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.

I guarantee your therapist isn’t thinking this. You are projecting your feelings onto the therapist here.

Sometimes the best breakthroughs in therapy come when you tell your therapist how you feel.

Would you feel comfortable enough to tell them you think that’s what they must be thinking?

And as I think you are expecting too much from yourself. This isn’t something that will be healed overnight. Try to be gentle. What would you tell your friend if she were in the same situation?

Many healthy families have a situation where the spouses' first love is to each other. So, that is not weird.
The odd thing you had to bear was that your mother didn't come back to involve you.
What could her reasons be?
Never would it be that you were not worthy.

She might have thought living with your grandparents was best. (Could her parents have pushed that agenda due to their love for you?)
Her relationship with your father might have been troubled and triggering.
Do you know your father? Can you research about your mother's feelings by speaking with her siblings, husband, friends at the time. Getting to know her is one of your aims so delving into her through others might be interesting and, logically, the only way now.
You could write a book or create a collection for your self about your mother.
Maybe, if you find your father was an okay person, you could get to know him too.
Do you have siblings who you could meet to find extra conection to your parents?

I guarantee your therapist isn’t thinking this. You are projecting your feelings onto the therapist here.

Yes, I agree I am. So I recognise that.

Would there be any point discussing it with her since I know I'm doing it?

She's nice. I pretty much believe that she does the non-judgmental unconditional positive regard.

Honestly, I feel like I don't really care what the therapist thinks. While at the same time sitting there steeped in shame at my pain being visible.

For therapy to work best do I have to form a bond or attachment to the therapist where I really care a lot about what they think?

How old was she when she had you, how old was she when she re-married, and how quickly was she pregnant in the new marriage?

I’m taking a total stab in the dark here OP, but could your mum’s new husband have been a factor? Obviously she made the choice to give your care over to her parents before she met him, which is why I ask how old she was. I ask about him because many men of that generation are (a) capable of wielding a lot of power and influence over the women in their lives without much repercussion, (b) very protective over their own resources if they are the main earner, as they see everything in the house as ‘theirs’, and (c) pretty clueless about kids, only just managing to do the basics when they have their own, because they have to. If your mum wasn’t brilliant at standing up for herself (and remember how coercive some men can be, and how women of that generation were trained to kowtow to them) then he might have made the idea seem out of the question for her.

I feel very invasive making all those assumptions, and of course I could be way off, so I’m sorry if that’s just nowhere near the truth.

None of it has a shred of bearing on how worthy a person you are. Adulthood is sadly not a selective qualification - people reach it automatically by living long enough. You only have to skim the headlines to see examples of adults failing in their basic duties to children, and far worse than that. Of course those children, if they survive, have their sense of self-worth shaken. Children define themselves by their parents’ attitude to them - including those whose parents overcompensate with material goods, or who think their child can do no wrong, who raise entitled little shits who think far too much of themselves! But as adults, thankfully, we can break out of that.

An interesting exercise: imagine a very small, very vulnerable child, who has the key personality traits you had as a child, but is not actually you. Imagine you’re alone with that child, and tell them that there’s something fundamentally wrong with them. That nobody can love them, etc. Insult them like you insult yourself in your mind. Imagine them believing you completely. Watch their reaction.

Do they deserve it? Is it true? What do you find yourself wanting to do?

DH was the 4th child his bio mother birthed, and he was put up for adoption as a newborn but was named by her. She went on to have 2 or 3 more children, and married DH's bio father. He was adopted to another family.

When I met DH, friends had made efforts to contact his bio M with small success. She is still alive but says it wasn't her but her sister who birthed DH. Older half siblings/aunt/uncle clearly remember her leaving for hospital.

From what we can find out, she isn't a very nice woman, is manipulative and has the remaining (adult) children absolutely terrified of her.

So I have a little bit of insight how you are feeling.

There's no easy answer, or answer at all really. Had your Mum been alive, if you had asked her, you still might not have received ''the right answer''.

Your Grandparents might well have their own theories but to protect you, might have glossed over some of your Mother's less positive characteristics.

I also have a friend up the road who admits she doesn't have a maternal bone in her body and thought things would change when she gave birth. It didn't and her son grew up with his Dad, she rarely sees him.

I don't know how all of that sits with you, and if its enough or not, but please be 100% sure it was nothing to do with you or the little person you were.

This was something well out of your doing... and growing up with your grandparents was most likely the very best way for you. Try and park it up for a while and find joy in your life, one day you may very well have your own little family unit, and I hope it brings you some peace and love to have your own family, as it did for my DH to have ours.

Do you know who your birth father was OP? As a previous poster said, your mother’s attitude to you could be very much linked with who your father was and how he treated her.

My mother was deeply in love with my father and never got over the fact he rejected her and didn’t want to marry her when she found out she was pregnant with me. Her bitterness towards him and paradoxical longing for him meant her behaviour towards me was a nightmare and I had a chaotic, dysfunctional childhood with no unconditional love. As a result I turned to my grandparents and left home as a teenager. I’ve been no-contact with my mother for decades. She married another man and had two children with him and both of those children were treated differently to me although they paid a price for that too.

I’ve learnt that none of this was my fault, no matter how much she tries to blame me. She created a self-fulfilling prophecy where I ‘abandoned’ her like my father because she made my life a misery and I realised I’d be happier living with people who actually loved me. She has done awful things over the years but I know this is because of a lack in her, not me. It can be really painful to get through these things but it can be done. We aren’t our mothers and I work every day to be a better and more functional person than she is.

There are some insightful replies here OP, I hope you are finding some of the advice useful 💐

“For therapy to work best do I have to form a bond or attachment to the therapist where I really care a lot about what they think?”

To answer this bit - no you don’t need to care a lot about what they think, but it will help if you are open to hearing what they have to say. You don’t have to accept everything they say or ‘care’ on an emotional level about them, just be willing to g along with the sessions and see it they can help you.

The therapist is not judging you and the process isn’t about her knowing more or knowing better than you. Your description of ‘caring what she thinks’ reminds me of a teacher-pupil dynamic, I remember caring about what some teachers thought, and others not so much. Therapy is not like that though, it’s about having somebody completely neutral and uninvolved in your life who will listen to you as you sort through your thoughts. She is not senior to you.

I guarantee the therapist is not judging you, OP. But it would help her to help you if she knew this, even though you’re self aware about it. Could you bear to show her what you’ve written? If not, perhaps another therapist could establish better communication with you.

I’m full of sympathy for you. The loss of a parent hits so hard, for a long time, and much harder where there are unresolved issues - and this is a mountain of an issue.

This isn't about there being anything wrong with you, so please put that from your mind along with thoughts that your therapist thinks similarly.

While your mum prioritised her husband, she was actually prioritising her own needs just as much, if not more. She was selfish. It's that simple.

Please don't torture yourself that it's all on you, it really really isn't. You need to learn to let these feelings go and free yourself completely.

Wishing you all the best.

I think that’s garbage.
I know a very young Grandmother who had to bring up her Grandson, when her 16 year old daughter became pregnant, and felt too young to have a baby.
The child loves his grandmother, and the daughter now has a family and child, separately, the first child didn’t want to leave his grandparents, and their daughter realised it would be really unfair on him.
They see each other, but he loves his grandparents. And there has been lots of effort made to be fair to all, in the family, and this works for them.

It's incredible how people who bring children into the world can seemingly walk away from them without looking back and go on to live a happy "new" life that they create for themselves. Like the children are just accessories they don't need anymore because they can go on and have other new ones.

It's very hurtful @DismantleThePatriarchy I don't have any answer or short cut to happiness in all honesty. All you can do is try to get to a time when you have the strength to say that you don't need a mother anymore because you're enough as you are, a functioning independent person in your own right. Whether that takes therapy or being able to reconcile it in your own mind depends on how you personally can deal with it. Fill your life with your own goals and dreams, so there's no space for those unhappy thoughts - you have but one life and you can get through this, it will take time though, you can't unfortunately quicken that painful journey.

Has your mum recently died? I ask because you post only mentions her. What relationship do you have with your dad? Do you feel he prioritised your mum?
As others have said, their decision really wasn't about you personally, it was about a baby in general. Despite what people might believe it's not a given that a parent will have automatic unconditional love for a baby. Yes, many do feel this way, women in particular, but there are many that don't.
Your parents did build a bond with you though and that love was real. Do you have other people you love? I do, but I don't want to live with any of them. Does that make me selfish?

You are allowed to just feel sad & grieve for the relationship you wish that you had with your mum op.

The right therapist won't be a magic pill. Therapy is a process. It will take time. You are working on a whole lifetime of feelings.

You are completely loveable and your mum made the mistakes. Not you.
Be kind to yourself.

I’m so sorry, OP.

There but for the grace of God go any of us. What I mean is, it’s sheer blind luck as to where the stork drops us off - some of us get delivered to loving families, and some of us do not.

We have zero control over that. Some humans do not make good parents. This is 100% on them, on their failings, on their maturity (or lack of), on their own upbringing, their mental health - a myriad other things.

But it’s on them. Not on the innocent baby who has no choice or say in who they land up with.

You haven’t done anything wrong. Your mother’s failings were never about you. They were about her.

You were ‘just’ the collateral damage that came with being born to a person who was only ever going to be a deficient, sub-standard parent due to her own flaws and selfishness. And I don’t use ‘deficient’ and ‘sub-standard’ pejoratively to be unkind about your Mum, I mean them purely descriptively - her parenting was lacking (deficient) and not good enough (sub-standard).

She shouldn’t have had a child because she wasn’t good enough to do the job justice. But … she did.

And of course you leaned in to your grandmother. Your mother didn’t give you any choice.

This is all on her.

Oh OP this is a lot to grapple with.

You seem really smart and articulate - you might find journalling helpful to surface and then organise your thoughts - I do it a lot.

My theory on why therapy helps - it’s a bit like having a huge tangle in your hair. You can try to ignore it but it just gets worse and worse. Combing it out hurts and takes time, but it’s the only way out.

A bit like “we’re going on a bear hunt” - we can’t go round it, we can’t go under it, we’ll have to go through it.

@FloralVelvet

Nice story, but it hasn't really panned out like that for the OP, has it? I'm guessing she had no choice about where she lived.

I am sorry OP.

was she just selfish but at least knew it and that your grandparents could give you a better life? That must be incredibly hard to hear but it might be as simple as that. Some people are too selfish to be parents.

if you can make peace with it and let that terrible hurt go, it will heal you. Can you forgive her? Humans make terrible terrible decisions. Parents do awful things. If we are to have any peace as we age we should try to find acceptance and forgive.

i find EFT helpful

My Mum left me when I was 4. Her reasons were that as she was remarrying she wouldn't have been able to raise me, I used to see her monthly an idolised her as a child

As an adult I couldn't forgive her and have cut all contact. I managed to try and not let it affect me but it still hurts.

However I have a DH of 40+ years and until her death had a wonderful MIL as well as 3 adult children

I understand the longing for the mother daughter dynamic.
I never had it either
nor the father daughter one
I was no body’s apple of their eye
im 50:and both situations with both parents damaged me irreparably.
it’s at the bottom of all my problems when you scratch the surface.
I get through it by thinking they can’t cause me any more hurt now
if you can find the money definitely some counselling

One’s relationship with one’s therapist (saying one rather than your as it is people in general, not your thing) throws up stuff relating to one’s mother. And in your case probably your grandmother too, as she took on the role of your mother.

You were not well parented (by your mother) so you will need to parent yourself. Have compassion for yourself. Of course you went to your grandma when in need of comfort. What else would you have done? You acted as children act in the position you were in. You are bargaining - if I had done this, that might have happened.

I think it would help to ask your grandparents what their assessment was of why what happened, happened - to help you to make sense of it. It could be that your mother wanted to give you up for adoption and your grandparents said they would have you instead. It could be that your stepfather didn’t want to take on an additional child. None of the options are super, but what they have in common is that none of them reflect on you, personally. They are not about your value. They are about the other person.

Therapists are trained to expect the feelings a client transfers onto them, and knowing what they are can be useful. The best thing you can do is discuss it with her. Given her specialism, she will probably have had this a lot

I'm really sorry this happened OP. Could it be your grandparents fought to keep you? For stability?

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 think it is not only possible but quite likely. The grief for that first separation has probably always been there but as long as your mother was alive you thought you could work towards resolving that pain, possibly by building your relationship with your mother and/or finding out enough about her circumstances when you were a child to help you understand the choices she made. She's no longer here to play a part in that process so you are left to try to work it out by yourself which may feel like another abandonment.

So it feels like I have brought this on myself. We detached from each other and I can see why I would have done that as a very small person, but I desperately regret doing what I did.

Be kinder to yourself, you were a child who did not have the skills to process some very complex emotions and did the best you could with what you has at the time. You did not bring this on yourself.

I agree with a PP you seem very perceptive and self aware and I think you are doing well processing what has happened. Grief is difficult and confusing, it raises all sorts of difficult and sometimes conflicting emotions and it catches you by surprise. You can be going about your day feeling OK and suddenly find yourself floored and overwhelmed by it but it does get better, you know it gets better but it is still early days.

I would think the most likely explanation is that she felt you were settled with your grandparents and it would be disruptive to move you

It's a hard situation

My grandparents are dead.

Yes, my grandmother wanted to keep me and said it would be better for me to stay with her, and I didn't know this until I was almost 30 and it was very difficult to process.

My mother didn't fight to have me with her. I don't know why and maybe it was practically for the best, but I just wish things had been different.