Dear Amrita:

You wrote this about what I believe to be your strongest motivation as a child: “I wanted her to feel and show that she is happy/ proud of me”- you most intensely needed and wanted your mother to feel that she is happy that you are her daughter, that she thinks of you as a valuable part of her life, someone she is proud of. You needed her to feel these things.

You did everything you could to make her feel this way about you: you were shy, didn’t really want to dance in front of people, but she wanted you to dance (and you wanted more than anything that she will be proud of you), so you joined dance classes.

She wanted you to perform well academically, so you “put in extremely long hours of study”.  She wanted you to wear certain clothes, so you wore them.

But all your efforts failed: your mother was still unhappy with you, still not proud of you, “she was never satisfied”. After so many efforts, so much time, frustrated, you reacted angrily at the woman who will not give you what you need, no matter how hard you tired and for how long: “slowly I developed a habit of doing the opposite of what she asked me to do and anything she asked me to do, I would react with a negative answer”.

As an adult, you got married, divorced, no children, and lived with your mother, in the same house until a year ago, when you were 39. At 40, you moved out of the house so that “she would be happy/ proud of me as I am able to do something for myself on my own without depending on her”.

In my life, as a child and as an adult I needed and wanted more than anything that my mother will be happy, and that she will be happy that I am in her life, that she will look at me with pleasure and affection on her face. I did all that I could (as little as is objectively possible for a child to do),  but all that I could do-  wasn’t good enough for her. She kept on and on and on, complaining to me how I was not what she wanted. Over time I became very, very angry at her, for not wanting me.

For decades I believed that she didn’t want me or like me because I was unworthy, lacking, defected. You mentioned dancing: I used to daydream that I was an internationally known dancer, dancing in front of large audiences and broadcasted on TV all over the world, people everywhere cheering, clapping hands, in awe of my dancing.

If I received this one person’s smile (my mother’s), a smile that expressed to me that she approved of me- I wouldn’t be daydreaming of millions of people vocally and enthusiastically approving of me. These daydreams express how intensely a child needs her mother’s approval when not receiving it for so long, when chasing it and never getting it. A child figures: she has to achieve something BIG (ex., international fame) so to finally get her mother’s approval.

You wrote: “The emptiness I feel is unexplainable to say”- this emptiness led me, as an adult, to make so many wrong choices, robbing me from opportunities to live a functional life that made sense. This emptiness was my misery.

You wrote that you (40) are in a relationship with a man (30) who is married to another woman, a “happily married man.. having two kids who is extremely devoted to his parents and family”- do you mean that you are okay with this relationship because it doesn’t take away from his wife and children?

anita