maybe it's not you. Maybe it was her; and that was the start of reframing my experiences. NGL, there have been tears and a wish that things had been different and a lot of self-examination and reflection the last couple of years.

There are some lovely posts on this thread.

My contribution is to 'be' that mother to the OP and say how sorry I am that she has been through this, how sad she must feel and how difficult it is to have been dealt these cards in life - and how much starker it is as a reality when you are a mum yourself and you give the love to your children that you never received yourself. That just makes it hurts all the more.

I am so sorry to hear this xxxxx

Me, I had a terrible mother who was a victim of generational trauma like all the rest of the posters on this thread. I went NC when I was 23.

I then got a new mother when I was about 28 and she has been my mother ever since, I was their lodger and they just became family over the years. She has given me so much, taught me so much, we have that relationship that means so much and is healing.

It taught me that I might not have got MY mother, but the Universal Mother still provided me with another one, and in turn I now try to give that to younger people I meet who are vulnerable and need a strong feminine influence.

So, I am sorry to those who don't have mothers, and perhaps we can all find and then be that archetypal mother xxx

I had a mother like this, she was parented that way herself by my grandparents, both Barnados children who had no clue. When I had my children I tried my hardest to break the generational curse, but mostly failed. I’m not entirely sure you ever can. 😢

One of the reasons I decided not to have children. DB has admitted that his children have been affected by having parents who weren't well parented themselves.

That is beautiful @something2say

something2say Thankyou so much for your lovely kind words.

Im not an only child. Perhaps this is what makes it worse. I have a brother who my mother has supported his whole life. I think he just demands support and she gives it. Any problem no matter how minor he’s on the phone to his mummy. Whereas I had to bring myself up.

Similar as my story.
No cuddles kisses, no support.
Whilst my daughter was in intensive care she refused to come home because she was on holiday, about 2 hour drive. She eventually came 2 days after and proceeded to kick off in hospital whilst DD very ill. She was asked to leave by nurses. When i had ectopic, i was single parent, she only person to care for my child, few hours before op she came in hospital shouting at my daughter, daughter crying, just before i went down. I was fuming but worried, had to come through op, i couldn't leave my daughter with her any longer. Attention seeking narcissist.
Plays siblings off against each other. I could go on, shes nasty selfish piece of work. Im NC with her.