parents and their response to your lifestyle choices....

lovemultiplied

New member
We recently were confronted by my Mom. She asked if I had a boyfriend (answer:yes) and if my husband had a girlfriend (answer: yes). Now, I know she's ultra conservitive and has very different ideas of "right" and "wrong" than we (hubby and I and our OSOs).... but she decided to ask us anyway.

I decided to answer honestly...and it blew up in my face. She thinks we're ruining our lives, our childrens' lives... That we are immoral.

Then she seemingly got over it (after a couple weeks of tense silence) and I thought we were okay.

Flash forward a few weeks later, to today. The all out text war began.... Here are some highlights:

These are parts of a text convo with my Mom today...

"you are arrogant and foolish to dismiss the values of just about everyone else in society and horrible to sacrifice the well being of your children. I want to collapse every time i think of you and how you've thrown your life away."

"you are stupid if you think having your man sleep with others is going to result in a long term relationship of any kind"

"if you loved me or respected me, you wouldn't be doing what you are doing. You are destroying me. I am so sad that you have abandoned all morals, ethics."

We've explained and demonstrated how it is beneficial to our kids, our marriage, etc.... but she just WON'T LISTEN!!

Suggestions? Stories? Advice?!?!? HELPP!!!!:mad:
 
It's very difficult to persuade people if your anger is larger than your reason (also if it's larger than your hope, or your belief that you're right). It may not be possible to persuade your mom. Are you going to love her anyway? Can you love her when she holds those beliefs and feels so strongly?

I got a blackened eye from a lover once. We were young and hormones raged, and it was not my first battering relationship. We were actually fighting about a third. It was the eye that stopped the fight. She was pretty horrified at what she had done. I got in the car and went to the other's house so she could accompany me to the ER. She told me my lover was on her way and we could all go together. I was angry, but that's what we did. (sorry I digress, my mother was the point) A week ish or so after, it was Mother's Day. I told her over the phone that I had a seriously black eye. That I'd been to the ER. That she didn't want to see me. She whined and cajoled and I went. She actually collapsed, had to take a valium and go to bed. (she's nine years dead, and the incident is almost 20 years past, and I'm still irritated) She said the most horrible things to me about me because of that. She said if I wasn't her daughter, she wouldn't associate with me. [no responsibility for raising me to accept such shitty behaviour from a lover...oh, lessee, just like she did.] I was all fine, you don't need to see me anymore. She eventually got over herself, but as you can see, I didn't let go so easily.
anyway, my point in all that is that mothers are tender, and full of ideals for their young (no matter your age). Sometimes they say stuff in the heat of their emotions that they might wish they hadn't.
Sometimes, they really are that principled and stop associating with 'people like *that*', whatever *that* may be.

You may have to choose between who you are and having a mom. You already have to choose between who you are and the mom you always believed you had (or the one you wanted to have).

It also may put your family in danger that she feels so strongly. You may need to love her from the distance of disowning her.

(okay, suggestions, stories, and advice)
 
That's a tough one. I went through similar stuff with my parents. I told them they were not to talk to my son about their concerns or they would not see him again. I also told them that if they wanted to talk about their concerns then they could but only after they did some reading and research. I gave them books and website addresses. I told them I would not listen to negative talk about my life as they would not want to hear me talk negatively about them and what they do. If they were going to talk to me in such a way I would not respond.

It took a good six months of no talking at all, then a bit of talking where we all remained firm in our convictions and boundaries and then everything slowly got better and eased up in intensity and negativity. Now they see that we are all happy, all healthy and they honestly could not see us without each other.

It takes time and a lot of reprogramming how they see relationships. They are victims of how our culture sees relationships. Its not their fault, but they do have control about how they talk to you and you have control over how you choose to be spoken to. If you think about it, if you can get through this you can get through anyone dissing your lifestyle. Its good practice and will make you stronger. If you choose that.

It will also make your relationship stronger with your parents if you choose that and offer that. They could decide not to take you up on that, but maybe one day they will. I would think that deciding to always be open to talk will make you feel that you are doing all you can do to create change. That's how I felt during that time anyway.

Try doing a tag search for "coming out" as there are a lot of threads that might be helpful. This is a well talked about topic of discussion on this forum.
 
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