Mother-Son Tensions...

[Slapshot2286]

OK well the brief explanation is that my parents got divorced when I was four. I went back and forth from their houses weekly until a huge fight blew up between them and I moved with my mom to Florida when I was 11. I lived with my mom and saw my dad sparingly until I was 16. For the 5 years I lived with my mom, we never really got along. We would always fight, argue, and she was EXTREMELY controlling. To the point that I couldn't have many, if any, friends, could not go out past 10:30, could not go to friends houses, my friends couldn't come to my house, I couldn't drive on the highway once I got my license, I couldn't do ANYTHING. She even bought my clothes, and got extremely mad whenever I would buy my own. Whenever I would come back from trips with my dad, she would make me feel like crap, put my dad down, etc. She would also try to make me feel bad about myself. She was the reason that I didn't have many friends, and then she'd make me feel like crap by pointing it out that I didn't have many friends. She would do the same thing to my bro, but she would never get angry at him. I hate to say it, but it was like he was her favorite, and I was the stepchild. I also had a horrible relationship with my stepdad, as well. He'd try to, I guess, abuse me, at times. Like he had to make himself feel more like a man (since she, as controlling as she was, had pretty much castrated him....he had no friends, life, etc, besides her), so he'd pick on me lots of times. It never bothered me though, cuz I knew he was just trying to compensate for that, so it never hurt my self esteem at all or made me feel ashamed.

 

 

As I grew older and older, I grew more and more rebellious. Never to her face much, though. The worst part is, I don't know about other guys, but when you're a kid, your mom has a direct path to your heart. Anything she says, you take literally and straight to heart. She was the only person that could make me cry. I could never cry around my dad, brother, girlfriend, ANYBODY, except her. Finally, at age 16, we had the biggest fight ever. I had just returned from a trip with my dad, where she THOROUGHLY grilled me, and made me feel like total crap for going on the trip. I'd had enough, so I called my dad and told him to come pick me up. He called the police, and they told him that if he picked me up, they would arrest him for kidnapping and take me home, because my mom had physical custody of my brother and I. So, a week later, my dad had a court order to let me leave, and he came to her house, and picked me up.

 

I went home with my dad, and did not speak to my mom for a year. I lived and went to high school in Missouri where my dad lives (and where I live now, except for when I'm at school), and graduated HS there. The first month into senior year, my mom attempted to make contact, and for a while, things were good. Then she tried controlling when and where I would see her, so I broke it off again for another 3-4 months. All throughout this time I had a girlfriend (and still do now), and she only met her recently, after we'd been together a year and a half.

 

The whole point of this, however, is to discuss things currently. I talk to my mom now on a weekly basis, and I see her every time I travel to south florida. I feel EXTREMELY awkward sleeping at her house. I do not like it, but she always guilts me into it. She also lies incessantly about the time that I lived with her. Its like she's a different person, or she saw things differently then. She tries to "reminisce" with me, but there's nothing to reminisce about. She wants to remember a time I want to forget, and I think after not talking to her for a year she'd understand that. Anyway, so I feel very awkward spending time with her. It seems like her niceness is fake, and its like I'm just waiting for the next upset to come. I don't like hugging her, talking to her, or anything. Then my birthday came and she made this big photo album of me (that if nothing had ever happened between us, would be a sweet gesture). Again, fake. I feel like our relationship is so empty, like its all just pretending so on the surface for everyone else, we have a good relationship. Is this a normal thing? How do I handle my mom? I mean, she's my mom. You only get one. Yet, I pretty much loathe seeing her/talking to her. She annoys me by calling me all the time, and acting like she was a good mother. Its like in Gladiator, when Marcus Arelius says "let us pretend for a moment that I am a good father, and you are a good daughter." Its like we're living a lie by being nice to each other........

[ollydolly]

It sounds as though you would like something meaningful with her - or nothing at all thanks.

 

I think you love your Mom because she's your Mom and not for any other reason.

If you sat down and said "Mom, I feel as though our relationship is not authentic and I'd like it to be" - would she freak out?

 

I actually admire you for seeing the falseness and not liking it. Life is too short to pretend, I don't care who they are, mother, father, sister, lover - if it's not an authentic, honest relationship, it ain't a relationship worth much.

 

I know that mother's can speak words that go straight to your ego structure - like an arrow, but you sound as though you're pretty strong minded. You are right for craving something more real with her. I hope you get it. Most of us don't.

[Slapshot2286]

I really hope that's not the case....that most of us don't get it. It seems to me like I'm the only one that doesn't have it...or maybe its just that all the people I know are the few that DO get it. Either way, that's a depressing thought to think that people don't have good relationships with their moms.

 

If I sat my mom down and said that, she'd probably just deny it. She's weird like that. Like I was saying, she tries now to reminisce like the times were so good. I think in her mind, she thinks that nothing bad ever happened (and that she truly believes this).

[ollydolly]

She probably needs to believe it.

 

I just know so many people who have challenged their parents to a more authentic relationship but have been given denial instead. Parents make their choices - not always good ones for their kids. The last thing they really want is to be called on them.

My eldest daughter bares pain from my divorce with her father - it was my choice to divorce. I made the call for myself and of course the children didn't want it that way. I figure the least I can do is listen to how it effected her without getting defensive.

 

My own mother, dead now, used to get terribly defensive whenever I brought up issues in my upbringing which made her look less than perfect. She could never get past it to just hear me out.

[Slapshot2286]

Originally posted by ollydolly

She probably needs to believe it.

 

I just know so many people who have challenged their parents to a more authentic relationship but have been given denial instead. Parents make their choices - not always good ones for their kids. The last thing they really want is to be called on them.

My eldest daughter bares pain from my divorce with her father - it was my choice to divorce. I made the call for myself and of course the children didn't want it that way. I figure the least I can do is listen to how it effected her without getting defensive.

 

My own mother, dead now, used to get terribly defensive whenever I brought up issues in my upbringing which made her look less than perfect. She could never get past it to just hear me out.

 

 

Yeah exactly. Whenever I bring it up, she'd be like "well I guess I was just a bad mother then..." Saying things like that is the exact reason I left in the first place. I was tired of the sarcasm and the belittlement. I just wanted to be a kid, but she couldn't let me. Oh well.

[ollydolly]

Originally posted by Slapshot2286

Yeah exactly. Whenever I bring it up, she'd be like "well I guess I was just a bad mother then..."

 

That is called guilt manipulation. My mother said exactly the same thing. The truth was yes, she had at times been a really bad mother - as mothers we have to be able to own that we screw up. It doesn't write us off as thoroughly unloving. My best times of growth as a mother and as a woman comes from having to do that with my cheribs - it's challenging but worth the honesty. Later on, they can take things up with a therapist if they have to ;-)

[terlik]

Hi. I don't mean to interrupt your conversation, guys, but Slapshot2286 said that sometimes he feels llike he's the only one who has a bad relationship with his mom. Well, you are not. I don't get along with my parents, either. Sometimes, I even daydream of leaving them, but I just dont have the courage to do it. As a result, just like you, I've become much more rebellious than I used to be.

 

One day, if I become a parent, my view on this will be more objective but right now I prefer not to give you any advice because I'm still a kid. I might be wrong. But just to let you know you are not the only one; there many more kids like us...unfortunately.

[nightwish33147]

Originally posted by Slapshot2286

I really hope that's not the case....that most of us don't get it. It seems to me like I'm the only one that doesn't have it...or maybe its just that all the people I know are the few that DO get it. Either way, that's a depressing thought to think that people don't have good relationships with their moms.

 

If I sat my mom down and said that, she'd probably just deny it. She's weird like that. Like I was saying, she tries now to reminisce like the times were so good. I think in her mind, she thinks that nothing bad ever happened (and that she truly believes this).

 

ur mom is like the waterboy movie mom where she is over protective

F her move on now it's ur time to give her what she deserves to be negelected f her don't call her she is now feeling bad about u moving away right now my mom is being a b7tch too with me

 

i now i'm like after gradution i'm going to college in the other side of the world becuz she treats me like a 12yr old yes i had lied to her but that has pass and i understand that i have ruined our trust but now i can't stand being in the same room with her , when she asks me to go with her to place i tell her no , at times i feel bad for talking back to her but if only she would let me go

 

i think that she is scared of me goign bad like my older brother who's in jail

but i'm different becuz i get good grade in school i hav never been arrested or do drugs like my brother in jail , i even tell her that i'm not like him

 

one thing is if u people can help me wiht is that i have heard this saying ' the way u treat ur mom, is the way ur going to treat ur wife' which scares me some time becuz i'm rude with her and talk back at her at times , back then she used to hit me alot 9due to something bad things i have done but if only she would talk to me about how she felt but no she hits me"and i'm scare that i'm goign to being bad with my wife other girlfriwnd which i don't want to be, i like being a nice guy with girl not an @$$hol3!

 

another thing is that i was with my teacher and mom and we were talk and i got mad at her about something she said...so later on that same teacher called me upo to her desk to talk to her and she tollled me that she did not like how i treated her and that if i was goign to be that way i was goign to be like that to my future wife which scare me

 

so please tell me if u have heard this

example...eminem with his mom and then later on with his wife which are divoresed now

[Slapshot2286]

Hey, its good that you recognize that stuff early on. Just the fact that you recognize that kind of stuff now is a good step in the right direction. Personallly, I know that because of my relationship with my mom, its motivation for me NOT to treat my wife that way. Turn it into postitive things, not negative.