Should I stop talking to my mother?
Question:
Greetings to you,
I have been struggling with something for years. A bond between me and my parents that I really don't wish on anybody. My parents have been divorced for almost 40 years. I used to adore my dad and hate my mom for things that she has done - like kissing other men while still married to my dad. Since a very young age, I was always very aware of the wrong that was happening.
Neither of them has ever told me that they love me. Whenever my mom speaks to me over the phone there is a kind of hate in her voice. It is there even when we visit. Never a smile in her voice, but as soon as my sister-in-law appears everything will change, and the two of them will talk like they are the biggest friends. They never have anything good to say about me.
99% of the time when I say goodbye over the phone or I leave their homes, I will be in tears, wondering what and why am I still visiting them. I have been trying for years to hold God's hand. I am not allowed to say anything about God or the church in front of them as they will say it is all fake, and I am not to talk to them about God. They know God.
Am I so wrong to have made the decision to never contact my mom again? Her little dog died after 15 years and you know all I could do was to send her a text message to say I'm sorry about the dog, but inside of me there was no sorrow. For 15 years I had to hear my Mom talking about her dog as "the only little girl I have." I love animals, but this time it was almost like a joy; maybe now mom will realize that she actually has one girl. She is now in her 70's and I am in my 50's and not once have they hugged me to say that they love me.
I'd appreciate your reply.
Answer:
Just because two people have a child, it doesn't automatically mean they make good parents. Your mother gets along with your sister-in-law because they see the world in a similar fashion. You're are different from your mother. You seem to be more interested in spiritual things than her. And being around you makes your mother uncomfortable because you remind her that she has not lived a morally good life -- whether you say anything or not.
The problem is that you want your mother to be something she isn't. You're foolishly jealous of others whom you imagine getting what you want from your mother. I'm sure that if you were always accepting of your mother no matter how she behaved, just like a dog, you would get attention, but that is not who you are.
One point I've heard over and over is that you get two chances in life to have a good family. One is the family you grew up in, the other is the family you create. Your mother has made some bad mistakes. May her daughter not repeat them and create a better legacy to follow her.
Meanwhile, don't act worse than your mother. You can be polite and caring; that is the proper thing for any Christian to do. You can see that your mother is cared for because she cared for you in your childhood. None of these require you to love her or even like her if she is that mean. I suspect you are more polite at your business to customers whom you don't know than you are to your mother whom you do know, and that isn't right. It is your unrealistic expectations that are getting you down -- you are expecting your mother to be a good woman, and she simply isn't.
""Honor your father and mother," which is the first commandment with promise: "that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth"" (Ephesians 6:2-3).
"Therefore "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:20-21).
