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.

@DismantleThePatriarchy Well, I'm cheating a bit, because I'm training to be a therapist myself and one of the things you learn is that you want your clients to bring up any doubts about you or the work because talking about these things gives both of you a lot of important information to work with. So I probably had a level of reassurance that most people who go into therapy just don't have (i.e. that any decent therapist is expecting that at some point you're going to tell them they've done something wrong or that you don't feel comfortable with them or whatever).

For me, I suddenly realised that my anxiety about my therapist judging me echoed how I'd felt about my parents, like I was on a knife-edge all the time and if they didn't think I was great then they thought I was awful. That's a pattern that I have with authority figures generally as an adult, it means I never really say when I'm angry or uncomfortable, it's a horrible way to live and it had started to feel very important to break that pattern.

I think the work that you need to do is
-recognise that you experienced childhood trauma

• recognise that this was not your fault and that your behaviour as a child did not contribute to your mother abandoning you
• grieve for the loss of the relationship as a child with your mother that you needed at the time. This involves actually feeling your feelings of pain, shame and sadness in a controlled and supportive way with your therapist. If you don't do this then the feelings will just stay in your body unprocessed which will not help you to move forward and feel good
• work to recognise that our inner child is a part of us as adults, listen to her when she needs to be listened to and learn how to parent yourself and especially your inner child

It's good that you have a therapist to help you with this as it would be very hard to do without one. I'd recommend that you choose a female therapist who works with the inner child and specialises in adoption. If you don't click with a therapist don't be afraid to change therapists.
It's not a quick fix and feeling your feelings instead of stuffing them down isn't easy but therapy for me has been worth every hour and every £.
I think it's especially valuable to have therapy before becoming a parent yourself.

Things can get way way better than they are right now OP and you are, and have always been, enough.

For inner child work I actually have a doll to represent Little Me and I find that helpful, maybe it might help you too. I sometimes hold her during therapy sessions. I also had a large soft toy for a while which I used for comfort in therapy. Do what works for you, your therapist would have no issue I'm sure with this.