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 is exactly the purpose of therapy

I totally agree. This is the danger of studying something a little.

'I know that if I talk through anything with her, she'll just become the victim.'.

I'm surprised that no one else has picked up on this comment. It sounds like you can't rely on your mother to make space for your feelings and hold space for you.

I would advise you to stick with therapy. It can be painful, unsettling, strange, and can definitely leave you evaluating relationships in a new light. Try to see it as something for you, rather than for your relationship with your mother. And do share what you've shared here with your therapist

Hi OP. This is a normal part of the therapy process that many people are too defended to even contemplate (as you can see from some of the responses on this thread). It’s a really difficult place to be and it’s not easy to navigate. You are only just becoming aware of the more difficult aspects of your relationship with your Mum. It’s normal to be angry and it’s normal for it to be consuming. Take time to allow yourself the anger and try and trust the process. It won’t last forever. As you change your relationship with your Mum can change, that can be a positive thing, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now.

it is important for your experience to be acknowledged. A therapist will help you do this. What you choose to do in your relationship, once you have processed and move on from these initial feelings of anger, is up to you.

There is a lot of misinformation on here about what therapy is about. Your therapist hasn’t behaved inappropriately. They are also not responsible for your actions. Therapy is basically always about the mother child relationship. Whether it’s spoken about or not.

The negative effects of counselling are very poorly noted (unsurprisingly; it's an incredibly lucrative industry).
I have a sibling who lives in the past, counselling has did nothing but encourage this. They blame their (it would seem inherent) unhappiness on everyone but themselves - they're holding decade old grudges.
I've had to (sadly) distance myself, because it's become exhausting frankly.

This!

Who's going to be more important in your life long-term? Your mum or your therapist?

'I know that if I talk through anything with her, she'll just become the victim.'.

I'm surprised that no one else has picked up on this comment. It sounds like you can't rely on your mother to make space for your feelings and hold space for you.

How many mothers of adults are so saintly that when their DD comes to them out of the blue with accusations about their decades old errors having ruined their life, just 'make'space for their DD's feelings' and swallow their own?

Some empathy for the parent who is shocked, hurt and at a loss, would be nice. Such an emotional and difficult conversation isn't just about the DD.
Seriously, this could happen to any of us. Because no parent brings up their child to adulthood without making mistakes.

You have to make a decision to move on and respect she has changed as a person.

My mum abandoned us as small children (to abusive dad and sm) to indulge in a life of class A drugs, druggies and crime. She returned when I was 15 after we'd suffered years of torment.
What she is now is a wonderful grandma to my kids and a good friend to me. To deny her of that would also hurt myself and my kids.
It would be different if she was toxic to this day, of course she would be cut off, but she's changed and is a positive addition to our lives.

Bringing up the past constantly just stops you from living your best life today.

Also when I tried therapy I found they tried to put me against all of my family with the narrative that I am the victim that needs to mull over and cut toxicity from my life. If I cut off everyone that has ever hurt me then I would be alone.
But honestly, are you perfect? I'm not.
I've said and done things I'd rather not be dragged through again.
I hope that I've learned from my mistakes and try to give everyone else the same grace.

Seriously, this could happen to any of us. Because no parent brings up their child to adulthood without making mistakes.

From the OP: 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 These are not mistakes.

I know that if I talk through anything with her, she'll just become the victim. This is suggestive of a difficult relationship in the present.

Posters seem very invested in the OP sweeping things under the carpet. It may be that evaluating the past would be helpful for the OP.

Bringing up the past constantly just stops you from living your best life today

I agree with this. It's fine to explore your past in therapy, but ideally the therapist helps you to put your past in perspective. I'm old enough to realize that there is not an unlimited supply of people who love you, care about you and support you thru difficult life passages. It would be a shame to jettison a currently positive relationship because of past hurts.

@Thepossibility Your story is very hopeful and poignant. Congratulations on overcoming a difficult past and finding it in your heart to give your mother a second chance. It's wonderful that your children are seeing the benefit!

That's really not true.
This is very common in therapy and it's sometimes needed.

I do not think this "counselling" sounds positive or constructive in any way.

A major aim of therapy is gaining self knowledge. It helps us know what we need, and how to realistically meet those needs, so we can be our best selves, both for ourselves and others we go through life with.

Understanding your upbringing, and how family relationships have shaped your adult relationships and how you interact with the world now, is a standard part of most therapy (perhaps not CBT, which is so superficial ime it barely feels like therapy, but definitely anything that goes deeper than that such as psychotherapy or relational therapy).

For this reason I think everyone should get therapy, preferably before they decide on a life partner, and definitely before they have kids. It's the only hope we have of breaking the damaging intergenerational traumatising cycles a lot of us find ourselves in. Jungian therapy (psychotherapy) is all about this.

It sounds like you have plenty to process and reflect on. Perhaps for now it would be good to focus on these issues with your therapist and reflect alone, and not reveal too much of what you're learning to your mother until it is a bit less raw and you have decided on how you'd like to move forward.

Putting new boundaries in place can be difficult and result in some surprising kickback from loved ones, especially considering your last sentence in your OP. Learning how to navigate that kind of invalidation is something your therapist can help you with too.

'Posters seem very invested in the OP sweeping things under the carpet. It may be that evaluating the past would be helpful for the OP.'

Absolutely agree. Many posters seem to feel that her mother's behaviour should be minimised as 'a few mistakes' and that she should pretty much just get over it, 'because she's your mum'.

I totally disagree

fine, if you find "therapy" helpful, but the vast majority of the time it is not.

I see countless teens waiting years for "therapy" under the impression that it is going to do something, or change something - I don't know what they expect, but it never ever works. Parents pin all their hopes on it to be some sort of magic bullet that is going to compensate for everything that has gone wrong in their child's life, and don't understand why nothing changes.

|I think it can have some value up to about the age of 8, just in teaching individuals a little bit about emotions, etc, but nothing beyond that.

I am going to start a new thread on this, to see what other people think

'fine, if you find "therapy" helpful, but the vast majority of the time it is not.'

Well there are various different types of therapy. What you describe sounds like CBT - from what I know about it, it's of limited value. It's offered by the NHS because it's short term, relatively low cost work. Psychodynamic therapy on the other hand is much deeper, more complex, and much longer term and of course much more expensive

And you mention expectations. Most people do expect services to offer a magic wand solution to whatever is going on in their lives. If that's the expectation, they're always going to be badly disappointed

I think the therapist did a good job - the relationship we have with our parents often shapes how we relate to other people

Is it really that surprising that OP endured abused in marriage as someone who have had a neglectful mother, who used to get drunk in front of her kid, and involved her kid in stuff she shouldn't? Even now OPs mother makes herself a victim and blames OP for her own bad relationship

feeling resentful and seeing someone for what they are for the first time is first step of actually working through the mechanisms that led to issues later on in life

A therapy that investigates the past but doesn't also bring a historic view and compassion is not great imo. My mum got a lot 'wrong' (drinking, shit boyfriends, domestic violence) but she was also raising 3 kids alone and working constantly. If you're 40+ then most of our parents likely had childhoods where they were dealing with traumatised post war parents and poverty. Grief and trauma go back a long way, it doesn't start and end with them.

If you're struggling with your present relationship with her then maybe it's worth going further back and asking how your mother's childhood was. How did she become who she is. How has she changed.

None of thats to say you should put up with criticality or weird blaming in the present. I just think a long view is worthwhile

This is difficult but it's how you feel about yourself that matters most. If counselling helps you to have a good relationship with yourself then it's a very good thing.

This may necessitate having a worse relationship with some other individuals and that's ok.

I dont agree with that.

I did say that, for me!, I acknowledged that my parents are humans and made mistakes.
Yes the way they were/are shaped who I am and how I accepted stuff I shouldn’t have for far too long. And understanding that has been essential to changing my own behaviour.

But I think that then making them all responsible of how I have behave is putting me back into the role of the helpless child. It’s putting the whole responsibility of how I react onto them when I’m actually an adult perfectly able to chose how to react. Why?

It’s not sweeping things under the carpet if you change your behaviour and put boundaries in. If whatever you thought was not acceptable NOW is been dealt with.
If you mean ‘sweeping under the carpet’ as in carrying seeing your parent and not cutting them off or carrying on having a good enough relationship with them, then I’d say IT DEPENDS.
Some people will forgive the worst things. Others will cling on the anger they have towards someone who hurt them. Some will decide that it’s not safe enough fir them to still be around that person. Others will decide they can’t forgive.
None of those choices are ‘sweeping/not sweeping things under the carpet’. But rather it should be a deliberate choice of how you want the future to look like, what is important/working for you. Because there user a one size answer that fits all.

i think posters are either missing or ignoring the fact that it's not "all in the past" and instead OP's mother's behaviour continues - she blames OP for her own bad relationship and OP is sure her mother would play a victim if confronted.

You can't know how someone will react until you actually approach them. Saying to a parent you might want to go no contact because of things like getting drunk at your birthday party 20 years ago is likely to provoke a defensive response - that's not the same as playing the victim!
Some of us are more emotionally susceptible than others, and I think that's where caution around counselling should be exercised.
I know people who have spent most of their lives on the self pity treadmill, and will grasp every oppprtunity to stay on it! Self pity is a very destructive emotion (particularly when its become a habit). And its boring.
We're all different but I think forgiving others, wherever possible, is the kindest thing we can do for ourselves.

'We're all different but I think forgiving others, wherever possible, is the kindest thing we can do for ourselves.'

Forgiveness is something that has to happen organically, you can't force it. For some people, there is a long process to go through to get there, and that can involve a lot of difficult emotions like anger and frustration and resentment and yes, self-pity. Feeling like you want to isolate yourself from a parent doesn't mean you will feel that way forever. Feelings change and therapy helps you to work through them and actually learn to FEEL those feelings, even (especially) the ones you have been conditioned to shut off. If that process ends in forgiveness, fine. It may lead to to something that feels more like peace or acceptance

No therapist should be gasping in a session . They sound highly unprofessional. Perhaps express surprise maybe - but if they are letting their own judgement and emotion into the room in this overt way - I don’t think they sound professional.