Why did my mum prioritise her husband over me? Frozen in grief today

[DismantleThePatriarchy]

I just cannot wrap my head around why. I'm in my thirties and my mum died a few months ago.

She had me when she was a student and left me with her parents and then married him a few years later. He's a nice man who loved my mum a lot. She loved me a lot. But she never fought to get me back with her. She prioritised being with him.

I really miss her, I am devastated she's dead but also have this awful separete pain from not being good enough, or something?

The hurt child in me feels like she loved him more than me and it's fucking awful. Why does that happen?

The hurt is overwhelming, I can't think straight, I feel dazed by it.

Oh OP your post is heartbreaking. I think you need to try a different therapist as this one isn’t helping you.

By the sounds of things your mum prioritised her husband and that’s why she had a relationship with her other kids as they were his blood children… which is just a shitty shitty thing to do to a child. It wasn’t anything you did she was a bad mum in not prioritising you.

I have a friend, who is truly a brilliant woman who is loyal, loveable, great fun etc etc. she grew up with another family, she was given up for adoption aged two. Her birth mother went on to marry and have several other children and she didn't ever reach out for my friend even when tragedy hit her adoptive parents. They met a couple of times once my friend was an adult.
My friend couldn't stop thinking that she was somehow unlovable but I can tell you that this is not the case. Something complex went on with the birth mother which we never understood.

The failing here is entirely your mother’s. If she wasn’t prepared to be a parent, leaving you with people who could parent you was the right decision. However, it needs to be complete. Trying to claim motherhood, while not fulfilling the role leaves you feeling at loose ends. She should have stepped back and allowed your grandparents to truly take on the role of parent. They could have adopted you and proven their commitment to you as your chosen parents.

There could be countless reasons, but I guarantee none of them were that you weren't enough.

I expect it was some combination of feeling she didn't deserve you after abandoning you, believing you were better off with GPs and possibly some pressure from GPs who didn't want to give you up. It's far more likely to be that she didn't think she was good enough than that you weren't good enough. ❤️

This. I’m so sorry for your loss, OP. This must be terribly hard in all kinds of ways.

There is good, healthy pain and there is bad, destructive pain.

It's like exercise. Some pain you run through and get fitter, some you rest and ice it. Counselling is painful. But it's working through something to a better place. Some isn't. And it's difficult to know which is which. Is your counsellor very well rated? Qualified? Do you believe she has your back? Even if it hurts, it can help.

I used to work in treatment and people would throw things, scream, hate us with every fibre of their being. But after 6 weeks, they were on a better road. I don't know if you are. But therapy can get worse before it gets better.

I’m sorry OP, being separated from your mum is a really difficult thing.

No one can tell you for sure, but I think it’s likely that she loved you too much to uproot you from the only home you’d ever known. Not having you with her could have been the walk through fire type of love you are yearning for, if she thought staying with your grandparents was the best thing for you .

I completely understand why you’d feel this way but I’m wondering if your mum thought it was in your best interests to keep you with the people that raised you, rather than uproot you.

Did she make an effort to see you and be a part of your life?
I think this is more important than whether you lived with her or not.

You ask how can therapy help but if you look at your posts you are asking a lot of questions that you need answers to. You are trying to make sense of your feelings. That is how therapy can help. It can help validate your feelings of abandonment. It can help you recognise that you did not bear any responsibility for your Mum leaving you with grandparents. It can help you Perhaps reach a level of acceptance if not forgiveness for your mother.

This is really revealing. "The therapist is nice but part of me feels she is sitting there privately feeling there must be something wrong with me. Because I failed to trigger unconditional love in my mother that would walk through fire rather than be separated."

If you felt brave or trusting enough, this would be really worth talking to your therapist about. You are taking responsibility for your mother's decision and you have a 'not good enough ' conclusion about yourself. Compassion and understanding will help you love yourself and be that parent to yourself that your parent couldn't be so you can heal.

Grief is hard. Anger is part of it.

Op I don't have personal experience in this but I am the child of a woman who experienced very similar to what you've described.

Except, my grandmother is still alive. Recently something happened triggering my mum to go nc & from what she has said I gather she went through similar feelings of grief and a lot of the issues came back up.

You're both grieving the mother you have lost, the mother you wish she had been and I suppose, the mother you never had. All the memories your siblings have that you don't, the division it causes in families is horrendous.

I recently attended my grandmothers birthday and discovered she loved a very very famous group. All my cousins new this and sang along. So it's carried on in next generation because the same closeness doesnt exist as a result of the separation- not living together etc. it still hurts my mum, every time the smallest things are mentioned I can see the hurt.

I'm sorry for your loss op, wish you well

Also with counselling, lots of people find it harder around the 4-6 week mark and deteriorate a little as they go deeper.

I'm sorry for such a long waffley reply I'm not sure I've made any sense but:

I think the therapist is pretty good actually. I don't think the problem is her at all. I see her through an organisation that helps adults who were adopted, as although I wasn't adopted they said my situation fell within their remit.

One of the best things about the therapy there is I just feel like the therapist 'gets' it when it comes to complex family dynamics. That is really valuable.

I just hate my pain being visible to anyone, as it seems like it amplifies it somehow.

My nephew lives with my MIL (SIL was a teenage mother, who was on various drugs, and her ex (nephew's father) ended up in prison for attempting to murder her)

She managed to change her life around, and I do think nephew was better being left with MIL while she did that (originally nephew lived with both of them) she later married and had two more children - while she sees her son MIL wouldn't give up custody and convinced her it was better to leave him with her - I'm not convinced that it's the right thing - however I also know she wanted her son back (want to say he was about 5 or 6 when she was clean and not worried about relapsing had moved hundreds of miles away from the area she was in when she was at her lowest)- not sure if he knows she wanted him to live with her, because she was worried if she tried too hard then MIL would either stop her seeing him or get social services involved over her younger children (she did threaten it) - there is a reason my husband and his brother don't speak to her

Just to give a potential other side of the story

I know what you mean, my mum met a man and left her 4 daughters in care, we were already in care when she started her relationship but social services asked her was she taking us back and she said no. I find it hard sometime but I do love her.

Sorry if I'm being thick. Is the man she married also your bio dad? Have you ever asked him why you didn't move in with them once they were settled?

You sound in terrible pain. I agree you need to find another therapist as this is complicated grief.
I think you need to stand back and look at the situation as an adult outsider. A woman has a child. She places this child with her parents, who look after that child well. As an adult outsider would you believe that there was something "not enough" about the child that precipitated this decision? The woman goes on to marry and have more children in that relationship and beings them up. Again do you think this is the child's fault? Without further evidence it would appear that the woman is at the very least thoughtless and potentially breathtakingly selfish. Yet, you love her and she's now gone, and the questions are unanswered, the issue unresolved. But looking at it from the viewpoint of your inner child where you are seeking answers as to why you are not worthy is perhaps a way to not lay the blame at your Mother's door, because you did love her, and it feels maybe disloyal to feel angry after she has gone?
A good therapist will help you to separate the two issues and develop a narrative that you can live with. My heart goes out to you OP, a child who had no control over the situation but you were still big hearted enough to love your Mother despite her behaviour, and that really is evidence that no, it wasn't you. Take care.

After just a year, it would have been very likely, had your grandparents resisted a request, that a court would have ordered that you stayed with them.

There may be many things that went on which you were not told about. You may have been told untruths. She may have been convinced by your parents that she would have harmed you by taking you away from them, that there was no way she would get you back and if she did try or ever told you about it, they would do everything in their power to make sure she lost you completely.

My mother did that to my sister - well, she did until her boyfriend's Mum realised what was being threatened and offered her a safe place to hide until they could get married the following Saturday (and then a home for as long as they needed). When my mother spoke about it in later years, her regrets were 'not getting her to sign her over permanently before she was 18' and 'letting her take my baby out for a walk'. Had my sister trusted her initial 'you go back to work, you go and study, I'll look after the baby for you' for three years, there is no way she would have ever had her child back.

This may not be the case for you - but it could have been. My niece doesn't know any of this and my sister took the truth (and the version I heard from my mother was horrific, leading me to run away from home the moment I realised I was pregnant as she intended the same for me) to her grave.

Therapy, OP. A similar upbringing here, it hurts me too, that I was never enough. Lots of perfectionist issues and self esteem problems! Sending 💕

You mum was a human with flaws and shortcomings. She let you down. That wasn't your fault and she shouldn't have. That hurts. You're doing well to talk about how your grief is bringing up your childhood emotions and feelings. Perfectly normal. Why would you want to suppress something that any person would feel? I'm surprised you're not angry at her. Out parents let us down sometimes. It's not our failing, it's theirs. It's sad but it's not a reflection on us. I'm really sorry for your loss.

Have you ever talked to your siblings ? Can they shine any light on her feelings?

No she met her husband when I was 3.

I could never ask him that. The idea of asking him anything like that makes me deeply uncomfortable. We get on very well in person when life throws us into a situation together, but realistically have no relationship.

For context, he hasn't called or sent a text since I left after my mum's funeral a few months ago. I've sent one text to check in and called once to make sure he's ok, but I'm really withdrawing from even that. Right now I never want to see him again. Obviously, that's a knee jerk response to how I'm feeling, it will pass I'm sure.

We just couldn't have a conversation like that, though.

Op you were a child. It wasn’t you. Your mother obviously wasn’t mature enough to look after you. She didn’t know what she was doing.

You clearly feel a lot of shame. But no one would truly ever believe a child deserved to be “left” by their mother.

All of her reasons are to do with her, not you. None of us can second guess her reasons, and I’m sorry it’s all so unresolved now that she’s passed away, that must be very heavy to wak around with

No child is unlovable, which includes you.

I read somewhere that the root of our self confidence can lie in how much we felt we wouldn’t be rejected, shamed or humiliated by our parents. So my heart bleeds for the little girl you were and the woman you are now too as you have really suffered.

Keep going with the therapy. You deserve this help. And yes it is very early days. Simple grief is confusing enough, complex grief is a whole other ball game.

Hang in there🌻

I just hate my pain being visible to anyone, as it seems like it amplifies it somehow.

Yes, that's the process. Sorry. You have to walk through the fire. The theory being that suppression and denial are harmful.

However, you can actually choose not to process things. Or choose when to process things.

If you do though, sometimes it leaks out in substance use, poor relationships and MH issues. If that's happening you may have to do the work now.

Maybe she loved you so much that she let you go and allowed you to live a stable life with your grandparents who loved you and had been your family.
I'm so sorry OP

I don't think it's that unusual for this sort of thing to happen, where circumstances or behaviours of the parent lead to them giving up a child and then effectively creating a second "perfect" family later on when they've sorted their lives out. It's as if they think they've fucked this up so badly they don't try to go back and fix it with the child, but instead try to do it right with the second family.

It's not about you not being good enough or anything you did, it was about her.

If your mum met her husband when you were three, I guess, as others have said, she didn’t want to uproot you.

Alternatively, maybe your grandparents didn’t want to let you go.