Have you ever felt totally disconnected from your own mother?

I don’t have that with my mother, but I do with my father. Whatever you do… you have to get over it.

I feel the bond with a parent an essential part of being happy. It can wreak havoc on you if it is a negative bond.

You cannot change your parents, more important you cannot change the past. A failed parent will never be able to make up for the time that they weren’t there when you needed them. Now that you’re grown up, you actually don’t really need them anymore. Look forward and don’t try to repair their past absence.

Hope this makes sense to you. :)

Not sure that it is generational. My mother is 54 and I am 28, and I feel this disconnect with my mother often. My sisters (18&22) do, as well.
She often laments about how she spent her whole life doting on my father and us girls, and how miserable she is as a result. She’s also an alcoholic, now, which leads to typical addiction behaviors. It makes it very easy to feel like this is this monstrous gap between us sometimes. One that may never be bridged.
I don’t really have any remarkable insight to share… only that I can relate, at least in part, to what you’re feeling.

People grieve in weird ways @hawaii_jake. She did lose her nephew, her sisters son who apparently you were close in age to and she just may be articulating her own anguish over this sad event. I think detaching yourself from a parent or a child to either allow for independence no matter which way the wind blows is one of the hardest things a parent and or child can do. No parent wants to see their child suffer no matter what the reason and to watch your child travel that road of addiction to such a tragic end has to be painful.

Sorry for your loss there and not sure I can say anything you haven’t already processed with regards to your mom. My own mom is similarly set in her ways and at that age, you simply can’t change that mind set.

I think perhaps the burden is not the person, but the burden of worrying about the person. What your mother doesn’t realize is that it is always with you, that the burden of worry is replaced with the burden of loss. When I was in high school, I was envious of people whose fathers were dead, because their fathers didn’t choose to leave them. Once my father divorced my mother, he chose to not spend time with me, because I was so angry and sad. He expected me to be happy that he was finally happy, and when I wasn’t, he washed his hands of me. Even though we eventually spoke again when I was in my 20’s, the damage was done, and the burden of the relationship was not eased by his death.

Are you sure that what she said applies to you? She may just have meant that your aunt had to deal with an alcoholic son, which is a terrible burden.

If you are sure, then I am sorry. To view a relationship with a child that way is so sad and limiting.

@hawaii_jake I think what you heard was something from your mother’s heart that wasn’t about you, and wasn’t about her relationship with you as your mother. It was a woman speaking from her grief and worries about her sister and the relationship her sister had with her son.

Sometimes, sisters open their hearts to each other in ways that others; children or husbands or friends, could never comprehend. They may have a shared knowledge of their lives which they may have kept from everyone else in their lives. Lives that existed before you or your cousin were born.

When they go through the cycle of life and they bear children and grow old, and have discussions about their children, especially a child like your uncle, who you described as someone who drank to excess and may have died because of drink, I’m sure your mother knew her sister’s burdens with this child.

I think she was just wanting her sister to lay down her worries and heartbreak that were borne out of love for a child. To bury it with her son and not grieve over what may have been for the remaindor of her years left on earth.

Yes. I have felt this about my own mother quite a lot in the past. I don’t feel that I am the daughter she wanted and there were times when I was growing up that she made it quite clear how strange she thought I was. She also did this in front of my peers which, of course, was humiliating for me being a teenager is hard enough without your own mother making you feel like a freak. However, over the years, since I moved away from her, she has started to rebuild some bridges and our relationship is improving. She often tells me that she misses having me around and that she loves me and so I think, better late than never! There are still times when I really struggle to understand her but I don’t feel quite so affected by it now that I live away from her.

Give your mom a break. Moms say things (especially when they’re older) that are not always understood.
If your cousin was a compulsive drunk driver like you say he was, his mother probably spent a lot of time worrying that he would some day kill himself or someone else. Her biggest fear has now come true and she no longer has to carry the burden of that fear. It doesn’t mean that your mother was minimizing your aunts love for her son, it just means that she was acknowledging a hard truth.
I just lost my mom and watched my sister wait until she was on her death bed to give up her resentments. She said, “all that seems so trivial now.”
Try to look at your mothers heart. Try to see the world from her history, her fears, her insecurities, and her hurts. She is not perfect, she may be misinformed about some things, and her upbringing may make it hard to get beyond her fears about things, but if you look into hear heart, I would bet that you will see a woman who loves you with all that she is. Hold on to that part and cherish her. Create a relationship where you can say that as far as you are concerned you have no regrets.
Don’t try to change her, just try to love her. She will be gone before you know it.

An easier question to answer would be when have I ever felt connected to her and that’s rarely. I agree with you that she shouldn’t have said that and it doesn’t reflect well on her as a person, regardless of circumstances. (besides I believe people’s true selves come out when they’re stressed). Many of our parents weren’t good parents. Many people aren’t good parents. They can’t get out of their mindset and should have never had kids anyhow.

I’m sorry, @hawaii_jake that you’re feeling hurt. You should ask your mom for clarification before you let your imagination run away with you by putting meanings on things that might not be in statements people make. It’s something I had to do (and unfortunately found out some truths about how my aunt/childhood caretaker and guardian really felt about me that were hurtful), but I wanted to be reasonably sure of what people were saying to me and not burning bridges by imagining people meant something that they didn’t.

More communication, not less. At least until there’s nothing left to say.

Thank you, all. I taking all this in and mulling it over. Thank you.

I don’t know you but if I were reading a book, introducing characters and a few scenes then I’d guess your mother took this opportunity to project some of her own dissappointment on you. Not fair and not right but not uncommon. If your mom is hurt selfishly then she probably thinks more of the life she imagines you might have had if you hadn’t been gay in moments like this when she’s stressed or grieving and maybe not so much the rest of the time?

Have I felt disconnected from my own mother? Yes, for years at a time and only in the past few years have we gotten to know each other. My mother sees her own mother in me, she doesn’t particularly like her mom. My mother sees the failure of a happy married life with children when she looks at me- I divorced without ever having children and now I’m past the age to want to make children. I know my mother loves me in her way and she does mean well, in her way. My caution is to not push for more than she’s capable.

I think the way you put your question, YOU feel like a burden. I don’t think your mother meant one bit YOU are actually a burden.
Keep in mind drinking and driving is a huge burden on the families shoulders of the person who does not care about the drinking and driving. INNOCENT LIVES ARE LOST EVERYDAY BECAUSE OF DRINKING AND DRIVING. That is a huge burden on a family that feels guilt because they cannot change the selfish uncaring ways of a family member, who puts not only their own life at risk but but others. I think being gay compared to drinking and driving hardly constitutes as being risky unless your willingly risking others lives and will not accept help.
If your cousin was not going to quite his ways and your family knew that and had of lived but killed an entire family in the process think of the impact in that circumstance. That did not happen, therefore that burden is laid to rest.
Also I want to extend my sincre condolences to you and yours.

1. Please, don’t shout.
2. I’m a recovered alcoholic with 11.5 years of sobriety. I know much better than most people the devastation that drinking causes in the lives of the drinker, family, and friends. My alcoholism and not my recovery is another source of my mother’s discontent.
3. There are other things about my mother that I am not going to put online. I would only hope that my friends here on Fluther would give me the benefit of the doubt that I might—just might—know what I’m talking about.
4. I am also open to suggestions, thus my last question in my details.

I don’t think you’ve missed anything. Your mother is in her 80’s so she probably has a lot to reflect on, a lot of missed dreams she thinks are closer to missed events/happenings. Each time someone close to her dies then her feelings of hurt, anger and fear might flare up more than usual. Who knows what she rolls up in her head? She might blame your homosexuality for making you an alcoholic or the reverse and all things she wanted for/from you get chalked up to those facets of you.

@hawaii jake

1) I did not shout while I was saying that in my head I was pronouncing it more if it comes across that way, I am really sorry.
2) Congratulations!!!!!! You are sober, thus is exactly what I meant by being ok to change and getting help.
3) I am very sorry  I have no knowledge of your past with your mother and was only commenting on how I thought would be the best answer I could give. I was totally giving you the benefit of the doubt. I don’t think your mother sees you as a burden. If you think you have a good enough relationship, maybe you could just ask her?

Not in the same situation as you. But yes, I have. like when she yells at me or doesnt understand. but grief is supposed to bring people together, but know that she’ll always love you

Yes, but not for the same reason (though she made it abundantly clear on many occasions that every aspect of my looks, personality, lifestyle, etc. were a disappointment to her). Unfortunately, biological ties don’t necessarily equate to emotional ones. As others have pointed out, your mother may or may not have intended any deeper personal meaning when she was speaking of your cousin, but I can understand why you would interpret it in that way. And in answer to your question, I am not sure why mothers try to live through their children. I don’t think it’s a generational thing. I’ve noticed the same character trait in my parents and in my friends’ parents, and they are only a few years older than yourself. Maybe it’s because they chose not to form an identity or social life outside of child-rearing.

Absolutely, but for different reasons. My mother is very, very bad for my mental health. Enough so that I eventually broke off contact with her. I’m sorry you’ve been hurt by your mother, whether she intended it or not, and sorry for your loss. {hugs}

I don’t remember ever being connected with my mother. She died when I was nine and was sick for a few years before that. I was working with a guy that was complaining about his mother because she called several times a week and would ask a lot of questions and offer unsolicited advice. I told him that I thought that he was lucky to have her. It is better to put up with a few phone calls than to barely remember having a mother.

Mother’s can be a burden, I guess. The best you can do is tolerate her and hope she’ll accept you as you are. She probably does but it is a female trait to believe that she can change others around here. Women are eternal optimists, it’s a good thing too, otherwise there wouldn’t be many people left in this world.

I do on several occasions, but like mentioned in this forum all experiences expressed here are diverse. But speaking from my experience, my mother and I were raised in different times, thus we will always have different opinions, standpoints and foundations of beliefs. She, was not raised in a loving environment with her own parents as a result she has difficulty giving love to her own children, which fortunately for me I did not let that manifest itself into me being cold rather I try to understand “why” as opposed to solidifying “what”. At the end of the day, she’s your mother and you only have one, so cherish her despite her differences.