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a quick question from someone who is still new to all this!

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Jaded:
Lissie,

I know you do not know my character nor would you know me if you passed me on the street.  I want to talk to you from the heart and I hope that what I am about to say will not hurt your feelings; my hope is that you give this some consideration and thought.

Lissie, I have three children that I gave birth to as well as 1 daughter I gained through my N relationship.  I am a woman as well as a mother.  I love my kids with all of my being and I feel we have a wonderful relationship and we can talk about anything.   My children know that I am a very nonjudgmental person so they feel comfortable talking with me.  I have talked to my girls about everything that life could possibly throw at ya.  I mean we have talked about sex in a very candid, open, and educational manner.  I being the one who was educated by my kids at times, lol, times change my dear and at times ole mom didn’t know the lingo the kids were talking, so they filled me in.  My point being that my kids have always felt comfortable coming to me with any issue they might question or anything they want to talk about, they feel free to do so.

With that said, I will also tell you that NEVER and I mean NEVER, did I cross those lines with my children.  As a mother I am 100% there for my children but as a woman, they know nothing of my business and I would never ever consider sharing anything with them about my personal life outside of being their mom.  I went through some horrific times with my N and I went out of my way to protect my children from seeing or knowing anything about his disorder.  

As a mom it is my responsibility to draw the boundary lines with me and my children.  Yes I feel we are friends, but my number one priority is to love, protect, and nurture my children.  It is not my responsibility to inform them of my every day events as a woman.  I have always prided myself about how I conducted myself as a single woman with 3 children.  I NEVER brought my dates around my children.  My kids didn’t even know I dated until many years later.  The kids would go with my ex husband every other weekend and 2 nights during the week.  That was when the mother could let her hair down to do what ever she wanted to and that is exactly what I did.  I never blurred that line between my responsibilities to my children and my life as a single woman.

Your mother has blurred those lines I believe.  Yes you do live with your mother and you see the interactions between her and your dad so I can understand where you are coming from.  However, for your mother to discuss anything with you about her and your dad, I feel this is an invasion of your emotional and mental capacity.  Your mother is giving you access to areas that are not healthy emotionally or mentally for you.  Despite your dad’s flaws, he is still your father.  Every little girl dreams of having a father who picks them up and twirls them through life.  Every little girl dreams of being daddy's little girl.  Those hopes and dreams can be with you forever.  Many girls become sexually permissive as a result of a lack of their fathers attention.  You are already realizing that your father has some issues with his role as a dad.  I just think that your issues might be compounded because of your mother blurring the lines of a parent child relationship.  

If she needs someone to confide with, perhaps a friend or a counselor would suit her better.  You are that mans daughter as well as hers so the fact that you have become her confidant is really inappropriate.  She should not blur those lines of motherhood and a womanly relationship.  Emotionally she is invading your precious space.  Believe me Hun, when you go through your life after dealing with a N, every ounce of space that you have emotionally is needed to cope with the damage they have inflicted.  I just feel that your mother is not being fair to you by emotionally depleting your resources.  

I am not saying that she shouldn’t share information about N; I am just saying that I don’t feel she should share her life as a wife to your father with you.  Perhaps your father has alienated your mother from friends and family.  Maybe that’s why she has drawn you in as a confidant, but that still does not make it right.

Lissie, do you ever go to bed and lay for hours trying to process all of the information that your mother has presented to you? Do you ever dream of what your life will be like when you become a wife?  Do you ever ponder how much you are going to share with your children??  If you never dream of your life as a wife or dream of your children, perhaps it is because your mind is to busy trying to process all of your mothers events as a wife and a mother.  

If you can’t dream of your future Lissie, you have resigned to settling for the present.  There is so much out there in life.  As a mother it is my responsibility and it is my privilege to encourage my children to dream and reach for the stars when it comes to their futures.  I would never think stunting their growth emotionally or spiritually by burdening them with my emotional bulk.

Be a great daughter Lissie, being a great friend to your mother is not your responsibility.  Be there for her as a daughter, do not bear her emotional pain beyond that because eventually it could snuff out your hopes and dreams for your future.

Sincerely,

Mindy (Jaded)

Portia:
Mindy, what a great Mum you are. I wish you had been mine! Want to adopt a 42 year old? :D Big hug.

Liss, you're a very caring and coping young woman. I just wish you were having 'normal' fun with your friends (when you're not studying) instead of worrying about this very adult stuff. You have enough to think about with your studies - they're so important! This is the time of your life when you are expected to be selfish (not a bad thing), because you have every right to be, the rest of your life depends to some extent on the choices you make now. Think of yourself, please! Hug, P

Yuki:
Hi again Lissie,

I know you've got a lot to think about already.

A lot of us seem to be picking up on something between you and your mother. I know she's your best friend and you two are very close... and I'm sure that your father being a N made you need her even more. You're going through a difficult time now and you still need her support.

The difficult truth is that in order for your relationship with your father to become more healthy, your relationship with your mother will probably have to become more healthy too. I hope this doesn't sound like an attack against your mother or your relationship with her. But there are elements in your relationship with her that are unhealthy. I know how hard this can be to hear and to believe - I've been there!! I think it's just little things we're hearing in how you talk about her - that the two of you are a team, that you're there for each other, that she's your best friend. Like she's a peer. Your father has been so obviously the problem for so long that it probably looks like he is "the problem." Instead... it's your family system that's unhealthy. He's a BIG part of that, of course. But he is not 100% of it. I'm not saying that you should blame your mother... I'm saying there is something unhealthy about how your family works.

I hear your guilt about abandoning your father. You feel that he'd be crushed if you left him. Your guilt and feeling that you need to take care of him is a product of your unhealthy family system. It's co-dependency. Unhealthy emotional boundaries. I can tell you are a very kind, caring person. :) And that's a good thing. But when that kindness gets mixed up with guilt and dependency it's unhealthy - not just for you but for the people you care for too.

If I may suggest this... now that you've done the research on narcissism and identified what's going on with your dad... maybe look into some other things like co-dependency and poor boundaries and enmeshment. See if maybe some of those things fit too.

Yuki

Anonymous:
:(  Feeling quite confused...

The last thing I ever considered to be unstable or wrong is my relationship with my mother...

Seems to be like a whole new dimension of messed up life that I never knew existed...

Forgive me if I don't write or come back here for a while - I feel like it's doing me more harm and disturbing me at the moment than good. I came to seek advice and understanding of my N Dad and now there is an issue with my mother as well; the person whom I look up to and trust the most...

Sorry if I'm sounding over dramatic or anything - I don't mean it to be that way at all. Just feel, quite...odd...

xoxo

Yuki:
Hey Lissie,

It's understandable if you need to take a break. You've got other important things to focus on right now, like school. It's ok to put this aside and take care of other things - this will still be here for you to come back to when you chose to. Now may be a bad time to make big changes in your life.

Things get worse before they get better when you're dealing with big, emotional issues like this. Something that seems like a minor issue can actually be major once you get into it. You scratch the surface and realize there's a whole lot more under there than it looked like.

Ultimately, it's up to you to decide how far you want to dig into it, and when, and what kind of changes you want to make in your life.

I HATED the first person who told me that my mother and I had an unhealthy relationship and needed some space from each other. I was extremely angry! I wrote in my diary about how wrong that person was, because I believed that I would fall apart completely wtihout my mother. It can be very hard to see something from a different perspective when you are so close to it and it's all you've ever known for you whole life. I really think you've handled hearing all of this from us very well - much better than I did. :) Ultimately, it's for you to decide what to believe and what to do.

You don't sound overdramatic. This is major stuff. When I first started looking at some of these issues in my own life, I felt like my whole world had been turned upside down.

Take care, I'm sorry that this is so confusing and hard for you.

Yuki

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