If a mother has an unhealthy need to dominate her daughters, which she shows by bullying, terrifying, neglecting, suffocating, spoiling, humiliating, overprotecting, or abusing them – her daughters must come to the recognition that such treatment is wrong to begin the long process of successfully resolving the relationship, and moving on with life in a positive way..
At the same time, the daughters, in adulthood, must make the effort to really *know* their mothers – which many daughters do not – in order to understand what forces shaped those mothers. These daughters need to discover what torments in their mother’s lives may have unwittingly affected their mother’s behavior toward them, and see their mothers realistically as composites of strengths and weaknesses, instead of as all good or all bad.
When we are children, we *forget* in order to survive our childhoods, because we are totally dependent on our parent’s goodwill. But in order to recover from such childhoods, we must begin by remembering – both the bad and the good. In some cases, it might require the help of a skilled, empathetic therapist to make this recollection safe. If we can let our feelings of childhood loss come to the surface, then they won’t be unconsciously re-routed and bubble up in our other relationships, where they blindside us and the people in our lives. When we can recognize that we are not responsible for our childhood deprivations, and that we are entitled to * feel* anger (but not to act on it –aware is not a license to kill!), then we are able to let go of that anger and not be controlled by it.
Then it will become possible to let go of our childhood expectations, which have continued in our need in adulthood to either try to win the approval of our mother, or to continue to hate her. Most of the time, this will mean making changes in oneself so that a healthy relationship with one’s mother on at least some basis can be established. But I do think that in some extreme cases it might mean dealing with her in her absence, either temporarily or permanently. For some daughters – for their sanity and salvation and hope for any kind of loving future – it may never by safe to go home again. But always these daughters who must “divorce” their mothers must, if only in anguished memory, learn to accept their mothers – who could not get past their own demons – in order not be imprisoned by lifelong, highly charged reactions of either fury or unconditional surrender. It is only then that the daughters can find answers to the questions that haunt them: Am I an emotional cripple? Will I visit upon my own children the sins that were visited upon me? Am I unlovable?
The process of healing includes seeing one’s mother as *other* than oneself, and recognizing that she is the inheritor of *her* mother’s behavior. It might mean acknowledging how limited her choices may have been. Out of that effort, it will become possible to forge an understanding of one’s mother, and perhaps even a close and healthy friendship with her. By resolving our feelings with our mothers, we can learn to accept them, and in doing this, we can gain a deeper understanding and acceptance of ourselves.
We can stop continuing the chain of unpleasable mothers, stretching from one generation after another, each too wounded to let love in or out. The “cure” comes in being able to become a loving mother to oneself – in spite of having a poor role model in our own mother. The victory is in choosing not to be a victim of the past, but instead to break the cycle of unhappy mother-daughter connections, and the way they echo in all of our other attachments.
No daughter wants to feel like an unloved child, no young woman wants to feel that she could never become a good mother, and no mother wants to feel that she has failed as a parent. When a mother and her adult daughter can get beyond their wariness, their list of grievances, and their losses, hesitations, and hurts – when they can get beyond *blame* - the potential for healing is enormous.
