Family Matters
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
No longer speak to Mother...
Anyone on here sever ties to their mother? My mom and stepdad were abusive, emotionally unavailable, put adult responsibilities onto me as a child/teenager, and essentially I felt hated as a child. I kept a bizarre, superficial relationship going for years, and when I got married my Mom didn't congratulate me, and had an emotional breakdown (for which she says I was to blame, according to my stepdad's phone call) and that was just sort of the point at which I couldn't do it anymore. My therapist says that she sounds like a narcissist. I haven't spoken to her in months, but it's still this bizarre loss and I feel so agitated and sad. The relationship was so superficial and fake I just couldn't take that either. Anyone else decide that it was best for them to just "move on" and not have a relationship with their mother?
Re: No longer speak to Mother...
"breaking up" is never easy to do, no matter how nutty your relative has been. If you feel unusually guilty or bad, see a social worker and bounce some of this off him or her.
I feel this way too but I have not severed ties yet. I almost told her today that I do not wish to talk to her anymore but I ended up just saying I needed to get off the phone instead. She is constantly acting like she knows best and if I dont do things her way I am just the stupidest person ever. She also tries to act like my husband is an enemy and tells me all the time to hide money from him so when we get divorced I will have money. I tell her all the time that we have no plans of divorcing and everything is great with us but just because she got a divorce she says she knows I will too. She also knows that my husband will cheat one day, she lets me know all the time. Even though he has never cheated on anyone in his entire life. I want to stop talking to her because I feel I am starting to turn into the depressed b**ch she is.
Sorry I turned this into a huge story. Just wanted to let you know I feel the same. Sometimes moms just suck
Maybe you don't feel a loss over losing a relationship with your mom. Maybe you're mourning a loss becasue you finally accepted that you will never have the mom you wish you could have. You have to do what's best for you and it sounds like severing the relationship is best for you. You just need to realize that you can't change your mom and that her issues are hers and hers alone.
I cut ties with my mother nearly three years ago. She actually started it by blowing up and starting a very typical argument with me about something so she could play the martyr again. She then said she was done and if she couldn't have the relationship with me that she wanted that she didn't want a relationship. I couldn't give there that relationship be cause she is a narcissist and would literally suck me dry if she could. She has the emotional maturity of a 15 year old at best. As an only child of a single mother even with her craziness I thought frequently about cutting her out for years but I never would have acted on it. When she blew up at me 3 years ago I took the out and honestly life has been much less crazy since.
I used to spend days preparing myself to see her or spend any significant amount of time with her and then I would need time to decompress on the other side of the visit too. She was emotionally draining me. After our split she did try to reach out but without any real change on her part I'm not willing to make amends and honestly she probably has a personality disorder that won't likely ever change with any amount of therapy. She did see my daughter for about a year after our split with the rules that if she ever bad mouthed myself or my DH those visits would stop. She crossed the line and we pulled that visitation. It was hard and my DD missed her (it has been nearly a year since their visits ended) but I can't put my child's mental health at risk.
I wish you luck. It is not easy and even after all this time there are moments when I miss her and mourn what might have been if she were mentally healthy and stable.
Thanks for all of your responses. It's really hard to not feel as though I'm being this horrible person, but I dread the idea of talking to her. I also agree that I'm mourning the loss of the type of mother I've never had and maybe have only recently realized I will never have.
The martyr response completely resonates with me ... she totally plays herself as a victim of how awful everyone is to her, specifically me. I don't even mean to portray her as this evil person, but these manipulative qualities during which she victimizes herself just hurt me too much at this point.
I think I would have felt differently if she'd been willing to go to therapy and do something about all of this, but apparently she'd been falling apart for a year (which she thought was MY fault) and when I asked my stepdad if she was getting help he said no. So... I'M just supposed to fix it? That was the last time I spoke to either of them.
When I was around them, I would inadvertently "shut down." I would become this sort of vacant person who was virtually unable to speak. I would really have to force myself to talk, even though they weren't treating me as they did when I was a child. I just feel like I don't want to work hard to deal with and overcome that reaction to them when this is how they are going to act ...
I did. It was the best decision I ever made for myself. Cutting out a toxic part of my life allowed me to be a healthier, happier person. I don't regret it at all.
That isn't to say it was easy or doesn't hurt. It's still hard sometimes, but it's mostly the thought of not having A family. I don't miss MY family. Does that make sense?
I think that's a great way to put it, and it makes total sense. I think a lot of us on here wish that we could have the ideal family: loving, supportive, kind....all the things we think families are supposed to be. But many of us don't. We keep thinking that they will see the light, they will change, they will finally 'get it' and see that their behavior isn't appropriate. But it doesn't happen. Or if it does happen, it's temporary, and then they go back to the same old ways. At some point we finally realize that what we want will never be there, and we either adjust our expectations, or separate ourselves from them. We have to put our happiness and health first, and sometimes we have to cut people out of our lives to make that happen.
That's exactly it ... I think I'd been holding out hope that someday I'd have that "family" I would have wanted, but I can't be this strong anymore. It's too hurtful.
Well, you don't miss the actual relationship you had with your mom; it was horrible. But you do miss the relationship you wished you could have had; the good mother you needed but didn't get and hoped for for a long time, but now realize you are never going to get. That's likely what's causing you this pain now, and I'm sorry. ((hugs))
First of all, I'm so sorry you've had to go through all of that. Parents are supposed to be the one stable thing in our lives, especially as children. Unfortunately that's not always the case.
To answer your question about severing ties with one's mother - yes. I haven't spoken to or seen my mother in about 10 years. She was emotionally abusive to me as a child and was both physically and emotionally abusive to my father. I tend to agree with your therapist about her being a narcissist, based on what you've said - she seems to have been much more concerned about and focused on herself as opposed to selflessly being focused on you (which is what a mother is supposed to do).
My mother is also narcissist and to be 100% honest she's a lying, manipulative and coniving you know what. She will do and say anything to get what she wants, no matter who she has to step on, climb over or "throw under the bus" (including her own children and former spouse).
Severing all ties with my mother was one of the best and most freeing things I've ever done. Now, don't misunderstand me - it still hurts like hell sometimes, but overall having her out of my life allows for a much more peaceful and less toxic existance. It's certainly not something to be taken lightly (and thankfully can always be re-visited later if you want) but it might be what's right for you. You might want to talk it through with your Therapist and get his/her thoughts on it. Either way, you have a right to be happy and a responsibility to teach people how to treat you... including your own mother.
All the Best,
Bella