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.

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.

Would a 'better' child have known how to act to influence the adults into better parental behaviour though?

As I type this I don't believe that rationally, it is nonsense and directly contradicts everything about child development I have ever read.

However, I still feel I should have managed to somehow 'do better' and make it different.

It still feels like my fault. Is this like toddler narcissism, where you think you have influence over everything? I can't cope with that level of pathetic emotional immaturity in myself.

I'm honestly not this pathetic in real life. I have a wonderful partner and nice friends. I don't allow my shit to bleed into the everyday.

Oh @DismantleThePatriarchy I think I understand you exactly. My story is almost identical except my mother went on to marry my bio father and they had my sibling. My mum is now terminally ill and this has brought up lots of emotions in me. I still feel left out and that my attempts to help her are being rejected. I’ve been having therapy for a few weeks and it has really helped me to stop feeling I wasn’t good enough (I can also see this has affected other relationships in my life such as my marriage). Whilst I’m still very sad about the situation, I’m accepting that it wasn’t in my control and I’m grateful for the marvellous grandmother who showed me what love is. I don’t think you can change your feelings but I think you can learn to accept them. I hope you find the same peace.

there is a multitude of possible answers , she might have too gut you where stay or and wanted to stay , she might have been selfish and not want to deal with having to introduce you to your stepfather . The reality is either way , none if it is your fault , you were a chid , you had no power of decision and must learn to realise that . I’m in no way diminishing your pain , by the way , your feelings are very valid , but you must maybe get done help do you stop letting this rejection affect you .

I’d be surprised if you had an innate need for attachment to your mother as your attachment needs were met by your grandmother and that is human nature and psychology.

Without that secure attachment your life would have been significantly compromised.

There are many studies in this but even ducklings will adapt to a human being their main care giver and form a solid attachment to them in the process.

Going by what you have said your mother and grandmother both loved you dearly.

Also you response as a child was completely normal - you didn’t push your mother away at all you simply developed a secure attachment to your main care giver

Your siblings may well have a deeper insight into this situation- they will have asked why you were not there living? You could talk to them maybe

I really do understand how you feel, my mum ran of with her boyfriend when I was 11.
I got home to a note saying that SS would be collecting me.
Anyway I was collected 2 days later and was placed in care until I was 17.
I could never forgive her, she is in a care home now and unfortunately I can't question her to ask her why or even a sorry because she hasn't got the capacity.

It does hurt but I make sure my children will never have to go through that.

I think this would be a key thing to discuss with your therapist, as it sounds linked to attachment and trust to me. You are scared to trust her, whilst being also very aware of what (you believe) she feels about you.

Sorry you are going through this pain. It can help to think about the little you, perhaps a time when you first felt these feelings? Then think about what they needed, what they needed to hear and give that to them - from you. If that makes sense. It's about nurturing your little you, and also remembering the love you had from your mum and grandparents.

I had a similar mother op but I lived with her.
It was awful having her emotionally absent in such close proximity.

I find it helps me to visualise that small child and tell her that you will look after her now. Take care of your own inner child.

Yes, I am really quite good at taking care of myself. I am excellent at self care. Some would probably call me selfish, in fact. For example I recognise I do not have capacity right now to extend any support to my mum's husband so I simply don't do it. I don't think this makes me bad, but perhaps it does, but essentially I don't really care if it makes me 'bad' or not. I just can't do it so that's that.

But for all I'm good at self care, there's still this miserable nagging sadness and heartache. Oh well.

Again, I want to thank all of you for posting and discussing.

It's even helpful in terms of trying to work out how to broach things in therapy, so helpful in a practical way - thank you.

Perhaps you are not fully aware of the complexities of their relationship?

Would a 'better' child have known how to act to influence the adults into better parental behaviour though?

As you've said, deep down you know the answer is that you were a child and you couldn't have changed anything.

Was your conception consensual?

Was your conception consensual?

Yes. I asked several times, through adolescence and young adulthood.

This will be a controversial view, but I'm not a believer that reflecting and analysing everything is always necessary or helpful for everyone. Though obviously very helpful to some.
Sometimes the least painful and most productive thing we can do is simply striving for acceptance.
That was not what I would have wished for. It hurt me. People do not always behave in the ways we wish. There is nothing I can do to undo that and its unlikely anything anyone can say or do will remove the hurt.
But being hurt is part of life and that particular pain is my 'cross to bear'. My job now is to find a way to carry it as lightly as I can. To surround myself with people who will give me a lift when it's particularly heavy. To focus on the other things around me to distract me from the fact I have to carry it at all.
Its very early days yet OP and the more conflicted a relationship the harder grieving can be. In time most people do manage to achieve a level of peace, so hang in there.

My situation is different to yours in that I did grow up with my my mother, after we both lived with my grandparents until I was 3. She did take me with her when she met my step-dad. I did not have an abusive upbringing, but it was incredibly dysfunctional.
My father was completely out of the picture, and literally everything about him was kept from me. So much so I thought my stepdad was my actual dad until I was a teenager. At the point I found out, and was still denied any information I filled in the gaps for myself and felt utterly abandoned.
When i eventually met my father as an adult, I found out about that he had no other children of his own but had spent many years raising someone elses family.
As you well know, there are so many complexities to a life like this so I won't waffle.

What I mean to say is that I spent years in turmoil at the relationship I never had with my mother, the one I thought I should have. Same with my father.
Eventually therapy allowed me to say all of this out loud. For the child in me to vent her feelings, thoughts, emotions. For the adult in me to do the same. Yes it was painful and embarrassing. I ended up with psychotherapy because ordinary counselling wasn't enough.
Do I still feel all of this? Sometimes yes, because I am human. But sticking with therapy allowed me to feel it, acknowledge and then let it go.
Because I was holding onto it, like a hot coal and the only person it was hurting was me. You might never get answers. But you can learn to be ok with that.

I think you need to be honest with your therapist about your feelings towards her. How can she properly help when she doesn’t get the full picture?

Have you ever thought about the psychological impact there would have been if you were ripped away from your main caregiver, whom you had a strong attachment to, at age 3? That would have had psychological repercussions for you too.
You were in a no win situation due to the age and situation of your mother. The fact that baby was you, was just circumstance. Any baby would feel the same psychological results. You are not less worthy because you happened, by chance, to be that particular baby.

I recently took a massive leap of faith and told my therapist that I worried that she was sitting there secretly thinking that what I was tellin her was pathetic at best and massively selfish/narcissistic at worst. Telling her that was hard, and really scary, but she responded with such warmth and kindness and it started a really helpful and honest conversation about how my relationship with my parents has affected my relationship with people in any sort of quasi-parental position/position of responsibility - and my ability to think well of myself or give my feelings attention myself. That doesn't mean you have to do it, OP, or that you have to do it now, but I hope it helps to know that you're not the only person in therapy wondering if your therapist just thinks you're rubbish/terrible and that talking about it in therapy with that therapist has been helpful for others.

@CarterBeatsTheDevil I really admire you being able to do that and glad it helped.

I'm interested in knowing if you shared those feelings with your therapist because you felt attached so genuinely wanted to tell her? Or if it was more the opposite and you felt it would help you build that bond, that would then help you work through your stuff?

I mean, in a way, as long as the therapist is doing their job, we basically win either way when we talk about these things. It's interesting.

What has happened in our lives
my beautiful feisty granddaughter turned 13 in March and she’s turned into someone we don’t recognise
she was in trouble at home for vaping and that night took a overdose and ending up in hospital overnight
At school she is running riot running round banging doors and shouting walking out of lessons got in with friends we don’t like dropped her dancing lessons which she loved and has done for 10years
school have been brilliant and jumped through hoops to help her got her a therapist rearrange timetables sent her to another school to let things calm down
we have asked and gave her time to talk if anything is troubling her but she said no
has any other family gone through this and any advice how we get our girl back

You need to start your own thread benjiman6

OP, do you really think if your mother had taken you back you would have had your happily ever after?
You are so caught up in wondering what you could have done to be taken back have you actually spent any time thinking about the realities of a childhood/teenagehood/adulthood in a household where she realistically and most likely would have treated you very differently to her children with the man she loved? Not the childhood you were craving but the childhood you would have actually experienced had you lived within the family unit you were excluded from.

You have complex grief. Please forgive my bluntness but there are no happy endings to your tale i'm afraid, you can't change the past or bring back your mum. What there can be though is a gradual acceptance that your mum was only human and like the rest of us tried to do her best in the situation she was in and it was actually a bit shitty all round. Sometimes life is no more deeper than this. She's sadly gone and no amount of soul searching, rumination or therapy can change this. Allow yourself to miss the parts of her you loved but its ok to be pissed off with her for the choices she made too.

Your mother failed you. She might have thought she was doing the best for you, but she wasn't. None of it was your fault. It doesn't matter what your therapist thinks but it does matter that they can help you gradually change how you think and feel about what happened to you. You deserve to make peace with it.

there are no happy endings to your tale i'm afraid

I am living, walking proof that no matter how hurt we are in childhood, we can each love our inner child until she is almost healed. And that feels good.

All of your questions are really good and the sort of thing you should be taking to therapy. That is exactly what it is for.

There is nothing you could have done differently to change the past. But you can learn to live with what happened to you more comfortably, and have a happier life in the future.

Keep going to therapy. Do the work. Have the great life you deserve.