A Golden Moment of Understanding

Andrew was exposed to a part of my life that is beyond explaining, but that helped him understand why I am the way I am.  I would never wish that event on him, but I'm glad it happened because there is no way I could have explained it.  Now, he has gone through it himself.


Andrew and I went to dinner with my parents and a friend of my dad's.  My mom and the friend got pretty drunk, and they gave him such a hard time.  My mom kept shouting out things like "He's a great cook, but he needs to learn to clean up after himself.  He's so messy he's not allowed to cook!"  She thought it was great, but he and I didn't.  Then, sitting on the other side of him was my dad's friend who was whispering to him all night about how he wasn't good enough for me and how we would never make it.  I would have thought it was a little sweet of the friend if: a) I didn't love my boyfriend and b) I actually knew the friend.  I've only met him like three times and most of those times have been while I'm drunk at the tailgates during football season.  Poor Andrew.  Fortunately, it opened his eyes to my mother.

See, my mother and I have always been close.  On top of that, I am a perfectionist, and always trying to be liked and accepted by those I care about.  Andrew saw my mother in action.  He told me later that he felt betrayed by her because he thought she liked him, but as soon as my dad's friend started giving him a hard time, she chimed in and started throwing jabs at him as well.  He said he didn't know she would be so hard to please.  This is exactly what I tried to explain to therapists for years! It's like, you want to be "good" in her eyes, so you do all these things she talks about.  Then, she gets talking to someone else, and you hear her say how all the things you heard were good are actually bad.  So you have to change.  It's hard to explain.  Let me try an example: when I first went to college, my mom told me all I needed to do was go to class and I would be able to keep my grades up, or at least pass.  I went to all my classes so that I would pass because god knows the utter disappointment she would have if I failed out.  Then, we were hanging out with my brother (who failed out of college but went back and finished later), and they started joking about how fun college was when they never went to class.  I felt like a nerd, so I tried to chime in with "oh yeah I skipped this one class for like a whole week."  My mom busted out laughing and said "oh come on, we're not talking about skipping because you're sick - we're talking about skipping because you stayed up drinking until 5 in the morning and you're still too drunk to go to class! You haven't done that! Hahaha!" I still remember that like it was yesterday because I never felt so rejected by my own mother.  Here I was trying to be "good" in her eyes, and she turns on me and tells me I'm too good, not cool enough.  Whenever I tried to explain this in family meetings in therapy, I could never really explain it.  I would say "you told me this, and you told me that, and I didn't know which way you wanted it", and she would say "I never said that.  I never said that.  I don't remember that.  That's not what I meant."  It was impossible to figure out what she wanted. 

Lately, I've realized you should just tell her you agree with her in the moment, and let it go.  For example, she wanted me to take it easy this last semester and relax since this will be the last time I have no real responsibilities, so I agreed that I would do that.  Then, a week or so later, she started telling me how important it is that I start looking for a job and start working before I graduate so I'm not stuck with no money and no job when I graduate.  So I agreed I would do that.  In reality, I've been talking to my brother about finding a job, and have been slowly looking around for opportunities that I could start during the semester or in May.  I just can't listen to her anymore, or I would always be changing my plans.  On top of that, when she does turn on me, I can't take it personally, because tomorrow she might turn back on me.