by Melissa
The lights in the house were dim as the sun was just setting outside. My siblings and I had our swimsuits on ready to jump in the car with Dad. We were going to Slaggers and Mom was staying home. I couldn’t wait for the large indoor hot spring, complete with high dive and the largest slippery tree log floating in the pool, but held securely with chains at either end. We kids tried desperately to stand on it for the shortest of moments before falling off. In my memory, we did this often, but it may just have been a handful of times and that left the happiest memories for me.
Dad was always the fun one. Dad also worked a lot; he was always on the phone. But Dad always had my admiration. Mom did not.
When I was first married, my husband was my de facto therapist. I purged many feelings I had toward my mother and he listened. My mom yelled … not a, “Go clean your room!” yell, but a, “You’re such a b*$@ — why do you always go out with your friends? You’re so cavalier!” yell. That type of yell was reserved for my teen years, but when I was just a little younger, her yelling was also irrational, too angry for the “crime” committed. Later, when she would lay on the couch in her depression, we kids knew that a clean house, help with making dinner, ironing Dad’s shirts, and not being around … would keep the outbursts at bay. It wasn’t until I started taking my first kid to the library to read books that the good memories of my mom came flooding back.
Mom took me to the library all the time. She read to me, she would do spelling flashcards with me. I followed her on all her errands, which included many trips to the Scout office to get merit badges for her Cub Scouts. I remember the McDonalds drive-through and getting Happy Meals, hoping for Miss Piggy this time because I already had several Fozzie Bears. I loved sitting on Mom’s lap while she rocked me on the bench during sacrament meetings.
“We kids are instilled with admiration for dad — because he never fell apart like mom did — while nurturing lifelong disdain for mom.” Aptly put by Emily B. in the comments from my first post on identity expansion. She couldn’t be more right.
I thoroughly enjoyed the moments I would see my husband crack after spending long hours with the kids while I was away. “See! I am normal!” I would point out to both of us, but just for my own validation.
I had compassion toward Mom and moved on, but interactions and different life experiences have a way of making old healed wounds rip open again. Books, in-person therapy, and thousands of hours of podcasts taught me that I most definitely had an anxious attachment style. I also needed to control my emotions around this anxiety and how I let it bleed into my interactions with my husband and kids.
Working on myself was and is hard. I wasn’t praying for strength, or asking God for help … because it didn’t work. I was taking the brutal feedback from my husband and kids and the pain I felt was deep. There were so many behaviors I had learned, incorrect beliefs I had nurtured and I was stripping it all down and it was painful, so very painful. The recognition of my continued mistakes in how I handled my emotions felt unbearable. I knew exactly how my kids felt. I had been in their shoes and that was the driving motivator for my change.
Going back to work happened at the same time I started really working on who I was and how I wanted to show up for my kids and husband. Being away gave me the chance to crave being back home again. I started to value the time I had to be a part of my family’s life.
Don’t get me wrong. I had always spent time with my kids. I took them to the library, hiking, backpacking, was their Girl Scout leader, taught them to rock climb, and ski. I wanted to play and be the fun one, but I was battling feelings and interactions all the while.
So now as I look at my own mother and try out my new skills in handling my emotions, I come up short. I see what she could change in her interaction with me and crave something deeper and more meaningful. What I know is that I can not expect her to act how I want her to. I have to accept what she has to offer and set boundaries for myself in how I will interact around that.
I am not at peace if I compromise who I want to be and I can only work on myself.
So how is this forgiving? Well, it is a work in progress and perhaps real forgiveness always is. It is constant compassion for the other, mixed with boundary setting, a bit of letting go of expectations, and lots of practice in kind interactions. I really hope my kids can do this for me.
6 Responses
I relate to so much of this! Thank you for sharing.
Melissa, I also had a complicated relationship with my mother (who just died on New Year’s Day)! I’m finding it easier to have compassion on her after she’s gone – she was trying so hard to fit into a role that wasn’t really a good fit for her (stay at home mom). Moms don’t seem as patient as dads – but they often don’t get the break from kids that their husbands get. Such a relatable post to me! ❤️
♥️I believe my Mom was trying to fit a role that didn’t work for her all well.
Melissa, I love this piece. It is so honest about your own struggles, and I resonate with what you’re describing. I’ve had a hard time accepting that I need to learn to grow in greater maturity than exhibited by past generations. Around the time my grandma died, a grandma who showed me a lot of seemingly unconditional love as a kid, someone in my family told me she had a habit of gossiping about me, telling people how she disapproved of my voting, my nomad lifestyle, and didn’t like or trust my husband. This was oversharing, and it hurt. I resent her for her narrow expectations for my life and what felt like backstabbing.
My experience with parents is a bit flipped– my Dad was the more angry and dysregulated parent, my husband also deals with these things more than I do. I felt more safe around my usually even-tempered mom more growing up, now its about the same between both of them. My kids are more prone to tell me things. It has helped me to realize that it is complicated. Parents who feel like certain weights fall heavily on them, largely due to their personal strengths and conditioning growing up– financial responsibilities, disciplining kids, holding the family together in certain ways— are more likely to get flooded and dysregulated. I coped with family stress growing up by hiding and dealing with my feelings by myself. My husband felt like he had to pull himself up by his bootstraps, compete, conquer, and make things happen if he wanted a decent life. I see us as both striving to mature with our own strengths and weaknesses rather than being on different plains or one of us being better.
As a young adult, I realized that my parents didn’t seem to be able to show up to support me emotionally in ways I’ve needed. Sometimes I’ve felt pretty abandoned during big trials and transitions in my life. This has been hard for me, I don’t feel as close to them as I hoped I would, and I came to realize I spent my childhood trying to appease them and avoid differentiating from them, esp. about church stuff. They really loved me, but they didn’t know better or healthier ways to support me. It hadn’t been modeled to them. I’m trying to grow into someone who shows up for my kids even if they do things really differently than me or have different needs or mental health challenges than me. Someone who stays close even if they leave the church or make decisions I don’t like, or if things happen to them that make me anxious.
So many great thoughts. I love what you say about differentiating from your parents. also with growing and developing alongside your husband.
I feel like conversations like these in Sunday school would be so valuable and more helpful.
Thank you so much for this post. I love the hope and complexity in it.