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.

OP, I had an emotionally abusive, narcissistic mother. A different experience to you, but the same outcome of feeling bereft of a positive mothering experience. What I found most helpful was the realisation that I didn't have to emotionally abandon myself like she did. You can be your own best parent, believe in yourself and stand up for yourself. It goes a long way to fill the void you described.

Is part of what you're feeling a recognition that now she's gone the relationship you wanted and needed will never happen? That hope has died too and that's quite tough to deal with. Give yourself time. You may not be in the best place right now to unpick those feelings, but you will be.

There is this whole false motherhood narration goes on about how they should behave, what they should do, how they should 'mother'. But the truth is we're all flawed and judged very badly for it in a way men are not.

Therapy helps you unpick it and deal with it in a way that makes it something that you can live with much easier.

My parents were abusive and neglectful and ended up with my grandparents from the age of 7. Therapy was so so so difficult as it involves poking around in old wounds to help get to a better place. It’s definitely a feel worse before you feel better scenario.

Also be kind to yourself about your grief. You are grieving the person you knew, but you’re also likely grieving the mother you wanted and hoped she’d be.

I feel for you. I think a lot of this as you say is big complicated grief and you processing that the questions you had may not be answered by the person you wanted to answer them. But be aware that the catastrophising and misplacing of anger or hurt is common - and the raw emotional pain can be unlike anything else. It is understandable to want to feel numb to it but the only way forward is through it and your therapist will help you to go through it. It is never easy to be vulnerable to others but you are doing great and she is not making the judgements you imagine. I agree with a pp that the reasons will have been what she felt was best for you but you can’t logic your way out of an emotion but with acceptance of it and feeling it you may then be able to temper the emotion with logic in time. The pain also lessens in its rawness. Keep going.

It’s a question with no good answer. Your mum did prioritise her new relationship. That is everything to do with her and nothing that reflects on you. You can still love her, remember good things, but still know and recognise that she was flawed. You can resolve to do better in your own life. My close friend was put into care when other siblings were kept. It definitely causes ongoing pain but it has also motivated him to be a really committed father.
CBT therapy is really good if you can get any access. You can’t fix it but you can manage your response, with help.
You have had a lot to deal with. Look after yourself and be kind to yourself.

I’m sorry you’re feeling this way. It’s so difficult to lose a parent even when they are still alive.

I have a similar ish situation though my mum disappeared when I was an adult. She met and married a man who she knew had been convicted of child sexual offences against his own children. She knew she could never have a relationship with my children again once I found this out. She road off into the sunset with him and we are now NC. I do get abusive messages from her every so often but I don’t expect to ever see her again.

It’s a sad sort of inexplicable pain, because parents (especially mothers) are supposed to love and protect their children on instinct. What I’ve come to accept is that this decision, as painful as it’s been for me and my dc, says something about her brokenness and how little she loves herself, and very little about me. I expect your mum didn’t feel she was good enough to give you everything you deserved. She likely doubted herself as a parent and probably went through a lot of pain herself about her choice. It sounds like she tried to make what she hoped was a good decision but not without a lot of pain on all sides.

It’s hard being a grown up but without the guidance and love of parents. We think parenting is about getting a child to 18, but it’s much more than that. It’s a lifetime and you have missed out. It’s normal for you to feel that loss. And it’s hard. But it really wasn’t your fault. This was about her and her issues and you can have compassion for that, but there was nothing you could have done to be any more perfect than you already were.

My father chose drugs over me and died when I was 19. I have always struggled with the rejection element of it. I feel for you x

I'm saying this kindly, @DismantleThePatriarchy. The only way you're ever going to process this is to 'get it out there'. There is no shame involved and I think that's what you are worrying about - don't.
I had to do something similar last year (and I spoke to several different MH counsellors who specialised in different areas). It helped. I was able to recognise why I react the way I do in stressful situations (which is all irrelevant to you). The key thing was that it helped me to understand why I am who I am, and how I work. It didn't 'fix' me, but knowing what was influencing me was massively helpful.

I think the grief you feel is less for your mother and more for the failed maternal relationship you should have had. None of that is your fault. There are all sorts of reasons why she did not move you in with her once she met and married her husband but whatever the reason the fault was with her not you. She may have not wanted to uproot you, her husband may not have been on board or she may have decided she wanted a fresh start. That all reflects badly on her but does not mean you are unlovable. Focus on self care and building up your own self esteem. Some people are selfish and really should never be parents.

OP I'm really sorry to hear about your Mum and your situation. It sounds like you're harboring a lot of negative feelings/thoughts - grief, sadness, anger, regret, loss, a sense of abandonment etc. If you don't find an outlet for those emotions/thoughts, they'll have a corrosive effect and eat away at your self-esteem and sense of well being. Counselling should provide that outlet. It's very hard exposing your insecurities to another person and it sounds like you're finding it all a bit overwhelming at present. Stick with the counselling a bit longer but if it's not helping, maybe try a different counsellor.

For the record, every baby deserves a loving, nurturing mother but unfortunately, your mother wasn't able to fulfil that role in your life. I don't know why. I could speculate, but I can't give you a definitive answer. What I do know is that it was nothing to do with you and everything to do with your mother and whatever was going on in her life at that point.

I hope you can heal that hurt child and make peace with your past. Be gentle with yourself .

Logic doesn’t dictate that at all.

Her actions show that she prioritized the stable (and loving) home that you had, over wrenching you from your grandparents.

Did you spend much time with her?

Sometimes with therapy it can feel worse before it gets better. It a wavy line of up and down dealing with emotions and sometimes you will walk away feeling down but if it continues it's worth speaking to your therapist, they may have a different approach they can take that would be more suitable for you x

Also op, are you in contact with your siblings

Hi OP

First of all, bring up to your therapist that you feel she might think something is wrong with you. It could be transference and if addressed it could actually help you in your journey.

Secondly, you might have to grieve for the fact that you didn't get the mother you needed and deserved. You'd also learn how to manage and nurture your inner child which is clearly in pain. A lot of it is about grief, acceptance and moving forward and learn to soothe the pain in a healthy way so it doesn't hold you back in life.

Good luck.

I don’t feel I should really be contributing as I grew up with my mum. However the lack of really wanting me and to be my mum has always been there. She didn’t really parent me, I was left to my own devices a lot and she always prioritised her husband too. He has encouraged this, he doesn’t seem to want to share her.

What I am trying to understand is that it wasn’t my fault, I am not unlovable. It’s an issue with her and her own childhood and her inability to truly love. Not me.

It still really really hurts though.

This is so tragic.

There is / was nothing wrong with you. You must find a therapist who will help you understand that.

You can meet your own maternal needs, with professional counseling and assistance. It sucks that as a child you were neglected but please don't let it blight the rest of your precious life.

Did you ever ask to go home? How often did you see your mother?

Do you have a good relationship with your siblings?

What did your grandparents think about her having other children whilst you stayed with them? Surely there must have been conversations between them all regarding this

First of all, bring up to your therapist that you feel she might think something is wrong with you. It could be transference and if addressed it could actually help you in your journey

Yes, I wondered that at first but it honestly isn't because I recognise I have no idea what she's thinking. I fully believe her warmth is real, I know it's just my old wounds shouting.

The thing is though: I really don't care what the therapist thinks. Does that make me a monster? She's nice, that's great but at the end of the day I want my MOTHER.

I just really want her back with a huge sense of loss that almost veers towards panic at times, and a desperate longing need that is, like I say, almost overwhelming. It is ridiculous and I am fully aware of this. It's disturbing and humiliating and really unfair on my actual mum as I was loved and well cared for.

I almost feel like I am experiencing the waves of grief of the first separation when I was a very small child a long time ago? Alongside the actual grief of bereavement? Is that possible or absurd?

I just want to stamp the former out frankly, and I have no idea how.

part of me feels she is sitting there privately feeling there must be something wrong with me.

She is not. I guarantee it. You are projecting.

how does it do me any good to voice my lowest, most humiliating, childish pain to somebody?

Because by telling our deep dark fears and pain we can start processing them and seeing them in a different way.

Being looked at with compassion makes me feel wretched, it is physically uncomfortable as if a layer of emotional skin has been removed.

Yes, compassion can feel unbearable if you are not used to it. But we all need it and need to get used to it. Because a life without it is awful.

But I think that it is common for the first year of grief to be very tough and I'm only a few months in, so...

Yes, I had a complicated relationship with both my (selfish) parents. After they died was very very tough and I felt all the negative feelings - especially after my mother died. It gets better, it does, it just takes time for you to get these feelings out and work through them.

I am sending you a hug. I think it is possible that your mum thought you were better off where you were, having stability.

Grief is tough at the best of times. It’s really bloody tough when the relationship was complicated. So many layers of grief.

My heart goes out to you, OP 💐

OP it is absolutely possible that you experience of relive the pain you felt when you were first separated from your mum. This doesn't have to be a bad thing, especially if you maybe haven't felt it like that before?

I would say hang in there and continue with therapy. Abandonment is one of the worst things a young child can experience and it is no joke to heal that.

The reason she left you with her parents is more her issue rather than your fault.

People can have weird blocks in their mind, she may have been fastidious about not having cared for you from the start, that you somehow belonged more to her parents than her. Who knows how she justified it to herself but it’s hard to sympathise with her.

I’m assuming if there was a good reason why she couldn’t have taken you than your grandparents would have told you. As it is, it’s hard to see what her motivation was apart from selfishness.

I just want to stamp the former out frankly, and I have no idea how.

I dont think it is possible. I think it is more a situation of riding them out. But I am sorry you are in this situation, and hope for good things for you in the future.

One of the hardest things to understand, yet the most helpful, is that it was never about you. Your mother was not ready to be a mother when she had you. That isn't a reflection of your worth. That was about her. You don't know if the reason she didn't take you back was because everyone felt it would be worse to take you away from where you were settled, or if she had moved on with her life and just wanted to be with her new husband. But either way, it wasn't because of you. It wouldn't have mattered if you were a different child. There wasn't anything you could have been or done to change the situation. Her decisions were about her.

But she went on to have 2 children and was a devoted and excellent mother in the conventional sense to them both. In a lovely stable marriage with her husband.

Logic dictates that I must not have been worth the effort, not like my siblings. Maybe that's not factually true, but it is an overwhelming feeling right now.

OP I'm just a stranger on the internet reading from afar. But what you've written there makes me suspect that it's not you as an individual she rejected, but rather that it was your father. And you were a permanent reminder of him. So selfishly, instead of recognising that you are not your father and she was as much a part of bringing you into this world as he was, she chose to turn her back on you.

That doesn't help to lessen the pain of not having her love, her presence and her approval. You may always have harboured a hope that one day... And now she's dead you have to come to terms with the fact that that day will never come.

Please look after yourself. You're not lesser because of your mother's actions.