To try to reconnect with my mother....

[DumbestBlonde]

I haven't seen her for amost exactly six years. She will be 79 on 9/9.
The last time we saw each other, she was quite awful to me, but I really never thought it would be the last time.
I spoke to her the following year, and she started saying the same things again, so I "gave up".
I think she now lives in a granny flat alongside her favourite daughter and her wife, but no longer at the same address that I knew. I don't have a phone number either. Which says it all really, I know.
I don't even really know what I would hope for, and I would never want to annoy her, which I think I do.

There probably isn't any point, maybe I am just a masochist.

(The backstory is that I didn't actually meet her until I was 16, although I iived with her until I three, I believe. It was never easy, due to the big gap during the formative years, and her expectation that I would "just fit in" with the established family she then had, even though I was only visiting - and she had trained my sister to hate me on sight.)

Please don't. It will only end in heartache for you. Without being awful she presumably could contact you if she wanted and hasn't. Do not put yourself through it.

@lazyarse123

Please don't. It will only end in heartache for you. Without being awful she presumably could contact you if she wanted and hasn't. Do not put yourself through it.

You aren't being awful; she never has - since that year (I don't think she has died.....), including no contact at Christmas or on birthdays {she usually did before). So yes, she could - but doesn't. I am silly and sentimental to want to try.

You are wanting her to be something she isn’t - a normal loving mother. Believe me I understand. My parents are millionaires and they taught us all (siblings) to hate the others and rotate their love around. Golden older sister - now hated and not spoken to - was me for a year- now it’s my brother. Viscous falling outs each time and they go NC and when you reach out wanting a normal relationship they breadcrumb. And so on.

Do you have your own children? Why did you leave her at 3? Her choice ? Your father’s ? Counselling will make you see your inner children is craving normal love. But they can’t do normal. You will never get unconditional love and you will rejected over and over again

I real feel for you, nc with my mother too. I went through a phase of this but glad I didnt get in touch now. What do you hope to get from contact? You know its going to be the same old shit, right?

My advice is not to bother, I really doubt anything will have changed. It sounds like it was very traumatic for you as a child & she didn't help & minimised your feelings.
I've tried reaching out to my dm so often & honestly nothing changes. But still we hope.
A pp mentioned the breadcrumbs effect. You're worth more than that.
It isn't worth the upset, I see my dm as little as possible & if it wasn't for the sake of my poor dsis I wouldn't bother at all.

@OmgIcantbelieveshedidit
Oh, I feel for you.... it is a horrible thing to happen, and destroying the sibling relationships too; a classic divide and rule move, I think.
Oh - breadcrumbs! Yes, I know (or knew - don't even get that now) - that feeling.

I was an unintended and unwanted pregnancy, even though the DID marry. They were very young, and 100% unsuited. My father* - in an attempt to control I think (and also to keep me out of foster/children's home...) - applied for/got custody, but I think there was a condition that his parents were heavilty involved - so he set off on a new life, free of encumberances (my sister had also been born, but stayed with my mother; also a brother born after my father gone - he was adopted out of the incubator) - and I saw him a few times a year, but never saw her again - apart from stopping me in town one day when I was about 12) - until she wrote to me "out of the blue" as part of an awful perfect storm when I was 16.

My own (only) daughter is her Daddy's child. (33 now, happily married, and sucessful x)

*(My father has been written about also on here, I am sorry to say. I think I might have mentioned my mother, but it all gets too complicated for people to read, and I don't like to overload.... )

@Foxmylife

I real feel for you, nc with my mother too. I went through a phase of this but glad I didnt get in touch now. What do you hope to get from contact? You know its going to be the same old shit, right?

You ae stronger than I am...... I wonder if the fact that there was a gap makes me need to fix things, more than if there hadn't been. My sister, who lived with her, says and does awful things - but they still have arelationship (I think), and fall out and make up. (She and I have only ever had a very fragile relationship, so the last time I saw her was 2016, and before that 2008.....) There seems no chance of that for me. The bond was never really created. Yes - it would be the same old shit, different year

I'm so sorry for all of this, op. Your mother will never be the mum you deserve. I think you should leave her firmly in your past. Seek out therapy if you think it would help.

@TopTabby

My advice is not to bother, I really doubt anything will have changed. It sounds like it was very traumatic for you as a child & she didn't help & minimised your feelings. I've tried reaching out to my dm so often & honestly nothing changes. But still we hope. A pp mentioned the breadcrumbs effect. You're worth more than that. It isn't worth the upset, I see my dm as little as possible & if it wasn't for the sake of my poor dsis I wouldn't bother at all.

You are correct - alhough I wish it could be just "not to bother" - it is something that is so much harder, even though it is really to do nothing at all in fact. I can't actually DO much anyway, not knowing where she is.

With both of them (M & F - separately), I have had to beg for scraps; forever, it seems. I never thought I would reach this stage of my life, and still feel this way