It's been a while since I last posted - life has been busy, the fella and I finally moved in together completely and i've been focused on getting the house in order.
I've also been spending a lot of time in my favorite new virtual place - offbeatbride.com. The Offbeat Bride Tribe is a private forum for engaged people (brides and grooms) to journal, ask questions, compare notes, and vent!
This is from a journal that I posted there in response to a post from a bride and groom who are having troubles with his mom.
________________________________________________
I was reading two posts about a couple who don't want his mother to
attend the wedding, and it got me thinking about challenging
relationships with mothers (and other family members) and how tragic
they can be. Sorry for the long, rambling post - I'm not quite sure
where I'm going with this, but I just feel that it needs to be written.
My mother and I have a "difficult" relationship. We have done pretty
much since I hit puberty and started developing my own independence.
You see, I am an only child and shortly before I was born my mother quit
her job to devote herself full time to being a housewife and raising
me. On one hand it is admirable to be in a position to be able to
provide a child with such stability and TIME. On the other hand, if
that stay at home parent invests all their emotional energy into their
child and loses their social life and connection to their community, it
can be a recipe for disaster when that child reaches the age where they
want to exert normal and healthy independence, and the parent has lost
themselves along the way.
I was a pretty good kid. I was badly bullied in school because I was
"different" (read: artistic, sensitive, and smart). I never got into
drugs, my underage drinking was very sporadic and pretty tame. My
Achilles heel was boys - once I developed a shapely behind and boobs,
they gave me the "positive" attention that I craved from my peers. (And
that's a whole other discussion) Suffice to say that whilst I did give
my parents their fair share of frustration growing up, I wasn't
unusually difficult.
My parents raised me to be open minded (they had friends of different
sexual orientations and different religions). They allowed me to wait
until I was curious about attending Sunday School before they made me
go. (My mother is non-attending Catholic, my Dad is United - and it was
the United Church I ended up attending) They encouraged me to explore
and learn about the world around me, travelled quite extensively with me
from a young age, and always spoke to me as an intelligent person (my
mother never did baby talk around me - quite probably that is why I
started speaking VERY early and had a vocabulary of 100 words by the
time I turned 1). I am grateful for that, because I have ended up as
someone who does her best to be accepting of peoples' differences, reads
voraciously, adores travelling, and has never stopped learning.
Back to my mom. My fragile, emotionally damaged mother, who somehow
managed to do a pretty bang up job raising me - and can't handle the
fact that I've ended up more mature, healthier, better educated, and
independent than she is. The sad truth is, for the past 20 years she
has been painfully jealous. My dad finally convinced me of that fact
after she and I had barely spoken for 5 years because she wouldn't allow
him to co-sign a car loan for me - for a used Chevy Sprint - after I'd
been living on my own, debt free and employed, for 4 years. The
dealership was quite happy to give me a loan on my own, but would have
given me a better rate of interest if my dad co-signed as I was only 23.
I'd have saved $1500. The reason my mom wouldn't let him co-sign?
...I'd saved up money to spend two months backpacking around Europe.
She said to my Dad "why does she have to have the car AND the trip?".
Yeah.
I made the effort to reconnect when I got engaged at 26. It took
some work, mostly because she kept trying to get me to agree that she
was right, and the most I was willing to do was agree to disagree. The
wedding plans didn't help, you see my (then) fiancé was thoroughly
Agnostic, and refused to be married in a church. (I'm pagan). When we
announced that we would be married outside instead of in a church my
mother threw what can only be described as a toddler's temper tantrum.
Have you ever seen a grown woman lying on the floor hammering the carpet
with her fists whilst sobbing?
I decided that it was more important for my fiancé to attend the wedding than my mother.
She didn't attend the wedding ceremony.
She did attend the reception, as my Dad (bless him) - for the first
time in their marriage - put his foot down and told her that he would be
very disappointed in her if she didn't at least attend the reception.
We never got to do the fun things like going to a dress shop together to see me try on dresses.
So, I'm engaged again. My mother hasn't left the house in four
years. I'm finally starting to accept the fact that she has
agoraphobia. She's always been "nervous" (read: suffering from clinical
anxiety). She's been on various anti-depressant and anti-anxiety drugs
for as long as I can remember (she was on Valium for at least 30
years). When I was born she cut off all of her fingernails because she
was terrified of scratching me. She also has emphysema from smoking for
57 years and is on oxygen 24/7, osteoporosis, and a variety of other
health issues. My wonderful 83 year old father is her primary
caregiver, and has been dealing with a diagnosis of Alzheimers for over a
decade. (He does really well under the circumstances, but that's
another story). I try to help out as much as I can, but just spending
time with my mother is kind of like trying to cuddle a porcupine - you
do it very very carefully to avoid the spikes. (I should point out that some of the spikes are mine - I try, but I get frustrated easily sometimes)
Which brings me to the point of this whole post. I'm getting married
for a second time (and hopefully the last time) and my mother will most
likely not be attending this one either. Despite the fact that we're
getting along fairly well she won't be coming to see me try on dresses.
Even discussing the wedding plans is challenging because the wedding is
going to be offbeat and she doesn't approve. ...and that makes me sad
because she's the kind of person for whom it was really important to
share in her daughter's milestones, and it's because of her own choices
that she is missing out on those things.
At least she likes my fiancé.
It can be very hard to accept that our parents are human, with
frailties and flaws and baggage. I am sad for all those parents and
children alike whose choices have driven a wedge between each other. I
am sad for those people whose damage is so bad that they can't stop
being toxic. Can't step back from their situation long enough to
realize that they are not only damaging a very valuable relationship,
but they are sabotaging THEMSELVES.
My heart goes out to those of you who are dealing with similar
things. It's tough. It really is. You can't change your family
members. ...but what you can do is work on being the healthiest, most
empowered person you can be, with the healthiest, most empowered
relationship. I wish you the best on your path. <3
No comments:
Post a Comment