Adult daughters and their mothers: a tenuous bond

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For many adult daughters, the mother-daughter bond is a tenuous balance of both positive and negative feelings, connection, and autonomy. And for some, the bond is greatly affected by conflicting individual needs. After a particularly tumultuous weekend with my own 92-year-old mother, I began to think about the many stories I’ve heard from my clients about their struggles for love and autonomy with their mothers. These stories are mainly divided into three groups: abandoning mothers, narcissistic mothers and symbiotic mothers. Here are some examples:

Diana grew up in a downtown neighborhood. She never knew her father, and her mother was involved with a series of boyfriends, drugs and alcohol. When Diana was a little girl, her mother went to jail and Diana entered foster care. She grew up in several different homes, never feeling like she had a home with parents who valued or loved her.

As an adult, Diana takes pride in her professional achievements, but feels like a complete failure in relationships. She is extremely needy and undifferentiated in intimate relationships, requiring constant attention and proof of her partner’s devotion. In the work we have done on and off for several years, she has learned that she is clearly looking for what she didn’t get as a child, but that another healthy adult will never give her the full attention she seeks.

Looking at Diana, it is clear that she never had the healthy early symbiosis (oneness with her mother) that is necessary for optimal separation or differentiation from a parent. A caring and positively reflecting parent is essential for a child to feel valued, secure, and confident. It’s no wonder Diana tests her lovers constantly and she is subject to panic and deep depression when she doesn’t get the attention and admiration she needs to feel buoyant. She had not one, but two parents who abandoned her.

Connie and her two young daughters live with Connie’s elderly mother, who is chronically ill. When she asks Connie about the stress of this relationship, she sighs in frustration. Recently divorced and excited about the possibilities of a new life, Connie feels “suck on” by her mother. She tells me that she “never had a self” before, having moved from her parents’ house to an unhealthy marriage. She never felt different from her mother or her ex-husband and she is only now beginning that process. Her mother’s inability to support Connie’s differentiation due to her own need creates a tense situation in which Connie feels held hostage.

With Connie I see that there has always been a very tangled mother-daughter bond. Connie has come to understand this in therapy and now she is working hard to become her own person. However, it can be very painful for both mother and daughter when the adult daughter turns back on herself and the undifferentiated mother feels threatened by the “loss” of her bond. The will of the mother is also needed to work on the understanding that the differentiation process is healthy and does not have to mean the loss of love.

Paula is a single young woman with an extremely narcissistic mother. She has never felt safe setting appropriate limits because Mom cannot tolerate limits and all hell would break loose, leaving Paula desperately alone. Many months of work have been necessary for Paula to really feel the pain of having compromised her autonomy. Now her attempts to establish even the smallest boundaries with her mother feel like pushing against an impenetrable wall of resistance. Breaking an unspoken agreement with a narcissistic parent may just seem desperate. Many times it has been easier for Paula to fill the void with various addictions.

Many undifferentiated adult women have narcissistically toxic mothers or fathers. An adult daughter of a narcissistic mother will report feeling empty inside with no sense of self. She often feels treated as if she is her mother’s “possession”, as if her “job” is to glorify her mother. Narcissistic parents reward children for being like them, but may condemn, judge, or criticize a child for her true uniqueness.

Paula feels that she is in a “no way out” situation. If she makes her own decisions, she risks Mother’s hurtful criticism and her wrath. If she complies, she remains a child, an appendage of her mother. Autonomy is a very slow and painful battle.

Also, a mother’s response to a daughter’s trauma will certainly affect their bond. Even a daughter with a secure attachment will feel tremendous abandonment when her mother denies the reality of childhood physical, emotional, or sexual abuse. The mother is supposed to be the protector in all cases, but sometimes mothers would literally die in denial rather than acknowledge the possibility that something bad has happened to a child they are responsible for.

Shelly, for example, tells me that her mother finally admitted on her deathbed that Shelly’s childhood sexual abuse was real. And for Shelly, this admission had enormous healing power on her relationship. Petra, for her part, remembers that her mother died refusing to admit the possibility that Petra suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a relative. This denial only confirmed the deep abandonment and isolation that Petra has felt since her childhood.

These client examples are, of course, just a few of the many ways mothers and adult daughters relate. Each individual brings to any relationship specific developmental and attachment needs, and each mother-daughter relationship has its unique struggles.

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