Nice thread, K. It's been very interesting.
Well, I'm only just out of being a teenager myself, of course (I was 21 this week), but I think the last few years have been a period of genuine growth in my relationship with my mother. I'd heard the saying about parents - "first you love them, then you hate them, eventually you forgive them". I'm now in the "having forgiven" stage - my mother is a good woman and I no longer hold any real anger towards her. I rediscovered the strong love I initially had for her, but now in, I suppose you'd say, a more mature manner. That is, I'm quite aware of her faults and all those aspects of her attitude I disapprove of, and I don't seek to make excuses for them, but I also recognise that parenthood is a hard, hard job when you're doing it alone (even it is was largely her fault she had to do it alone in the first place) and that she was always there, always supportive in her way. She is deserving of my love and loyalty no matter my intellectual disatisfaction with some of her attitudes and behaviours. So any wounds have mostly healed, and we get along well.
You see, separating from her emotionally has always been very difficult for me, because we ended up bonding very closely in my earlier years - combined with my emotional dependency from the loss of my father, I ended up emotionally "intertwined" with her. Not the best outcome, as to be honest her emotional stability is not good. Nor is mine, of course, which is in part my point. I know quite well what aspects of myself come from her, and for a time I resented it, before I realized how unfair I was being. My mother is what and who she is, and she honestly did try her best and was ultimately successful at raising myself and my sister. So for a time I was angry, and while I'm still very sore about much of my life, my anger no longer directs at her.
Because my parents divorced and my family was sundered just as I was becoming old enough to pick up on the conflict, I was very, very insecure as a child. My sister, only half a year old at the time, is far more stable because she doesn't remember it. Having lost my father, I became very closely attached to my mother. That made it hard for her when I started (age 9-10) to distance myself from her. A natural and important part of a boy's development, but I don't think she got that. We were so close, so loving, but also began to really dislike each other and we didn't know how to disengage. Then, when I realized the reason I didn't have a father was because she wanted divorce then full custody because she "wasn't happy" (so I've managed to work out ; I still don't have full details), I resented it deeply. My emotional life has always been a tattered mess and I was furious that it was she who made it so. Yet I had only her in my life - I couldn't run to my father and proclaim him the "good guy" and turn mum into a "boo, hiss" villain, because she had been the one raising me. How can you turn on someone who has tried her hardest to raise you, care for you, provide for you? Who has done her best without hestitation? That was the pure frustration - I loved her deeply, was grateful to her in the extreme, yet I was so upset and frustrated at what I could only see as unthinking, unknowing abuse that I truly resented her.
So we had arguments. Surprisingly, 9 days out of 10 we were fine. As I say, that bond was so strong we couldn't truly stop getting along if we tried. But then there were days when it all erupted out, and we screamed at each other, said very hurtful things. We always settled back again, without truly blaming the other for it. But it was very hard for me. Forced emotional dependency on the mother is not a healthy trait to install in a boy, and I was quite aware of it. Since adulthood though, in the last few years, my anger towards her is used up and the love has settled back into something to be embraced. I've managed to gain enough distance and independence not to resent that power she has, and I've come to understand her a lot better - her trials in life, her support and dedication and, yes, her psychological anomalies that really do make it hell to live with her at times. I have very pleasant phone conversations with her during term-time and we're both very pleased when I return to her home in the holidays.
So, basically, I'm not pleased with the way I was treated and raised in many regards, but I'm now mature enough to see that my mother always tried her best, put in great sacrifices, and genuinely meant well in whatever she did. She was very supportive in her estimation even if it didn't really fit with mine. So there's no longer anger on my part. Acceptance might not be quite right, but I do say, with genuine meaning, that I'm proud to have her as a mother. Not because she was the greatest, but because she always gave her best even if, in my current estimation, she miscalculated.
Sorry for the length of that.
) x
.
) but that's how it is.
