"I don't love you" said my 3yr old

[turtles]

What can I do about it ?

I really struggled to cope with things when he was little and have recently started to feel like I've really got my issues sorted but now he keeps telling me how I make him sad and he doesn't love me - he only loves daddy and granny.

I've been trying really, really hard to connect with him and be positive and loving with him all day every day but he just responds with "but I don't love you" or "you make me sad". I've tried taking a play approach and role reversal (I'm really sad, can you make me better?) but it doesn't seem to be working. He's very loving and appears happy and confident so I had no idea he felt like this. I'm a sahm and have spent a lot of time with him but he's very intense and spirited so can be very hard work to keep on top of his behaviour.
I feel like I've messed him up and it's imprinted now forever, he'll never get over how crap I was as a mother in the first 2 years of his life.

Thank you all. I'm really bad at letting guilt over ride everything at times. Just when I felt like things were turning a corner he was coming out with the negative stuff, but he hasn't said it today!

I know I can't prevent him feeling negative emotions, that he has to experience them. I'm spending more and more time sitting with him letting him cry through his frustration, which is so hard to do when I'm in the middle of something.

I have a vivid memory of being really upset as a child and wanting my mum to be there for me but once I'd stopped crying loudly she just walked away. I still wanted her to sit with me a little longer. It made me so sad all over again. It's so hard to be there for your kids when they need you, especially when they don't/can't say it at the right time - or when their right time isn't your right time!

Glad he hasn't said it today. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other, as it were.

it is really positive that he has not said it for one day. It is all you can do, take one step, one day at a time with their development. It certainly means he is not focussing on it completely. Hope you get another day!

turtles, I think Pavlov is onto something...Whatever happened for the first two years of his life makes you feel very guilty and over-reacting. Children love their mummy, they even love their mummy when she's absent, an alcoholic, a druggy or they get beaten by her. They don't remember the first few years of their lives as clever as they are and eposides that will never leave you like the first day at nursery when they banged their head on the glass door whilst crying and screaming non stop will fade from their memory, not yours.
As long as your intentions are clear, as long as your son knows deep down that you love him, he will forgive you, he loves you too much not to.