Navigating Difficult Mother Daughter Relationships with Harriet Lerner

Join @SheleanaAiyana, Founder of @RisingWoman and Harriet Lerner for a discussion on navigating a difficult mother/daughter relationship.

Harriet Lerner Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, a contributor to psychoanalytic concepts regarding family and feminist theory and therapy, and also the author of many books written for the general public. My favourites are The Dance of Anger and The Dance of Intimacy! Her latest book is called "Why Won't You Apologize" and can be found on Amazon or at your local bookstore.

Twitter: @harrietlerner

#consciousrelationships #healing #innerwork

[TanaHartmanThorn]

As I've aged, I've come to see my mom (and our disagreements) in a gentler light. She was a better mother than my younger, self-absorbed self gave her credit for being. She wasn't perfect, but she was a good person and, despite living with chronic depression, she got up every day and took good care of us. That took strength and, in the end, it has made a more positive difference in my life than I realized. May every woman be able to forgive their mothers. Love and forgiveness are the best remedies.

[josianegultekin]

So glad I had several therapists tell me to walk away from the family... Best thing for me was to walk away. No amount of talk can heal the abuse, agony, and a Mom who is not listening, minimizes abuse while disregarding you reality & feelings. DISTANCE IS RESPECTING YOURSELF.

[claudia-vpkd]

Thank you for humanizing motherhood, being a mother is so difficult, not only for the mother history but for the difficult circumstances we have had in our lives. Single mothers that have to work 24/7 not only outside but at home, yet we are blamed for whatever reason. As a mother I feel like you are saying, we are held to an impossible standard. We are not seen as humans with fails and strength, I feel like my daughter feels like I owe her xxx impossible standard, we don't need compassion but UNDERSTANDING.

[josianegultekin]

Best thing I did was walk away from my Mom. No amount of conversation could heal my mother, nor make her hear, nor step out of her delusions. I NEED to save myself.

[kanona]

I feel like this talk is coming from the stand point of “poor mom, the whole world is against her. Give her the benefit of the doubt, give her respect.” But all of that is earned. A relationship goes both ways..

On another note, it’s not all on the child to be the mature one and guide the conversations into a mature way. I spent most of my life being a therapist to my mother and thats a really unhealthy place to be. I think to an extent, theres only so much we can do as daughters until the mothers see their wrong doings and acknowledge them. You can only “forgive and Forget” so many times before it turns into bitterness and resentment. It is not on the daughter to constantly watch out for mother’s feelings

[fifilafleur]

I read about evil mothers every day in my narcissistic abuse recovery group. The group is specifically for adult children of narcissistic mothers. The stories are just heartbreaking. Many of these vicious “queen bees” have pitted their own children against each other creating lifelong severed relationships. Some of these scapegoated children live their entire lives in despair. Some go on to take their own lives, while others become very very ill with medical conditions like auto immune disorders, heart disease and cancer. I am one of them. Living with late stage cancer after my health deteriorated dealing with such wickedness. The evil queen devised a smear campaign and told blatant lies about me. The entire family then turned away from me for standing up for myself and for standing up to the abuse

[angelahasty]

I love all the comments below. Valid points of view. I say, compassion your mother's "struggle, " yes, but with a future zero-abuse tolerance policy firmly in place! Always protect your psyche and your heart!

[iamaliveyoucantstopnow]

Adult children who go no contact never get asked how they feel. All the sympathy goes to the mother! God forbid the adult child distance themself.

[kristametcalfe]

What if we do know lots about our mother’s childhood, and have tried to discuss that they have their own childhood and relational trauma, and it affects everything, including how they have treated us, and all they do is deny it? What if we have tried very hard to be compassionate, both daughters have reached out to come to understanding and mutual space and the mother just continues to not understand anything and makes everything about herself for our own wounding and won’t acknowledge that everyone has growth to do? She says she is 66 and she is at a place where she thinks everyone else needs to do the work and just be there for her?

[sagittarius]

Wow! Hearing the comment about seeing your mother on one half as though she owes you but then to view her as just a woman who’s had her own battles gave me chills head to toe!! Such a wonderful point!!

[fredjones]

Parents owe their children lack of abuse

[Antoniathinks]

Harriet, thank you for the respectful framework, the support for each daughter's right to her limits and her own position, and the perspective of asking questions to find honest ways to uncover information. This seems to afford both people choices. THAT seems really productive ground.

[moyagreene]

We the mothers are often villainized by media, medical/ psychiatric establishment and peers.. our authority to “ mother” to be responsible to look after our children has many competitors..
especially in the past 15 years where the TIk- Tok / social media culture .. take the parental space away from us.
My daughter started to be stroppy, disrespectful rebellious at age 13. Simple things like homework, cleaning her room became a nightmare. “ you can’t tell me what to do” ; go away!” That’s none of your business”
It was very hard to keep her from sabotaging her future.
There is no gratitude.. just resentment and anger.. and now ostracism.
Very painful!

[annarichardson]

Great conversation. I loved the point that reacting in anger actually lets the other person off the hook because it ends the conversation without having challenged them.

[ayliea]

I very much appreciate Dr. Harriet Lerner's mature wisdom on this subject. It's quite rare. Mother bashing has been going on for generations and I don't think it's done any good. Dr. Lerner's rationality can lead us to a fair and kind place. Tossing someone as monumental as our mother out of our lives in many instances could be like cutting our nose off to spite our face. We could be working on a groovy thing, the most significant relationship in our lives that could be a mutual source of love, comfort and growth. Remember, we all think that we are going to be better parents than our parents. Really? Love and forgiveness is almost always best.

[thebowdlers]

I know my mother had a difficult childhood, all of which she has projected onto me, telling me I am difficult to love among many other things. It is important for the mother to take responsibility for what is really a form of abuse, and realise that this has to stop at some point with someone. I have had a lot of mental health issues because of her constant belittling of me. This is the reason why I chose not to have children. If the mother is so broken by her past maybe she should consider working on herself before starting a family, or even consider not starting one at all! I have never been able to have an authentic conversation with my mother, and at 48 now, I feel most of my life has been wasted on walking on eggshells around her. You didn't choose to be in this life, your parents brought you forward. You are not here to suffer at the hands of them and their projections. Saying that we as the daughter must step back and have an all understanding of our mothers behaviour and not being able to voice our issues without being shot down in flames every time is technically keeping ourselves held in a place of being at fault always. Focus on yourself and get healthy mentally.

[pishi]

Whew, this subject is HEAVY.
Very hard to have a difficult relationship with a mother- this relationship permeates ALL relationships that follow throughout your life . Speaking from firsthand experience

[SpanishHag]

The real issue is that for most of our human history we as women have NOT had any choice I. Whether to be mothers or not, either by cultural and family brainwashing and/or biological impulses. This endless cycle of use and abuse of our bodies, grandmothers, mothers who were not equipped to be mothers and simply loaded their own abuse onto their children, most specifically their daughters have created a disonance in our relationships, passed from mothers to daughters and so on.
GenZ as a generation is the first generation DEMANDING RESPECT for their choices and holding their mothers (and fathers) accountable, it’s a real challenge for a lot of mothers because we ourselves have been through “worst” and we stayed silent as a generation, we became complicit in general.
It’s as simple as taking ownership of what’s ours and what’s not, we are all daughters of mothers, some psychopathic some kind and loving, but the numbers (and this new upcoming generation) is making it clear that’s MOST mothers who need to stop their BS.
Yeah, I’m a mom to a GenZ daughter, and I’m okay and glad that we are talking about it!

[baileymccoy]

Me and my mother both have mental health issues and I'm a teenager which makes it harder originally we were having issues and arguments almost every day but now she's trying to take care of herself better which I really think is helping she's doing a much much better job at working through tough moments and hiccups with me as time goes by we make deals compromises but most of all love everyday is a new day I really do wanna acknowledge my mother for trying harder and for realizing that we just gotta work through things it's been about 3-4 weeks since our last major fight since then we've had rocky moments but we work through them I wanna give her the credit she deserves for putting in effort so mothers and daughters reading this take care of yourself and work things through as they come along and your relationship will be 10x better I swear on everything I love

[nameeraa]

Thank you for this beautiful and calm conversation. It was really soothing just listening to both your voices. <3