After the recent unproductive argument with my daughter in the Comments of the Listening post on LiveJournal argument I wrote a very long piece that I saved to think about whether to post or not. The post was so long that I would have put it  online in five parts. After thinking about this post for several days, I decided that posting it wouldn’t accomplish anything. The person that I most would have wanted to read it can’t read anything I write without interpreting it in some harshly negative way. I am saving the bulk of it for another time and another place. The short of it is this post.

That exchange with my daughter brought up old unpleasant memories of
my marriage to her father. This was the kind of argument that her
father and I would have. Nothing would be resolved. The situation that
gave rise to the argument would not change. Six months later we’d have
the same argument again. And so it went … on and on till I left and
then till he stopped talking to me a year later. Other than the
impossibility of being able to be a team as parents from that point on
and its impact on all of our lives due to that, the consequences of his
decision were good.

I know the difference now between that kind of arguing and a healthy
argument. In my second marriage we do have arguments but we resolve
things! I noticed this early on in my relationship with my current
husband. It is such a relief to have an argument that can be resolved,
where you feel satisfied that something has been figured out, where no
one leaves the argument feeling frustrated that efforts to communicate
have been in vain. No one has to feel as though they are bloodied and
crushed into the mud.

The recent dialogue between my daughter and myself brought back
memories of those frustrating unproductive repetitive arguments between
myself and her father. Nothing ever gets accomplished that way,
especially when one person’s agenda seems to be to get their foot
placed firmly onto the top of my head so that they can squash it into
the dirt. That is how it feels to me. That it seems important to her
that she control me and make me realize how worthless I am. I just
can’t participate in that kind of argument. I’ve had enough of arguing
with people where the arguments can’t go in a positive direction. What
is the point? There is no point. Nothing can be accomplished. It
reminds me of arguing with my ex in the sense that nothing can progress
to some more positive point.

Switching thoughts here to my mother. The relationship with my
mother had a lot of similarity to the relationship with my ex but she
is truly mentally ill and has the kind of illness which makes her
behave manipulatively and abusively, especially to those who are close
to her. You either have to put up with being abused or walk away.

While I have identified with being the daughter of an impossible
mother for much of my life, I have come to recognize that many adult
daughters have unreasonable expectations of their own pretty much
normal mother’s. They are quick to criticize, quick to take offense,
and convinced at every turn of their mother’s inability to be a decent
human being. The same kind of consideration that they would give to
their friends in not making judgments about their lives and minding
their own business, they are unable to do for their mothers. The leeway
that they give their friends they can’t give to their mothers. The
leeway that they expect and demand for THEMSELVES, they can’t give
their mother.

In essence, these daughters act as though they are the bad mothers
or bad husbands of their own mothers and as though they are ENTITLED to
behave that way. SOME daughters do this. Far too many daughters do
this. Failing to recognize the rights that their mothers have as women
and as human beings. These are daughters who fail to appreciate their
mother’s accomplishments, their possible wisdom, their triumphs, their
love, and their pain. For both the daughters and the mothers the result
is the tragic loss of what might have been —- a good relationship.

Snicks