Unloved daughters of unloving mothers

In childhood, the girl first learns about who she is in the mirror, which for her is the face of her mother. She understands that she is loved, and this feeling – that she is worthy of love and attention, that she is seen and heard – gives her strength to grow and become an independent person.

The daughter of an unloving mother—emotionally withdrawn, or fickle, or overly critical and cruel—learns other lessons from life very early. She does not know what will happen in the next moment, what kind of mother will be with her tomorrow – good or bad, she is looking for her love, but she is afraid of what kind of reaction this time will follow, and does not know how to deserve it.

Ambivalent attachment to such a mother teaches the girl that relationships with people are generally unreliable and cannot be trusted, avoidant attachment sets in her soul a terrible conflict between her childhood need for love and protection and the emotional and physical abuse that she receives in return.

Most importantly, the daughter’s need for motherly love does not disappear even after she realizes that this is impossible. This need continues to live in her heart along with the terrible realization that the only person who should love her unconditionally, just for the fact that she is in the world, does not. Dealing with this feeling sometimes takes a lifetime.

Daughters who have grown up knowing they are not loved are left with emotional wounds that go a long way in determining their future relationships and how they build their lives. The saddest thing is that sometimes they do not know the reasons for their difficulties and believe that they themselves are to blame for all the problems.

1. Lack of self-confidence

Unloved daughters of unloving mothers do not know that they are worthy of attention, they do not remember the feeling that they are loved at all. The girl could grow up, getting used day by day only to the fact that she was not heard, ignored, or, even worse, she was closely watched and criticized for her every move.

Even if she has obvious talents and achievements, they do not give her confidence. Even if she has a soft and accommodating character, her mother’s voice continues to sound in her head, which she perceives as her own – she is a bad daughter, ungrateful, she does everything out of spite, “in whom it has grown, others have children like children” … Many already in adulthood, they say that they still have the feeling that they are “deceiving people” and their talents and character are fraught with some kind of flaw.

2. Lack of trust in people

“It always seemed strange to me why someone wants to be friends with me, I began to think if there was some benefit behind this.” Such feelings arise from the general feeling of the insecurity of the world that a girl experiences, whose mother alternately draws her closer to her, then repels her. She will continue to need constant confirmation that feelings and relationships can be trusted, that she will not be pushed away the next day. “Do you really love me? Why are you silent? You won’t leave me?”

But at the same time, unfortunately, the girls themselves reproduce in all their relationships only the type of affection that they had in childhood. And in adulthood, they crave emotional storms, ups and downs, breaks and sweet reconciliations. True love for them is an obsession, an all-consuming passion, witchcraft, jealousy and tears.

Calm trusting relationships seem to them either unrealistic (they simply cannot believe that this happens) or boring. A simple, non-demonic man will most likely not attract their attention.

3. Difficulties in defending one’s own boundaries

Many of those who grew up in an environment of cold indifference or constant criticism and unpredictability say that they constantly felt the need for motherly affection, but at the same time realized that they did not know a reliable way to get it. What elicited a benevolent smile today may be rejected with irritation tomorrow. And already becoming adults, they continue to look for a way to appease, please their partners or friends, to avoid repeating that maternal coldness at any cost.

They cannot feel the border between “cold and hot”, either approaching too close, looking for such interpenetrating relationships that the partner is forced to retreat under their pressure, or, on the contrary, being afraid to approach the person for fear that they will be repelled. In addition to having difficulty establishing healthy boundaries with the opposite sex, daughters of unloving mothers often have trouble making friends. “How do I know if she’s really my friend?” “She is my friend, it’s hard for me to refuse her, and in the end they start to just wipe their feet on me again.”

In romantic relationships, such girls show avoidant attachment: they avoid intimacy, although they are looking for close relationships, they are very vulnerable and dependent. “The light came together like a wedge” is their vocabulary. “They cast cowardly glances, hiding behind a book,” is also about them. Or, as an extreme manifestation of a defensive position, an instant “no” to any offer, invitation and request coming from a man. There is too much fear that the relationship will bring them the same pain that they experienced in childhood, when they were looking for motherly love and did not find it.

4. Low self-esteem, inability to recognize their own merits

As one of these unloved daughters told in therapy: “As a child, I was brought up, mainly struggling with shortcomings, they didn’t talk about virtues – so as not to frighten me. Now, wherever I work, they tell me that I don’t show enough initiative and don’t strive for promotion.”

Many say that it was a real surprise for them that they were able to achieve something in life. Many people delay until the last moment in terms of making new acquaintances, finding a better job, in order to avoid disappointment. Failure in this case will mean complete rejection for them, will remind them of the despair that they experienced in childhood when they were rejected by their mother.

Only in adulthood does the unloved daughter manage to believe that she had a normal appearance, and not “three hairs”, “not in our breed” and “who will take you like that.” “I accidentally stumbled upon an old photo of me when I already had my own children, and I saw a pretty girl in it, not thin and not fat. It was as if I looked at her with someone else’s eyes, I didn’t even immediately understand that it was me, my mother’s “boots”.

5. Avoidance as a defensive reaction and as a life strategy

Do you know what happens when it’s time to look for your love? Instead of “I want to be loved,” a girl who felt maternal dislike in her childhood feels fear somewhere in the depths of her soul: “I don’t want to be hurt again.” For her, the world consists of potentially dangerous men, among whom, in some unknown way, you need to find your own.

6. Excessive sensitivity, “thin skin”

Sometimes someone’s innocent joke or comparison makes them cry, because these words, so easy for others, fall like an unbearable weight into their soul, awaken a whole layer of memories. “When I overreact to someone’s words, I specifically remind myself that this is my feature. The man, perhaps, did not want to offend me. It is also difficult for such unloved daughters in childhood to cope with their emotions, because they did not have the experience of unconditional acceptance of their value, which allows them to stand firmly on their feet.

7. Seeking maternal relationships when interacting with men

We are attached to what is familiar to us, which is part of our childhood, whatever it may be. “Only years later I realized that my husband treated me the same way as my mother, and I chose him myself. Even the first words that he said to me in order to get acquainted were: “Did you yourself come up with this way to tie this scarf? Take it off.” Then I thought it was very funny and original.

Why are we talking about this now, when we have already grown up? Not in order to throw in despair those cards that fate dealt us. Everyone has their own. And in order to realize how we act and why. It is very hard to grow up without love, you have had this difficult test, but many people have experienced the same and have been able to overcome it.