Dear NeW:

“We are expanding our family”, meaning you are expecting a baby???

Sorry to read that your horses are still on your mother’s property, and therefore you get to witness your mother ignoring you intentionally so to hurt you (“totally pretended she didn’t see me.. I said hello but she didn’t respond”).

You wrote that you wanted to tell her “how immature she was and what did she think this was going to do?”. She is immature but not clueless about what she is doing. She knows that it hurts you that she ignores you, and she continues to ignore you so to keep you hurting. And she is succeeding: “that is bringing up so many more feelings of hurt and betrayal from her”.

To figure out what is happening, there is no need to go beyond this simple and obvious truth: she has been ignoring you every day, about 35 days and going, because she wants you to hurt.

Take this thought in, let it sink in. Take it in because it is true. Unless you don’t believe it is true, do you?

anita

Dear NeW:

Congratulations, how exciting! In regard to your mother, yes, I would move on and not try to address anything with her because she is still trying to hurt you. When you have your baby, and you find out that a particular person wants to hurt your baby, will you allow that person access to your baby? I can hear your answer through the world wide web: NO!!!

Well, don’t give your mother access to you (or to your baby)!

anita

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by .

Dear NeW:

If your family indeed “loves gossip and drama”, maybe your aunt “sensed that there is some tension going on” between your mother and you because your mother told her so.

I re-read your earlier posts this morning. You wrote back in May: “Over the last 3 years I have continually tried explain how I felt not good enough and tried to prove my worth to her.. trying to explain what I needed in a mother/ daughter relationship… I was working on a great tool box of navigating our relationship… she was continually being dishonest to me.. I  made my boundaries very clear- please be honest with me, I will not tolerate lying”.

Reads like you inconvenienced your mother greatly: you were … bright eyed and bushy tailed, fresh out of therapy, holding your newly acquired tool box to navigate your relationship with her, ready to do all the work that needs to be done… and she wanted none of that, so she is giving you the silent treatment, more than 2  months at this point.

There are a few Churchill quotes about the truth that I like: “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened”- reads to me that your mother hurried off and away every time you presented some inconvenient truth to her, and you kept chasing her, so she stonewalled you.

Another one of his quotes: “A lie gets half way around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on”- perhaps your mother is so committed to the lie that you have no chance of taking advantage of that toolbox with her because your toolbox deals with truth.

Maybe to resume a relationship with her you have to “pick (yourself) up and hurry off as if nothing had happened” ?

anita

Dear NeW:

Welcome back to your thread and congratulations for your 7-month pregnancy!

“I am resurrecting this topic” – let’s look at what you shared a year and a half ago:

May 2020: “Over the last 3 years I have continually…  tried to prove my worth to her and been very (so uncomfortably) vulnerable to her and trying to explain what I needed in a mother/daughter relationship… My biggest hurdle was that I knew she was continually being dishonest to me, in an attempt to avoid confrontation… A few weeks ago, my mother and I had a heated discussion about something stupid, and since that day she has totally stonewalled me. She is giving me the silent treatment but has not communicated what she is upset about or anything” –

– My advice today, do not resurrect the following: making yourself vulnerable to her, trying to explain anything to her, trying to prove your worth to her, trying to melt the frozen heart she’s had for you for the last 5.5+ years (the 3 years you mentioned above, plus 1.5+ of silent treatment). To not resurrect all of these, it will take not resurrecting a relationship with her.

June 2020: “I have to admit this week was the most difficult, I think I am grieving our relationship and realizing finally that she cannot be the parent I wanted, and I know I don’t really want to be in a relationship with someone that refuses to discuss issues or resolve conflict. I realize the silent treatment is a form of emotional abuse, which I never thought she would resort to… I said to my husband recently that I think she just taken it too far this time, I don’t know that I can forgive her and move past this treatment” –

-My advice: do not resurrect the greater pain, the grieving, the emotional abuse and the next silent treatment!

July 2020: “I am still struggling with the new reality that my own mother won’t be a part of this journey…. It is my birthday this week so it will be interesting to see what happens. If my mother does not acknowledge it all, I think I will know that is a final nail in the coffin” –

-My advice: that coffin opened just a bit when she emailed you most recently. Please close it and burry it deep in the ground.

You wrote back in May 2020: “My biggest hurdle was that I knew she was continually being dishonest to me, in an attempt to avoid confrontation” – (1) You cannot erase your very real and very valid need to confront her, (2) You cannot eliminate her dishonesty.

1 + 2 = an honest, supportive relationship with her is not possible.

Her email already elevated your stress levels. Resuming a relationship with her (including the next silent treatment) will harm you and your child, before and after birth. A baby in the womb senses his/ her mother’s stress levels because her blood carries her stress hormones to his/ her brain. It is time to protect yourself and your child from the woman who indeed took it too far.

anita