My mother doesn't understand me, we fight all the time. How to improve relationships? No understanding with adult son

« My mother doesn’t understand me... I can’t just come up, hug her and say that I love her... we’re like strangers... I don’t like the way she lives... she’s been suppressing me all my life... I always feel guilty before her“This is just a small part of the complaints that I heard in consultations from women, my clients.

Moreover, from a variety of women: working and housewives, married and unmarried, with different education and income levels, women from two-parent families and those whose mother divorced long ago. And these women, so different, all interesting in their own way, in fact are already adults, nevertheless, as little girls wanted mother's love, caresses and asked " Why? Why doesn't my mother understand me?».

Having become interested in this topic, I noticed that women who have difficult relationships with their mothers have something in common. Remembering their childhood, talking about it, they, one way or another, convey some of the tension in the family atmosphere in which they grew up.

Tension either arose during scandals, or took a hidden form, when the little girl could not understand where it came from or what the reason was, but she felt it well.

These women, whose relationships with their mothers were difficult, were also united by their inherent confusion in the face of the world of emotions. Where emotions appeared, confusion began: a lack of understanding of oneself or others, a desire to help to the detriment of oneself, or vice versa - a selfish search for extremely vivid sensations, constant doubts, contradictions - there are many options, but, ultimately, we can talk about a decrease emotional intelligence(the ability to understand and manage one’s own and others’ emotions).

For example, Olga (names have been changed hereinafter) had a strong emotional upsurge often followed by depressive states, and she had no idea about the reasons for what was happening.

Another client, Marina, often found herself in a situation where she spent a long time and patiently “giving all her best” for friends, helping them, and they simply used her, which led to grievances, disappointments and depression, while Marina did not understand how to get out of these situations and what was happening in general.

Another woman, Svetlana, in pursuit of strong emotions, found them in relationships with bright, unbalanced and narcissistic men, although she had long wanted a family and children, but did not understand how she could break away from attachment to such men who were not inclined to start a family.

Article navigation “My mother doesn’t understand me, we fight all the time. How to improve relationships?

We constantly argue with our mother, what is the reason?

You will have to think and analyze. There is such a concept - “transferring a mother’s life script to her daughter.” Girls who grew up in families where they were lonely, rejected, or overburdened with disproportionate responsibilities developed an enormous need for instability. codependent relationships, the habit of controlling people and circumstances.

In addition, such women do not always understand themselves well, their emotions, sometimes they cannot find unity between reason and feelings, and sometimes they have no idea where to look for these feelings.

Perhaps you already have your own children. It is useful to ask yourself questions:

What is your parenting style?
Are you following your mother's path?

If all this is about you, then you can and should work with it. Including with a psychologist.

Is constructive dialogue possible?

After forgiving the grievances and undergoing separation from the mother, you can think about a constructive dialogue with her. Often women who want improve relationship with mom and change something, they ask questions:

“how to talk to her?”
“how to make her finally understand?”

Many say with pain that they have tried to speak more than once, but have encountered a wall of misunderstanding, alienation, or maternal anger.

I have problems now, there is no mutual understanding with my adult son... I raised him alone, and now he can offend me painfully, very painfully. What to do?

* * *

Children are our joy, our future, our continuation, hope and support. We do everything so that they grow up happy, and our relationships with them are friendly, trusting and open.

We sincerely want this. And then “comes”... life with all its joys and problems and the understanding that some other circumstances influence the relationship with the child, and not just our upbringing tactics, experience and ideas about life.

We are all differently able to experience the same events. One woman will breathe a sigh of relief after going through a divorce and begin to “drink this life by the handful.” She will enjoy the opportunity to spend more time interesting things than family routine. She will happily devote time to leisure, sports or hobbies, communication with friends, for which she always lacks time due to household chores. It happens that she begins to devote much more attention and time to the child than when she was married.

Another will “fall” into self-criticism and soul-searching: “since I couldn’t save my family, it means I’m bad, ugly, unwanted, worthless.” Instead of trying to adapt to the changed conditions, such a woman will fall into a stupor and begin to eat stress abundantly. In the shackles of resentment, she loses the ability to objectively respond to the needs of children. Most of the time, she relives the most difficult situations of the past again and again, trying to find an explanation for what happened. And he doesn’t find a single one that’s perfect.

It also happens that a woman initially decides to give birth and raise a child alone. Be that as it may, raising a child alone is a reality for many modern mothers.

It often happens that mothers reproach themselves for not being able to give their children a “strong hand” in the person of their father. Mothers of boys are especially worried about this. However, as Yuri Burlan’s Systemic Vector Psychology draws attention to, it is the mother who has the key influence on the upbringing and psychological health of the child.

The presence of a father in the family is as positive for the child as he provides support, help, love and care for the child’s mother. If this presence, on the contrary, puts the woman in constant stress, this is passed on to the child - he loses a sense of security and safety and cannot develop properly. In this situation, it is better for everyone to leave. First of all, a child, both a boy and a girl, needs a mother. Maternal education is quite sufficient and in no way takes anything away from the child.

Moreover, all children are different and react differently to the same events. One child is free from any attachments to parents and relatives and perceives the family as a temporary refuge, a “harbour” from which he will “sail” as soon as possible.

Another child is very strongly and deeply attached to the family and is touchy. The first person he will be offended by is, of course, his mother. Such a person, as a rule, projects his resentment towards his mother, and in the future he projects it onto all the women who appear in his life.

The third child has a flexible psyche and is able to adapt to almost any changes in life. He is smart and active. Sports, active games, walks on the street captivate such a child. He has no time to sit, grieve and be offended, because life is a big relay race.

Puberty

In the life of every person there is such a thing as puberty (age from approximately 12 to 16 years). As we know, this is the most difficult period in the life of every child. Just yesterday he was so obedient, affectionate, predictable, but today it is unclear what is happening. For every mother’s word she will add her own, no respect, no obedience.

During puberty, the child begins to enter adulthood, experiences the state of being separated from his parents,
trying to take responsibility for his life. Not every parent is ready to let their child go, and continues to play “mother-daughter” with the child all his life, depriving him of the opportunity to stand on his own feet and take responsibility for what is happening.

While the child is going through such a difficult period in his life, it is very important not to aggravate the already tense relationship with him. Try to understand the reasons that motivate the child and why he manifests himself the way he does.

Why don't children understand their parents?

Because we don’t understand our children either. It may seem to us that we are putting our whole soul into them, that we are doing everything for their development, and at the end we will get aggression and protest. Why? Because only in flora From an apple tree apples are born. In the human world everything is much more complicated. And we give birth to children who are similar to us in appearance, but radically different from us in mental properties.

They are different. This is the first and most important thing that Yuri Burlan’s Systemic Vector Psychology explains to parents. And then it allows you to understand who others are and establish a dialogue with these others.

It is useless to exhort, be offended, or shame your child - you see that this does not work. He will start talking to you differently when he sees that you understand and are not changing him.

Understanding the unconscious motives of our child’s behavior, we justify him with our hearts, admitting that his bad, from our point of view, actions do not always show that he is hopeless. Seeing his reaction to some event, we understand that he simply cannot react differently, because... such is the potential of his psyche, such are his properties, desires and motives.

Here are just some reviews about how it works for students of the System-Vector Psychology training:

Applying the knowledge gained during the training in practice, I immediately saw the result.
I understood the essence of my child. The reasons for his behavior became clear. Now I began to clearly separate
his needs and I don’t need to cripple his psyche, trying to find the key to him
The baby blossomed before our eyes. He stopped asking to see his grandmother,
Now he doesn't need to leave me.

They wrote to me on the forum, I replied:

Question M.

Hello, Irina Ivanovna. Forgive me in advance for writing so much, I just wanted to write everything in detail.
I am writing to you after another quarrel with my mother. I am 18, she is 60. I love her very much, she is the most precious thing I have. But we have no mutual understanding with her. Maybe due to such a big age difference. She works and is very tired, I understand that.

I'll tell you a little about my family. I also have an older brother, he is 30 years old. He already has his own family; he has been living separately for about 5 years.
The three of us used to live together, without dad. And there was never a reason why. Mom raised us herself and I thank her very much for that.
Previously, my mother and I had some kind of quarrels there, but I don’t really remember. It seems like not so often and not so strong.

A last year Probably, especially lately, we constantly quarrel. We just get irritated and start both of us with a half-turn.
I may be a complex person, especially since I have my own feelings in my soul, I’m constantly worried about something. But I always try to talk to her, sort it out and tell her what’s in my soul, what I lack from my mother (understanding, so she can hear me and speak calmly). And I think that my mother is very lucky that I don’t carry resentment within me or behave in a withdrawn way like many children, but on the contrary, every single time I try to chew everything out and convey it to her. She's the complete opposite. It’s not typical for her to come up after some quarrel and say, “Daughter, let’s go calmly and talk, I’m not satisfied with this and that, your certain attitude, you’re wrong here, for example, this is what we’ll do. And you tell me something, I’ll tell you I'll listen."
It’s not even a matter of who comes first... the thing is that when I try to tell my mother that I lack her initiative, that my mother is an adult and cannot decide and try to put everything in its place, I tell her so openly that let her calmly tell me everything, when we have both cooled down, talk like adults and calm down in order to avoid quarrels in the future. After my words, she tells me that “I’m tired of your showdowns, look for a guy and sort things out with him, I’m tired, leave my room.”
I’m so offended, I leave every time with tears in my eyes. I’m just calmly trying to explain the situation, she doesn’t listen, interrupts me, screams, I start screaming (it’s bad, yes, but I can’t help it when they interrupt me)... in the end I Every time I promise myself to just forget about everything and live and be happy that we live. But not even a week passes before there is another quarrel and I, like a fool, in the hope that my same words will be heard for the hundredth time, say them again and again. and again mom screams, I scream. I can't do this anymore. It’s true. Every time I have a ache in my soul.
I also see my guilt in these screams, there is a degree of disrespect for my mother in these actions, but it’s all out of despair. Yes, my mother may not like that I scream, but I suggest she always talk in a calm tone, I want her to listen to me , and didn’t interrupt, this is important to me... and she tells me that I need a showdown. Out of despair, I just can’t speak, tears are welling up. The vicious circle doesn’t hear me. I’m trying to explain like a child.” No mom, it’s not a showdown, you don’t understand it that way. It’s just important for me that you talk to me normally, because this abnormal relationship between mother and daughter"
and every time she has hundreds of excuses: “we’re outside, I’m tired, I’m watching a movie, don’t bother me, I have a headache,” that’s what I say, you never have time and there are always excuses. and she tells me “what should I talk to you about”

I really feel guilty that I may irritate her with this behavior. but it hurts me that they don’t hear me and don’t understand me. Maybe we're just different characters.
I’m sitting, worrying, 2 hours have passed since the quarrel... and my mother, as if nothing had happened, came up and asked me for some kind of remedy. I just quietly said, well, she understands that something is wrong. She cooled down and didn’t worry too much. She kissed me and told me not to turn into a hysteric... Well, how can that be? Can't hear again. He doesn’t understand that I’m so worried about our relationship. And again, as if nothing had happened.
and every time I have a bad feeling in my soul (maybe even my mother), but... then tomorrow I’ll forget too, I’ll have to. And then a few more quarrels and again an attempt to talk and tears. The circle is closed.

I try to come up to hug you, it’s rare, it’s true, it’s somehow not customary here... I come home from college tired, she’s from work (plus her age)... and outside the house I’m cheerful, I laugh, but at home it all drags on. It’s no longer before normal communication... and if there is communication, it immediately turns into a quarrel
when in quarrels I tell my mother that she won’t hug me or kiss me, that we each live in our own room like in a communal apartment.. after she has cooled down she will come up and hug.. but it feels like after my words and somehow feeling that everything After all, she’s a mother, and oh well, I’ll hug you for show. And that’s it...then again without any tenderness on her part, even though I try.

And she has a misunderstanding with my brother.

It even happens with us that I sit with my mother and explain to her this and that about Barat, that he won’t change and is such a person, and so on and many other things, and she says yes, you’re right, you’re saying everything correctly, I didn’t even think about it.
Sometimes I feel like a mother.

Please help me with advice. Thank you in advance.

Hello M! I don’t know if you’ve thought about this, but many children, or rather almost all children, have some kind of grievance against their parents... And it seems to everyone that others (friends, neighbors, colleagues...) were luckier with their parents... Why does this happen? The fact is that every child has in his own head some idealized idea of an ideal parent. And any child, even as an adult, certainly expects love from mom and dad, unconditional acceptance of himself as he is. At the same time, in life everything is much more complicated... And parents, once also were children who had their own relationships with their parents... And the fact is that if for some unfavorable reasons, mom, dad or both were physically absent or were are associated with something serious - illness, resentment towards the father of the children, depression, difficult relationships with their parents, difficult life circumstances, the need to earn money instead of communicating with children, something else, then all this leads to the fact that contact between the parent and the child is violated, instead of love and acceptance, negativity, irritation, and aggression arise. It seems the same is happening in your relationship with your mother. She raised you alone without a father... It was very difficult for her and, for sure, there were unconscious resentments against your father. And this, and perhaps difficulties in relations with her own parents and grandparents, prevented her from being in good contact with you. You write: “And for the last year, probably, especially lately, we have been constantly quarreling…. I always try to talk to her, sort her out and tell her what is in my soul, what I lack from my mother (understanding so that she can hear me and speak calmly). And I think that my mother is very lucky that I don’t carry resentment within me or behave in a withdrawn way like many children, but on the contrary, every single time I try to chew everything out and convey it to her.” This is where this thing happens that you would like to receive from your mother the “understanding” that you yourself imagine. But, you haven’t thought about whether she can do this - listen as you want and discuss. If her mom and dad didn't do it, she didn't get that experience. And he doesn’t know how to do it “as you would like.” And then the only way out is for you to accept her for who she is, change your attitude towards her reactions and style of communication with you... You write that sometimes you feel like her mother. It is impossible for a daughter to be her own mother's mother; this can also introduce an element of irritation into the relationship. Read the chapter about resentment against parents in D. Sokolov’s book on family plots. If you can’t figure it out on your own and accept the mother, this may be a deeper problem related to the history of the family and the intertwining of the family, then it’s worth working face-to-face with a family psychologist. The Hellinger arrangement method is very suitable for working with parent-child relationships and family difficulties. If such a need arises, we can work on it. All the best!

They wrote to me on the forum, I replied:

Question M.

And for the last year, probably, especially lately, we have been constantly quarreling. We just get irritated and start both of us with a half-turn.
I may be a complex person, especially since I have my own feelings in my soul, I’m constantly worried about something. But I always try to talk to her, sort it out and tell her what’s in my soul, what I lack from my mother (understanding, so she can hear me and speak calmly). And I think that my mother is very lucky that I don’t carry resentment within me or behave in a withdrawn way like many children, but on the contrary, every single time I try to chew everything out and convey it to her. She's the complete opposite. It’s not typical for her to come up after some quarrel and say, “Daughter, let’s go calmly and talk, I’m not satisfied with this and that, your certain attitude, you’re wrong here, for example, this is what we’ll do. And you tell me something, I’ll tell you I'll listen."
It’s not even a matter of who comes first... the thing is that when I try to tell my mother that I lack her initiative, that my mother is an adult and cannot decide and try to put everything in its place, I tell her so openly that let her calmly tell me everything, when we have both cooled down, talk like adults and calm down in order to avoid quarrels in the future. After my words, she tells me that “I’m tired of your showdowns, look for a guy and sort things out with him, I’m tired, leave my room.”
I’m so offended, I leave every time with tears in my eyes. I’m just calmly trying to explain the situation, she doesn’t listen, interrupts me, screams, I start screaming (it’s bad, yes, but I can’t help it when they interrupt me)... in the end I Every time I promise myself to just forget about everything and live and be happy that we live. But not even a week passes before there is another quarrel and I, like a fool, in the hope that my same words will be heard for the hundredth time, say them again and again. and again mom screams, I scream. I can't do this anymore. It’s true. Every time I have a ache in my soul.
I also see my guilt in these screams, there is a degree of disrespect for my mother in these actions, but it’s all out of despair. Yes, my mother may not like that I scream, but I suggest she always talk in a calm tone, I want her to listen to me , and didn’t interrupt, this is important to me... and she tells me that I need a showdown. Out of despair, I just can’t speak, tears are welling up. The vicious circle doesn’t hear me. I’m trying to explain like a child.” No mom, it’s not a showdown, you don’t understand it that way. It’s just important for me that you talk to me normally, because this abnormal relationship between mother and daughter"
and every time she has hundreds of excuses: “we’re outside, I’m tired, I’m watching a movie, don’t bother me, I have a headache,” that’s what I say, you never have time and there are always excuses. and she tells me “what should I talk to you about”

And she has a misunderstanding with my brother.

Please help me with advice. Thank you in advance.

Good afternoon, I am faced with a complete lack of mutual understanding with my mother, I don’t know how to solve this issue. The fact is that it turned out that way and I got pregnant before the wedding, we were planning the wedding before the pregnancy, but due to the constant absence of the young man at home (military), it all dragged on, there were other things to do. Now the application has been submitted and in 2 months we will sign, just sign, and not the wedding, because we both do not like such noisy celebrations, our plans were to do everything quietly, sign, invite our parents to a restaurant and leave the next day to relax together. But now my mother constantly comes up to me, maybe we’ll call these, or these, or these, and why won’t there be a photographer? Let's invite at least 20 people? Why won't there be a wedding dress? She doesn’t hear me that I don’t want to attract attention to myself, at least because I’m pregnant. When we start talking, we immediately swear. I am offended and annoyed by the fact that she wants to make some kind of show out of this day, if we don’t want it, well, we don’t like this fuss. How can I improve my relationship with my mother? It got to the point that during a quarrel I said, “It was easier for me not to call anyone at all, to sign together and that’s it.” To which she replied - Yes, we won’t come.
How can I convey all this to my mother that I don’t need the hype, photographers and guests. After all, this is our day...

No understanding with mom

Hello Maria!
I sympathize, you are in a situation and have to worry about quarrels with your mother. Mom can understand - the marriage of your (only?) daughter is an event that concerns not only you, but also your mother and the whole family. She wants to share the joy with her relatives.
Your position is also understandable - you want peace, not to attract attention to your pregnancy, to “hide” from prying eyes - sometimes this is how a pregnant woman feels.
“Yes, we won’t come” - most likely, it is said in the hearts during a quarrel.
What can help your mom feel heard? How can you honor her need without compromising your decision?
Perhaps you should ask your mother why she wants a wedding so much? She didn’t have her own wedding, she wants to “get even”? She is ashamed in front of her relatives; she doesn’t want to be branded a miser?
Perhaps you will suggest that after the birth of the baby, in a year, she celebrates her wedding anniversary in larger circle, if there is a desire? Or are you planning to test your feelings for each other and get married, then invite relatives to the ceremony?
Maria, an article about relationships with your mother may help.