Grieving the relationship that will never be with my uBPD mother

[Trollvaaken]

Short summary of my relationship with my uBPD mother: emotional incest, I was basically her therapist to the extent that when living with her, I could no longer "feel", I was completely disconnected from myself and my emotions, but fortunately, my visa was renewed and I could return to living with my fiancé abroad.

Anyway, special occasions are always a source of family drama on her part. She usually gets upset about some insolence or lack of respect in our behaviour towards her on our own special day. Last week, I had a courthouse wedding where I live (so an ocean away from my family), I told her that it wasn't a big deal, not because I don't take our marriage seriously, but because we have been together for 7 years already and also, the whole ceremony only takes 10 minutes and we are also planning on having a party for our respective families in their respective parts of the world and that that would be more meaningful and fun than the actual signing of papers. The only other people at our wedding was my sister and her boyfriend who happened to be visiting us. Anyway, my mum was upset that we didn't send her any sneak peek pictures before posting them on facebook and ended her message by telling me that I have always been a selfish person ever since childhood.

Probably the fact that I grew up in such a household has made me more reserved regarding emotional matters (or according to my mother ''secretive'', because I don't like big emotional displays such as the ones expected at weddings. Another illustration of this is the fact that during my teens, I didn't tell my friend about our beloved family dog dying until a month of so later after she brought up the subject of my dog because I didn't want to deal with getting condolences.

Anyway, I responded to her message explaining that to me this wedding isn't this whole big event and how I have been trying to tell her since the beginning not to get so emotionally involved in it and how I am not comfortable with the emotional pressure of weddings and would have preferred to elope, but knew that would hurt her, so I tried to compromise my interests with family interests. I thought I had validated her feelings while still standing my ground and explaining my view, but she responded with another guilt trip.

I wish I could be closer to  my mother, but it seems to be ''all or nothing'' either I am being smothered or I have to be LC as I am now. I know my mother wishes to be closer, because on her good days, she is great, but you never know when chaos will come. I just hate to hurt her because I know she suffers, but it seems like I cannot not hurt her and protect myself at the same time. How do I come to terms with this?

[Leaving]

Trollvaaken,

Congratulations on your wedding and new life! 

What you're going through with your mother is so tough. I too felt all my life that I could never be me around my mother without somehow either completely surrendering myself ( what little there was of me) or offending her.

You did the right thing by marrying as you wanted to and I'm quite impressed with your ability to hold that boundary.  That's a good sign that you're strong and have a strong sense of self and personal values despite what your mother says. 

I was always told I was selfish anytime I expressed my own opinion or tried to make my own decisions about my life and marriage and my mother would quickly discard me.   I ended up marrying my current husband because I bought into that accusation.  So, don't let her words affect you.  Let them go.  She's probably projecting her own selfishness onto you.

I've been reading what you wrote about the reserved emotions several times now because I too experienced the same thing for much of my life but I have never really understood why I felt such trepidation in expressing my own pain around some people ( not all... but most).  I thought maybe it was because I was feeling SO terribly sad or hurt that I simply couldn't bear for my words to fall on the ears of someone who couldn't understand which would hurt even worse.  I also never felt comfortable with people making a big to do about anything pertaining to me.  I feel like they are just feeling sorry for me.  All of that stems from feelings of being unworthy and invisible for most of my life I guess?  This is a topic that I need to examine more closely relative to myself. 

One thing I do know about myself that is very strange is that I sometimes diminish my own suffering when I'm telling someone about something I've gone through.  It's like I fear someone thinking I'm over-reacting or that they will think less of me because I'm weak or vulnerable to such ' petty' things like my dog dying ( which is actually very devastating to me).  I guess that comes from my mother always diminishing my pain and suffering.  She always compared her own to mine and of course she was suffering worse and so mine didn't matter.  My husband treats me the same exact way.  I recently had 3 oral surgeries and he seemed angry about it as if I was doing something I enjoyed that he couldn't do.  He can't stand for me to get ANY attention - even from an oral surgeon!  Right after my surgery, when I was in a state of horrible pain, he said, ' If you think you have problems look at my teeth and what I have to live with' and yet, he has no dental problems at all.  I just stood there looking at him in wonder- wondering how a person learns to become so self absorbed, cruel, insensitive and negligent.   

I'm sorry you are dealing with all this- especially when you should be so happy and beginning a new life.  I think you are doing very well in the way you handle your relationship with your mother.  Perhaps with time she will adapt and accept the LC.  The only thing I can suggest is that you plan get togethers around less intense holidays, communicate your boundaries to her in a respectful way and follow your heart relative to your own needs and your marriage.  If she can't accept that and creates more negative drama in your life, then you'll have to decide how you want to proceed.  Unfortunately, you can't change her. 

I hope you will feel better soon

[Klo]

She really needs to come to terms with the fact that you're a sovereign human being, and if she won't do that, it's her choice not to face her own issues. You can respect her as a sovereign human being and let her make that choice. And yeah, the grieving can be really rough. Every time I think I've gone through it and am done with it, I have to do it again.