Forgiving Your Parents
I recently had a 1 hr and 44 minute phone call with my mom.
This RARELY happens.
Our calls normally last 5 minutes or less and they don’t happen often.
This was an indication to me of how far I’ve come in my relationship with my mom. You can read more about where I used to be in my relationship with my mom in this previous blog that I wrote three years ago. Consider this part two.
A theme I’ve noticed in myself as well as clients of mine is a longstanding resentment regarding their parents. Whether it was their father, mother, or both there is a sense of bitter resentment.
We pendulate from extremes. As young children we often pedastalize our parents. We see them as infallible authority figures who love us. If things go bad or feel bad, we fault ourselves for it. Psychologically this is called splitting - separating the good and bad within one’s psyche. We make our parents the good ones of godly status and we make ourselves the bad one of sinner status. This looks like the child who defends their parents of any wrongdoing and solely blaming themselves.
However, a part of us also harbors dark feelings towards our parents. People can often contact this part of themselves in therapy and emerge with a newfound feeling of freedom of being able to resent their parents righteously. “This is why I’ve been so messed up all my life! They did this!” We feel entitled to our anger and we hold onto it with conviction. This looks like the child who lambasts their parents as awful.
This is all very understandable. It is not wrong or bad, but a part of the journey.
However, we can often become stuck in one of the extremes. This is where it becomes “bad” in terms of arresting our own evolution and maturation.
For me, this looked like remaining committed to my own sense of entitlement and rigidity.
I saw how the relational dynamic with my mom was not serving me. As I began to reclaim my masculine edge, I learned to set boundaries with her.
The issue was that I became overly rigid with my boundaries. I had overcorrected. I also closed my heart.
This all felt necessary.
My belief was, “I’ve worked hard to get to this point. I sacrificed a lot to get here. I cannot afford any opening in which my progress will be sabotaged by my mom.”
The deeper fear here was the subconscious belief that if I didn’t remain rigid, cold, and distant I would once again fall prey to our previous relational dynamic. I didn’t believe I could set boundaries while still keeping my heart open to my mom.
I was not aware of this subconscious belief for a period time. I made it about “it’s so frustrating that my mom can’t understand me. If she made the effort to understand me I wouldn’t have to feel all of this!” I held onto suspicions that none of her attempts to connect with me were sincere and that there was always some ulterior motive.
I overcorrected and split in the other direction. She was now the wrongdoer and I was the good one.
This was a shift from where I was, but ultimately just the other side of the same coin. Resenting my mom is just as unhealthy as pedastalizing her. Both maintain the psychological bond as opposed to setting me truly free.
The integrated state was realizing that splitting was no longer needed.
She isn’t bad or wrong. I’m not bad or wrong. She isn’t of godly status. I’m not of godly status.
We’re just two people. We can butt heads. We can find middle ground.
It sunk in that:
I can open my heart to my mom because I no longer assume her to be the bad guy.
If my mom does have any ulterior motives or pushes in ways I do not agree with, I know how to set boundaries and can do it again at any time.
I can have genuine good will for my mom and offer my love to her because I know that I am sovereign over my ability to love her and she can’t ever abuse it (I didn’t know how to do this as a child).
After that long phone call, my mom called again a few days later and said, “I feel like you’ve matured more based on our last conversation.”
This was confirmation to me that she was also aware and could feel the shifts that took place within me.
It is incredibly freeing to realize that I don’t need to resent my mom and I don’t need to pedastalize my mom. Now I can truly see my mom and love her from a grounded place. Sometimes that love will look like taking time to listen to her. Other times it will look like setting a firm boundary. Both are aspects of how I show love to her and myself.
For those of you who have difficult relationships with your parents, know that it is a journey.
As you integrate the parts of you that love your parents and the parts of you that resent your parents, you will find the middle ground.
From there you will simply be able to see them for who they are. Imperfect people who did the best that they could given what they knew. You no longer fixate on what they should or shouldn’t have done. You no longer fixate on how they should or shouldn’t be.
You get to move on and be who you want to be while letting them be.
Here is where you find your peace.