Dear NeW:

You are very welcome. “my biggest question at this time is when the time comes that we come into contact with each other, what do I say?.. What I WANT to say are things like: ‘Obviously you don’t love me so let’s just keep this going, it seems like that is what you want’, or ‘What did you think would happen by pretending I didn’t exist?'”-

– You mentioned her “intense aversion to any conflict”- if it takes pretending that you don’t exist so to keep conflict out of her subjective experience of life, then she will pretend you don’t exist.

I suppose that when her boyfriend wrapped your dog’s poop for you as a gift and placed it in your car, she didn’t react to the event because she wanted nothing to do with the conflict between you and her boyfriend and she didn’t want to create a conflict between herself and him.

When you explained to her that you “felt not good enough.. trying to explain what I needed in a mother/ daughter relationship”- that was too much for her: if she actually listened to you and considered what you were saying, that would have created a conflict within herself, so.. she didn’t listen to you.

When telling the truth causes conflict, she lies (“she was continually being dishonest to me, in an attempt to avoid confrontation”). You told her that you “will not tolerate lying”, but she will not tolerate conflict!

An honest relationship with her is impossible. Her relationship with her boyfriend is not honest, but it lasts because they are both okay with it. And maybe he figures that she will tolerate a whole lot of misbehaviors on his part for as long as he accommodates this one thing: to not accuse her of anything,  to not blame her for anything and to direct his anger/ the passive aggressive behaviors you mentioned toward other people, including her daughter, but not at her.

I think that your attachment to her is fueled by your hope and desire to have an honest relationship with her, but it takes two, and she is not motivated.

Back to your question: “when the time comes that we come into contact with each other, what do I say?”- if you say to her anything that has the hint of conflict, she will not hear you.

If you tell her: “Obviously you don’t love me so let’s just keep this going, it seems like that is what you want”, or “What did you think would happen by pretending I didn’t exist?”- I imagine she will think something like this: why is she talking this way to me, I don’t like it! (no listening, no  considering or taking in what you said).

What you want to say to her is very meaningful to you, but it is gibberish to her because if there is a hint of conflict in what you say, she is not listening.

I see your choices to be the following:

1. Keep waiting and hoping and wanting to have an honest relationship with her, keep trying to get through to her, to make her understand.

2. Accept a no-conflict tolerated, dishonest relationship with her, keeping your conflict within you, never expressed to her.

3. Have no contact with her, and form the honest relationship you need with someone else.

anita