I responded to a thread in the forum, regarding men and their relationships to their mothers:
“I wouldn’t go near a man who dogged his mother. Even if she is a first rate nut job, he still better show some deference and respect otherwise – out the door!
That said, a man enmeshed with his mother is out the door even faster.
Best is a man who accepts him mom with her faults, which he can see. I was told many years ago, they’ll treat you exactly as they do their mother and I’ve found this to be very true.”
Generally speaking, it is around the time of the Saturn return (29-ish); a person starts to have a realistic view of their parent. This is rarely an easy process.
Some become disillusioned with their parent. Others who have rebelled begin to see their parent isn’t quite as stupid as they thought.
Some see their parents aging for the first time. This forces the realization that the parent is human and fallible. Others look in the mirror and see their parent’s face looking back.
Still others realize the enormous impact their parents have had on them. In the cases where there’s been a divorce, a person who has always sided with one parent may begin to see there are two sides to the story.
If you’ve lost a parent due death or divorce, this really hits home at this time. The lack! And as grueling as this process might be, it’s imperative a person go through it to complete the maturation process.
Do you have a realistic view of your parents?
Yes… I do and it keeps getting refined and more divine. I am blessed with some amazing people as parents.
Interesting post, Elsa 🙂 I do think I have a realistic view of my parents, but I’m sure more will be teased out at my Saturn return.
Yeah, Caroline, it is a process.. 🙂
One of the biggest heartbreaks I ever had was learning my parents were not super human. But, the realization of that helped me more easily forgive myself when I was not the perfect parent.
As a Libra with two Aries parents, we rarely see eye-to-eye. But, we all three have learned to respect and love eachother even if we KNOW the other is DEAD WRONG! lol
And I completely what you said in your opening statement..completely
I think so. Whether my parents have a realistic view of me is a different story…
hahaha! @SaDiablo l like that one, l feel the same at the moment.
But l was very happy with my parents indeed.
it’s true with age you start to see your parents in a different light! My mother always felt like my child to me somehow. My father died to early and my new father is great if it wasn’t for me he wouldn’t have met my mother 🙂
don’t know if my mother is making him happy though she is totally obsessed with me and neeeeds to let go and live her own life, but damn she doesn’t have a life of her own. l really tryed to let her know this for so long and then some 6 years ago l gave up and thought ok it’s her life.
l do think parents can totaly ruin their childrens lives without realizing it. l’ve seen it so many times around me. They think they help but they don’t and get it in fact they are burdening the children with their ways and expectations of them it’s so sad, it’s happening to my friends and people around me, to my ex, to me and man it makes me so angry, it just hurts!
Complicated stuff parents! love mine anyhow, and l think my mother should be f… proud of me!
love this! took many moons, but i’ve finally come around and considering i am still very young, i think i did alright! i agree that this is super important …..and underestimated a lot
Yes. First of all, they are old. Second of all, they are who they are, not who I think they should be.
Yep, “H” – I get that too.
(Hugs to you!)
The past few years with my parents and aunt I came to realize that they are old now. I made out a list of instructions for my dogs and horse in case anything happens to me, and none of my family is to be involved. They just can’t do it.
My mother was shocked – insisting she and my Dad can help, but she’s just not being realistic at all.
I also got – now more than anything – that I’M the adult here. Passing of the baton, so to speak. While I will listen to their opinions, I don’t make decisions based on them anymore. I can see that the Emperor doesn’t have any clothes on, and now I’m talking about it. 😉
I’m glad they are all “upright” but I know that when they aren’t anymore, I’m quite prepared to deal with it, and I’m able to take care of things.
It’s been quite a shift.
I have seen a lot of people run into this and so many stories of ways they dealt… or could not deal with the happenings. For example, my first husband’s mother wanted to talk to him about her death and will (they were both Scorpio) and he refused. RE-FUSED.
In the case of my current husband’s son, I am very candid about everything with him and he receives the info and uses it, I presume.
I had a pretty hideous Saturn return myself thought I leave that part out when I talk about it. 🙂
Having Neptune mashed with Saturn, there was quite a bit of denial in regards to my parents and not much fun when the veil dropped. I still find reality (Saturn) hard to believe (Neptune) and of course, so do others. 😉
I think becoming a parent myself helped in a huge way, in addition to my Saturn return.
Yeah, CArRiE, that is another common manifestation. Once you change someone’s diaper you realize someone changed yours. 🙂
A couple of years ago, I found out my parents STILL didn’t have a will! (In their seventies!) They owned a commercial building that was for sale, TWO houses, and half of my aunt’s property. My dad had had two strokes already for God’s sake.
(Not severe ones, thank God, but GEEZ!!!)
When they planned their annual Christmas travel holiday, I sat them down and told them if they tried to get on the plane before they made out a will, I was going to drive to Detroit, go to a pay phone, and call in a threat to their plane.
That was what it took.
I don’t think I could ever forgive my mother for her ‘transgressions’ or selfishness. But there’s no way in hell I’m gonna cuss at her or physically harm her.
I figured out the hard way that she’s never gonna change and that I just don’t get along with her. So I just left her and only visit her three times a year.
I love her, but I can’t stand her. I wish I had a better relationship with my mother, but I don’t.
(((Conoco)))
Right there with ya. Good for you for taking care of yourself.
I was 30 earlier this year when I finally saw my parents for the humans they are. I experienced abuse at the hands of my father and my mother failed to protect me. This made me very angry.
When I was 30, I suddenly had the courage to confront my parents. And I realised they were both consumed by guilt. Dad was young and mentally ill. Mum was young, in love and felt powerless against her husband.
I was a parent when I had these conversations with my parents. I could see where they were coming from. Instead of being malicious monsters, my parents suddenly became hurt, guilt-ridden and scared humans who brought children into the world with full intention to love and nurture them, only to repeat the mistakes their own parents made.
The memories and scars from the abuse and neglect will never go away. But somehow, knowing my parents never wanted to hurt me and recognising their humanity means I can make peace with it (and them).
This hits really really close to home. Tomorrow I’m traveling to see my dad for the last time. He is dying of a rare disease and we just hope he makes it through Christmas. My parents split in the ’70s when it wasn’t common yet to divorce. There was nothing to prepare them for the trauma. My dad was so devastated he took up with the first woman who came along who turned out to suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder. She was emotionally abusive and my sister and I have stayed away as much as possible. We resented our dad a lot for not being there for us and not protecting us.
Flash forward – I got divorced. Now there is lots of experience – research on how to make a divorce more tolerable for one’s children, how to rebuild one’s life, support systems. And even with all that, gosh, its been so hard. So I got a real world understanding of why my dad made the choices he made.
I have always been close with both parents. Both mY parents are strong people. Big shoes to fill. In my teen years relations with my mom was strained actually teen years until now. I am making a big effort to understand my mom and to show her love but its not easy. She is a double aries with mars and saturn in virgo. Plus she has pluto square mercury. This makes her speech harsh. Even though I know she does not mean any harm its still hard to take.
Pluto will trine her taurus mercury so hopefully some of the issues will smooth out in time.
Saturn is working both of them over right now. Mom Has this cold cough thing that is lingering and dad has calf pain that is lingering. Saturn is applying to square both suns. Cappy and aries. I am nervous….I have moon and jupiter trine saturn. So like I said both have been very influential. Pluto in transiting opposite saturn. I intend to put in a lot of work in this department because the two of them are the greatest gift I have received from the universe and I keep feeling like after this pluto transit things wont be the same. T saturn is square natal saturn right now too.
I really really love my parents and have always loved them, However i always felt they never understood me and could never gather the courage to reason with them.
When last year i had my saturn retun it all changed for good, had horrendous bouts of verbal exchange and then there was silence and years of congestion was over. i accepted them for who they are and they never meant harm in making decisions for me, i became an adult and realised only way to a healthy relationship is communication, perseverance and endless tolerance (though i need to work a lot on the tolerance part). the realisation that i can develop a healthy realtionship with my parents doing x y z things makes me happy. i work 300 miles from where they are and make sure to meet them once a month, it makes them happy and me to.
I thank Saturn for making me wiser than i thought i was.
becoming a parent made me far more tolerant of my parents’ foibles…
yes l agree with the thing on become a parent 🙂
l’m sure it helps but still l’m sure l wouldn’t change my mind about some things ralted to parenthood.
(((conoco)))
Kim, this really hits home
“I made out a list of instructions for my dogs and horse in case anything happens to me, and none of my family is to be involved. They just can’t do it.”
I KNOW my parents can’t do it. Emotionally, physically, psychically. They are super clear about this, too. Making a will was top of the list for 2010–hasn’t happened yet. But it will very very soon.
My Saturn Return wasn’t enormously difficult. I have no idea why. Maybe it was the other transits happening at the same time. I know that I felt more mature, but I also felt freer after the fact.
I remember reading DH Lawrence’s The Rainbow when I was about 13 and sobbing for hours after reading of Anna’s realisation that her stepfather Tom has feet of clay, since I’d recently come to feel a distance between myself and my father due to his inability to stand up to my mother’s treatment of me. It was a terrible moment in my life when I stopped worshipping my father and realised what a weak man he was.
My relationship with my mother was always very fraught, from earliest babyhood (I could keep no food down – I suffered from projectile vomiting, hard enough anyway but in postwar England with severe food rationing…!). I can’t find it in my heart to forgive her any of the subsequent 56 years.
Since I was adopted it’s very hard to know what the relationship would have been like if I’d been their biological child; not so different with my father but quite different with my mother I’m sure.
As for my real mother, I am sure she did her best for me in the circumstances – she was not to know my adoptive mother was so unbalanced. I also forgave her for not feeling able to respond when I contacted her in my mid-forties – it was clear she’d told nobody of my existence. I did however as the years passed grow to resent the fact she couldn’t even communicate my letter via a third party since there was no other means of finding out who my real father was. It’s a lack I feel very keenly and always shall.
I have Mars conjunct Saturn both Rx in Cancer, opposed my conjoint Sun and Venus, and both forming T-quares to my Jupiter conj Chiron. I was very traumatised psychologically by my childhood (which left me with a handicap) and as a result never contemplated having children myself.
Blessed Place,have you considered looking into your genetic blueprint? You may be able to connect with family that way, if interested.
Well I found my topic. I am uncomfortable with what I’ve learned about myself with my parents and I’ve come to dissociate from myself occasionally. I long for OK.
I don’t like that I’m so cranky about my mother, but seriously, as her kid I am the only one who ever sees her bossy, exacting, doesn’t believe a damn word I say about anything because I’m the kid (literally, she said this over vacation that of course I’m not believed, I’m the kid) side. Everyone else gets the good, cheerful, kind, nice side, but I get lectured for an hour because my hair insisted on frizzing that day.
I think it becomes very apparent, when you start having kids yourself. Suddenly you look like your own mom or dad in front of your kids and you have a rather large “Heureka” moment.
I never had the urge to have kids or become someone’s mother. A cat mother, yes. A dog’s mother – absolutely. But real children – no.
I was very traumatized as a kid myself, deciding only to have kids when I had sorted out the emotional baggage I brought with me – but it has taken forever, and in the process I came to realize… It will never dissappear. My abusive treatment, my parents who didn’t see my needs or cared – especially the emotional ones – made me who I am today. And that woman does not fancy to bear children, I’m afraid. I am scared to death by the very thought.
The universe’s joke?
I have the NN in Cancer, 5th house.
I think the real moment for me was when I stopped demonizing my father and actually SAW how much my mother had also let me down as a child. Then I started to rant to her. She did not want to listen, so today we have not spoken in 6 months or more.
I don’t think she even wants my presence in her life anymore actually.
Yeah, that’s a tough cookie to swallow.
There is a certain karma for mothers who abandon their child emotionally.
“There is a certain karma for mothers who abandon their child emotionally.”
AGREE! And I saw it happen at the end of her life; she faced it though, she knew she deserved it.
At age 11 I decided my “father” wasn’t worth my time. If it weren’t for his 3rd wife I would have never seen him the scarce few times I did. You don’t miss what you don’t know. As for my “mother”, I came to believe early in my life, around 10, that she didn’t like me. You can sense that, and see it, and feel it. It was difficult living with a person who is supposed to protect and love you that palpably did not like you. I tried to commit suicide at that age – I was so deeply sad. Had my brothers girlfriend not walked in and intervened it may have happened.
When I became a mother to my Son (age 31), I felt such deep unexplainable love for him and the depth of protection – there were no words to describe. It was then I absolutely knew my “mother” never wanted me. And so I vowed that my Son would know that he came from a place of love, that he will be forever loved, and my eyes will always light up when he comes in the room, not matter what… and they do.
Both of my “parents” are passed now, I’ve come to accept what was. I am not who they were and I never will be. Sometimes I still yell out loud at them in moments of a painful memory resurfacing, but my life has been much richer than theirs combined. And it always will be.
BTW – my husband is not particularly close to his Mother, however, he treats her with respect, dignity, and love. And me too.
I have a sister in her 70’s who still attacks my mother and she was 18
When she was born and went thru childbirth 11 times
I let each to their own memories
But to me she was as strong
And giving as the sun clouds and moon she is part of my song
And walks with me every day
I hope my children will see me as part of the rays of sun that find their smiles as well as the streaks of their tears,I do believe we all do the best we can in regards to our children but our truths should I think be visible for our children even when it makes us all vulnerable to opinion of those
Related
Some mothers really are nutters, but the child does not really see this – despite how odd the behaviour is – what does this do the child and then the adult?
The last time I seen my mother she hid behind a truck to avoid me. This must have been in the last two years or less of her allocated time.
But it did not matter I had already grieved her loss when I was in my teens.
Funny though is that we met by accident a few months before, she invited me to her place, she was living in a bedsit, the wall had been stripped of wallpaper and the carpet remover to expose the wood underneath. I thought at the time that she had done this, but she could have moved into a place like this I suppose. She had nothing, only her clothes, the furniture that came with the room, and some note pads that she wrote on, it was such a small room no room to swing a cat.
I remember when we lived together when I was a child, she came back from shopping and was almost exultant as she had slapped some bloke in the face on the high street “because he looked at her funny”; that time she took me back to her place, we left and she said she wanted to buy some fags, I pointed out the nearest newsagent, she said no “he looks at me funny”.
But you are right I saw her with new eyes, she was not the highly intelligent always correct person I thought – she was a nutter.
I have physical marks on my body, and chipped teeth, from how many times she hit me as a child. She was constantly critical of everything I did and who I was as a child.
So dont tell me elsa that a nutty mother should not be treated a nutty mother – they deserve it.
Yes. Shes a good person in the depths of an addiction. The addiction makes her mean and distant. She doesn’t really know how to love, because she was never taught. Shes doing the best she can to hang on. I love her, but I dont get too close. Thats how she wants it.
If she only knew how much of my life I had spent trying to earn her love. Im done with that now. I let her go.
I get not making yourself look bad by shouting profanity about your parents. But I have told some friends, that I trust, in a not ‘in-your-face’ way that my parents were very entitled and arrogant people. I’m sorry, but I don’t want anything to do with poison anymore!
As I grow older I become more accepting of my parent’s failings. I think they both did the best they knew how to, and they were only 19 when I was born. Both were raised by single mothers and endured their own hardship. My relationship with my mother has improved over time and we are now very close. The day my father left my mother, he left me too. We are estranged (not my choice). Even though I logically know this is about him (not me), my heart feels the pain most days. It registers psychologically as a rejection and it requires work to counteract a feeling of unworthiness.