My mother is capable of forgetting me

[Suzette]

Hi all,

I am in the middle of a big argument with my mother. Over the past years and also recently she has been a great help for me. I am very grateful for that. But inspite of this there were times that I thought: if she gets a partner (boy-friend, how do you call that) she is capable of stopping her help completely.

When I was 16 my parents divorced. My father left and I continued living with my mother, having no clue how since I never had a good relationship with her. She was a stranger to me. I dared to be angry to her, expressing my feelings and after a couple of years I felt I had my mother back.

It was like coming home.

After three weeks of having this feeling she met a man and within one week she left the home and lived with him. The connection I had felt with her was cut off with an axe, that is how I experienced it. She had forgotten about me and rationalized my needs. After a year I had severe breathing problems and then she slowly started to realize things were not going well with me. She came back but from that moment on I felt I was not really welcome. Like she pushed me away emotionally.

Until now I have never gotten over that. I felt completely dumped by her.

Even during the past years when she has been a great help to me in my order to survive, I thought: she is capable of doing that again. Her dependency on me (or her own loneliness) makes her do a lot for me but as soon as a man comes by that she feels comfortable with, she will quit again.

I can see it in the small things: when my brother asks for something (like borrowing her car) she immediately says 'yes'. Even when she and I have an appointment. My brother is by the way, typically my father.

I don't trust her for this matter. Sometimes I just wonder who she really is. I know I am right about my feelings and thoughts about her although she completely disagrees. But I don't give in, I am not a fool.

How do you call a mother who dumps her children when she gets a man. How do you call a mother who uses her children to be able to continue the fight with her husband, years and years on.

What kind of mother is she?

 

[David Baxter PhD]

The kind of mother you would walk away from in a minute if she were anyone else but your mother. The kind of mother you will continue to try to find a way to have a relationship with one way or another just because she is your mother.

Our relationship with our parents is, when it is healthy, one of the best we will ever have, and when it is not healthy, one that we struggle with for as long as it takes to truly come to terms with it.

 

[Suzette]

Hi David,

Thank you for replying on my question.

It is hard to read though. Very hard. I think you will understand that.

I asked for an answer and you have given me one. But I need time to get over this fact of reality. It hurts so much.

Suzette

 

[Suzette]

My thoughts and feelings are back then most of the time. 19 Years ago already.

I don't feel like I can comprehend. I sat in the park this afternoon and it did not feel like my heart was broken, but more there are two halfs of my heart with a gap inbetween.

She was the last straw I had at the time. My brothers and my father had already left the house (my father because of the divorce, my brothers for their studies). But she left too.

She has cut off something but I don't know exactly what.

I was one with my family before that, I tried to move out some years before but got severe breathing problems so I had to move back before I slept at my new place one night.

And with the leaving of my family members I got in trouble. My life was taking care of my family but they left before I was strong enough and ready to try to stand on my own feet.

My mother was the last one who left.

What has happened here?