Isabella,

I know this post for me was a long time ago but I just needed to give you an update on my nagging and worrying. I am finally detaching and letting my son live his own life. I do not sit up at nights and worry about what he is doing and what time he will be home. What a weight lifted from my shoulders. I have been reading posts here, seeing a therapist and found a church. All of these things are changing my life. I have been happy and worry free for a couple of weeks now. It is like a miracle. I feel like I have so much freedom now. Thanks for that post you gave me. It really made me think....ALOT!!!!!!

Love..Gail



Hi Gail,

I am sorry to hear about how much pain you are in.

I am sorry to say that your sons may be right, they are grown and on their own with their own families and responsibilities...it is time to let go.

My Mom is a lot like you and it does not feel like "love" to me, it is very intrusive and uncomfortable. She constantly nags me about my weight, it is hard to take advice about controlling addictions from someone in the throes of their own addiction. My Mom is not overweight, but she has other problems. Her apartment is a mess, you can hardly walk in it, yet she obsesses about mine. She says she wants to "help" me clean, but won't help herself. This type of behavior never goes unnoticed.

I am not any immature kid, but a 42 year old married adult living on my own with a grown daughter of my own.

I tell my Mom what your sons tell you, that she needs to "get a life" so she stops obessing about mine and what is "wrong" with me when she has a basekt full of problems of her own. She obsesses about mine so she can avoid her own. Her justification for all of this is that she is just a "loving mother". SIGH! As I said, it does not feel like love, someone disresepcting your privacy, disrespecting you, treating you like kid when you are a full fledged responsible adult, people prying into your personal affairs so they can criticize...none of this feels like love...

I think when someone loves you you should be able to feel it.

Before my Dad died, he know how to love an adult child. He knew I had a lot of problems and told me that if I came to him he would help how he could but NEVER pried or got into my buisness. I loved to go and visit him (my parents were divorced, their different parenting styles was the biggest reason for this) as it was a respite from the problems. I could go and visit him and I felt so loved to talk to him about life, his youth, my feelings etc, without being judged, examined, dissected and found fault with. He would talk to me like a friend, finally now that I was an adult he talked to me about how it felt to get married, have kids, his hopes and dreams, etc. I felt like I had just won the lottery to have my Dad talk to me as an equal almost, as a PERSON, not just a silly kid.

My Mom just can't comprehend this. She thinks being a loving Mom is trying to force me to feel like a stupid kid forever, who NEEDS her to straighten me out...that is not love...but dysfunction.

I know her actions are motivated by love, so I try to be patient, but I long for what I had with my Dad with her...

I am not judging you, I just thought you would like to hear what it is like from the "other side".