Major Mom Issues

I am a 27 yo female. I was very close to my mom until around the time I turned 12. There was a 15 yo boy interested in me, and I didn’t like him. I was still a kid. He wrote poetry and e-mailed my mom, talking to her on AIM about how much he wanted to marry me. They spoke daily and the entire time my mom tried to get me to date him and I always said no. After two years he got a girlfriend. My mom told me that if I didn't agree to date him, he would marry that girl and I would never find a man who would love me. I would end up like my unmarried aunt and would be alone forever. Afraid, I agreed and she assured me I would learn to like him. I was with him for a year and a half. We experimented sexually, although I refused to lose my virginity to him. My mom made us sleep in the same bed after Prom and kept offering me birth control, although I refused.I only found him needy and suffocating. When he graduated from high school, I decided to end it. My mom told me that not only was I breaking up with him, but he was breaking up with our family too and I was being selfish. She was so angry she wouldn't speak to me except to slide letters under my door. My brothers and dad never got involved;they figured it was just regular mother-daughter stuff. That summer we were to go on a 2-day drive to my mom’s parents’ 50th anniversary.This boy was to go with us, but since we had been broken up I assumed he wouldn't go. My mom screamed that if he didn't come along, SHE wasn't going either. So he came. She made us share a bed and tried to get me to take him back. I refused. He went to college an hour away and sent me many gifts, which I returned, and my mom threatened that he would kill himself if I didn’t take him back.  I finally went to college and got away. Over the years I dated terrible men who abused me and had a failed 5-year marriage. I am now happily remarried and pregnant, but my mom still writes me a dozen emails a day and is trying to control me.

[Abhijeet Deshmukh, MD]

Hello.

I guess you want to know what you can do to deal with the situation. I think we don't need to focus on whether your mother is trying to control your life. It is pretty much established as per your description here.  But there is always something you can change about your beliefs, that will help you reduce the emotional disturbance due to what is going on. I suggest you consider taking professional help from a therapist for the same. Your mother probably has some fixed and irrational beliefs which lead to her being controlling towards you. Unless she is willing for it, you can not try and change those beliefs. But you can certainly find out what it is about her behavior that disturbs you the most. And you can also device some ways to let her know that you do not like her interference after a certain limit. You will definitely get more ideas if you can talk with a therapist about this.

You may not be able to change your mother's beliefs and actions, but you can certainly change the effect she has on your own life.