Help - Angry at my mother

[Sourire]

I have always loved my mom a lot and she has been an amazing crunchy mom to me my whole life...

Recently her and my dad went through a divorce and I started finding about all kinds of things such as: she cheated on my dad, she told my youngest sister that she never wanted her (this really nauseates me, I love my little sister so much and I can't believe someone could say something so cruel)...

I have tried to talk to her about some of things such as the man she is seeing now but she told me it is none of my business, that there is no reason I should be interested in her personal life.

I am not the type of person to hold a grudge but over the past few months I have just been feeling more and more anger towards her. She has hurt my dad so badly, and I am starting to feel like she was never a real mom to my youngest sister (even when my sister was 14 my mom didn't give a crap if she didn't come home at night or if she skipped school or if she was doing drugs), and now she doesn't want us to know anything about her personal life...

This is the first time in my life I have ever thought my mother was anything other than amazing and I can't stand this feeling... it doesn't seem to be going away, it is only getting worse because I can't talk to her about stuff anymore.

Does anyone have any advice?

[Zevy]

Oh hon...I can kind of understand. My mother just announced her separation from my father after 34 years of marriage. It is quite a shock: I thought they had a perfect marriage.

I haven't heard any stories of infidelity, but I did want to share a book I read that was really helpful: 'The Way They Were'. Its written for adults whose parents divorce while they are adults themselves. There are chapters on how to cope with learning 'new information' and lots of case stories. It was written by a journalist who wrote it after her own parents divorced and she realized there was NOTHING out there on the subject.

Its a quick, easy read, and I would pick it up. I think you'd find it very helpful. Or society doesn't offer much support for adult victims of parental divorce (tons on kids though!!) and I found it really validated everything I was feeling.

http://www.amazon.com/Way-They-Were-.../dp/1400082102

[Caneel]

I can relate. It is incredibly hard when a parent (or anyone you admire and respect) disappoints you.

While I knew there were problems in my parent's marriage (my dad takes the term difficult to a whole new level and there was emotional abuse) I was floored when my mom walked out and left him for another man. Her attitude about her actions infuriated me. (and still does, I am going to look for that book, thx Zevy)

Some of her reasons/excuses were incredibily hurtful to me. Some of her actions painted her is a very bad light. Many of her friends, as well as her siblings, still believe she had some sort of mental break, her actions were so completely at odds with how she normally conducted her life and not in a good way.

Their divorce was like a death, the death of a family, and I will likely always morn it. I don't have any advice to offer. After 5 years, my mom is remorseful (to a point) so that takes some of the sting out of it.

OP - you certainly don't need to answer this but was it a mid-life crisis sort of thing with your mom? It was with my mom.

Seriously, so many of the wife/female partner side of my parent's friends seemed to go off the rails in a big way with mid-life crisises.

One said to me that life is too short to be unhappy. Fair enough, go ahead and enact positive change in your life but that do you need to slash and burn previously meaningful family relationships and bonds on your new path to happiness? KWIM?

[lilmom]

Accepting that your mother is not who you thought she was is not going to be easy, but that is pretty much what you are faced with. I am so sorry.

My parents always had marital issues that I was aware of, even as a child, so when they divorced it didn't come as a surprise, I knew about the affairs, etc even as a kid, or at least suspected it.

The part I really can relate to you about though is what she said about your sister, because my mom said the same thing about my brother. She told me a few years ago that she really never wanted him. He is the youngest, and she was happy with just girls. She didn't want another child, especially a boy. To hear her say this made me physically ill. My brother is a wonderful, sweet, funny guy and he was "my baby" when I was growing up. I cannot imagine him not being around, but I also can't imagine ANY mother saying they did not want one of their children. It's just not in me. I want as many kids as I can get!

To me, it's just completely selfish, what they said. ANd it definitely made me look at her in a totally different way. The more things I have found out over the years, the more things I have been able to look back on in my childhood and say, "oh, okay, that was completely psycho or weird".

Anyway, I am so sorry you are going through this. I think you can still salvage a relationship with her but you'll just have to accept her in a different way, and probably not be quite as close as before. That's what I have done, anyway.

[Sourire]

Originally Posted by Zevy

http://www.amazon.com/Way-They-Were-.../dp/1400082102

Thanks for the suggestion Zevy, I checked at the library and they have this book so I will go pick it up soon.

Originally Posted by Caneel

OP - you certainly don't need to answer this but was it a mid-life crisis sort of thing with your mom? It was with my mom.

That is definitely a possibility but my dad says that things started to go wrong when my mom got pregnant with my youngest sister (whom she says she never wanted) and my sister is almost 20 so that is quite a while ago! Apparently my mom really regrets being a stay at home mom for over 15 years and is bitter at how difficult it is to resume her career now and how little money she is making.

Originally Posted by lilmom

The part I really can relate to you about though is what she said about your sister, because my mom said the same thing about my brother. She told me a few years ago that she really never wanted him. He is the youngest, and she was happy with just girls. She didn't want another child, especially a boy. To hear her say this made me physically ill. My brother is a wonderful, sweet, funny guy and he was "my baby" when I was growing up. I cannot imagine him not being around, but I also can't imagine ANY mother saying they did not want one of their children. It's just not in me. I want as many kids as I can get!

Exactly... I understand how two people can grow apart in a marriage but treating one of your own children like this is so awful. My little sister was kind of like my baby too since we are 8 years apart. I have looked forward to having my own kids ever since she was born... now that I am TTC #1 my mom is almost trying to discourage me saying I am too young, I shouldn't rush things, I should focus on my career etc but I have trouble understanding this because I have wanted kids so bad for so long and I am already 4 years older than she was when she had her 1st (which is me). I guess she doesn't want me to have the same regrets she did.

[sparklefairy]

:
My mother had a surprise pregnancy in her mid30s just as she had the rest of us in school full time and had returned to school herself. She will never admit it, but in retrospect, I can see that she became depressed at that time and never really recovered.

I've also wondered how she really felt about SAH for so long.

Originally Posted by Sourire

Thanks for the suggestion Zevy, I checked at the library and they have this book so I will go pick it up soon.



That is definitely a possibility but my dad says that things started to go wrong when my mom got pregnant with my youngest sister (whom she says she never wanted) and my sister is almost 20 so that is quite a while ago! Apparently my mom really regrets being a stay at home mom for over 15 years and is bitter at how difficult it is to resume her career now and how little money she is making.




Exactly... I understand how two people can grow apart in a marriage but treating one of your own children like this is so awful. My little sister was kind of like my baby too since we are 8 years apart. I have looked forward to having my own kids ever since she was born... now that I am TTC #1 my mom is almost trying to discourage me saying I am too young, I shouldn't rush things, I should focus on my career etc but I have trouble understanding this because I have wanted kids so bad for so long and I am already 4 years older than she was when she had her 1st (which is me). I guess she doesn't want me to have the same regrets she did.