Dear Feathering:

Look at this, if you will:

1. Regarding Mr: “I did really hurt him with my words, he was stressed out and lost his voice for 2 weeks!”

2. Regarding your mother: “my mum is terrible at listening and quite passive-aggressive. I’m trying to gently bring out the problematic behaviors into discussion”

– lashing out verbally at your sort-of-boyfriend but gentle with your mother.

Mr didn’t open your message to him, most recently, that angers you. Now let’s see what your mother did to you: “my mum did nothing to defend us… my mother was totally unaware of the impact that her silence had on us… that her silence was seen as supporting the actions of our father- we had  nobody else left  to  turn to”.

Your mother is forgiven for years, a couple of decades of silently supporting the man who directly harmed her two girls, her contradictory excuses of being unaware on one hand,  and “But that  wasn’t what  was going  on behind closed doors”, on the other (she was aware enough to defend you behind closed doors?) are accepted and you are gentle with her. On the other hand, Mr didn’t answer a message and you are angry at him.

Regarding her first excuse: do you really think that a mother of two girls can possibly be unaware  of the distress  in the faces and the voices  of her two children? Didn’t she see the fear in the eyes, the tears.. didn’t she hear the crying, didn’t she see you looking to her for help?

Regarding her second excuse: if she defended you behind closed doors, then she knew you and your sister were harmed and she did  nothing about it.

So you figure that now, when she is in her late fifties and you are maybe around thirty, now you will gently explain to that unaware, innocent little girl-older-woman, your mother, what happened…?

But you hold Mr responsible for not answering your message.

What I am saying is that this is what happens: as we excuse our parents we keep blaming others.  It goes hand in hand. Unless and until you hold responsible those who are responsible, you will keep getting angry at those who are not responsible for your early, ongoing hurt, being undefended by your mother.

anita