As a woman, I sympathise with her. As a daughter, I resent her.
Anyone who knows me (24F) knows how much I love my mother. We get along so well and I don’t doubt her love and pride for me in the slightest. We are good friends. But it wasn’t like this at all for me growing up in my most formative years.
She essentially raised me and my siblings as a married single mother. My father only really contributed financially (which wasn’t much at all at the time) and their own relationship was non existent. I now know she did also suffer through post partum depression, which I think just became regular depression for most of my childhood, I would say. She did the very best that she could with the cards she was dealt; she was objectively a good mother on paper and did everything she was supposed to.
Up until my mid teens, I hardly had an emotional relationship with my mother. She isolated me from friends her and my father didn’t like due to their families being “indecent”. She refused to connect with the parents of any new friends I would make yet never allow me to go to their houses to hang out on the basis that they didn’t know them or their families…? Any time I was invited to things, I would rarely hear a yes. And when I wanted to spend time with her instead or just want to be around her, I would often be met with uninterest or just straight up rejection.
On the rare occasion I did confide in her about my life, in an attempt to become closer to her, she would pretend to have a non-judgmental attitude to get me to divulge every detail, then speak to my father about me without my knowledge and they would both decide to punish me without any conversation or explanation given to me. She later told me “she was only trying to protect me” but all I could understand at the time was that I was betrayed and I couldn’t ever trust her.
For a long time, although I knew she loved me as her child, I believed she didn’t like me at all or want any sort of relationship with me. Any nice thing I would do for her, any attempt to gain her love and affection, went unnoticed and unappreciated.
I learned, by the time I was in my teens, that I couldn’t rely on her to be there for me emotionally. In turn, I would say this deeply affected how I approach relationships now. I’m extremely independent and very rarely feel safe sharing my issues with anyone. I genuinely believe nobody cares about what I have to say and I have to weather every storm on my own. I do okay like this mostly, but sometimes the intense loneliness of living this way hits me and I always reflect back to my childhood.
My mother has since made significant efforts to strengthen our relationship and I’m so grateful for it. We’ve never had an explicit conversation about this in particular, but since my late teens we’ve had many deep conversations about our lives. She knows more about me now. I know more about her too. She’s not perfect, of course, but I’m just thankful to have a mother I can consider a friend now too; someone who’s on my side for a change.
This doesn’t remove the bitterness I feel, however. Where was this mum when I was 13? 14? 15? When I was suffering depression, loneliness and heartbreak all on my own? Why do I get the supportive, loving and proud mum when I’m all grown up, independent and I don’t need her in the same way anymore? I know I probably sound ungrateful; I should be lucky that she decided to change at all considering parents, more often than not, stay stuck in their toxic ways. But as guilty as I feel, it doesn’t stop the deep resentment and anger I feel sometimes.
I wish I was just grateful for how things are now and could leave the past behind and focus on my own healing. Does anyone else have a similar experience or advice to move on from this?
Almond pancake with cream and blueberry compote. And a very delicious flat white.