Unloved daughters: 7 characteristic signs
In infancy and childhood, a child forms an idea of himself based on how his mother treats him. The mother's face is the first mirror in which he catches his reflection. If the mother is loving and accepting, the child learns that he is loved and that he can be loved. He understands that he is significant and valuable, he is seen and heard. This understanding becomes the foundation on which the child builds a self-image that gives him the opportunity to grow and develop.
Daughters of unloving mothers—emotionally closed, reserved, unstable, critical, and cruel—receive different information about themselves and the world around them. All this results in an insecure attachment, which can be ambivalent (the child does not know what kind of mother will be today - good or bad) or avoidant (the daughter wants the love of her mother, but is afraid to seek this love). Ambivalent attachment shows the child that the world and relationships with other people are unreliable; the avoidant type leads to a conflict between the daughter's need for maternal love and the need to protect herself from emotional and physical abuse, the source of which is the mother.
The type of attachment forms an internal representation or mental image of how relationships between people work. Without psychotherapeutic intervention, this idea is very stable and persists throughout life.
The daughter's need for maternal love is the most important driving force, which does not fade away just because the child cannot receive it. It coexists with the terrible, destructive understanding that the person who should love and accept unconditionally did not do so. Trying to heal and cope with this situation deserves respect.
The type of attachment established between mother and daughter has been proven to influence the daughter's romantic and friendly relationships in adulthood. The wounds that remain in adult daughters affect their relationships with themselves and with the outside world. It is worth considering them not at all in order to once again blame unloving mothers and feel sorry for their daughters. The main reason for this is the need to recognize and understand how a toxic mother influenced you, and what you can do to get rid of this influence. Too often we simply accept this or that behavior in ourselves without knowing where it comes from.
- Lack of self-confidence
The unloved daughter of an unloving mother does not realize that she can be loved and that she is worthy of attention, since her mother rejected her, did not hear her, or criticized her at the slightest reason. The voice in her head belongs to her mother and tells her that she is not smart, not beautiful, not capable of kindness and love, not worthy of love and respect. This inner voice continues to downplay her achievements and talents until some intervention occurs (usually psychotherapy). Such daughters often talk about how they “deceive” other people and are afraid that they will be exposed when they finally, by some miracle, achieve success.
- Inability to trust
“I am always surprised and alarmed when someone tries to be friends with me. I always expect a trick, some kind of malicious intent. It was only during psychotherapy that I realized that this was connected with my mother,” admits one woman. This feeling of mistrust of the world stems from the feeling that relationships are inherently insecure, which inevitably affects friendships or romantic connections. Ambivalent attachment forces the adult daughter to constantly check the reliability of the relationship and demand guarantees from her partner or close friends. They crave all-consuming mutual love with emotional ups and downs with bouts of jealousy and violent sex. The inability to trust has a lot to do with the inability to set boundaries.
- Inability to set boundaries
Many daughters who seek the love of their mothers and do not find it report that in adult relationships they strive to please. Another possibility is that they are unable to set the boundaries that are integral to healthy and satisfying relationships. Many unloved daughters report an inability to maintain close relationships with friends due to trust issues (“What guarantee is there that she won’t betray me?”) and an inability to say “No” (“Every time I realize that I’m becoming some kind of wimp ", agreeing to do anything for the sake of maintaining the illusion of peace in a relationship. As a result, I understand that I am investing too much in this relationship and that I myself am disappointed in it"). In addition, such women tend to seek such close and all-consuming relationships that it scares away other people.
- Misconception about yourself
One woman shares what she learned about herself during therapy: “When I was a child, my mother always focused on my mistakes and shortcomings, not paying attention to my achievements. After college, I had several jobs, each of which had managers telling me I wasn't trying hard enough. Only then did I realize that I was limiting myself by adopting my mother’s view of me and my place in this world.” This is about internalizing what you heard about yourself as a child. Distortions of self-image can extend to all areas of life, including our appearance. Many unloved daughters say that they are surprised when they succeed at something. In addition, they tend to be afraid to try something new due to fear of failure. And this is not just a matter of low self-esteem, the problem lies much deeper.
- Avoidant position
Lack of self-confidence and fear of rejection puts the unloved daughter in an avoidant position. She avoids relationships out of fear that they will cause her pain, and has little faith that she can have a stable relationship in which there will be love and trust. On the surface, these women act as if they want a relationship, but on a deeper unconscious level, their main motivator is avoidance. Unfortunately, this prevents her from building the close, trusting relationships she has always sought.
- Excessive vulnerability and sensitivity
Unloved daughters are sensitive to even a hint of neglect - real or imagined. A casual comment can trigger an avalanche of emotions, triggered by her childhood experiences. “I had to focus on my overreactions. Sometimes I myself figure out what the person meant and bring myself to the point of shaking. In the end, it may turn out that the person did not want to offend me at all,” says one woman. A mother's inability to express her feelings often results in daughters having difficulty managing their emotions: they tend to ruminate too much, spin their thoughts in circles, and focus on negative events.
- Building a relationship reminiscent of the relationship with your mother
We strive for what is familiar and understandable to us, for situations that, although they made us unhappy, are “comfortable” precisely because of their familiarity. Entering the big world, people with secure attachments look for people with a similar type of attachment; unfortunately, people with adverse childhood experiences do the same. Unconsciously, they reproduce the relationship they had with their mother with their partner. “It’s like I married my mother. In appearance it seemed that he was completely different from her, but it all ended with him treating me exactly the same as she. I never knew what to expect from him: he was sometimes indifferent, sometimes attentive, sometimes critical, sometimes supportive,” says the woman who eventually divorced not only her husband, but also her mother.
Original article: Peg Streep, — Daughters of Unloving Mothers: 7 Common Wounds, Better Help, April 2013
Translation: Eliseeva Margarita Igorevna
Editor: Simonov Vyacheslav Mikhailovich
Key words: motherhood, parents, children, adult children, personal boundaries, psychotherapy, psychology
Photo source: unsplash.com
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- Unloved daughters. 7 characteristic signs
How does your relationship with your mother affect your life?
Mom is a guide to adulthood. How it will turn out depends on my mother’s love and attitude towards us. Will it be happy, bright, filled with joyful moments or dull, hateful, devoid of any colors.
Our attitude towards ourselves depends on our mother. The extent to which we accept and love our own appearance and personality. If a mother constantly criticizes, then a mountain of:
- complexes;
- clamps;
- self-rejection.
If the mother praises, speaks kind words, and supports, the girl is assigned high self-esteem.
She values herself in any situation and knows how to defend personal boundaries. In relationships with men, she knows exactly what she wants. What is ready to accept from the opposite sex, and what will never be tolerated.
If anyone but me?
If you think about why mothers don’t love their daughters from their first marriage, the answer usually seems obvious: they draw parallels between the child and the father with whom they separated, which means the memories remain bad. A woman is trying to start her life from scratch, but the child is always nearby, like a living reminder of the mistakes she has made. But the situation is not always explained in such a simple way. Perhaps the cause of all the problems is the narcissism of the older woman, convinced that the world should revolve around her. Often it is from such women that men run away, despite having a child together, who has to endure the nature of the parent.
Some women firmly believe that the world exists to satisfy their needs. They believe that the people around them are created to serve them, and this applies to their own children. For such a mother, it may be normal to raise a hand to the child or to mock her morally, and if in addition to the girl there is also a boy, it may be clear to explain why the mother loves her son more - as long as the daughter realizes her insignificance and is ready to extol and praise the parent, who is superior to her in everything .
Mothers of this type can explain the existence of children only as an object to serve their interests - that is why they give birth to them. If the child does not provide help, he should not be disturbed and show himself as little as possible. Of course, children growing up in such conditions are sure that they were born in vain. They consider themselves inferior and often live their entire lives alone.
Dreams and reality
So, a woman finds out about pregnancy, goes to the doctor, and the study gives a pleasant result: she should expect the birth of a girl. The imagination immediately draws beautiful pictures of friendly relations: mother and daughter will be friends, they will be able to share secrets, and the older one will teach the younger one how to be the most attractive in the world. Unfortunately, when it comes to practice, suddenly the realities begin to diverge from the rosy visions, and the realization comes that the mother does not love her daughter. In psychology, this is especially often associated with growing up.
The older the girl, the higher the likelihood of conflicts. This is due not only to the difference in generations, but also to distinctive character traits. Problems of hormonal changes play a significant role, under the influence of which even the most obedient princess becomes obstinate, capricious, and sometimes completely unbearable. Misunderstanding after misunderstanding - and now the conflict becomes so multi-layered that it seems that there is simply no way out of the situation.
What about the other side?
It happens that it is no secret to outsiders that the mother does not love her daughter. The signs of such an attitude are obvious: the child is convinced of his bad qualities, and strangers can hear his own mother calling her daughter either lazy, or armless, or a mare. And if there are external flaws that the child is very worried about, then such a mother is guaranteed to “hit where it hurts,” reminding her over and over again about the imperfections in appearance. This also works in the opposite direction: the more parents criticize some aspect of appearance, the more convinced the child is of his ugliness.
Indeed, family relationships can be a problem that will subjugate the whole future life - especially if the mother does not love her daughter. Psychology as a science has long been considering this phenomenon of family relationships, and observations show that most of these mothers convince their child that their imperfections will be a guaranteed obstacle to ever finding a soul mate. If an older girl attracts the attention of a representative of the opposite sex, the mother begins to criticize and humiliate him, doubting his ability to reason sensibly and draw adequate conclusions, to assess the situation in general and individual people in particular.
Why does a daughter repeat the fate of her mother?
Grandmother - mother - daughter - granddaughter... A vertical chain in the pedigree. Something very important is transmitted along the chain. What? Maybe our feminine essence?
For centuries, the female role has meant abstinence, commitment, patience, and perseverance in enduring any pain. To be a woman meant to be either a man's property or his "half." And now they still say: “For a woman, she earns well.” Or: “She writes good novels for a woman.” Who said a woman can't write novels as good as a man?
If a mother has absorbed such ideas, then rest assured, she will pass them on to her daughter. Mothers are excellent teachers. The daughters' main classroom is the kitchen. The science of being a woman, a wife, a mother is taught here. Here the daughter learns everything that her mother thinks about herself. Scientifically speaking, self-identification is passed on from mother to daughter. Family scripts are written here.
It is natural and normal to be attached to your mother. Why are we afraid of complete similarity? Probably, in us, daughters, there lives an ineradicable desire for uniqueness. Each daughter has the right to her own individuality, has the right to be one and only.
We, daughters, are afraid of complete resemblance to our mother because we are called to this: “Be like me.” Many daughters do not want to repeat their mother’s fate and marry the way mom married dad, but fate repeats itself. If dad raised his hand to mom, the daughter may find herself in the same position. Victims give birth to victims. If the mother was the wife of an alcoholic, then it is very likely that the daughter will repeat her story.
Daughters receive their fate “inherited” most likely if neither mother nor daughter knows about the existence of intra-family laws. Therefore, they cannot use them to their advantage.
Who should I be?
Psychologists, telling why mothers do not love their daughters, describe numerous situations of role reversal. This happens when a woman becomes a mother, who, due to her age or character, is not yet ready for such responsibility, and as soon as she has the opportunity, she shifts everything onto the shoulders of the child. The woman behaves as if she were a child herself, and the girl, willy-nilly, has to try to be an adult. Thus, the daughter loses the opportunity to live her childhood normally, and the eldest constantly feels guilty for what is happening.
Another situation is also possible: the girl is gradually growing up, but the mother does not want to accept what is happening and resists reality in every possible way. Among the reasons identified in psychology for why mothers do not love their daughters, special attention is paid to this particular situation. Despite the child’s age, the woman still perceives her as small, takes care of her in every possible way and does not allow her to live her own life. Neither the eldest nor the youngest in such conditions get the opportunity to build a personal life, get involved in interesting things or comprehend new things.
How to learn to trust your daughter and let her go
Previously, it was simply a feat for me to let my daughter go.
Allow her to go to school on her own, decide for herself what to wear on the street, study on her own without control on my part. Letting go is a very important moment in a girl's life. At a certain time, a mother needs to allow her daughter to be independent. It is necessary to reduce the control associated with studying, with clothes and with friends. You can give advice and accompany. But don't control it. Otherwise, the daughter will not have the opportunity to grow up.
Grow up correctly. Growing up, going through your life lessons, getting your head in, gaining your experience. In order to grow up in due time, and not at 35 years old.
To do this, a mother needs to learn to trust her daughter, to trust the world. But how to do this? This is where women's fairy tales come to the rescue. They describe basic women's values, show possible scenarios for the development of women's destiny, and reveal the main pitfalls and dangers. By living fairy tales with your daughter, you can teach her “smartness,” warn her, and show her the consequences of her actions. But the main thing is to explain that in life, as in a fairy tale, the end is always logical. Wonderful fairy tales for girls' education - “Cinderella”, “Morozko”, “Geese and Swans”, “The Princess and the Pea” and many others.
What a life, such are the children
It often happens that both the child and the mother are unhappy, and the older one takes it out on the younger one for an unfair situation, and the child can only wonder why and why the mother does not love her daughter. Psychologists know that this phenomenon is more often observed in families where the mother raises the child alone - the so-called single mother. However, this condition is not at all mandatory. So, finding herself the wife of a heavy drunkard, the woman will also be unhappy, and with her the child, whose head will be hit by maternal discontent.
Children are weak and cannot protect themselves; pain, hatred and resentment can be poured onto them. Hard work, unsuccessful personal life, everyday problems, poor conditions and problematic neighbors - the child is to blame for all this. He gets it from an early age, in every way - both with evil words and physical punishment. How many tears children shed because of punishments that they perceive as unfair. If it is precisely because of this that the mother does not love her daughter, the consequences can be very different: from conflicts and the child moving at the first opportunity to the escape of a minor and an attempt (terrifyingly often - successful) suicide.
