Your mother Is not changing
Accepting that your mother won’t change might be the hardest thing you will ever do, but it is vital to your continued health and wellbeing.
You long for her love and perhaps pray for it but get used to the idea that she might never be able to love you. Your mother is not changing because change is a conscious decision people make when they realise they have done something wrong.
Your mother is a long way from that level of conscious awareness about her behaviour. Change happens when people desire it and work perseveringly to cultivate it. Getting to the place to choose change means she will have to accept that her behaviour is problematic and take the necessary steps to adjust.
People gain self-awareness through exposure to information that will challenge the worldview that they hold. When the individual allows the light to come in, they get a view of self that can be both scary and life-changing at the same time.
This revelation of self challenges most people, and those who lack courage will disregard these facts and cling to the old view of self.
The information that would lead your mother to apologise and change also comes when individuals acknowledge that they are wrong and want to move forward. They identify the problem and agree with the feedback.
Without those things in place, change will be impossible.
It didn’t start with you.
Sometimes women who have complex relationships with their daughters also had complicated relationships with their mothers or women who were mother figures early in their lives. Those early years of damage and pain will negatively impact every other relationship until she decides to heal.
A woman in denial of her pain and hiding from its impact will inevitably hurt those around her.
Her pain is probably grounded in generational trauma passed down from one person to another. These practices are often present in relational patterns that exist between family members. Your mother’s treatment of you is probably her way of passing on an inherited cycle. Without healing, this pattern can go on for generations. You have the power to break that cycle and free you and those coming after you.
The work of change might be challenging, but it is possible with commitment and the right kind of support.
It’s not your fault
Daughters often blame themselves due to their mother’s inability to love them. As humans, we want answers, a place to put things in our minds; we want a reason for why things happen. We want things to be neat, tidy and logical. When daughters try to find a rational explanation for their mother’s lack of love, it leads them to one conclusion.
I am unloveable.
The rest of that thought process usually also ends with self-blame and self-hate, and the search for why I am unloveable will unearth lies that will convince you of your lack of worth. When I am unloveable becomes the conclusion women sometimes become preoccupied with changing themselves to become what they think their mother needs.
That’s when the campaign to get her love you might start. This process began early in life; it might commence as a subconscious process working in the background to change you into someone you think will be easier to love.
During this time, some develop habits of codependency and people-pleasing, expending a lot of energy on becoming familiar with moods and shifts in behaviour so that you can be as loveable as possible. A child in that scenario can believe that their actions lead to adult decisions and behaviour. I want you to know that your behaviour was not responsible for your mother’s behaviour.
Your mother’s inability to love you does not equal you’re unloveable. Her failure to love originates with her, not you. Love inwards naturally expresses itself outwardly; her inability to love shows a lack of love for herself. The brokenness started before you and will last after you. Her lack of connection with you reflects the wound inside. Her internal pain manifests itself in wounding those around her.
She has favourites
She will often have very different relationships with other siblings. It’s important to remember that the problem isn’t you. Remind yourself of this daily; it will help you to move forward. It’s also crucial that you accept that the relationship you desire with her will never come to fruition without her acknowledging the problem and making a conscious decision to change.
If you decide to move forward without a relationship with your mother, that is not a reflection of you or an inability to forgive. It is essential to remember that she will continue to hurt without change, and you cannot force her to adjust her behaviour.
Moving forward
Acceptance is sometimes tricky for daughters; you may have lived most of your life trying to convince your mother to love you. As a result, it might be challenging to accept and embrace the knowledge that her lack of love isn’t your fault. She will never love you the way you need without doing her healing work. It might be challenging to accept; however, acceptance will help you move forward.
Acceptance will help you focus your energies on healing those injuries inflicted by her pain. It will help you focus on the wounded child and heal the broken woman. Healing will help you reconcile the years of pain and suffering and help you carve a life out that is nourishing and fulfilling.
Healing
Getting to a place of acceptance will take work; nevertheless, with the proper support, you can get to the place where you can move forward. Healing will help you set boundaries with your mother that will protect you. She might not be happy with your limits, and she might call on family and friends to support her efforts to subdue you and keep you in a position of pondering to her, hoping for love.
But your mother won’t change without help, and she has to be open to accepting support and doing the hard work of healing before any change will be possible.
