Mother Dearest
Nov. 17th, 2003 05:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
raganiI have a relationship with my mother that is usually enviable by many of my friends. Once us kids got old enough to appreciate differences, my friends started to see just how cool my mom was. I still remember a bunch of my high school friends ranting about mothers and they concluded that everyone hated their mothers. I found it hard to relate to this sentiment and pointed out that I did not hate my mom. The response was "Well, that's because your mom is cool."
It is not that my mother and I have never had fights. I learned a lot of my responses and behaviors from her, especially how to fight. It is mainly that I have always felt I could talk to her about anything; even telling her I am angry with her. (I recommend everyone take the chance to tell their parents how angry, disappointed, frustrated, etc. you are with them for thing like how they raised you at least once in your life. Even if it pisses them off, the growth of unloading even a fraction of the lifetime of anger many hold onto can be surprising, and it can help to strengthen your relationships as adults.)
I think the main difference is that I learned fairly early on to differentiate between hating my mom and being angry at her.
At the moment, I am rather pissed at her. Here I am trying to find a better way to communicate with my boyfriend when I am upset with him and she butts in and proceeds to communicate to him in the exact way I have learned does not work, and only pisses him off more.
Well, thanks a lot, mom! Now, not only am I upset with my boyfriend, but now I have to deal with my boyfriend being pissed off at her for accusing him of abusing me! Way to go. What is frustrating is that the way she presented the message to him not only puts him on the defensive, but now when I try to present the message from my perspective, all he hears is that I agree with her. Note to mom: the shock-them-into-understanding-the-difficult-truth method does not always work, especially on people like my boyfriend.
The dichotomy of the internal programming that mom = safety and the adult observation that mom is human and has many failings is an uncomfortable feeling. Everytime I have felt that, I also have felt a bit older and more alone.
I feel like I was actually making progress on communicating with my boyfriend when either of us is upset without turning it into a fight. We still have a long ways to go, but I have a lot more hope of us achieving the goal of learning to express ourselves with our partner in a more aware and loving way. With this recent display by my mother, I was able to see what I don't want to be anymore.
It is not that my mother and I have never had fights. I learned a lot of my responses and behaviors from her, especially how to fight. It is mainly that I have always felt I could talk to her about anything; even telling her I am angry with her. (I recommend everyone take the chance to tell their parents how angry, disappointed, frustrated, etc. you are with them for thing like how they raised you at least once in your life. Even if it pisses them off, the growth of unloading even a fraction of the lifetime of anger many hold onto can be surprising, and it can help to strengthen your relationships as adults.)
I think the main difference is that I learned fairly early on to differentiate between hating my mom and being angry at her.
At the moment, I am rather pissed at her. Here I am trying to find a better way to communicate with my boyfriend when I am upset with him and she butts in and proceeds to communicate to him in the exact way I have learned does not work, and only pisses him off more.
Well, thanks a lot, mom! Now, not only am I upset with my boyfriend, but now I have to deal with my boyfriend being pissed off at her for accusing him of abusing me! Way to go. What is frustrating is that the way she presented the message to him not only puts him on the defensive, but now when I try to present the message from my perspective, all he hears is that I agree with her. Note to mom: the shock-them-into-understanding-the-difficult-truth method does not always work, especially on people like my boyfriend.
The dichotomy of the internal programming that mom = safety and the adult observation that mom is human and has many failings is an uncomfortable feeling. Everytime I have felt that, I also have felt a bit older and more alone.
I feel like I was actually making progress on communicating with my boyfriend when either of us is upset without turning it into a fight. We still have a long ways to go, but I have a lot more hope of us achieving the goal of learning to express ourselves with our partner in a more aware and loving way. With this recent display by my mother, I was able to see what I don't want to be anymore.
