Feeling differently towards a parent after counselling... what to do?

[Beanstalks]

I've been having counselling for some time due to a messy divorce, but we recently moved on to the topic of my parenting.

My mother has been a big emotional support during my divorce at times, however there have been some things that she's said which have made my counsellor gasp a few times. One of the them being an implication that she made that it was my fault for leaving home and moving in with my ex husband that she met her last partner who turned out to be an alcoholic.

Anyway, we've dug a bit deeper in recent weeks and now things that happened in that past appears to be impacting on my relationship with my mum in the present, despite us being close over the last few years. I actually feel at a point where I don't want to speak to her. We've unearthed feelings of neglect during my teen years, affairs which I shouldn't have known about but did, the times she got drunk and embarrassed me infront of my friends. Her spoiling my 30th birthday party by getting very drunk... etc

I have argued with her twice in two weeks and we never usually argue at all. She's definitely emotionally healthier than she used to be, but there are still things she says that don't feel very supportive at times. I am really struggling as the trips down memory lane have altered my current perception of her.

How do you deal with this when counselling has this kind of impact? How do I manage my relationship with my mum now that I'm experiencing these negative feelings about her? I know that if I talk through anything with her, she'll just become the victim.

This shouldn't really happen in therapy so I would kindly suggest maybe you shouldn't see the counsellor any more. Perhaps consider a psychotherapist?

Your Mum has served her purpose. Your counsellor is your new Mumstitute. Get rid. Start a fresh. Good luck.

I would keep up the counselling sessions if you want to and I think they could be helpful to you.

Your mother may well have bought you material things but emotionally she has been found wanting in that she has been neglectful to you. She’s also blamed you for stuff you had no part of and you were but a child at the time so it could not have been your fault anyway. Your feelings in that respect are totally valid and need addressing.

What are your boundaries like re your mother?. Are they good or could they be raised?. Does your mother have a drink problem?. Remember that you are not and have never been responsible for her choices.

it also sounds like you’ve only got on with your mother when you agree with all she’s says and does, any dissent from you is not at all tolerated by her.

One of the them being an implication that she made that it was my fault for leaving home and moving in with my ex husband that she met her last partner who turned out to be an alcoholic.

Hmmm. They doesn't sound like someone blaming you for her decision. More someone talking along the lines of "the flap of a butterfly's wings..." saying (that indicates that one small action can lead to something bigger) and entirely different.

I, like all parents, have made mistakes that I regret, despite on the whole being a pretty decent one. Better than most, I think.
This kind of therapy that picks up old wounds from decades ago and feeds them, would probably have the potential to run almost every parent and child relationship, to be honest.

Run= ruin

This kind of therapy that picks up old wounds from decades ago and feeds them, would probably have the potential to run almost every parent and child relationship, to be honest.
I completely agree. I think I was an OK parent but there are things I would have done differently looking back.
We all make mistakes and I don't think any of us would stand up to that kind of scrutiny.

I think we should leave the past in the past with respect to relationships. But sometimes we have to revisit it to understand our own current state of mind and issues that we need to resolve to be healthy.

Your mom brought this up. I guess there is a passive-aggressive part of her that’s still mad you left, even though deep down she knows it’s her own fault. It was not a nice thing to say, but you know the truth. You shouldn’t now say “That’s probably partly true, I was fleeing the tumultuous situation which you created and so maybe didn’t have my eyes fully open to what I was entering.” But that’s probably the truth, right?

I would leave it alone, though. I’m working on allowing the people around me to just be flawed. To stop expecting otherwise. To put up boundaries to protect myself. To have the best relationship with them I can have without surrendering myself to the bad parts.

There are many different kinds of therapy. The kind that digs up long forgotten incidents and picks over the detail of them until you feel bitter and alienated from your family, when before the therapy you had a close relationship, is not a good kind of therapy.

I’ve studied counselling a little and we are specifically told not to give the kind of emotional and judgemental reactions you describe from your therapist. You are not seeing a good therapist.

Bin the therapist and fix your relationship with your mum.

Maybe I misunderstood. She was blaming you for her getting involved with her alcoholic ex?

I've had a lot of therapy over the past year and it brought up things from the past regarding both my parents. The therapy allowed me to explore my feelings and come out the other side. I realise now that my parents did their best with what they had at the time. Neither will ever seek out psychotherapy so I need to accept their limitations.

I found therapy an excellent space to do this. Maybe you should consider cutting down on contact a bit while you work through it.

I had similar counselling after divorce, and my childhood came up. I'd never had a rosy picture of my upbringing but it still made me see it from another angle that was not flattering to my parents! The counselling I had did not make me see them as monsters, though, but as people who did not have great role models fom their own parents, and made poor choices, as people do. Could you look at it from that angle maybe? Talk about their upbringing, too?

Don't forget that you're going through some big feelings now. When you've worked through it, you might not want to confront her anyway. After my divorce I went through a phase of saying what I thought very directly :D which was not always a bad thing - but at one point I did this to my mother too, and as you say, she made herself the victim. This was kind of useful in that it confirmed to me that I shouldn't expect her to be in a classic mother role. But it didn't lead to her changing or opening up about anything. So I wouldn't especially recommend it.

Yes, accept their limitations is what I've learned to do through counselling, too.
And generally, a few years after the therapy, just talking about it seems to have made me feel better.

I think one of the purposes of therapy is to change ongoing aspects of codependency in relationships into more inter dependent where people are individuals responsible for their own choices, actions and emotions in the relationships. That goes for both sides of the relationship. In short to look out for the damaging ongoing patterns of behaviour and address those.

The other thing that is worth considering is recognising that your parent is a human and if they hit a 70% (which does not allow there to be abuse) then they get a first class honours as a parent. Noone and nothing is perfect. You are entitled to have a bit of frustration and anger at your mother, they are only feelings and they can help to identify where the codependency still is at.

My brother had counselling after his affair and divorce and this is the type of counselling he seems to have had. He now blames all of his problems on our mother (even down to the job he does) and considers that he had a difficult childhood.
We are both now parents in our 40s and I understand that parents say and do things, sometimes in the heat of the moment, sometimes things have more impact than the speaker considers.
I would not say that he is parenting his children with greater care or consideration than we were, far less in fact, which leads me to wonder what the point of all this blaming is for if it is not to improve future relationship.
Only you can decide how this impacts your relationship with your mother OP, and it does sound like there have been issues but reflecting kindly is worth considering.

I disagree with many of the other posters. In my experience, good therapy does sometimes connect more recent issues with trauma/damage from the past.

One of the problems of growing up in an abusive/traumatic/difficult relationship with a parent is that it is all you have known so it can feel very normal. It can take someone else's shock/reaction to see just how dysfunctional it has been. It doesn't mean the therapist or the therapy is bad, particularly if otherwise the op has been finding it useful.

With regard to your relationship with your mum, op, I would do 2 things:

Firstly for the time being, I would think about how you can boundary your time with your mum. This might mean seeing/speaking to her a bit less often and/or working out whether there are activities you can do that are less likely to be problematic ( shopping, watching a TV show you both like, going to the cinema) and or time bounded (gotta go now mum, I said I'd do x with y at z pm).

The second thing I would do is talk about what is happening regarding your reactions with your mum with your therapist. They should be able to help you work through what is happening.

I agrée there too.

I’ve had counselling and ended up with similar feelings than the OP.
i think the difference is that I let it settle for a while rather than picking at it. And I realised that actually my parents humans. They’ve messed up some time. And I disagree with some if they’re choices and outlooks. But they’ve done their best and what is important isn’t what they’ve done or not done when I was a kid. What’s Important is how I am reacting now.

So let’s say I’ve realised my mum is a people pleaser and she taught me (and still expects me) to ignore some bad behaviour from my dad (because he has had such a hard childhood).
I could concentrate in the trauma associated with my dad’s outbursts. And how I’ve learnt to ‘fawn’. How awful it was, the trauma etc…
Instead, now that I know it is my default position, I’m looking at the times when I’m doing that NOW. Calming things down regardless of the impact on myself rather than being assertive. With my parents, with my dh etc…, I’m working on having a different reactions, choosing to sometimes be uncomfortable stating my needs rather than fawning over DH needs fur example.

I think looking at the past helps if it gives you some understanding of the present.
It doesn’t if it’s about judging other people reactions based entirely on your memories and with no ways of changing anything.

Is your relationship with your mum good because her life is good so she's not blaming you for anything?
Is it good because you have learned how to evade problem areas?

Or is it genuinely good?

It's worth a wonder!

wise words.

I was upset with my parents but now fully accept they tried their best but are only human, with many imperfections

I think your therapeutic "breakthrough" has been to discover that your mother is a human being with flaws, capable of poor judgement at times and "guilty" of not being a perfect parent. But she's also capable of growth and change (as evidenced by your relationship over the past several years).

You said your mother has been a source of support during this difficult time. My advice would be to think very, very carefully about acting on your impulse to "not speak to her". Will you benefit from eliminating a supportive person from your life because of their past transgressions? Will you be happier if you create a rift in your relationship that may be permanent?

Lastly, hindsight is a funny thing. If you parse every past comment, ruminate on childhood hurts and disappointments you don't necessarily arrive at an absolute truth. Context matters. While our pasts undoubtedly impact our current relationships, don't be too quick to lay the blame of your failed marriage solely on your upbringing. Good therapy is about figuring out our own role in what is making us unhappy, not so much on looking for someone (or something) to blame thereby absolving ourselves of responsibility. Good luck!

I think your therapeutic "breakthrough" has been to discover that your mother is a human being with flaws, capable of poor judgement at times and "guilty" of not being a perfect parent. But she's also capable of growth and change (as evidenced by your relationship over the past several years).

You said your mother has been a source of support during this difficult time. My advice would be to think very, very carefully about acting on your impulse to "not speak to her". Will you benefit from eliminating a supportive person from your life because of their past transgressions? Will you be happier if you create a rift in your relationship that may be permanent?

Excellent points by @GulfCoastBeachGirl there.

As the mother of DDs in their 30s, I world be desperately upset if they went quiet on me, having been encouraged to recall those moments when I made the wrong decisions. We all have stages in our children's lives that we were better at than others. We learn, we change, and at this stage, try not to dwell too much on those errors, and ensure that we're the best we can be at this stage, when as adults, we understand each other better. .

*I agrée there too.

I’ve had counselling and ended up with similar feelings than the OP.
i think the difference is that I let it settle for a while rather than picking at it. And I realised that actually my parents humans. They’ve messed up some time. And I disagree with some if they’re choices and outlooks. But they’ve done their best and what is important isn’t what they’ve done or not done when I was a kid. What’s Important is how I am reacting now.

So let’s say I’ve realised my mum is a people pleaser and she taught me (and still expects me) to ignore some bad behaviour from my dad (because he has had such a hard childhood).
I could concentrate in the trauma associated with my dad’s outbursts. And how I’ve learnt to ‘fawn’. How awful it was, the trauma etc…
Instead, now that I know it is my default position, I’m looking at the times when I’m doing that NOW. Calming things down regardless of the impact on myself rather than being assertive. With my parents, with my dh etc…, I’m working on having a different reactions, choosing to sometimes be uncomfortable stating my needs rather than fawning over DH needs fur example.

I think looking at the past helps if it gives you some understanding of the present.
It doesn’t if it’s about judging other people reactions based entirely on your memories and with no ways of changing anything.*

^Excellent post and this too is a really good insight.

*I think your therapeutic "breakthrough" has been to discover that your mother is a human being with flaws, capable of poor judgement at times and "guilty" of not being a perfect parent. But she's also capable of growth and change (as evidenced by your relationship over the past several years).

You said your mother has been a source of support during this difficult time. My advice would be to think very, very carefully about acting on your impulse to "not speak to her". Will you benefit from eliminating a supportive person from your life because of their past transgressions? Will you be happier if you create a rift in your relationship that may be permanent?

Lastly, hindsight is a funny thing. If you parse every past comment, ruminate on childhood hurts and disappointments you don't necessarily arrive at an absolute truth. Context matters. While our pasts undoubtedly impact our current relationships, don't be too quick to lay the blame of your failed marriage solely on your upbringing. Good therapy is about figuring out our own role in what is making us unhappy, not so much on looking for someone (or something) to blame thereby absolving ourselves of responsibility. Good luck!*

I think @EducatingArti is very wise and gives good advice about getting a bit of distance from your mum while you work this out. Therapy is a process and you may feel quite differently about all this in a month or so.

One thing I would say is that I have had years of therapy and talked about my parents loads in therapy, but I've never brought any of this to them. I've always kept it boundaried and private. As other posters have said, this is about me making sense of and accepting my life. There was nothing to be gained (in my opinion) from confronting my parents with any of it.

This is exactly what therapy should do. A psychotherapist is a therapist.

I don't see where the therapist was was judgemental, unless you are talking about the gasps. Immediacy and congruence are essential parts of therapy. A therpist lets their own feelings be known as they may be picking up on things rom the clients that the client themselves are no aware of.

The reltionship with her Mum is not necessrily broken, it's under a microscope. Sweeping things under the rug and pretending things are fine isn't a healtny relationship, it's a pretend one. Which some people are perfectly happy with btw. The Op does not seem to be though