How do I forgive my mum for this?

[HowDoIGetOverIt]

I’ve been in therapy recently for CSA, and I’ve found myself questioning a lot of my mums treatment of me, especially as I hit my teen years. I wasn’t an easy child and we clashed a lot, so when I hit 16 I moved out, and got a place with my boyfriend at the time.

It turned out that he was fairly abussive, very controlling and jealous. After a couple of years of living with him, I asked my mum if I could come home for a bit, I needed to get away from him. She has said no, I’d made my bed and had to lie in it. So instead I made my own way, found a place I could rent on my own and left him. The deposit for my new place had used up all of my wages for that month, and I had a week left before pay day and only a box of 6 cup cakes to last my until then.

So, I called my mum, thinking that she might be proud of my for sorting out my own place and getting away from my ex, I asked if she could lend me £10/£20 so that I could get some food in to last me until payday. She said no. There was no history there, I’d never borrowed a penny from her and she’d never given me money, she hadn’t let me take anything but my own clothes when I moved out. Since then she has given my siblings plenty of money over the years, helped them whenever they’ve been in need, but it’s never been extended to me.

That day, I realised I could never ask her for anything, I was on my own. In a way it was the making of me, but I’m also reflecting on this a lot now and can’t believe she could be so heartless as to leave me with no food after I’d made my own way out of an abussive relationship at just 18 years old.

Is this as bad as I think it is, or am I maybe over thinking it? This was 20 years ago now, so I feel like I should be able to leave it in the past, but combined with other things, I’m struggling not to feel really angry! How do I move on from it?

Sorry hattie43 didn't mean to quote your post!

@HowDoIGetOverIt and @Tiredo I just wanted to say I'm sorry you both had such bad Mothers, no one deserves to be treated so harshly by the person whose supposed to love you the most

I could have written most of your story. Except when I got out of the abusive relationship I didn’t ask to return home. I lived in a couple of very dodgy housing situations and a further dodgy relationship before I managed to straighten my life out and move far away.
History has since been rewritten and I now hear what an amazing mother she was. I have had therapy over the years and have got angry but it does nothing to improve my life and doesn’t impact my parents life. The csa wasn’t by either parent which may make a huge difference.
I now have a perfectly pleasant, superficial and distant adult relationship with them and they have been good grandparents to my children.
I don’t know what the answer is but I just wanted to say neither of us deserved it, neither of us needs to forgive but the anger only eats away at us and not them.

Do you want to know what I wouldn't forgive, OP? It's this.

She has said no, I’d made my bed and had to lie in it

It is such a lazy enraging cop-out phrase - it's saying you made one bad decision now that's going to define you for ever; oh, and by the way, I don't care enough about you to help you get over that bad decision and out of that bad situation.

What she did was inexcusable. There is no possible justification for it.

It's healthy to feel anger over it- the fact that you're feeling it now, so long after the fact, just means you're finally allowing yourself to really process it. Embrace the anger and let yourself feel it as much as you need to.

I've been in a similar situation of inexcusable treatment by my mother (and father). It took a long time to get my head around what they'd done, to realise and accept that I would never understand why, because I just don't think the way they do, and that they will never be what I need my parents to be. It's like a grieving process and you can't rush it.

It took me about a year between recognising that I probably needed to forgive them for the sake of my own mental and emotional health, to actually feeling I truly had done so. And honestly, I have been so much more at peace since then- things can occasionally trigger memories and sadness or anger, but generally I feel at peace, I even go days at a time without even thinking of them, and they don't own part of my headspace anymore.

So I definitely recommend forgiving, for your own sake. Just don't feel under pressure to do it quickly. Let yourself feel everything you feel, give yourself time to think things over and put things to bed piece by piece, as you're able to. If you do eventually feel you've forgiven, you'll be able to have peace and be free of her power over you- no need to ever tell her you forgave her, either. It's for your own benefit, not hers.

One day at a time. x

I went through the same thing at the same age, I also begged to go home and was told no. My mum died less than a year later. I was so angry I couldn’t grieve her properly for a long time. It’s getting on for 25 years ago, I’m still angry!

My eldest is now around the age I was back then, and I cannot bear to think of ever seeing her homeless or hungry. She would be welcomed home gladly and immediately with nothing but open arms. That’s what I thought my mother would do for me, and I was so shocked to be told no. I am STILL baffled at how she could do it!

You have my every sympathy and you are not being unreasonable in the slightest.

You bunch of vipers, you’re making me cry! 😆
Seriously, thank you so much for your kind words, all of you. I’m kind of surprised no one (so far!) thinks I’m over reacting, I think I was told by her that I’m over sensitive so often that I’ve minimised some of her behaviour. It’s pretty cathartic to hear so many voices telling me that it was an awful thing to do.

Im so sorry that so many have been through similar, @Lillygolightly , I don’t know how you can ever process that now she’s gone. I hope you get there. X

I think part of my struggle in letting it go is that my brother is very much like my dad in terms of being manipulative and abussive ( not to children, just in your general) I have nothing to do with him, but my mum runs around after him, making excuses for his behaviour. It’s like a constant reminder that she is capable of being this supportive, caring person, even to an arsehole, but not for me. But then again, I do take some sort of sad pride in knowing I don’t need her and that I got where I am on my own. It’s all a bit bittersweet.

I’ll take a look at the stately homes thread too, I think because I’ve always minimised what my childhood was like, I just always thought others had it so much worse. Weird how you can have these blind spots when things like this happen to you.

Thank you again, everyone who has replied, I genuinely appreciate it so much. Hope you all have a lovely Christmas/break. X

I forgot to add, I have thought about writing her a letter, but I know she would it keep it private. I think she’s always resented me because I was the thing that trapped her with my dad, much harder to leave when you have a baby. Maybe that’s why she didn’t help me, because she’d had it worse? But as many of you have said, there’s no excuse, I wish there was, but there isn’t.

*wouldn’t keep it private.

The reason she runs after your brother is the same reason she ran after your dad; it is a need in her. She probably doesn't like herself much or indeed other women.

She equally seems to have been very cruel to you.

I doubt your mother has good female friends.

I would not forgive her. The fact she refused you tells me she will never see, by choice, that there behaviour which can mean a woman must leave. She would rather have been right all her life about men and see you suffer for 20 quid.

I'm impressed you even speak to her. She is vile by the sounds of it. Abused women are not all nice, they can have their own cruelties on their children. It is not much talked about.

I wish you the best and my congratulations in building a better life and being a better person with more insight than your mother.

You need to give yourself permission to be angry about the way she treated you, and how she let you down so badly when you needed her.

Let it all out, let the fury and frustration out, because bottling it up is doing you no good at all. Rip the plaster off and let the air get to it. You'll feel a whole lot better, I promise.

I was in a different situation, but was carrying it all with me inside. What I did was let it all out on paper in an exercise book. I wrote everything down, everything I could remember, I let the rage flow at the unfairness and injustice of it all, and it was like a purge.

I wonder whether deep down she knew about what your dad did, and resents you as a result?

No need to forgive and forget, just recognise your disappointment, let go of what you wish she was, and move on.

OP, long term anger can be corrosive so selfishly I really hope you get good therapy so that doesn't drag you down.

This was all her.

Shame on her.

Do not give her the soot of your absolutely righteous anger towards her causing you grief.

Of course you can have surges of anger, but very valuable to learn the skills to talk yourself down.

My youngest daughter is 16 on the sofa with her legs tucked up under me and the idea that she would be out there on her own or that any woman would not do anything and everything for their 18 year old daughter is so hard to compute.

You sound amazing.
I really mean that.

BUT,....... I really hope that through posting and reading you just might slowly come to the conclusion that being in contact with this woman is really not in your long term best interests.

She CHOSE to be a shit mother.
THAT is on HER.

You can see her behaviour differs towards your brother.

She has chosen to behave this way....towards you.

I have an old work colleague that had a similar story to yours.
She too made a great success of her life, but as she says "despite her mother's best efforts".

She is late 50's like me and I know from her, putting distance between her and her mother, going no contact in her early 30's was the beginning of her real healing.

Now she looks back like an almost anthropologist at her mother and her appalling behaviour.

The distance being no contact has given her the space to see things as her failings and the realisation that it was all HER failings.

She has had no part of her elder care and that comforts her, as she said she thinks having to be kind, understanding and patient to someone whom never showed her a smidgen of that would mean that these years would have only been further trauma.

Her mother did reach out about 15 years ago when it became clear that her golden child son hadn't a notion of being around once she had served her purpose .

She never responded and continues to be a happy healthy woman enjoying the fruits of HER labours in her good life.

She is also a great mother.

OP sending you a big hug. You are remarkable, and your story is a testament to your strength. Anytime someone says that someone else is oversensitive it puts my hackles up because it is usually is a way of avoiding responsibility for bad behaviour. Would it matter if your mother shared the contents of any letter you sent her?

Ah Op you don’t have to forgive to move on. I’m NC with my parents and I can’t explain it properly but once I realised it really wasn’t my fault I just stopped caring. I had a while of grieving the fact that neither of my parents loved me but now I can hand on heart say I just don’t care. I don’t forgive them but I’m not angry if that makes sense. You have to just accept that they are what they are and that none of that is on you. Theres a temptation to believe if you were somehow different/better they would have loved you but it’s not true, and thats on them.

I agree with NC, happily my parents had no interest in me at all so that made it much easier, the space has meant they have faded into my past and just don’t have weight or substance in my mind, just horrible people I used to know.

What you went through was awful, I’m so sorry x

I used to work with a woman who had a terrible childhood and she was definitely sensitive but it made me want to show her support and where possible, validate her. And she was just a colleague I was fond of. It made me realise later when my own mother accused me for the 1000th time of being paranoid and sensitive, that if she really really believed I was ''sensitive'' why did she keep firing more and more insults at me!?

This.

people aren't saying hang on to your anger and resentment

They're saying feel what you feel and don't pressure yourself to forgive. They're saying don't shame yourself for not feeling ready to forgive.

If you let the feelings pass through at their own pace then there is a level of detachment that makes anger diminish on its own.

I strongly suggest you write a letter to her expressing exactly how you feel - and then burn
it.

After a LOT of therapy, I decided to have a relationship with my Mum but with my boundaries on place. I haven’t forgiven her, but also don’t hang on to the anger like I used to.

Not to rub salt in your wound, but I would bet big money that your mum knew about the sexual abuse and decided to blame you and keep her mouth shut.

Your description of her has internalized misogyny written all over it.

Personally, I can't imagine letting my child fend for themselves. However, try stepping back from your anger and put yourself in your mum's shoes. By your own admission, you weren't an easy child. A child moving in with a boyfriend at 16 sounds like a terrible mistake. Could it be that your mum tried her best, and you threw it back in her face. So by the time you moved out, she'd had enough and in her heart had written you off. Of course, she's the adult and the parent, but maybe you pushed her to the brink. You are right to feel angry. The best way to resolve it is to speak to your mum and let her know how hurt you were and still are. Hopefully, she'll also give you an idea of what it was like parenting you, and maybe you can both forge a better relationship moving on.

It's very likely that a child suffering sexual abuse at the hands of her father wouldn't be 'an easy child'.

Absolutely, I wasn't an easy child and I wasn't being sexually abused.
It can be a narrative that suits the parents very well "you weren't easy".

My parents said this to me too, along with you're too sensitive.

All I ever pushed for was "rights" ifyswim. The right to be heard. The right to make a decision. The right to use my own judgement.

They were exhausted from controlling me (they always won) so I can see why they truly believe that I was "never easy".

Your own mum left you to starve,despicable,i could not forgive.

Write a letter but don’t send it. It may help you. You do what is best for you as your dm is not a mum.