Relationship with my mum

Hi coaches

I’d like some help processing my recent experience of spending 2 days with my mum. We live in different countries and this is the most time we’ve spent together in 10 years. Throughout that time I’ve found our relationship awkward, forced and lacking in connection.

In my evaluation of these 2 days, I found lots of wins. I told her what foods I wouldn’t eat even though she hadn’t asked, took myself off for solo time when I’d had enough of listening to her, made some annoying moments lighthearted by laughing about them with my partner.

What didn’t go so well was that I was shutdown pretty much the whole time after the first few hours. She touched me when I didn’t want her to. She joined walks with my partner and I that I didn’t want her to. I didn’t make those things clear to her. By the end I was bracing myself for spending time with her because her conversation is so much about her and her judgements of others. I judged myself for being shut down and my partner having to carry the conversation.

I’ve come away feeling resigned to the fact that she won’t change and I will always just have to tolerate her. If I set boundaries, they will be quite harsh and I think they’d upset her. For example I would like her to not text me so often and about things that she has been doing that are not relevant to me. Or I would like to not have to reply to those. I don’t want to share personal details on my life with her. I don’t want her to touch me. I want to limit the time I spend talking to her.

I’d like to not have to see or interact with her, but come up with many reasons why that can’t be the case. It would upset her, it would be unfair to her, it would cause friction between me and my brother and other members of her family, I would feel guilty, people should have relationships with their mothers, she means well…

I can see these are thoughts but ones that feel very real and are quite muddled for me at the moment. I’d love some coaching to help work through this.

 

 

Answer:

Yay for seeing your wins. Keep noticing them as you work on this relationship.  It sounds like you’re a bit stuck in your patterns right now. That’s ok.  What you can do is keep noticing them. Write down all the sentences that run through your brain when you think about or interact with your mum. What are the three main things you believe about her? Right now, you are looking at her through those lenses. For example:

I have to tolerate her. When you have on these glasses, how do you see your mother? What do you feel towards her? What are you not able to feel? What are you not able to think? As long as you wear these lenses, you will continue to have similar patterns in your relationship.

What if you imagined taking them off? Try playing with your three main thoughts. How are they affecting your vision? Who would you be without them?