#46 How do I mend fence with my mother?

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Gabby
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#46 How do I mend fence with my mother?

Post by Gabby » Sat Dec 20, 2008 11:56 pm

#46 How do I mend fence with my mother? / Stay away from mom until she gets therapy

Dear Annie: I am a 62-year-old woman. When I was 3 years old, my mother left me to be raised by my father’s family. I didn’t hear from her again until she sent a card for my 34th birthday. After that, we began corresponding fairly regularly, and visited each other two or three times.

Four years ago, my father passed away. My stepmother, who had been married to dad for more than fifty years, did not include my mother’s name in the death notice. This upset my mother, who said I should have been more aggressive about seeing that she was taken care of. She became angry and has ignored me ever since.

For two years after my father’s death I sent cards and notes to my mother on special occasions, but I never received a reply, so I finally gave up. My preacher says to mend your differences, but I don’t know how to do this. Do you have any suggestions? SAD IN FLORIDA

Dear Florida: This is not your fault. A woman who could abandon her child for 31 years, then cut off all contact because she wasn’t listed in her ex-husband’s death notice, does not sound mentally healthy. You have done everything possible to mend fences, but your mother is unwilling or unable to do her part. Since you are having such a hard time accepting the situation, please talk to your preacher or counselor about ways to let this go. —Annie

Gabby's Reply
 
Hi Florida: Something about your cleric's advice, for you to "mend fences," doesn't feel good; it doesn't allow that a therapist might advise you to not submit yourself to such abuse until your mother can tell you that she has completed 25-hrs of counselling.

What's so is you did not complete your relationship with your mom when you started conversing with her again.

There are specific communication processes (paired sharing exercises) that complete a relationship. By "complete" I mean, all withholds, judgments, perpetrations, and acknowledgments have been verbally communicated responsibly through to mutual satisfaction. This is usually a three-hour process. It works to use a communication-skills coach during a consultation. It’s both extremely uncomfortable and uplifting. The benefit of completing a relationship with anyone is that it gives both, but especially you, a clean clear choice about how to relate with them in the future—what the agreements will be and what communication model will be used. In this case you recreated (lapsed back into) what’s referred to as the adversarial communication model; you merely re-created the older relationship with your mom. With this communication model, the agreement is that it’s OK to blame, withhold, play take-away, and to communicate abusively.

If you’d be willing to give up blaming her you’ll discover that she has done you a service. She has revealed a misunderstanding about the communication model that YOU use. By this I mean, each communication has a beginning, a middle, and an end. She’s stuck at the end of a communication while you are unconsciously trying to begin new topics via “special occasion” cards. She’s bleeding from the wounds from her last interaction with you and you’re ignoring her pain with inappropriate greeting cards. You say you sent a “card” and didn’t hear from her. This is a blame statement. I assume you don't know if she received it. If so, this was where you blew it. The next step should have been to get clear if she received it. Call her and ask, or even send a “Return Receipt Requested,” to get clear. Trying to communicate new topics in a mind already occupied with former incomplete attempts, guarantees miscommunication. She is carrying around (dramatizing) an unresolved upset. That’s what’s in the space between you and her, that’s what needs to be addressed/completed. What you did, by sending more cards, is you set her up to ignore you even more, and now you make her wrong for your inability to get into communication with her.

Now for the biggie: She’s right. A daughter who is whole and complete (experiencing a loving supportive relationship with her mother) would naturally think of including the names of all appropriate relationships in her father’s death announcement; at best discuss the options with her. I suspect you had the thought and for reasons decided not to support your stepmother in being loving, considerate, and forgiving. Those reasons are what are referred to as considerations. You bought into your own considerations and created upset. It’s possible you unconsciously chose to upset her rather than upset others. You supported your stepmother in playing take-away (inconsiderately, mean-spiritedly, un-lovingly, hurtfully, not inviting your mother to the funeral) and are now reaping the consequences by her taking away her love and support.

There is a way to “get” another’s upset. There is a way to acknowledge what another wants to be right about and have them feel good. You don’t know how to do this and so she’s upset, and you’re stuck arguing that you’re not responsible, that you didn't cause the upset, and, that she’s wrong, and so the relationship is estranged again.

For sure, if your mom had written me, I’d address the problem from how she is responsible for creating the upset. My responsibility is with you, and so it’s you who needs coaching, about your cause for the recent entanglement.

All this said, I support you in staying away from her. She is addicted to communicating abusively. That you feel guilty and incomplete with how you handled her is appropriate. That’s your integrity. You intuitively knew that somehow or other you were cause for the new estrangement, the breakdown in communication, and so you could not let go (or mend) the relationship. Depending upon how powerful you're willing to be we could also look at the situation from the point of view that it was the genius in you who unconsciously, for an as yet unknown reason, intended for her to give you up at age three. Imagine what you would have had to endure had you lived with her full time?

There is a way to support someone such as your mom who is stuck in anger and abuse, who has no choice, based upon her programming, but to play take-away. What you do is you communicate to her, preferably in writing,
“I don’t feel good about our relationship. It’s clear that I don’t have the communication skills to mend the relationship. I’m going to be taking a complete and total recess from interacting with you (no calls/messages, cards, gifts, or letters) until you can tell me that you have completed 25 50-minute sessions with a therapist/counselor. In the meantime you can trust that I will be doing the same, working on healing myself.” It's referred to as responsible estrangement.

This would give her a way back into your life and it’s a responsible way of extracting yourself from an abusive relationship. If you keep relating and interacting with her, it reveals that you need as much therapy as she does. Put another way: Your mom is stuck in childhood. She's having a temper tantrum. You must assume the role of mother and send her to her room. Tell her she can't come out until she acknowledges that she was abusive. Thank you, Gabby

Last edited 11/24/20

 

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