Suz commented on my "Mom" post with the following:
"Do you have any idea why you dont feel comfortable with it? Is it seemingly disloyal to your adoptive mom? Or do you feel your first mom doesn't deserve the title or the term of endearment? Do you have unresolved feelings that cause you to struggle with that title for her?"
Let me see if I can answer these:
Do you have any idea why you don't feel comfortable with it? I have thought about this since she asked me to call her Mom. I am uncomfortable because I have never thought of her as my Mom before. I have thought of her as my mother, but never Mom. She has never treated me like she is my Mom. I think that is why I am uncomfortable with it, because she doesn't treat me like she is my Mom. She treats me like I am the step-child that is here and no one can get rid of. (that's another story)
Is it seemingly disloyal to your adoptive mom? I use to think that I was being disloyal to my adoptive mom, but now I don't feel that way. My natural mother did ask me what would happen if I messed up and called my nmother "Mom" in front of my adoptive mom. Uh...I dunno know. I would probably come up with something clever to dismiss it. Do I call this disloyalty? No, but you might.
Or do you feel your first mom doesn't deserve the title or the term of endearment? Wow, what a tough question. You might think this is stupid and I am trying to be honest here, but if the question was about "term of endearment", then yes, she deserves to be called Mom. But, if the question was "does she deserve the title?" Deep down? How do I really feel? No. I am still not there yet. Which brings me to the next question:
Do you have unresolved feelings that cause you to struggle with that title for her? YES!!! And I am having problems figuring out how to get them resolved. She won't help. So until I get them resolved I really don't think I can call her Mom.
With that being said, I still would really, really, really like to call her that, but just can't. AAARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!
We have had our ups and downs, our "in" the relationship and "out" of the relationship, but truth be told, we would rather be together than be apart.
The girls
About Me
- TheRightThing
- I am an adoptee that has been reunited for 20 years with my mother. Unfortunately, it took me 41 years to come to grips with being adopted and wanting to be a part of my natural family. I am hoping to allow myself to release the built up emotions that I carried through life and allow myself to have two families that I love very much.
4 comments:
She has never treated me like she is my Mom. I think that is why I am uncomfortable with it, because she doesn't treat me like she is my Mom. She treats me like I am the step-child that is here and no one can get rid of. (that's another story)
This would seem like more than enough reason to me! Seems like she has some more work to do on her part!
I dont know if I could think too fondly of someone who treated me that way - even if they were my mother.
Great work here! I think you've gotten to the bottom of why you've been uncomfortable. Before you revealed your mother's behavior, I thought it was purely yours to work out, i.e. not necessarily appropriate for the two of you to discuss. Now I think differently. She has some work to do.
Big difference between "my mother" and "Mom," the latter implying much much more.
Thanks for your comments on my blog. I am really going to try and take your advice. She actually called me yesterday and I returned her call today. I feel good about it. I hope that I can overcome my fears.
Thanks again.
"She has never treated me like she is my Mom. I think that is why I am uncomfortable with it, because she doesn't treat me like she is my Mom. She treats me like I am the step-child that is here and no one can get rid of. (that's another story)"
I know that this is hypothetical, but am i right in remembering that when the two of you first reunited, she wanted a mother-daughter relationship? I am wondering, if you had said yes, would she have treated you as a mom would have back then? I may be wrong, but my guess is that she wanted to, and this may have been the time, when you were young enough to form a mother-child relationship with her still, a "mom-daughter relationships," young enough to become "attached" to a mom.
But at your age, most people don't need "Moms" in their lives, and their attachment is to the next generation, to nurture their own children.
If she has got counselling since then, it likely is the standard counselling provided by 99% of social wreckers, agencies, and therapists: the type that tells her that you are NOT her daughter, that she was wrong to expect this type of relationship, that she must back-off, and most of all that she must expect NOTHING of you as you are no longer her daughter. That is what that social wrecker and adopter Marietta Spencer (the same bitch who invented "Positive Adoption Language") published as being appropriate "reunion counselling.
I wonder what your mother's expectations now are, what she feels are the boundaries she must respect, and if she feels that she must keep ALL her emotions and hopes to herself.
This might sound harsh, but from my own experience my guess is that you taught her for 18 years that you don't want her as a mother -- this lesson she learned may take a LONG time to unlearn, if she can "unlearn" it at all.
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