What to do if my mother does not love me: recommendations from experts. "Mom never loved me." What do unloved daughters face? Are we obligated to love our mother
Hello dear psychologist! I turn to you for advice, since the situation does not suit me at all and to some extent prevents me from living. Yesterday I realized that I don't love my mom. We live separately, I don't have a father, she has a man. I came to visit her, and, despite the fact that we rarely see each other, we managed to quarrel for some half an hour of being together in the same territory! And it would be nice if the reason was serious. But she came up to me and began to mock me at the things that I was doing wrong. She always does. It feels like she's disgusted when I'm in a good mood. And in my childhood, she allowed herself to take out her dissatisfaction with life on me, while she has a much better life than most of my acquaintances. Now she teases me in an evil way and accuses me of some things that I don’t want to do (she doesn’t do it either, but in my performance it’s almost a sin). And her catchphrase is "Tell me I'm wrong!" - what's that all about? Is this how you communicate with children? And then she pretends like nothing happened. Life is not a very fair thing, but for some reason I can take insults from strangers calmly, even with humor. Her jokes always bring me to tears, despite the fact that I usually restrain myself quite easily. As a result, I do not feel the slightest desire to communicate with her, I do not miss her, and I also do not want to go to her without unnecessary need. She actually does a lot for me: she helps, makes gifts on holidays, negotiates on various issues, etc., she doesn’t drink, she is very smart, beautiful, she didn’t raise her hand to me. Everyone around her is delighted. As a result, I feel like an ungrateful bastard. But as soon as she opens her mouth to me, this "bastardism" wakes up in me again. It always seems to me that she treats others much better than with me. Of course, others are not obliged to endure it and will certainly answer! And what can I say: if my peer spoke to me in such intonations, he would need a traumatologist. But in front of my mother, I am completely powerless. And she never says anything like that to me in front of strangers. This hypocrisy pisses me off. I must love her, respect her, be grateful for her birth, for her upbringing. How can you love if you don't want to love? If before it ended in insults, now I just can’t love her. And is it normal at all? I still don't have kids, I just don't want to. And one of the reasons is that I don't want my children to think of me the way I think of my mother. Thanks in advance.
Zhanna, Russian Federation, 30 years old
Family Psychologist Answer:
Hello Zhanna.
And it would be nice if the reason was serious. But she came up to me and began to mock me at the things that I was doing wrong.
And why do you think that the reason is not serious? Systematic depreciation is serious. This means that your mother also did not put much love into you. And you can't help but feel it. Parents are expected to accept, support, approve, help. What do you get? And you sound like "she always did this", "as a child she ripped off on me ...", etc. Did your mother give you enough warmth, support, care, understanding, acceptance? Or did you mainly receive criticism, depreciation, proof of your own (her, mother's) rightness, humiliation of you as a person ...? It is clear that it happened, most likely, different things. The question is what was more, and how do you feel now. And now you feel, judging by the story, humiliated by such an attitude, indignant, offended ... And you have the right to such feelings, as well as to a different attitude towards yourself. But you can't force her. You can ask, say, under what conditions you are ready to communicate, under what conditions you are not, but, of course, you cannot force. You can make your choice - to communicate or not. You are definitely entitled to this.
She actually does a lot for me: she helps, makes gifts on holidays, negotiates on various issues, etc.
Are you ready to accept these gifts and help, taking into account the attitude towards you? There is a subtle point here: you accept these gifts and help, and this gives her the right to treat you this way. Stop accepting - perhaps you will have more firmness to say that you do not intend to communicate in this style? Perhaps you feel constantly indebted to her for gifts and help? But, perhaps, in order not to feel due - they should not be accepted then?
I must love her, respect her, be grateful for her birth, for her upbringing. How can you love if you don't want to love?
On my site "Mirror of the Soul" (link in the profile here to Cleo) there is an article "5 myths about children and parents." I think that after reading it, you will have much more thoughts on the topic of who really owes whom and what in such a situation, and also about why you cannot love her. Well, about the normality or abnormality of everything that happens ... more precisely - about patterns.
Sincerely, Nesvitsky Anton Mikhailovich.
5 Sep 1 3564
Julia Goryacheva: At 33, I realized that I did not love my mother. That I would like to refuse her, delete her from my life ... or I would like to change her (however it sounds absurd) 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.
Together with my mother, I lived my school and student years.
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 useless 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 resist.
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 was a nervous mother, that I didn’t take good care of my children, that I didn’t represent myself, that I was 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 in a different way than 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 to 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.
Another story is my relationship with my husband.
We have been together for almost 10 years and I consider it an 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 whether my future husband would marry me or not, and even at work, they began to harass me when they found out 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 be with me get an abortion!? 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.
Comments of psychologists CONSENT.RU:
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 lives 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 let 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.
Anastasia Platonova, psychologist, psychotherapist: “Different mothers are needed, different mothers are important” ...
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, right at that moment when we need it, etc. etc. 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? Mum?…
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 in fact has not gone anywhere, it just had no place on the surface before ...
Family relationships are complex and multifaceted.
If a question arises what if my mom doesn't love me This means that it is necessary to understand in a complex way, since the reasons for this may be different.
Which is better: to love or to be loved? find out right now.
Why do such thoughts arise?
It's hard to believe that mother has no feelings for her child. However, in practice this occurs quite often.
Dislike is expressed in emotional detachment, coldness. The problems of the child are met with indifference, irritation, aggression.
In such families frequent criticism, accusations that he is bad, naughty.
If usually the parent wants to spend time with the child, then the one who does not feel a sense of love is removed. Games, care are burdensome.
Dislike for their offspring is common among mothers who take alcohol and drugs. In this case, the psyche changes, normal human feelings atrophy, and the need to satisfy one's needs comes first.
Difficulties with expressing feelings often arise fanatically religious mothers. In this case, a person has a distorted idea of the world, family, and his own offspring.
All life is subject to one idea, and close people must agree with it and correspond to a certain ideal. If the daughter, from the point of view of religion and the mother's internal ideas about correctness, is imperfect, then the parent ceases to love her.
For some women, the feeling disappears because her daughter let her down in some way. Moreover, the reason can be completely far-fetched, it’s just that the child does not meet some invented criteria.
Misdemeanors are even more serious when the daughter commits a crime, leads an immoral life, abandons his own children.
If there was love before, now it is being replaced by distrust, resentment, and the best way to restore peace of mind is to exclude a person from your life.
Resentment against parents. How to deal with resentment and anger at the mother:
Is it possible?
Can a mother not love her child? The ability to show emotions is inherent in the type of nervous activity and character. Lifestyle also has an impact.
It seems incredible that a mother does not love her child, but it can be certain reasons:
Thus, the main reasons why a mother may not love her child are changes in the psyche, an initially cold mother, and daughter's actions that are difficult to forgive. Of course here Rarely is there a complete absence of love..
Most mothers still experience affection for their child, without even showing it outwardly or expressing anger and irritation most of the time.
Maternal instinct is in our genes. It may not appear immediately, or a person is initially cold in the outward expression of feelings, therefore he doesn't seem to like.
Psychology of hostility to daughters
Why is it said that mothers don't love their daughters? It is widely believed that mothers love daughters less.
This is probably related to feeling of competition, the struggle for the attention of the main man in the house - the father.
A growing daughter reminds a woman of her age.
Such inferiority complexes are projected on the attitude towards your child.
Why are children loved differently? Learn about it from the video:
Signs of maternal dislike
How to understand that a mother does not love her daughter? Let's look at the signs by which you can understand whether the parent really does not love you or it just seems.
Signs of dislike are usually felt from early childhood.
In some cases, the attitude towards the daughter changes already at an older age due to her actions or simply because the mother perceives her age and aging in a negative way.
Mom doesn't love me. The myth of holy motherhood:
What are the consequences?
The mother does not love her daughter. Unfortunately, the consequences of parental dislike affect the entire future life of the girl:
It's hard to live knowing that your parent doesn't love you. A person is forced to constantly be in suspense, to seek confirmation of a good relationship.
Disliked children. The influence of children's resentment on fate:
What to do?
You have to realize that in life you are faced with such a difficult situation. Do not blame the mother for not being capable of love. This is her choice.
The main task- live, enjoy life, no matter what.
You are not responsible for the attitude of other people towards you, but you are able to control your own manifestations of the psyche and actions.
What do you do if your mother doesn't love you? Psychologist's opinion:
How to make mom fall in love?
Primarily no need to beg, demand love. You either have this feeling or you don't.
Look at your mother from the other side. She also has dignity, interesting aspects of personality.
Give her a chance to open up. The best way to do this is by talking. Unobtrusively be interested in her past, work, ask for advice.
It is not necessary that your mother love you, but you can become friends with her, close friends.
Her grumbling, nagging, perhaps such a peculiar way to express her love. Just for different reasons and traits she can't say those words out loud.
The mother-daughter relationship is undergoing various changes. If it seemed to you that in childhood you were not loved and appreciated enough, then in adulthood everything can change.
Your actions, your attitude towards your parents can make your mother finally see you as a person worthy of respect and love. Give her a chance to express herself, don't turn down help.
Is it really possible to make a mother love her daughter? It depends on many factors, character traits, the willingness of the woman herself to change, and her daughter accept mother for who she is.
If, as an adult, you were never able to feel motherly love, just accept it as a fact and try to maintain smooth, friendly relations as much as possible.
It also happens that family members stop talking at all.
Here - the choice of each person, and in some cases the only way to solve the problem.
Don't look for love where there isn't any, do not try to achieve attention and location by any means.
Be yourself, show your individuality, you don't have to be what other people want you to be. But at the same time, do not forget to appreciate loved ones at least for the fact that they gave you life.
Why are you unlucky in love? you will find on our website.
How to love a mother? Psychology of conflicts:
Yes! She raised me. Well, so what? It would be better if I gave it to an orphanage. From there, sometimes children go out more successfully, and live happier than me. I don't love my mother , because ... well, I can’t understand why!
And there is no such serious resentment. There is no apparent reason, it would seem, for such a dislike for his mother. But some kind of internal irritation towards her is constant and dislike sits deep in me. I don't love my mother and I can't do anything about it.
Sometimes a feeling of pity and even, perhaps, love wakes up for her. But it passes quickly. I think she's doing everything wrong! Annoying with its primitive outlook on life, and I was brought up wrong somehow. And for this I can not forgive her and love her for real. I do not like my mother because she climbs with her advice and dictates to me how to live. I don't love my mother the way children should love their parents.
To this question: why do I not love my mother? - I can not find the answer for many years. And the tension between us only increases. Yes, I suffer from it. It bothers me.
I don't love my mother - what should I do?
Such a constant permanent feeling of dislike for your mother wears away your life like water stone. In fact, it is imperceptible, but the result ... And the result is your whole unhappy life! Life, consisting of unfulfilled desires and unfulfilled hopes. You say - what kind of nonsense? And here: I do not love my mother - and my life and its quality? What is the connection between these!?
And it says in the commandment: "Honor your father and your mother." It is easy to honor good parents - when they are successful, healthy and do not require much attention.
But ... it is said in the commandment: "Honor your father and your mother." It does not say: "Revere, except for those who beat and offended you, except for those who require attention and care."
(abstract of lectures of the Second level of training by Yuri Burlan)
I do not love my mother - and what should I do with this feeling?
Until this dislike "decomposed" your life completely, read the article.
In the public consciousness, the idea of the union of mother and daughter, based on mutual, indissoluble, enduring love, exists as a sacred truth, exceptions from which are inadmissible according to the highest moral laws. And what happens in life? Elena Verzina, psychologist, candidate of medical sciences, tells.
Note that mammals, which include the species Homo sapiens - lionesses, chimpanzees, dolphins, and even birds - eagles, swans, penguins, they also feed, raise and train their cubs, dolphins, penguins, until they can start an independent life. True, unlike women, representatives of the animal world become pregnant, give birth and take care of their offspring, obeying only the call of nature.
A woman gives birth to a child consciously and does it for herself.
Only for myself! To satisfy the biological instinct of procreation; in order to realize oneself in the role of a mother according to civilizational tradition and the commandments of religion; to create a family with a beloved man and live surrounded by loving children; to have someone to take care of her in her old age; just for their own health or even to receive maternity capital. We do not consider here unplanned children who are born because "it happened"; but after the birth of a child, as a rule, love for a newborn is born along with an irresistible need to take care of him - that very maternal instinct! And what is a daughter's love for her mother - also an instinct, or a programmed heartfelt feeling embedded in her heart when it beat under her mother's heart, or is it a conscious feeling of gratitude to her mother, who gave her life and accompanied her on a difficult path of becoming, or is it the performance of a duty prescribed by morality, while the failure to perform this duty will inevitably be awarded universal condemnation?
Alas, there are many everyday stories when daughters have negative feelings for their mothers -
deep, hidden feelings, even in spite of outwardly good attitude towards them. Psychologists know how common these feelings are. It is very difficult for daughters who experience this to admit this not only to a psychologist, but also to themselves, except perhaps to take their pain to an Internet forum, since an open statement and communication with friends in misfortune alleviates the pain and, moreover, remains anonymous. It is pain, because the loss of a feeling of love for a mother is destructive for the psyche, this loss undermines the daughter's confidence in her moral viability and threatens the formation of a healthy relationship with her own children.
Or maybe this is just a myth about holy love for a mother, created and cultivated in society in the interests of its stability, reproducibility, preservation of family cells, and it is quite possible to move from holiness to balance, from a taboo topic to an interested analysis? Let's pose the question point-blank.
Is a loving attitude towards a mother an innate, eternal manifestation of daughter feelings? And are we entitled to say that an adult daughter is immoral, if instead of the beautiful “My mother is the best mother in the world!” she dares to say: “She broke my life, but as a child she gave me her love, and I cannot help being grateful to her” or the most transcendent:
I don't love my mother.
We do not consider here childish, well-studied by psychologists, manifestations of childish grievances, subconscious complexes (Electra or Oedipus complexes), conscious manipulations by parents aimed at satisfying children's "wants", or reactions to quarrels of adult family members, among which the child is forced to choose one of the sides. . Of course, one cannot ignore the friction in relations with the mother that arose in the daughter in childhood, but in plastic childhood there are enough proven psychological methods that, with an attentive attitude towards the child, make it possible to overcome tension by the time of the transition from adolescence to adolescence. Adolescence comes early, and with it, girls begin to feel like adults. Let's listen to the voices of adult daughters (after all, we will forever remain their parents), we will try to see the origins of spiritual trouble on the example of one of them.
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Oksana. 50 years old, a late child, with a higher education, lived with her mother and her husband. Two years ago I buried my mother, who in the last months of her life after a stroke was bedridden. At the same time, she did not get tired of repeating that because of her mother’s illness, she denied herself life outside of the fulfillment of her filial duty. And after the death of her mother, Oksana's life is painted in dull tones of enduring misfortune. What is hidden behind this sad fate, why does Oksana clearly want to be unhappy?
Oksana's mother did not love her husband, the girl's father, and clearly demonstrated her dislike and disrespect for him. As a girl, Oksana always took the side of her powerful and successful mother and, like her mother, neglected her father. After graduation, she fell in love with a good guy from another city. But to leave, to leave my mother?
Impossible, mom can not be abandoned.
Then there was a marriage in his city, already without much love, with another good guy who sincerely loved Oksana. But the mother so actively helped her daughter's family in everyday life, in organizing her relationship with her husband, in raising her grandson, that the husband could not stand it and left. Oksana stayed with her mother alone, and soon remarried a foolish man, a loser (she really wanted to feel her superiority, so it was no coincidence that a weak man was next to her), whom her mother really disliked and with a restrained arrogant attitude pointed her son-in-law to his place.
And then, at a very respectable age, my mother herself got married, brought her husband to the house, so after a while Oksana and her husband had to provide physical assistance to the elderly couple. Mom's new husband died, mom fell ill, Oksana looked after her "as expected",
but she did it somehow very harshly, angrily, unkindly, nervously,
the way a very strict mother behaves towards her child, as if she suddenly got the opportunity to command the one to whom she had been subordinate all her life.
Now she tirelessly mourns her mother, and everyone around should remember this loss. There is no one who deprived a daughter of her father's love, who destroyed her first marriage, involuntarily forced her to look after an old man who was not her own, but who served as an excuse for her daughter's unfulfilled fate. How dare she leave forever! Grieving for the loss, the daughter lives today with a sense of uncompensated guilt, both her own and her mother's guilt before her. Being unhappy is her excuse today. Does she love her unforgettable mother?
Yes, of course, but with a strange love, like the victim of his tormentor.
In general, those who did not know the discomfort in relations with their mother cannot even imagine how many young women in the world suffer from the realization of their dislike for their mother, looking for a way out of this unbearable state. On the other hand, there are many who managed to get sick, overcome the guilt that destroys them in front of their mother - guilt for not loving her, get away from the stereotype of selfless love for kindred care and restrained signs of attention, and even allow themselves to open up: “I don’t love mother". Thus, they are trying to save themselves from a painful, unnatural break with their mother, to whom they owe their birth. But we must admit that if this is a cure, then it is only temporary, and the disease is recurrent. It is hardly possible to definitively step aside from the unique bond between mother and child. Maybe find a cure.
If a young woman cannot overcome the pain in herself because she does not love her mother, cannot overcome indifference or pacify hatred for her, then we must try to understand, for example, with the help of a psychoanalyst, why an unhealthy relationship has developed with her mother, recognize the insurmountability of the collapse that has occurred and let go of this pain: do not judge your mother, but forgive yourself, maintaining an accessible, neutral form of relationship, especially since mothers grow old with age, and daughters in any case will not do without taking care of them.