has anyony had a not so great realtionship with their mother then gone on to be close to a dd? really worried

[yummytummy]

hi, have just been wondering about this.

unfortunately i have never really been close to my mother. basically a personality clash i think, she is quite passive aggressive and i think has never really understood me or tried to understand where i am coming from on things. there is a long and painful history with many incidents of hurt i guess on both sides and the relationship has i think deteriorated completely of late. i dont speak to her much and if she does ring i am tense for the whole time and leave conversation feeling drained emotionally. its never relaxed cant be around her and at ease and it makes me feel like i am flawed somehow especially when i hear of friends who are close to their mums and i just cant picture it.

the final straw in things has been the fact that i am in a very abusive relationship with physical and emotional abuse and my parents have known how bad it is for some time. however they are very traditional and believe divorce is to be avoided at all costs and its best for the kids to stay together etc etc. also great shame on their heads if i leave husband. so basically i have no family support if/when i leave as they have said they will disown me take kids blah blah blah which they cant do but still hard to hear it. they are just sticking heads in sand.

i have tried to make them see how much better it would be for me to leave but they wont accept it and are as good at minimising things and shifting blame onto me as my husband is. they think the sun shines out of his a**e by the way and it galls me that they laugh and joke with him knowing full well how he treats me. i cant forgive them esp my mother for this and for making me feel like i have no safe place to go to when things are bad. i try to limit contact as much as possible but they keep trying to force the relationship. i can only deal with it by detaching and also as the kids adore them and i never had grandparents so want them to have a relationship with them even though i am so angry at how they act.

anyway due to this i always envisaged myself with boys as i feel i dont know how to successfully parent a daughter as i never had that? i am so worried of the cycle carrying on and would never want my daughter to hate me as much as i hate them and would never want her to be alone. even now i cant understand my parents what kind of parent sits back and lets their child suffer like that? if anyone touched dd i would kill them.

but then i dont want to pressure dd to live up to the expectations of a relationship that i didnt have. i guess i just really desperately want to be a better mother to her than mine was/is and wondered what was the best way to do it. obviously mainly theoretical as dd only 2 but i just so badly want to set the best foundation for her for the future so she will never ever have to feel even an ounce of the pain that i do.

also if there were others who perhaps arent close to their mothers how to deal with the pain of that? i would dearly love to go no contact with my mother but unfortunately cant due to cultural and religious expectations.

any thoughts would help so much as the whole thing is really getting to me lately

thankyou

[yummytummy]

Yes salbertina thats exactly it its the shame and effect on them thats all they worried about. Sounds like u have similar background! Any tips on dealing with them? Have just had voicemail left by my dad pushing to meet again has to be every two weeks whether I like it or not as they have rights to see the children apparently. Wish they wd back off. Dad doesnt like it as I stood firm last week and didnt let them come so he is sulking and forcing a visit.

They dont have key but unfortunately cdnt be out as that is thought of as so disrespectful and wdnt be worth the bollocking I wd get. Wish they cd respect boundaries and stop pushing. They think they help but they dont it drives me insane

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

Ignore them and go no contact with them from now on. Hard as that is to do it is the only way forward because they will never ever give you what you want i.e their approval. You will never get them to see your point of view as inherently damaged and unreasonable people simply cannot be at all reasoned with. They also have no concept of boundaries.

Delete any voicemails they leave too. Return anything they send unopened, that includes gifts for the children as well, such are used by toxic parents as a means of control.

Grandparents as well do not have automatic rights to see their grandchildren; its typical of such toxic parents to use that tactic as well. They are NOT good grandparents and they were rubbish parents to you. They have not changed.

[yummytummy]

I would love to go no contact with them its true they will
Never understand boundaries.

Unfortunately while I am still married and living here it is seen as husband s house and as he usually wants them to come if he agrees I cant do anything about it. To be fair he has stalled them at times when he sees how it stresses me but at the same time doesnt get it as his family are close to each other and like mee

[yummytummy]

Meeting

[Salbertina]

Ok but is it jointly in your names? Even if not, you have legal rights.
What do you want OP?

[yummytummy]

Its jointly owned in both names. I want to live in a relaxed atmosphere and I am realising that isnt here with him. Know how to get rid of husband but dont know how to get rid of parents unfortunately!

[randomAXEofkindness]

You obviously do not share your mother's approach to parenting, so you are not necessarily going to have a similarly mediocre relationship with your daughter. I am always surprised by those people who have been treated badly by their own parents and nevertheless use the same/dressed up-version of the only model they have experience with. It strikes me as extremely lazy. But depressingly common. You, on the other hand, sound like you are very motivated to parent your dd with sensitivity and compassion. Keep doing this and I don't know where you could go wrong.

My mother was/is an abusive alcoholic. I went no contact about 3.5 yrs ago. It is incredibly sad that your can't have the relationship you need with your mum, but it definitely isn't your fault. Please don't think that because your mum and dh don't treat you well, this means that there is something wrong with you and you are not going to treat your daughter well. I know I would NEVER in a million years treat my dd the way that my mum treated me. I might not have been lucky enough to get a mum who loved me, but I know for a fact that my dd was I think it's much harder for people like us, but like others have pointed out, our hurtful experiences can also give us an insight that can make us wonderful mothers. You definitely sound like one of those.

Good luck op x

[ScarletWomanoftheVillage]

Hi Op. So sorry to read of your situation.

I have had very minimal contact with my narc/toxic M for 12 or 13 years. I went this route partly because of my DDs.

I needed to be the healthiest person I could be in order to be a good mother to them. And I was. she made me feel mental, and abused and about ten years old, even in my 30s . I too was often accused of being too sensitive. This seems to be said a lot by bullies to people they hurt. It's like that 'it's only a bit of banter!', a disingenuous phrase if ever I heard one, when people are being downright nasty to others and those others object.

My DDs are now young adults and I have a truly delightful and beautiful relationship with each of them, and I will be grateful for that for ever. I was always utterly determined it would be so.

I think for me it was easier having daughters because I could identify with them, as I had been a girl myself once, a daughter. So I have always treated them as I would have liked to have been treated. With respect. With love. With decency.

You can be the mother to them that you would have wanted for yourself.

I gave myself the very best chance of having a loving relationship with my daughters by not putting up with any toxic behaviour from anyone, and by trying damn hard to make sure I didn't dish it out to others. All trying to set a good example to my DDs, who have turned out to be really lovely.

The thing someone said about your parents not loving you - can you think of this slightly differently? That they are not capable of loving properly.

[Salbertina]

Lazy?! Its a natural default, isn't it?
thats why inter-generational patterns of abuse are so common. it takes a lot of awareness and often therapy to work through it. Many don't get there ever, i know my dsis hasn't.

To quote Larkin's famous poem:

"They fuck you up your mum and dad
They may not mean to but they do...
And they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old style hats and coats...

Man hands on misery to man
It deepens like a coastal shelf
Get out as early as you can
And don't have any kids yourself"

I know i do a lot wrong with my (older) kids - lazy imho to say otherwise, no parent is perfect. But I'm trying and i try to validate them, their feelings and their wants. That os the difference between me and my parents.?

[ScarletWomanoftheVillage]

I was always utterly determined it would be so. Sorry, that sounds as if I was sure it would all work out. I just meant that I tried my very best to make sure we had a good relationship. And now I am delighted and sometimes incredulous that we do, and that I am 'allowed' to have this warm, loving affectionate relationship with my daughters. Didn't take it for granted if you see what I mean. It is more than I dared to hope for.

But I was utterly determined...

Sorry for ramble... just wanted to give you hope that it is possible to not have a good relationship with your mother as long as it is from arms length and still be close with your daughters.

But if you are staying in an abusive relationship, you will be setting off on the wrong path if you want what is best for your daughter. Sorry.

[Wellwobbly]

Yes, me. I am not perfect and do many things wrong, but I NEVER EVER treat or talk to my D the way my mother did me.

The key? To remember (possibly in therapy) your childhood and not hide from the grief and pain and humiliation of it. Really rage, grieve and mourn. It hurts so much. When you have empathised with that helpless lonely little girl you once were you will NEVER want to inflict that on anyone else.

If you deny or minimise (it didn't do me any harm/she wasn't that bad) - that is when you are tempted to revisit the pain on someone else, this time in power and revenge.

Wow. i was remembering an incident today. My mother refused to get me a bra or swimming costume when I started sprouting. She did that, deprive me because she herself was deprived.

So I jumped into the swimming pool in my knickers and then got totally totally told off for being a hussy. 'But I haven't got a swimming costume' was a completely pointless thing to say because the truth of it wouldn't be acknowledged and I had to take being blamed for my own humiliation.

No way would I treat my precious child like this. She isn't my best friend, because that would be inappropriate, but when she is shopping w her friends and sends a pic of herself trying on s/thing it just makes my heart swell with gratitude and relief.

My H has visited his past on his family, but I haven't.

[Wellwobbly]

PS Well I have [visited it I mean], because I married someone like my selfish unfeeling twat father but you don't have to turn out like your mother!

[Wellwobbly]

Have you secretly recorded your H?

Document stuff. Start a diary.

[Lazysuzanne]

Salbertina Larkin...yes, I can see that my mother was just handing on her misery to me, so I'm left with the task of absorbing and processing/dealing with it so as to try not to hand it on to my kids

Bit of a burden really

[Salbertina]

It is s burden, with you on that. But at least we have the awareness our parents lack. There's hope!

[pointythings]

I can only say that my mum and my gran had an appalling relationship - basically my gran married again after being widowed (fair enough, obviously) and he turned out to be a narcissist who favoured his own two daughters (mum's half sisters) over her. My mum was the scapegoat, my gran enabled it all.

My mum and I have always had a brilliant relationship. She took a very conscious decision not to repeat her own mother's mistakes and succeeded in that. It you have insight and awareness, and it sounds as if you do, it's perfectly possible.

Re parenting DDs - I have two DDs and it comes naturally. Part of me thinks I would have found boys more difficult, but the rational part of me knows I would have loved my DCs no matter what sex they were.

[HowLongIsTooLong]

This might sound a bit simplistic, but it works for me: be the mother to your daughter that you wished your mother could have been to you. Be loving, emotionally available and open, as much as you can, and be very aware of any negative dynamics which start repeating. You may not always do perfectly but try not to beat yourself up about it. I also had/have a terrible relationship with my mother. She is completely "not there" emotionally - I never felt she loved or even liked me. I was totally daunted when I first had DD1 (now have two daughters aged 9 and 5) and was plagued with the same fears as you - so worried about how to cultivate intimacy and trust. But I luckily feel I am managing ok - am definitely a much better mother than mine was and have learned from her failings! Sometimes, perhaps, our children help us to face up to our problems. All the best - the fact you are even asking this question means, to me, that you will no doubt do really well!
Weirdly, my mother has a good relationship with my daughters - it´s a whole different dynamic being a grandmother it seems and she only sees them a few times a year as we live out of the UK. I am glad for that and it makes me feel warmer towards her. It does not fill the "hole" she left in me from my childhood, but at least my girls won´t go through the same process.

[AnyFucker]

OP, I am very sorry, but the very reason why I have a poor relationship with my mother now is because she stayed with an emotionally abusive man, my father

The best thing you could do for your daughter is to leave your partner, and show her that no female has to tolerate bad treatment for the sake of a man

I blame both of them. However, it seems he is unable to change his own situation, but she had many opportunities to change her own (and her daughter's life) but didn't take any of them

She is still with him now, after 40+ years of prioritising him over herself, her kids and her grandkids. He still treats her like shit.

Don't let that be your story

[Hissy]

Your relationship with your DD relies on you leaving the abusive environment.

Your parents were your first abusers, they've trained you for it.

Until you leave and get yourself and your DD to a healthy environment, what your day to day is doing is training your DD to repeat history.

As AF says, it's the biggest threat your relationship with her has atm.

I promise you that leaving will transform your lives, in ways you will never imagine. You will never ever regret it.

Your DD's future is at stake here, and in your hands.

Do the right thing now! Please?

[Hissy]

What kind of parent threatens their child in an abusive environment?

Please get some help from WA, and talk to your doctor? Get all the help you can to get out, the rest really will fall into place.

[lavenderhoney]

To add, I don't see my dm as a mother anymore. I have some huge problems at the moment, I have no one I can talk to, and in an ideal situation I would love a dm to be that person.

From experience, she will immediately blame me, ( even if someone randomly stabbed me in the street, somehow it would be my fault, iyswim) and she would be incredibly upset and be in tears at how selfish I was being in standing up for myself and not accepting how I am being treated. Poor dh, are you looking after him... Well, you should keep the children quiet, can't you go out, etc etc

In her world, women back down to the man, and the unhappiness of me and the dc is of no consequence to the hardworking dh who seems to have had a personality makeover for the worst.

Need to take my own advice, I think. ( gets back in box)

[yummytummy]

thanks for all your thoughts. it does help a lot to hear others stories even though there is so much pain and i feel sad others have had to suffer too. its very true what someone said that when you try to tell people who are close to their mothers they really dont get it and you get all the usual "shes your mum" crap and u need her etc etc. for what exactly? or people who spend weekends voluntarily with family or ring siblings few times a week. to me thats weird as my support has been friends mainly and husband before he started being abusive.

lavenderhoney i could have written your post word for word. the first time i was hit i instinctively phoned my mother and the first thing she said was "yes but what did you do to deserve it?" its always me who is blamed. and of course all the poor dh crap. and how man comes first and a wife's misery is fine as long as he is happy. its so fucked up.

i am just so scared of being alone i guess as i have no self esteem and feel so lonely anyway it would be horrible to have no adult company in evenings at all and have to do it all alone. i just dont feel strong enough atm. i need to build myself up and then plan etc have heard so much negativity for so long that i now believe that i am worthless etc as i have been told it so much. i wish i had had that motherly love which would have built me up to not take so much crap.

alisonclare your post was beautiful. your daughter/s are unbelievably lucky to have constantly had such positive affirmation thats lovely. i dont think anyone has ever said i was beautiful. it must be so wonderful to hear it often, i have said it to dd loads since i read that and obv she is only 2 but i want the positive effect to sink in on her asap! i never want her to feel even an ounce of the pain i have and if it means having to leave then i am going to start on that path and try and be as strong as i can. i cant ever let her suffer like this.

[AnyFucker]

Good luck on your journey, love.