Question to the psychologist:
The fact is that I do not feel and do not see love and understanding for me from my mother.
Since, I always call her with the hope that I will receive support and understanding from her, kind words, but in response I hear only NOT kind words. Whatever happens there, whatever happens there, in her opinion, I am always bad. Not once did she intercede for me, for example, in a quarrel or dispute with her older sister. The older sister is from 1984 and I am from 1991. She is a leader, I always listen to her, but she reaches the limit, she begins to become impudent, I endure all this and keep quiet. She always provokes me into a conflict, and if I defend myself a little, God forbid, if I defend myself, that's all, for my mother I am an egoist. Even when I am silent, I endure, they don’t see it and don’t appreciate it, in the end they just bring me to tears, I enter into myself, I’m looking for support on the side, since there is no support in the family, I have to look for it on the side, not everyone understands, and Therefore, I turn to a psychologist. It is very difficult to endure and silently listen to their insult in your address out of the blue. Also, my sister manipulates all my relatives, sets everyone up against me, as a result, no one talks to me, if I speak, they begin to put pressure, run into, insult again. I myself am a disabled person of the 2nd group, and I try not to be nervous so as not to harm my health. Sometimes it seems that it would be better for me to die than to endure all this, but then I think that God loves me, and He tests me through such people, through such a family. But, it’s hard, sometimes you want to run away, you don’t see anyone, don’t answer calls, leave them all, they still don’t need me. Since there are no warm words from anyone, attention, support, love. Many people receive support and love from their mother, from family, from relatives, it’s just the opposite for me, I myself am looking for people who understand me on the side, it’s very hard. But, nevertheless, I manage to find it, and it becomes a little easier for me. But every time I talk to my mother or my older sister, who has written on the corner since childhood, how she hates me. In front of strangers, he talks to me very nicely, and when alone, he finds any reason to insult me, offend me to the fullest, bring me to tears. At the same time, she keeps the Fast in the month of Ramadan, and she still behaves this way, the feeling is that this is for the purpose of being invited to visit, show more respect, and so on. Although God will condemn it, and yet, it is very hard for me. How to get out of such a morally difficult situation.
Hello Saltanat!
The family is a wonderful and interesting thing. We are born in it as children and in it we become adults. How is the position of an adult different from the position of a child? The child needs to receive: food, care, love and care from parents. Otherwise, he simply will not survive.
What is the adult position? This is the position of giving love, attention, care, material support.
You are 25 years old, and only you can decide which position you choose. You can continue to feel sorry for yourself (including because of the state of your health), wait and demand care and love, or start giving it to people yourself. I wrote to you directly, without embellishment. Why? Believe me, I know what it means to feel sorry for yourself and make claims to the world (this happened when my father died). This path leads only to the destruction of oneself and one's health, and this is too high a price. We are born to be happy, not to be offended.
And if you still decide to choose the position of an adult in the family :) how to start realizing it?
First, start watching. The child is always "in the game", he is included in the situation and does not see it from the outside. If, for example, a child plays a board game, he wants to win with all his might, all emotions are included in the game. How does an adult behave? He watches the game, the child, and wants not so much to win the board game (for his own benefit) as to please the child (for the benefit of another). Do you understand what I mean? You are now completely in the game, with all your strength and emotions you want to win (to prove that your sister is wrong, that she is selfish, that her mother supports her in vain). Exit the game. Watch your family members from the sidelines like actors on a stage. Where they are being selfish, say within yourself, "It's too bad they haven't learned this yet." Learn from their mistakes and treat people differently. Watch from the sidelines. Stop playing one performance with them, you have your own life and you were born to learn how to be happy in this life.
The position of an adult assumes giving and giving. Do not expect something from loved ones, start taking care of yourself, paying attention to them and other people, supporting them. All people, regardless of their financial situation, are spiritually rich or poor. The poor require attention, care, love, the rich give it to others themselves. Start doing creativity (music, painting, dancing, photography, embroidery - whatever you are interested in) and share this creativity with other people (via social networks or in person, with family and friends or just with those who have similar interests).
An adult person has decided on his values and faith. If you believe in God, imagine every day that you are his beloved child. The family cannot always give us protection and love, but God can always give them. Curl up in bed in the morning before you get up, like a baby in a mother's belly, and think "I am God's favorite child. I came into this world because God loves me. In this life, he gives me everything I need." NEEDED FOR DEVELOPMENT." Feel protected and loved and get up filled with this love and share it with people. Learn not to criticize and reproach, but to take care, but if you can’t find someone at all mutual language- step aside and observe.
5 Sep 1 3345
Julia Goryacheva: At 33, I realized that I did not love my mother. That I would like to give her up, delete her from my life… or I would like to change her (no matter how absurd it sounds) to a friendly, smiling, calm, soft, kind, understanding and, most importantly, accepting woman. Communication with her in recent years brings me nothing but negative emotions and, as a result, spent and unrecovered nerves.
No, not an alcoholic, not a drug addict, not a promiscuous woman. On the contrary, it is very correct, one might even say exemplary. In every way. Or rather, he wants to appear like that. And I already got these double standards!
Let's start with the fact that my mother loved to repeat all her life how she loves children, how she understands them, and how she knows how to find a common language with them. Only she gave me to be raised by her parents, after parting with my father. And then, many years later, she told me that she actually wanted to have an abortion with me, because her relationship with her dad was already on the verge, but then she decided: “Yes, that I won’t raise a child!” and gave me life ... so that later I could run away with my father and throw me away to be raised by my grandparents in another city, supposedly it was impossible to live in a hostel with children.
And I lived without my mother from one and a half to five years. She likes to repeat that she came to me every weekend, but for some reason I don’t remember her. Now, at the age of 33, already having my own three children, I am struck by the thought that in my childhood I do not remember the Main Figure of my life. I remember her sister, who came every summer, but I don’t remember her mother. Or rather, I remember one day when my grandparents told me that my mother would come today. And I was waiting for her, so waiting! But she didn't come. Probably since then I don’t remember her ...
After parting with my father, my mother deprived me of the opportunity to meet and communicate with him. She said unpleasant things about him, like he could kidnap me, urged me not to go anywhere with him when he came to my kindergarten. As a result, when he came to visit me in the 1st grade, I ran away from him, following my mother's precepts. He didn't come again.
She was never gentle and affectionate with me and never hugged me, arguing that life is a complicated thing and she does not want to grow a nurse out of me. In general, she raised me in such a way that I was afraid of her. I was afraid to disobey, I was afraid to object, I was even afraid to confess to her when I was pawed by an English teacher, to whom she also attached me for private lessons.
My mother always loved helping her girlfriends solve relationship problems. She, a divorced woman, considered herself a guru in the relationship of a man and a woman. She always glued families, urging her friends not to get divorced under a hot hand. And only to me she liked to repeat: “Divorce your husband!” If I complained to her in my hearts about him. The apotheosis was when she called her husband's cell phone last year and also suggested that he divorce me after our skirmish. Since then, I have not told her anything, no matter what difficulties in the relationship I have.
And she also loves to brag in public about what wonderful grandchildren she has. Now there are already three of them. And I'm expecting my fourth child. But the last two might not have been - listen to my mother and do sterilization after the second child. She decided that I had enough children, that the weather, born through a caesarean section, was too hard for me. She even convinced me before the birth of my second child to agree with the doctor about sterilization. Thanks to my doctor, she said, “No way. Then you will want a boy and you will run after me with a knife. Then I really gave birth to a boy, and myself, at home, feeling the birth the way it was intended by nature. By the way, this is to the question of how much mother loves children ....
Also to the question of mother's love for children - mother's psychosis about my prolonged breastfeeding of my son. Mom probably considers herself an expert in breastfeeding. She stopped breastfeeding me when I was a month old, simply because the children's clinic told her that I was not gaining weight well because she had low-fat milk. Now she is sure that guards after a year does not give anything good to the child. Since I fed my daughters for up to a year, there were no conflicts. They started when my mother saw me feeding my son at the age of one year and 2 months. She is an expert, she knows that after a year there is nothing useful for a child in milk, and with this worthless feeding I only want to tie my son to me more when I “shove a boob into his mouth.” How many unkind looks and caustic remarks were directed at me when I fed my son with her. In the end, I couldn't take it.
I rarely explode, but here I already got it! The person who fed for a month will still teach me how much I should feed my child! I was indignant, and immediately learned a lot about myself. She said things that were very offensive to me: that I am a nervous mother, that I do not look after children well, that I am nothing of myself, that I am a bad daughter ... When I asked in tears of despair, “Mom, well, there is something in me anything good?" She angrily hissed "No!" It was very painful to hear and it became a turning point in our relationship with her. And literally an hour before that, she told the guests what wonderful parents my husband and I had raised such children. Those double standards again!
For my mother, I represent value only as a being capable of benefiting society. When I studied, spoke at conferences, wrote articles, led an active lifestyle, had numerous hobbies, changed jobs - my mother was proud of me. Then I, in my mother's understanding, lived. In the last 6 years, my life has stopped, as I have been giving birth and raising children all this time. With each child, mother liked to repeat: “It’s time to do something, you stayed at home.”
And for some reason, it doesn’t matter at all that as a result of my 6-year stay at home, my children are healthy (lack of vaccinations, hardening), active (walks in the fresh air in large numbers), creative (attending circles), cheerful and sociable ( there is a lot of time for games in their life, and the game for me is the most important thing that should be in a child’s childhood). The third child, born at home, generally has excellent health and is developing well.
No, for mom, something else is important. It turns out that I am a bad housewife (I cook porridge not in the way she thinks is right and don’t clean the apartment in a timely manner), a bad mother (I yell at the children) and a bad wife (I talk with my husband in raised tones and sometimes (oh horror!) I swear with him with children). Mom likes to emphasize that she never quarrels with her husband (she has a second marriage, got married at 47). Only I somehow became an unwitting witness to how she yelled at her husband. One illusion crumbled. And then, after all, I used to think: “Yeah, my mother doesn’t swear with her husband, so she lives right, I swear, so I live wrong.” And only recently I realized that everyone swears. It's only my mom who wants to look better than she is. Oh, how she feels sorry for our children when we swear. Previously, such phrases of hers drove me into a wild sense of guilt in front of the children. And only recently I realized that it’s better to let the children live in a full-fledged family where anything can happen than the way I spent my childhood: mom and dad didn’t swear simply because they didn’t exist in my childhood. But my grandfather and grandmother, with whom I grew up, quarreled.
We have been together for almost 10 years and I consider it my achievement that I manage to maintain a relationship with him and save my family, partly despite this stupid statistics that the children of divorced parents will definitely get divorced. I love my husband and can't imagine another man next to me.
Sometimes it seems to me that my mother is depressing. It would be much more pleasant for her to repeat her script. I used to be foolish to tell her about my fights with my husband. And she was immediately inspired, started calling me, urging me to throw him to hell, pick up the children and move in with her (she is in another city). And there she will arrange my life. As one of my friends joked, “Your mom wants to be your husband.” Both sad and funny.
My mother especially “supported” me when my husband had a serious accident this year. Soft-boiled machine, sternum fracture, surgery. He miraculously survived. I went through a terrible period, realizing that he was on the verge of death. On the part of my mother: not a drop of sympathy, not an ounce of understanding, although at that time we were on the same territory. Moreover, she reproached my six-year-old daughter for being too naughty when she saw her father's wrecked car and decided that her father had died. To which I exploded: “A child has the right to express her emotions as she sees fit and there is nothing to shut her mouth.” It was one of those rare occasions when I dared to contradict my mother, which, of course, she did not like and she immediately scolded me as a girl.
This accident took my relationship with my husband to a new level. We realized how much we love and appreciate each other, and the result of this was the appearance of a child.
And, can you imagine, I, a 33-year-old woman, being legally married to a beloved man, a mother of three children, was afraid to tell my mother about this fourth child. As at one time I was afraid to say about the third. I'm completely out of the family scenario. It is not customary to give birth in our family. It is customary to have abortions. I am ashamed to admit that I wanted to have an abortion with this child. And the worst thing is that I wanted to have an abortion with each of my children. With the first, because it was not clear, my marriage future husband on me or not, and even at work, they began to oppress me, having learned about the pregnancy, with the second - because I was horrified by the upbringing of the weather, and everyone around, including my mother, kept saying: “Oh, how hard it will be for you!”, with the third - because I just came to my senses from the weather and was about to go to work, with the fourth ... Lord (!), Is it because at one time my mother wanted to have an abortion with me !? And all my children go through this meat grinder of terrible thoughts. What a pity that this information is driven into my head and I know about such a possibility of our valiant medicine. Here animals have no idea about abortions and give birth to everyone. And people….
Upon learning of the child, the mother was far from happy. And rather angry that I allow myself to do this! She has completely lost her mind, to give birth to so many in our time! My poor husband, I'm driving him into bondage with this fourth child.
Oh, mother, mother...
Having become a mother three times myself, I began to understand a lot. And how many illusions have disappeared over the past year! And only the bitter reality remained. I don't love my mother and I doubt if she loves me.
Olga Kaver, process and systems therapist, constellator: As much as we accept and respect our mother, we can find happiness, success, fullness of life. This thought of Bert Hellinger once touched me deeply. Then, when I could write something similar about the relationship with my mother. With a lot of advice, usually a mother strives to meet society's expectations of a good mother. In this way, the older generation express their concern, wedging their opinions into the lives of their children. This is their way of loving, often expressing their love in a different way, this generation of mothers does not know how.
After all, they had other ideals in Soviet times. The Soviet Union was often called the "country of the Soviets", so it was accepted - to control the life of their children, this was considered a good quality for parents. I remember from the course of training in systemic constellations the phrase: "Mother gave life, and that's enough." I thought, it’s true, life is a priceless gift to us from our parents, and, first of all, from our mother, so priceless that no amount of money in the world can often redeem it from non-existence or death. And we all received this gift. From her parents, more from her mother, she made the decision to keep the child, gave her body, risked herself, being between life and death all the time of pregnancy and childbirth. It's true - we owe our mother's life. Compared to this, the personality of our mother seems to be a less important aspect: what she thinks, does, believes.
“Everything comes from childhood - all our traumas and problems” - this position of psychoanalysis has led to the fact that several generations of people have grown up blaming their parents for everything. As long as we blame our parents for our troubles, we have not grown up. An adult mature person takes full responsibility for the changes. And it separates the “essential mother” and the “personal mother”, and receives great love from the first, since it was this part of the mother that allowed us inside, raised and fed us, and the second simply accepts the way she is. When this separation and acceptance becomes a reality, a person becomes an adult.
What to do if you can not accept and share? It is enough to give life and resources for development, these resources include love. Otherwise, a mother is a separate person, walking her own Path through life, a Path different from her children. And this gives children the freedom to develop and choose their own path.
To live with dislike for the mother is a heavy burden that harms, first of all, ourselves. After all, any negative attitude towards another person gives us a charge of negativity, slows us down, does not allow us to move forward. And no matter how a person cherishes this disgusting feeling in himself, he always (!) wants to get rid of it, it weighs. Salvation comes with forgiveness and acceptance. This is a very very difficult process, physically and mentally. Often we are not ready to throw hatred for those who offended us out of our lives because it seems that we will become weaker, more vulnerable, forgiving and accepting. Hate is our defense, but at what cost?
Most of us have many complaints about our parents. But all claims can be expressed in a single phrase: "She \ He \ They loved \ do not love me the way I want." Yes Yes! They all, without a single exception, love. True, love, it is sometimes expressed in very perverted ways. And if we are ready, well, or try, to accept the love of our child in any form (even if it’s “mom - you’re bad!”), Then we knowingly demand from parents exactly the kind of love that we need exactly at that moment when we need it, etc. and so on. Who said parents can? After all, we do not demand from the right-hander the ideal writing of the text with the left hand? Why are we so sure that parents must be able to love?
It is important to allow at least the thought that mother did or tried to do everything she could ... Why allow this thought? In order to find peace, to be able to build your life not against the will of someone, but simply the way you want, in order to raise children, realizing that you are giving them the goodness that is inside, so that there is no black in your heart a hole that, like the Bermuda Triangle, sucks strength into nowhere.
To forgive and accept does not mean at all to allow the influence of your parents on your life, on the contrary, it means to free yourself, to untie the shackles that are pulling you back. To accept means to learn to breathe deeply, to learn to focus on yourself and your desires, without looking back at anyone. And to accept a parent always means also to make friends with that part of oneself, with which it was not possible to agree in any way before.
Olga Kolyada,practical psychologist, teacher of the training center "Ladya": Over and over again I read and listen to the confessions of adult women at trainings about difficult feelings for mothers ... It is sad, pitiful in its own way, both mother and daughter. I have nothing to say to aging mothers - they have already given, or not given, everything they could. And now they receive the corresponding "feedback" - a difficult and joyless relationship with adult daughters, or even a loss of relationships.
But I want to say to my daughters - dear, you have the right to ALL your feelings towards your mother! Everything that is. And it's not your fault - it's your misfortune if among these feelings there is no or almost no love left. Initially, the child always comes with love for the mother, it cannot be otherwise. And then the mother can perform actions (of varying degrees of awareness and for various reasons) of such severity and pain that they partially or completely block this love on your part. And how can you be to blame for this? Then - why are you embarrassed to admit calmly - yes, I don’t love my mother, maybe even hate it? Because “you can’t have such thoughts!”? It's like - there are feelings, but you can't have thoughts? Who said it? Mother?…
The paradox is that it is worth calmly allowing yourself to confess the most "bad" feelings for your mother, as the attitude towards her immediately begins to lose "degree"! Accepting what is, it is easier to build communication with her (if any) based on this given, and not on the basis of "how good daughters should be." If there is no communication, you begin to worry less because of its absence. And there are also gifts - by allowing yourself to feel all the negative feelings, you are freed from some of them, and deep under them you discover Love, which has not really gone anywhere, it just had no place on the surface before ...
Such girls then make the same mistakes in relationships, without realizing the reason. That's why, please watch what you say to your children!
Photo source: alwaysbusymama.com
For daughters who grew up knowing they were not loved, emotional wounds remain that largely determine their future relationship and how they build their lives.
Most importantly, the daughter's need for motherly love does not disappear. even after she realizes it's impossible.
Photo source: hsmedia.ru
This need lives on in her heart along with the terrible realization that the only person who should love her unconditionally, just for being her, doesn't. Dealing with this feeling sometimes takes a lifetime.
The saddest thing is that sometimes, having already matured, girls do not know the reason for their failures and believe that they themselves are to blame for all the problems.
Photo source: bancodasaude.com
Unloved daughters of unloving mothers don't know they deserve attention in their memory there was no feeling that they were loved at all.
The girl could grow up, getting used day by day only to the fact that she was not heard, ignored, or, even worse, she was closely watched and criticized for her every move.
Photo source: womanest.ru
Even if she has obvious talents and achievements They don't give her confidence. Even if she has a soft and accommodating character, her head continues to sound mother's voice, which she perceives as her own,- she is a bad daughter, ungrateful, she does everything out of spite, “in whom such a thing has grown, others have children like children” ...
Many people say as adults that they still have the feeling that they are "deceiving people" and their talents and character are fraught with some kind of flaw.
Photo source: bodo.ua
It always seemed strange to me why someone wants to be friends with me, I began to wonder if there was some benefit behind this.
Such thoughts arise from a general sense of the unreliability of the world., which is experienced by a girl whose mother either brings her closer to her, or pushes her away.
Photo source: sitewomen.com
She will continue to need constant confirmation that feelings and relationships can be trusted, that she will not be pushed away the next day.
And as adults they crave emotional storms, ups and downs, breaks and sweet reconciliations. Real love for them it is an obsession, an all-consuming passion, witchcraft power, jealousy and tears.
Photo source: manlogic.ru
Calm trusting relationships seem to them either unrealistic(they just can't believe it happens), or boring. A simple, non-demonic man will most likely not attract their attention.
Many of those who grew up in an atmosphere of cold indifference or constant criticism and unpredictability say that they constantly felt the need for maternal affection, but at the same time understood that they did not know any of the ways to get it.
What elicited a benevolent smile today may be rejected with irritation tomorrow.
Photo source: foto-cat.ru
And already as adults, they continue to look for a way to appease partners or friends, to avoid repeating that motherly coldness at all costs.
In addition to the difficulty in establishing healthy boundaries with the opposite sex, Daughters of unloving mothers often have problems with friendships.
Photo source: womancosmo.ru
A girl who felt maternal dislike in her childhood, somewhere in the depths of her soul feels fear: “I don’t want to be offended again.”
For her, the world is made up of potentially dangerous men., among which in some unknown way you need to find your own.
Photo source: familyexpert.ru
It is also difficult for such unloved daughters in childhood to cope with their emotions, because they did not have the experience of unconditional acceptance of their value, which allows them to stand firmly on their feet.
We are attached to what we know which is part of our childhood, whatever it befalls us.
Photo source: iuvaret.ru
Only years later I realized that my husband treated me the same way as my mother, and I chose him myself. Even the first words that he said to me in order to get acquainted were: “Did you yourself come up with this way to tie this scarf? Take it off." Then I thought it was very funny and original.
Why are we talking about this now, when we have already grown up?
Not in order to throw in despair those cards that fate dealt us. Everyone has their own.
And in order to realize how we act and why. And in relation to their children as well.
Prepared by: Maria Malygina
We asked the psychotherapist Alexander Badchen to consult one of the readers of the journal Psychologies. The conversation is recorded on a dictaphone: this makes it possible to understand what is actually happening in the psychotherapist's office. The names and personal information of the heroine have been changed for confidentiality purposes. This time, 32-year-old Veronika is at the reception of Alexander Badkhen.
Veronica: I have everything I need to be happy: a husband I love, children, a great job, friends, I travel a lot. There is only one thing I don't have - my mother. She is alive and well, it's just that my mother is not in my life. And never was. I remember how she left me and my sister for five days at kindergarten and how I cried, and the older sister said that my mother would definitely pick us up. I remember how my mother allowed her civil husband to give me a cruel slap in the face. As she told someone on the phone that I was ugly and I should at least think about my education so that I would not be left out of work. I can remember indefinitely, and this resentment against her greatly hinders my life. I try with all my might to forget it, to justify and forgive my mother, but I can’t.
Alexander Badkhen: You said you were trying to justify your mother...
Yes, I try... that... (crying) she didn't love me. I can't remember anything warm and pleasant. But I constantly justify her, because she herself did not have a mother - she died very early.
Do you explain her cold attitude towards you by the fact that she grew up without a mother?
I think she just doesn't know how much it hurts when you don't care. But, in justifying it, I understand that this is not such a good reason to make your children unhappy. In addition, I cannot understand why now she does not have warm feelings for her already adult children.
You said - to adult children. But did you feel it as a child?
It seems to me that when my sister and I began to grow up, we began to interfere with her even more. Mom had a personal life, and I lived with the feeling that I was disturbing her, that I needed to go somewhere. That's why I got married very early. I love my husband, but my mother was the original impetus for marriage. Not with words, but with her behavior - she just made me leave home by doing life together unbearable. For example, I remember ... She demanded money from me for an apartment and food from the age of 16! You know, when I remember this (crying), it's just unbearable.
These memories still continue to hurt you.
Very much. I guess you might get the impression that my mom is some kind of alcoholic or... It's not. She is quite successful, she has an arranged life, she lives with her loved one. She's all right.
Veronica, you say that you don't feel your mother's love. And when did you realize this?
When the son was born, he was five years old, and his daughter was two years old. Before that, I had nothing to compare with. When he was born, I decided that for my children I would be a completely different mother. This does not mean that I pamper them, but I try to show them my love once again.
That is, when a son appeared, something began to happen in your relationship with him that you did not remember in your relationship with your mother.
Yes it is. You are absolutely right.
In relationships with children, you try to compensate for your childhood lack of love.
What exactly?
It may seem banal, but when my son returns from the garden, I hug him, kiss him, ask him about everything. I miss and am interested in everything that happened to him during the day. Or suddenly there is a desire to sit next to the children on the couch, hug them and read with them, watch a movie. These are normal feelings for any parent. But it wasn't like that with our mom. Of course, my mother clothed us, fed us, but she never gave her time. And if I didn’t have such an acute problem with her, perhaps I would be more relaxed about the time I spend with children, more easily.
In relationships with children, you try to compensate for your childhood lack of love. It’s as if you learned such a lesson in childhood and now you know exactly what the value of a mother’s relationship with children is.
Yes, I know what it's like to love a child.
Have you ever discussed this with your mother?
Yes of course. But it's useless. For example, when a daughter was born, my mother did not come to us for a long time. I asked why she did this. But she found a strange excuse: she said that she did not have free time. When she did come to us, she constantly looked at her watch and said that she still had a lot to do. It was very painful. (Crying.)
That is, you feel that she has no need to see you.
Quite right.
You really need to communicate with her.
When some kind of trouble happens, my first desire is to snuggle up to my mother. Although I can only imagine how nice it is. I never had that experience, even as a teenager. I somehow tried, but she pushed me away, said that my problem is nonsense, it’s just not worth bothering with this.
It turns out, on the one hand, you cannot rely on it, but on the other hand, you still rely on it.
Yes. Like a child, I give her a chance over and over again, as if I beg her: well, finally pay attention to me, I try so hard for you! And I still hope that she herself will call me, call me. So that I don't ask for this relationship.
You want her to call you so that she changes, becomes different. And as a result, there would be space to talk about your grievances, to discuss them. But each new meeting brings disappointment and becomes another trauma for you.
Yes, that is right.
And at the same time, you cannot let go of this relationship. They will hurt you again and again.
Yes, it's mom. And perhaps hopelessness just because I can’t do anything about it, I can’t exchange her for another mother.
Yes, you really cannot exchange, but ... You know, it is often difficult for parents to let go of their child. But you did the opposite, you can’t let your mother live her life. Accept her, whatever she is, I mean her rigidity in relationships, even cruelty, insensitivity. As if you all hope that she will return to you the way you have dreamed of for so many years.
If we are not valuable to mom, then do we represent any value at all?
But it seems to me that when my time comes to let the children go, despite the inner pain and fear for them, I will do my best to keep and continue...
- (Silence.)
You talk about relationships with your children, about the value of intimacy with them, which you learned at a very bitter cost. And at the same time, you dream of maintaining close relationships that never existed. It's practically impossible.
Pointless, I would even say.
I think it's important to recognize and accept this.
Yes, it's possible. But it is difficult for me to accept that I am of no value to my mother.
Perhaps because the question inevitably arises: if we are not valuable to our mother, then do we represent any value at all?
Yes, perhaps so. But it seems to me that my relationship with my husband makes up for what she did not give me. I see his love, care, and perhaps this is what saves me from deep depression.
It's good to have him in your life.
Yes, it is very good that there is him and children. I recently walked with them, they ran up to me in turn, and I caught them and hugged them. And you know, I even cried. I don't remember this from my childhood.
What did you feel at that moment?
- (Crying.) I don't know... (With surprise.) Envy? My children are very lucky. This may sound strange...
Love that did not happen in your childhood, it seems to be knocking all the time. Your childhood seems to hold you and not let go. Holding unfinished relationships that never even happened. It seems paradoxical, but it is true.
Yes, that is right.
What do you think could help you let go of your childhood and see that you are living an adult life in which there is a husband and your own children, is there an opportunity to put love into a relationship with them? And move, thus, to the present moment.
Your relationship with your mother becomes the starting point of your well-being. In this you are not free
I think I should just deal with it. Accept the situation and don't try to change it. If this works out, then I can not even hope that my mother will treat me differently.
Don't expect change from her...
Here, you are right!
Accept that she does not see something, is insensitive to something, is limited in some way, is simply not capable of something, and build relationships with her - just such a person.
Yes. It seems to me that this will be the way out. I used to think a lot about the fact that my mother should change. Because she's not right. Do you think it will become easier for me if I change not my mother, but my attitude towards her? I really want this to stop. But just like that, one day... It's kind of strange. Unreal.
One day, probably strange and unrealistic. But maybe you can devote some time to it. I got the impression that the relationship with your mother does not let you go and you do not let go either, hold on to them. On the one hand, they hurt you, and on the other hand, you yourself keep this situation inside yourself. You constantly compare your relationship with your mother and your relationship with your children, with your husband. They become the starting point of your well-being and occupy a very large part in your life. In this you are not free. I think you are very tired. Maybe you should start seeing a psychologist, like classes. Work on it.
Veronica (in a month):“I just could not imagine that one meeting with a psychotherapist could help so much. During the conversation, I seemed to see the whole situation from a different angle: as if everything was happening not with me, but with another person. And suddenly I realized that I seemed to be “stuck” in childhood and continue to wait and even demand from my mother what she cannot give me. During this month, we saw her, and there is progress: she came to us not for an hour and a half, as usual, but spent the whole evening talking with her grandchildren, behaving more naturally than usual. But I didn’t even talk to her about this topic, it’s just that something has changed in my attitude, I stopped putting pressure on her. And my mother felt it. Of course, bitter memories are still alive in me. But I decided to start a course of psychotherapy in order to cope with this forever. And just start living.
Alexander Badkhen:“Relationship stereotypes are reproduced from generation to generation: Veronica's mother herself lost her mother in early childhood and transferred this lack of love to her daughters. The lived experience never disappears without a trace, and what we have experienced under certain circumstances again reminds us of itself. So loneliness, pain and resentment, experienced in childhood, again reminded of themselves when Veronica got married and gave birth to children. It turned out that leaving the parental family does not mean ending the relationship. Pain for loss, for something that was not in her life and probably never will be - for mother's love - continues to hurt her to this day. Any situation that somehow symbolizes this loss resonates in the wounded heart of a lonely little girl who lives in the depths of Veronica's soul. Veronica, of course, needs help, and I drew her attention to the expediency of psychotherapy.
