Think I have to face the fact my Mum doesn't love me

[WildRiceOnToast]

Sorry, this all sounds really pathetic and self pitying but it's completely eating me up.

DM lives abroad on her own. DF died 5 years ago. I travel to see her whenever I can, in normal times a couple of times a year staying about a week. She hasn't been to visit me for more than six years. I've invited her to come anytime but she doesn't want to. She hasn't seen by DC since then, they don't want to come over as the last time she visited us she completely blanked them the whole time and they were very hurt. She never rings me, it is always me making contact with her. I've never tested it, but I suspect if I waited for her to call I would simply never hear from her again. She hasn't acknowledged mine or DC's birthdays or Christmas with even a card or a call for about 10 years now.

So here I am four days into a week long visit to her and she's barely spoken to me the whole time. Doesn't want to go out anywhere with me. Just ignores me. The realisation has finally struck that she just doesn't want to know and I'm thinking what am I doing here? She's probably wishing i would take the hint and leave her alone. So I have brought my return flight forward and I am leaving early. Not sure where to go from here. I guess I should ring now and then to check on her, but then again maybe I should just drop contact, it seems to be what she wants.

I feel broken. Who does this to their own daughter? I would be horrified if I had made one of my DC feel like this.

Hope you're home safe

Hi everyone, now home and feeling much more positive after great hugs from DS. DD has booked a restaurant for lunch tomorrow so looking forward to that.

Sent a WhatsApp message to DM two hours ago to let her know I got back safely. No reply

Enjoy your day tomorrow.

I take it you can see she read it?

You'd be best off going NC.

Well I'm glad you're home safely xx

My experience is very similar OP. The pain felt worse for my kids as I was close to both of my DGMs. I wanted the same for them. But she was not interested in me or them. Now they've grown the pain has subsided. I see her briefly once a year and phone every few months. Therapist did suggest going NC, but this is better. I don't want to have NC, there is shared history and family. It's like a relationship with a distant aunt though not a mother. I have no expectations.

@bloodywhitecat

I don't know why some people do this to their own children but they do and it hurts. It really, really hurts. I know my mother doesn't love me either, her recent refusal to come to DH's funeral cemented that belief for me. I think I have come to the point where I have faced that fact and I am done. Do you want to keep contacting her?

@bloodywhitecat I'm so sorry. I can relate almost. Mine did come in the end to DHs funeral but didn't stay and hasn't visited in the 6 years since or been any support whatsoever. That was the line for me too. I just couldn't care any more. I was so lucky to have had a proper loving relationship with DH, I think it healed much of the damage from an avoidant mother. Hope so for you too.

@Juniper68

I take it you can see she read it?

You'd be best off going NC.

Yep she's read them. No answer. Tells me all I need to know I guess.

WildRiceOnToast she's someone who doesn't deserve dcs. I'm so sorry.

I hope you have a lovely mother's day and can heal from this eventually ❤

Sending you loads of love. You don't sound self-pitying or pathetic at all and this is not your fault. It sounds like your mum has real problems connecting with you and your children, my dad is exactly the same and my way of dealing with it is just to massively, massively lower my expectations of him rather than to cut him out of my life. I don't expect anything of him at all, or him to show any interest in me or my family, so I'm not disappointed or surprised when he doesn't any more, and if we do have a bit of interaction or he says something nice then I'm mildly surprised but don't get my hopes up or expect it to continue or to develop into a proper relationship because I know it absolutely won't. It's sad but sometimes it's just the way it is when you have a very flawed, limited person as a parent... It's good you've seen it for what it is now and you can adjust your behaviour and expectations accordingly and in a way that causes you and your children the least damage.

So sorry OP. I wonder if you’ve managed to discover much about your mother’s life? It’s not normal how she’s behaving which is awful for you, but I wonder if maybe it would help with your own acceptance of her inadequacy towards you, if you could know that it is due to her having experienced (whatever it may be) but… a cause? Eg perhaps her own rejection, trauma, resulting in poor mental health and terrible coping strategies that make her behave like this. Sometimes it can be very healing to know that you didn’t cause it, can’t control it, etc. And it sounds like you did exactly the right thing coming home for Mother’s Day.

Yes that's interesting, @RoseWindow , her Dad (my GF) was a horrible man and my Mum has told me at great length how he treated her as a child. As far back as she can remember he simply ignored her, wouldn't even speak to her. When she got older he wouldn't let her go to university. After my lovely GM died he gave all her jewellery to his DIL, DMs brother's wife. Including her engagement ring that GM had tried to give to Mum just before she died. Wouldn't let DM have anything.

My GM was a lovely woman, she doted on me and my siblings and was very affectionate towards DM. Me and my siblings often went to stay with her and GF. We would stay often for around a week in the school holidays and GF completely ignored us the whole time! Hid behind his paper, never said a word! When we had birthday parties as children he would drop my GM off but refused to come in, would sit outside in the car!

Seeing all this written down is just bringing home to me what a fking dysfunctional family I come from! I'm now terrified I'm going to end up like her which is making me cry as my DC are my whole world.

Ok OP, before you get into a “poor me” state of mind, as justified as it is, please reframe your thoughts so you don’t end up feeling even worse about the whole thing.

The plain truth is that you cannot control what other people do, you need to let go of making everything possible for your mum to express love in a way that is acceptable to you. Just accept this is not your fault, you tried hard and now you will stop trying.

You don’t need to go no contact, just stop assuming she will change, she won’t, even if you distance yourself. Just see her for who she is, a distant relative that lives far away with who you have little contact with you and is becoming even more distant due to the lack interaction.

Stop thinking about what she did or didn’t do, as you won’t be able to free yourself from this pain until you find the way, with the help counselling or else, to stop seeing yourself as a neglected child.

The worst thing that could happen is that you start feeling trapped in a situation due to your upbringing, you need to reframe that damaging perspective to something like “I may have been neglected by my mother but I was mothered very well by other women around me who cherished me and guided me to become the woman I am” or even, “my mum was not a very good mum, but I chose not to replicate the experience for my children and be a better parent than her”.

You need to find peace with it to feel free of this feeling.

Yes she had a horrible father but so did a lot of us. Doesn't mean we're cruel to our dcs, quite the opposite.
A lot of my friends had terrible upbringings but they don't take it out on others.
Her behaviour is extreme and unacceptable.

You won't end up like this OP. You're too self aware.

You are not your mother, you're not going to turn into her, you are completely separate from her and you are your own person. You also have two qualities that your mother lacks entirely; empathy and insight.

Not at all surprised unfortunately that your mother's father was abusive himself. Toxic familial dysfunction often goes down the generations but its stopped with you. You also have a choice here and you have chosen not to repeat this dysfunctional dynamic with your own children.

Your mother had a choice when it came to you and apart from making the terrible choice not to love chose to do similar to you as her abusive father did to her. She like him took the low road (he was likely treated the same by his parents too). It is indeed not your fault she is the ways she is and you did not cause that either; her father in particular did that lot of damage to her.

A lot of mothers love having their rosy view of themselves reflected back to them. They 'love' the version of you that they need you to be, but if you're not obliging enough to be the 2 d part they wrote for you in the play directed by them, they get angry. But tell you you're crazy and they love you.

@WildRiceOnToast

I do have siblings but she doesn't see them any more as both behaved very nastily towards her and my Dad. I've seen their bullying behaviour for myself and borne the brunt of it so I do know it's not just her take on it.

The funny thing is, though, that she spent years running around trying to appease them, bending over backwards to try to make them happy though nothing worked. Meantime I just quietly tried to do the right thing and was just ignored. I've often thought I should have been nasty and aggressive and maybe she would have paid me some attention!

Were they really nasty to her or were they frustrated at being summonsed to play the parts she wrote for them? Did they try to connect with her and it made her angry, and then they were hurt, and their anger was perceived as ''nastiness''?

Is there any possibility they just saw what you see now ? That they were feeling frustrated, unheard, unseen, they had no voice in the family that you at that point were still going along with?

not trying to gaslight you? just seems a bit fishy that she's fallen out with all of her children now.

My brother who is still enmeshed in the family system where we should just buckle under and reflect back mum's rosy view of herself, he thinks I've behaved appallingly to my parents, when all I did was tell them they hurt me. They have a really deeply held core belief that this isn't possible though. There is one perspective, theirs, and so there is no need for any discussion, so any of the silent treatments they gave me were justified in their eyes. If you truly believe there is one perspective, your own, then I guess any attempt to talk about things does seem like aggression and bullying which is how my parents perceived me trying to get through to them (have obviously given up now).

But it might be worth thinking back over your siblings' experiences of her.

@Lurking9to5 , I can understand from the perspective of your experience that it does look fishy that she has a poor relationship with all her children. However the nasty behaviour from both siblings has also been directed at me from early childhood.

My older sister I am convinced is a real life psychopath and she terrorised the whole family from as long as I can remember. Screaming and verbal abuse plus physical attacks. The whole family dynamic was to appease her. I can remember my DM telling me to keep quiet and not annoy her as "you know what she is like." I had to share a bedroom with her. Constant poking, pinching and nasty remarks whispered in my ear at night. I honestly thought she would put a pillow over my face while I was asleep! The last time I saw her, about 25 years ago, she was laughing about it and said she just enjoys scaring people so she can get her own way. I cut contact straight away!

My younger brother I'm not sure about. We got on well as younger children but he got really nasty with me when he got to teenage. When I returned home for Christmas in my first year at university he told me i should get out of the house as no-one wanted me there. Never really spoke to me since. Could have been stirring from someone else though, but no idea as he won't speak to me.

It's all so bloody messy.

You won't end up like this OP. You're too self aware.

This, 100%. Take care of yourself OP. Professional support is priceless for helping with that.

Wow, they are all hopeless cases. Allow yrslf to cut them all off.

I have an abusive and non loving mother that I've had to cut contact with.
The author Peg Streep is very good for things like this.
Thanks for creating this thread, I grew up thinking I was the only one in the world with this problem.

Some people are nasty and it’s unfortunate when one of these people is your parent.

I would not contact her at all. See if she bothers with you. If not - it’s permanent.

Sorry op. I all sounds very sad and hard for you.

“Not sure where to go from here. I guess I should ring now and then to check on her, but then again maybe I should just drop contact, it seems to be what she wants.”

I’d say no or low contact. Should be fairly easy….just leave it to her to contact you or not.

I think, although painful, the realisation might be a turning point for you. You have expectation of your mum that she will never live up to…..she’s incapable of being who you’d like her to be.

You need to think hard about what benefit you get from trying to engage with her when she is clearly uninterested. Nothing I’d guess.

Please do think you owe her anything or that she’s your responsibility either. You don’t need to check she’s ok. She’s an adult and an adult that doesn’t/wouldn’t afford you the same care.

OP, I'd be inclined to leave your mother to it as trying to have a relationship with her sounds futile. By being the mother your children need, you're breaking that ugly inter-generational cycle of parental neglect and that's huge.

I lost my mum to her mental illness when I was about five and still grieve now, many decades later. She was so loving, funny and intelligent and then she turned into a violent and terrifying monster who hated me. Since I was 16 we've seen each other maybe a dozen times and every time left me depressed and drained. It turned out that she felt the same way and a few years ago she said she never wanted to see me again. It sounds awful but I've seldom been so relieved as I was when told that. For decades I'd been encouraged to try and make a relationship with her ('But she's your mum!') and dreaded the next time we might have to meet, so when I realised I'd been freed of that a huge weight fell away.

What's helped is reaching the age where I'm able to be mothering towards younger women, whether they be family or friends. I'm becoming the mother figure I wish I'd had in life. I still wish that things had been different, that she hadn't rejected me, but am making the best of what I've got.

I think you have nothing to lose by being very honest in a matter of fact way, try to keeo emotion s out of it but say ' I brought my flight forward. You don't make any effort with me when I travel all this way to see you and never have, so I have finally got the message that you don't care,. If you do, you don't show it and I am tired of doing all the running.'

I said something similar to my parents once and they seemed quite taken aback, but not upset. They didn't argue back because I'd just stated plain facts and they had no come back from them. It was very therapeutic to me not to be pretending any more.