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April 2, 2016 at 8:51 pm #100725
PhilParticipantHi,
Usually I visit here and give some feedback to different situations that people have when I think I can help. So, this time I need some feedback from you guys. Lately, death seems to have visited my family and friends exceptionally often. So far 6 people in the last 3 years. I have been able to make peace with all but one. That one person would have been my mother. She was someone that you wouldn’t trust. All the while growing up she always used divorce as a sword of Damocles to get her way. She really didn’t care about anyone but herself. As a consequence, I grew up on my own with a minimum of interaction with her. She died about three years ago. I thought at the time that it would just be a matter of formality to show up at a memorial and be done with it. After all, I couldn’t say she hurt me when she never let me get close. About ten years before she died I asked a question that I wondered about for decades. I asked her if she ever loved my dad. She told me it was none of my business. I told her that if she decided to bring a life into the world, she made it my business. We ended that night with me asking her “When will we ever get past I win, you win, we lose?” She did not answer.But, here is where I find myself…I don’t miss her, but I miss what could have been that never was. The logical side of me knows that you can’t lose something you never had. Another part of me still wants what never was. How do you get past this?
Soulstice
April 3, 2016 at 8:08 am #100736
AnonymousGuestDear Phil:
I am glad you posted. You wrote: “After all, I couldn’t say she hurt me when she never let me get close” and also: ” The logical side of me knows that you can’t lose something you never had.”
There is a confusion we have as adults when we look back on our childhood. We don’t see the order of things.
If your mother was there in person when you were a child, your main or significant care taker, there is no way you were never close to her. That baby, that young boy that you were did not wait for her to let you get close. You were instantly close.
As we grow up through so many years in relationship with that same person, a mother, we forget this point. We remember the many, many times we felt and were so distant from her, feeling no love, no attachment. We don’t remember before that.
The closeness we naturally and automatically felt to our mothers happened first and part of it is still there. No different than a fawn following its mother deer wherever she goes. The fawn follows its mother because it feels a strong emotion of attachment to its mother, what we call love.
So reality is you were close to her, you felt attachment to her and she rejected you. That hurt. And the longing for her lived on passed that hurt. The attachment was not made void, it was only put aside by the logical side.
I am applying logic to my understanding of your post, only I am … enriching my logic with more data that I believe is very essential to correct understanding. What do you think???
anita
April 3, 2016 at 9:41 am #100746PhilParticipantAnita,
I guess what I am saying is it may have started out ok as a very young toddler. But, along the way the marital fighting became so intense that I withdrew not to return until much later in my life. When I did return I found that nothing changed. The game was still somehow “fighting is worth the love she saved”. At the time I just wanted to understand why she could never enjoy a family instead of the constant fighting. That’s what I mean by “what could have been but never was”.
Now it just seems like wasted time returning after all those years. I know life holds no guarantees. But, for most people, time has a way of changing perspectives.
Phil
April 3, 2016 at 9:50 am #100747PhilParticipantAnita,
Thinking more about it…I guess the other things I wrestle with are 1.)being mad at her that she never opened up and 2.) why would you treat people like that if you “loved” them? It makes me a little angry and I’m trying to work through it and past it.
PhilApril 3, 2016 at 12:02 pm #100750AnonymousGuestDear Phil:
I would like to correspond with you on this topic for as long as it takes. For that purpose I need to understand you more. In the post before last, I didn’t understand parts of it. If you would like to explain the following, please do:
You wrote: “I guess what I am saying is it may have started out ok”- What started out okay? What was okay at the beginning?
“…The game was still somehow ‘fighting is worth the love she saved’.” – I don’t understand “fighting is worth the love she saved”- no understanding of this quote.
“At the time I just wanted to understand why she could never enjoy a family instead of the constant fighting. That’s what I mean by ‘what could have been but never was’.”- By “what could have been” you mean a peaceful family life… tell me more about what “could have been” means to you…?
“Now it just seems like wasted time returning after all those years.” – returning where? She is no longer alive. You mean returning to thinking about this…?
“I know life holds no guarantees. But, for most people, time has a way of changing perspectives.”- What guarantees are you referring to and what are the changing perspectives you are referring to?
anita
April 3, 2016 at 6:05 pm #100758PhilParticipantAnita,
I will try to clear it up a little.
“okay at the beginning”-up to about 6 years of age I remember spending more time with baby sitters than with mom. I don’t remember any fighting to speak of. She remarried when I was eight.
“fighting is worth the love she saved”-The first year she was married again I watched her open up on my step dad leaving a trail of his blood on the wall behind him. I decided never to have kids that day. As time went by the fighting only intensified. Everyone in family stayed away from home as much as possible. The place we called home just had too many holes in the wall from the fights. Somehow it was more important to fight rather than try to work things out. To cope I just shut my feelings down. When I left home after school it was never to return. However, after about twenty years of not talking I wanted to try again. I thought maybe if time changed my mind, maybe she would have second thoughts too. We met initially and set agreed upon ground terms on conduct. It didn’t take long and things were back to the way they were before. The feeling of not being able to walk back in after the way we would fight set in again.
The thing I missed that never was- an atmosphere where people try to work things out, the hope that maybe there was another side to the story besides hers and that she might be able to see it, and the hope that she would be able to say she loved the person she married (at some level).
Perspectives changing and guarantees-Maybe I am different from most. But, by the time I reached 40, I remember doing a lot of reflective review of my life, changing my life by turning on feelings that I turned off years early just to save my sanity, and learning to trust again. I thought that if I was doing that for myself, maybe she might have done some reflective thinking on her own. Turned out it was just a hope that went up in smoke.
Maybe this makes more sense?
Phil
April 3, 2016 at 7:02 pm #100760
gemma kuijpersParticipantHi Phil,
I can sort of understand where you are coming from. What you describe in your first post is quite clear. You say you can’t lose something you never had, and I agree that that is true. But what you lost through her death is the possibility of communication, of closeness, of understanding. Her death made things final. And that’s a tough one. How do you get past these thoughts and feelings? I don’t know. I don’t think you can rush it. It is probably a long grieving process. Eventually, over time, you may come to terms with your past. Perhaps you can honor this process within yourself.
GemmaApril 3, 2016 at 8:08 pm #100773AnonymousGuestDear Phil:
You miss what could have been but was not. You miss a home, a place of safety, love, trust. You didn’t have that. You had a house-of-horror, of violence.
How do you stop longing for a real home, a place where you are primarily safe? I don’t think one ever stops longing for home.
There is only one way for you to find home and that is to create such for yourself, to make it happen for you. The “home” you knew was violent; the home you make will be peaceful. The “home” you had was cruel and closed and lonely; yours will be kind, open and friendly.
It is not easy to make a home of the kind you need when you had to shut down to survive the house-of-horrors that was your “home”.
All those years since you left after school, did you attend any good psychotherapy? Did you have relationships? Live in situations…? If you’d like to share, please do. The aim of these questions is to figure out the specific challenges you (understandably, I am sure) have in making such a home a reality for you.
anita
April 4, 2016 at 8:35 pm #100895PhilParticipantHi Anita,
I didn’t want to leave you hanging…I will be back around Saturday to talk more. I’m really busy during the week.
PhilApril 4, 2016 at 8:37 pm #100898PhilParticipantMayflower,
Thanks for responding. Yes, it’s tough. But, I’m determined to get through this.
Phil
April 4, 2016 at 8:39 pm #100900AnonymousGuestDear Phil:
Thanks for the update. Take care!
anitaApril 10, 2016 at 2:08 pm #101450PhilParticipantAnita,
I answer to your question, it took some time to undo most of it. I had to finish growing up once out of what was supposed to be “home”. I had live in situations, made mistakes along the way, but took a cue from the movie “Under the Tuscan Sun”. I didn’t get married until I was almost 40. I married my best friend, we’re still married after 20 years, and she’s still my best friend. I told you I would not have kids and I did not. However, I have given several pets a forever home. One of which was to be euthanized the day after we adopted him. So in a way, I made the home that you describe. I have even worked through most all of my dark memories. However, the one thing that I haven’t bee able to work through is the lack of things from when I was little:
1.) living without the simple things like love and family
2.) not measuring up to get parental approval
3.) wondering if maybe I was a love child
I know that this is all in the past and should just let it go. But it left a huge hole. Sometimes I just feel like a dreary broom trying to sweep up the broken pieces of yesterday.
PhilApril 10, 2016 at 2:47 pm #101451AnonymousGuestDear Phil:
Looking back at your original post, you wrote: “I asked a question that I wondered about for decades. I asked her if she ever loved my dad. She told me it was none of my business.” There is something very cold about her response, something very cold. Something here is speaking to me and I don’t know yet what it is. I want to come back to it later.
Also in your original post, you wrote: “The logical side of me knows that you can’t lose something you never had.” You are born with the need to be loved by your primary care taker, usually the mother. You have this need. You can’t lose something you always had, this very need. All these years, decades later, even after she is dead, you still have the same need, to be loved by her.
You wrote: “Another part of me still wants what never was.” The need is still there.
“How do you get past this?” Accept that need of a lifetime, unsatisfied, unfulfilled. It is the most intense need there is, the need of a new life to LIVE, as the love of the mother is felt as absolutely necessary for life. As children, we are encoded with this need for our mother, just like other mammals. We don’t know, genetically, that there is such a thing as social services and maybe we will be better off in a foster home (maybe)- we don’t know. Genetically it is the mother or death.
This is how strong that need is. So it is not that you lost something you never had; it is that you never lost that crucial need you had at such an early age.
anita
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