It is not easy for all parents to accept that we are no longer helpless children who need to be controlled and protected. Psychologist Alla Zanimonets offers three rules that will help you separate from your parental family and start building your own life.
— What if the main critic who meets my every action with deep skepticism is my mother? a trainee asks me. “Look, I’m literally doing everything wrong. This is not how I raise my daughter, I don’t know how to communicate with men, I should be stricter. I wear clothes that are not age appropriate. It seems to mom that at 40 it’s too late to look younger. I recently took out a loan, opened my own business, I would like to support my mother, but she presses: she grumbles that I will burn out, the collectors will be relocated beyond the 101st kilometer …
Related question: we just said that it is important to surround yourself with loyal people. Approval and support inspire confidence — to start a new business, build a career, and improve your personal life. When you have to defend yourself and justify yourself, energy is wasted.
Don’t share life news, doubts with mother-critic
Try talking to your mother. To say firmly that we do not intend to listen to comments and ask you to refrain from them from now on. And don’t give advice unless you ask for it. Otherwise, you will have to communicate less. Even if you live together. And no longer share with the critical mother the news of life, doubts.
What to do, not everyone gets sensitive and delicate parents! And even sensitive parents are not always so. Sometimes they lose this valuable quality just when we need it most.
At the age of 15, I suffered from shyness, but I dreamed of entering the journalism department of Moscow State University and struggled with insecurity as best I could. I really wanted my mother to support me. But she said: “Where do you want to be as a journalist? They need liberated girls there, and you?! Squeezed, you can hardly speak. I did become a journalist, but it took years and the help of a psychologist for self-esteem to return to normal.
If you are over 25 years old, and your parents do not recognize personal boundaries, control your life and require you to follow their instructions, this is a problem. And separation solves it.
You can move away at any distance and get closer — only if you want
The first rule — live separately and not ask for help: sit with the child, throw some money, pay for a ticket.
Yes, you may have to invest in a rented apartment or a mortgage. But there is no other option. If you live with your parents and eat from their hands, they have every moral right to push you around and interfere in your personal life.
Second. Stop asking for advice and seeking approval. “I don’t know what to do… What should I tell him… How do I look today?”
The third. Clearly limit the territory that they should not enter. “We won’t discuss my husband anymore. How I raise my son is my business, please do not comment.
And I also suggest doing one mental exercise. It will help even if you yourself are a mother and you have dependent adults, over 14 years old, children. Close your eyes and imagine a thread (rope, rope) that connects your navel to the baby’s navel. Imagine taking a pair of scissors, a sharp knife, or a treasury sword and severing that umbilical cord in one fell swoop. And say: «Now we are apart!» Feel separate from the child. You are near, but no longer a single organism. You can move away at any distance and approach — only if you want. Each of you has your own life.