Hatred and Love

I think many people have similar feelings @Former-Member. I certainly did.

Love/hate pain and the whole catastrophe. Actually I am beginning to smell a rat when people dont admit to some .. Maybe I am getting older and more canny at last.

Where you draw the line about what you do with your family of origin is mainly up to you. It is your journey and yours alone. Nobody else will live it or feel the consequences of your choices no matter how good a counsellor doc or shrink.

Give yourself TIME and SPACE to process your feelings and relationships with them. You cant both process your feelings and forgive them overnight ... there are too many steps on the way. It will probably take a few years at least.

I am guessing they are separated from what you said about mum and boy friends but I wasnt sure if they were yours or hers.

HOWEVER there is the issue that it is difficult to actually judge someone as not doing enough if you havent walked in their shoes, so just keep a place in your heart ... for the possibility that maybe they did their best, given their circumstances and knowledge at the time things were happening. Most people dont deliberately set out to hurt or mess up their kids.

We can imagine we will do a terrific job and make better choices than our parents but until we are actually juggling the pressures and managing a family of creation. That is providing the roof, putting the food on the table and doing all the other bits and pieces ... 24/7 for the 25 years that it takes to raise a child... it is actually hard to make that call.

There are different types of self-hood boundaries ... hard edged and soft ... maybe you have a firmer edged boundary than your mother ... it is neither right or wrong ... it is just that we are different. You shouldnt blame yourself for being a teenager and I hope your mother doesnt.

We feel what we feel. We have some control over our feelings but CBT and DBT can only achieve so much. Feelings and cognitions and judgements are different, but interrelated.

Self hood boundaries are a bit different to the boundaries we place on other's behaviours. Closeness and distance between family is up to us to negotiate. What we let filter into our hearts and what we block will all be different. There is value in strength and softness, sometimes it is good to have a bit of both in our personalities.

Its bloody hard @Former-Member But I think you are a spirited and caring woman, with a sense of social conscience who has the right to create as a good a life as possible.

Hi @Former-Member,

It's ok to feel anger and want to distance yourself from your family. It sounds like they were and are still unable to give you the love that you need and deserve. It's ok to set boundaries, to love and care for yourself, and to not expose you to harmful situations.

In saying this, I once heard that hate and anger are secondary emotions. These feelings are a result of emotions that have not yet been resolved. From what you've written, and I'm guessing it's only the tip of the iceberg, it seems that you've been let down, and have had your trust broken a lot. If these feelings have not been worked through, then it makes sense that you're feeling angry.

Do what you need to work through this anger in a productive way. I wonder if @Chris can comment here. I believe she's had some struggles and resentments towards family. She's just posted here today about finding it difficult to connect because of family hurt. Perhaps she can share some insights here?

You're last sentence says so much @Former-Member.

You do have the right to put your own well-being above that of ANYONE else. If you're continually placing others above your own needs then you may never get to where you need to be, never be where you can truly give back to those around you who deserve you in their life.

You really have to consider the effect others are having on your life. No matter how close the relationship, sometimes we need to distance ourselves from those having a negative effect. Your mother at least seems to be trying to be better, but just isn't getting it yet. Have you spoken to her about how you feel she is turning it around to be about her instead of being able to understand, help & support you? I really don't know how that conversation would go.

I know I've been doing it a lot lately, but here's another quote I think fits well here.

— Daniell Koepke

Take care.

I think it takes a lot of courage to admit that you feel hatred. I have also heard@CherryBomb ideas about secondary emotions.

I have felt hatred too and it takes a lot of energy and commitment not to let it wreak havoc in your mind and in your life. Like you I also loved my mother. Love and hate are both possible about the one relationship.

In many ways my mother was opposite to yours. Very strong and very independent, confident of her charms, flirted with doctor while my dad was treated as a malingerer on the day he died, and never really wanted another man in her life. We became church musicians. I respected my mother but in the end I saw she like manipulating priests, she used her position as organist in 3 parishes to keep power over them. She was very proud and did not like anyone to control her but was not honest in many aspects of her relationships with the oldest 3 children who she abandoned in the 60s.

I was lucky I never had to put up with the scenarios of boyfriends, though i did see others have to deal with it. So I have a fair idea that your situation was pretty severe. I did have to deal with the fact that she put her own safety over mine when I was young, when I was an adult and even had my sister phone once, cos mother had left the house after an argument with my psychotic brother, and left the 2 toddlers she was babysitting for me. So our first babysitting event didnt go too well and we went settled my brother out of anger, and picked up the girls. I could settle him usually and she hated me for that.

My mother never improved. Never said sorry. It got worse not better. Your mother may or may not improve. She does deserve to get counselling but I would be self protective and limiting.

But she was my mother and I loved her. She was so proud and had to bend down and pick up tomatoes and vegies at the market when the stallholders werent looking. We were that desperate. It wasnt my fault and my brother and I worked our butts off as kids to bring money into the family but she could not appreciate us.

She also pushed the forgiveness line excessively. It really messed with my head. The truth is I didnt need to forgive my mother. I had understood about the abandonment, not blamed her, but it was still pretty bloody extreme. She hadnt forgiven us for being born .. that was the real issue. She just wanted to be a fancy pianist.

Only YOU will know what seems fair. Dont cut completely but take the space you need.

We all know hatred chews us up and is horrible to live with. But now I tend to think it can be trite to trot out the forgiveness platitutde. it wont fix everythng up. Being half dutch I got the Corry Ten Boom story etc. In the end I came to feel Corrie only had to feel the forgiving vibe for a day while she met the commandant from the camp. I had to deal with denial and mind games constantly in my most imtimate relations and more violent deaths in peacetime Melbourne than mother's family ever experienced in WWII. Not saying it wasnt tough for them ... they were just outside of Rotterdam ... but the death count is an unforgiving statistic. Premature forgiveness can put us in Stockholm Syndrome like situations.

I did a lot of work going through Christian "FORGIVENES" workbooks, applying biblical passages etc. Sum up ... Joseph in Egypt did not forgive too quickly .. he tricked and put a brother in prison ... and wanted them to prove their genuineness and remorse before he sent them home with grain during the famine.

I value this conversation a lot. @Former-Member I hope I am not putting too much of my story out to swamp yours ... just sharing and noticing similarities and differences in the hope that it helps. In the end I had to put up with my mother mocking my hospitality to the nephews and nieces as "she is good at being in an orphanage" .... cos there were lots of kids. My brother was good at begetting but did not hang around.

Suffering does terrible things to people. I too am a fairly strong person. I wouldnt have survived at all if it wasnt for that.

All we can do is learn as much as we can and make the best decisions possible .. try and make sure history doesnt repeat. Herstory then goes and throws double whammies at us.. but it is better to live your life and love .. than never to have loved at all.

It is good to be clear about a few things like that supermarket episode with the auntie.

it is good that your husband apologised as it was an immature application of religious concepts.

Glad your mother is trying hard enough to communicate her care to you. It may never be straight forward, but at least you know. "Victim" and "blame game" words are thrown around often to deflect the conversation.

Maybe you are right about your father.

I love your full-on and direct style and passion.

Take care