Saw my mum today. I think she is dying and I feel sad that we were never able to have a relationship

[Starwarsposter]

Will start this off by saying I did accept a long time ago that I would never have what I would consider to be a deep and caring relationship with my mum.

Growing up was tough as my mum and dad got together quite young, money was tight and they were both pretty damaged by their childhoods, my mum more so because she had grown up with a physically abusive mother that would hit her. Her mum sounded positively psychopathic and it definitely did damage my mum a whole lot.

When I was young mum never seemed to be able to comfort me or discuss anything deep. We would often run out of medication I needed for a heart condition. When I look back I was clean and clothed and fed but I would say there was most definitely some neglect and most definitely emotional neglect. I knew I could never rely on a friendship per se with my mum. I was raped by someone and I knew there would be no response if I told her, for example.

In my 20s I moved to Dublin for work for many years and mum and dad in Northern England rarely visited me, despite being better off. When I did call home on the phone occasionally my mum would usually ask why I didn't just email, rather than calling. She never wanted that closeness with me. I'm sure this goes back to feeling this way about me because of my abusive grandmother and she felt a certain way about girls and women but it was always such a shame that we couldn't turn things around and form a close friendship.

Obviously this rejection due to the damaged parts of her mum has been very tough and has affected me in so many many ways. However I am now married myself with a son and am happy and settled which feels like an achievement in itself. I have close relationships with my son and husband.

Fast forward to today. My mum has had parkinsons disease for around 16 years and I think it is finally weakening her body. She just seemed so fragile today and she was very emotional, more than I'd ever seen. I know there can never be a close relationship with her because she doesn't want one with me and never has. But it is sad.

Just wanted to share this with someone x

*due to the damaged parts of my mum that should have said!

Where is your dad in this? Is he caring for her?

Do you have a sibling?

You don't need to care for someone who never cared for you.

You just need to ensure you don't pass on neglecting tendancies, not saying you might, but just be aware, how you raise your son is your priority now.

My dad is caring for her. I don't have any siblings and I'm not being expected to care for mum. It just feels more final now, I suppose, as she seemed quite unwell today.

I go the other way re not neglecting my son... probably do spoil him a bit tbh, lols... but yes am always aware of this thanks x

It’s never too late to give someone some love (until it is).

OP I really feel for you!

I ended up caring for my dad who had been a dreadful parent, husband and friend. Nobody wanted to have anything to do with him at the end of his life because he was nasty. It is a very complicated set of feelings when an unpleasant parent becomes vulnerable and needy in old age.

I took responsibility for his care but my sister distanced herself. It was equally hard for both of us. Caring for someone you don’t respect and you don’t feel deserves your energy is a struggle and I often felt I lacked integrity as my care was not sincere, in contrast to my sister was clear about her boundaries.

None of us is perfect. Not one of us. Just do the best you can, whilst being at peace with yourself.

Good luck!

Thank you @Allthegoodnamesarechosen
I just feel that whatever I do would never be enough and she wouldn't want it from me! I give love to my mum but it feels generic and definitely nothing like how my son and I relate to each other. I love her in a general way because it is the right thing to do.

@JodyMitchell that sounded so tough! What a warrior you must be. So sorry you went through that.

Yes it's about realising we are all imperfect and trying our best with the tools we have. My mum was traumatised by abuse and that was the deck she was playing with.

I just remember always feeling like there must be something wrong with me because even at 9 / 10 I would be the only child walking home from hobbies on my own. The not wanting to be close to me started early.

It's strange to see mum so vulnerable now and hard to think we have missed out on so much over the years.

It's okay to mourn the relationship you would have liked but couldn't have. You're not alone. Sometimes people go through things in childhood that affect them forever. And sometimes they go on to be parents.
It's so strange. But I don't think there's anything to be done.

@FluffyFluffyClouds thank you yes that's true, my mum was completely ruined by her childhood for sure. So sad.

@Starwarsposter I sympathise. My mum had a dreadful childhood with an abusive and mentally unwell mother. She did try, I think, to not pass it on, but she couldn't escape the shadows of her own upbringing. Especially after my dad died when I was 10 and it was just the two of us. Now she is hanging onto life by a thread, in a care home with dementia. I mourn the loss of the relationship we could have had, but didn't. I'm so sorry that you're going through this.

@moggerhanger sorry you are going through this too. I've been told by several people in the family that people used to say about my grandmother when she was young that she shouldn't have children because she was evil. My poor mum went through a lot. It's just such a shame that she couldn't have made a space for me. And soon she will be leaving and it will feel even sadder probably.

@moggerhanger what do you tell yourself when the situation with your mum upsets you if you don't mind me asking.

@Starwarsposter oh goodness, I'm not sure what I tell myself! I try to be very glass half full (with a waiter arriving with a new bottle) about stuff. So I remember that I have a wonderful husband, two fab kids, a great life generally. The intergenerational crap stops with me. And that my mum did her best, and it's just a shame it wasn't enough. But I am enough, by myself.

It's taken a few decades to get there though. And I wobble, regularly.

You don’t need to care for someone who never cared for you and care should be given with integrity and an open heart because nobody wants to receive care from a resentful person.

But that’s an ideal and real life family relationships are much more complicated. Most of us felt the tug of opposing feelings all at the same time.

I hated my dad and the way he had marred my childhood and created lasting issues for me in relating to people but I couldn’t step away. At the same time I berated myself for being a people pleaser. I think that those who distanced themselves from him at the end of his life felt that they acted with integrity but at the same time missed the chance to come face to face with his vulnerability.

There is no ‘right’ choice in this situation. You just do what you can.

I am so sorry. I feel similarly towards my mother. She is also in poor health and recently suggested we should ' work on our relationship.' I was just stunned; I thought -- you've had 45 years to do that! I have always found surrogate mothers who have been supportive in ways she couldn't manage.

@Starwarsposter. You have my sympathy. My Mother was also 'ruined by her childhood' & in turn ruined mine. I'm 55 now. I had some excellent private Counselling in my early 20's to deal with it (CSA) & I've thought of my Mother as 'the person who birthed me but was not able to Mother me' for 30 years now. So, I was taken aback that when she became ill & died last Spring, it hit me really hard. I spoke to a grief charity who said that 'complex grief' can be very hard. You are mourning the final letting go of any hope it can ever be resolved. I understand that your Mother is still here so I hope I've not upset you posting that, but I wanted to share my experience in case it was helpful x

I’m so sorry. My mum is similarly emotionally distant and always has been and it’s hard knowing she’ll never be there for me. You kind of keep wishing it’ll change, or at least I do. But it won’t in my case. And probably not in yours either. You’re grieving for the mother you didn’t have.

I’m so sorry you were raped too. Me too. It’s hard to move on. I’ve had some counselling which helped a bit. Good luck OP

Also OP, well done for being a better mother than she was. I am too.

It’s hard when someone you are emotionally attached to but who has never been fully available to you becomes frail and vulnerable.
my mum walked out on us as kids and has suffered with depression all her life. She’s tried to make up for her faults but we don’t have a good relationship. Now she has dementia and has it’s really hard. I never knew how I would respond to her decline but just had to go with how I feel, there is no obligation

Its just so difficult to navigate this “ambiguous loss.” There is nothing to be done but observe this grief and eventually, hopefully, you will be able to encompass it and leave it behind. One of my patients had to care for her own very abusive mother and managed it by severing the caring function from their personal history. She approached it dispassionately. I know you are not caretaking her but you are suffering through the endgame and that takes some doing!

But something I work on with some people who have neglectful or alienated mothers is sort of metaphorically or in one’s imagination trying to recognize and mourn the person/mother they could have been absent their trauma.

Its a bit if a mental practice of giving them the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes we talk in therapy about what what that mother might have done, or would have wanted to do if things had been different.

All my sympathy to you and also congratulations on breaking the family tradition of trauma and abuse and creating a loving family for yourself.

Wow so many replies! Thank you for commenting.

I think mum getting frail and vulnerable has ironically coincided with, in the last few years, me realising how much the neglect has affected me and my relationships. I have probably always naively hoped I would find my tribe that would make me feel loved outside of my husband and son and that hasn't happened, outside of my best friend who lives a long way away and one or two others I see here and there. I have probably always over given in friendships and have been socially anxious.

My mum and I had an opportunity to have a really special, close and loving relationship and ultimately for her own reasons my mum chose not to take it. Somewhere inside me there is also a feeling of anger that soon I am going to add grief to this sadness as well.

Sometimes my mum comments on how wonderful our son is and how much happier he is than I was as a child. I want to tell her that this could be because his needs are met and I do things wirh him and I talk to him and we have fun together.

@pikkumyy77 that's lovely maybe I will try this.

@Illegallyblonder @Thighdentitycrisis

Yes, it's the grieving for the relationship you didn't have. I feel a bit better about it today, but I think it must have hit me last night as i suppose your subconsciousness is preparing you for the end in some way?

You will need to grieve for the relationship you should have had rather than the one you actually got. Your mother had a choice though when it came to you and she repeated the same or similar to what was done to her. She never sought the necessary help.

Its not your fault she is like this and you did not make her that way,

Thanks @AttilaTheMeerkat yes you are right. It would have helped mum so much, and all of the relationships around her, if she had sought some help. I suggested this many times as mum would often talk about her difficult childhood.

I just wanted to send love OP you sound like a wonderful human being and a great mum to your son, I'm so sorry you went through this xx