Childless not by choice

How do you deal with people who "understand?"

I had an interesting weekend with my mom. And by interesting, I mean rough. My mom has tried to "help" with articles and advice multiple times throughout this whole thing (both TTC and then with TTTC), and it never goes well. Apparently, she hasn't learned that she is over-stepping boundaries with her "help" even though I've told her so.

She sent me an email yesterday with a link to some self-help video about choosing to be happy and choosing to not be sad. She talked about how we choose to be miserable and let things dwell. The implication, of course, is that I'm choosing to feel the way I do, or choosing to grieve over "nothing."  I emailed back with a link to Resolve IF etiquette for families and told her I appreciated that she wanted to help but I found the implication offensive. She got all upset about having to walk on eggshells and how she "understands" what I'm going through, but I block her out. I called her to talk rather than email and tried to explain that she may empathize and have compassion, but she will never understand. My mere existence is proof of that. And then she said something that really pissed me off: she asked if "the people in those internet groups you're in" teach me stuff like that. Um, what? Yeah, I've been brain washed by a bunch of other IF/CFNBC ladies that people don't understand. That's it.

I'm not totally heartless. I understand that me not having kids means her not having my grandchildren and that's upsetting and she's working through that in her own way. But I just don't have the capacity right now to take care of her, too. I can't find it in me to console her when I'm trying to sort myself out - I'm doing all I can to find a positive outlook and outlets for myself. I'm working at my grief therapy to deal with everything. Her saying messed up crap like I'm sad on purpose really doesn't help, and it's honestly going to just put even more distance between us.

Maybe this is just a vent, so thanks for listening. I just still haven't found a way to make anyone get it - not that anyone actually will, but at least explain it in a way to make people stop saying dumb things.

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Re: How do you deal with people who "understand?"

  • OMG...Do we have the same mom?  I "learn things" from internet chat people too!

     

  • I do understand - we've been trying for nearly 8 years and finally through IVF acheived a pregnancy however, it's still really early so the fact that we are so happy is still overshadowed by numberous failed attempts before. I have a mother that has the best of intentions but also doesnt know about healthy boundaries. We had many of the same arguments as you described above for many years. I finally resolved that she knew something that I didnt know and that was the hurt a mother feels when her child is suffering and there's nothing she can do. In turn I realized and tried to explaine to her that she needed to understand that my pain was something she was never going to be able to understand in turn simply because she has known the joy and pain of motherhood herself. This conversation happened many times in many different ways until finally she and I both kind of found some common ground and that was that neither of us wanted to be going through this alone and that it was ok to not understand each other's point of view and therefor it was ok to hurt in our own ways, understanding that it was neither of our faults that we found ourselves in the situation we currently were in. I hope this helps, maybe not, but still it helped me so I thought I would share.
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  • I don't have any good advice, but I am sorry that your mom is not there for you in the way you need her to be right now.

    You can tell her that one of your "internet friends" agrees with her that we have to figure out how to be happy with our situation. After all, none of us want to spend the rest of our lives miserable. However, it is very important to grieve first. You need to deal with your sadness now before you can move on to the next step.

    It does sound like your mom is trying to be there for you, but is going about it all wrong. Like the other poster, my thought was that it is probably very hard for your mom to watch you going through all this pain. I know that my mom told me that the hardest part of all of this for her was to see me so sad and upset all the time. My guess is your mom thinks she is helping by trying to get you to focus on feeling better. I don't know if that helps at all, but maybe if you try to see things from her point of view than she won't annoy you as much.

    ((Hugs))

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  • imagehollymichael:

    I don't have any good advice, but I am sorry that your mom is not there for you in the way you need her to be right now.

    You can tell her that one of your "internet friends" agrees with her that we have to figure out how to be happy with our situation. After all, none of us want to spend the rest of our lives miserable. However, it is very important to grieve first. You need to deal with your sadness now before you can move on to the next step.

    It does sound like your mom is trying to be there for you, but is going about it all wrong. Like the other poster, my thought was that it is probably very hard for your mom to watch you going through all this pain. I know that my mom told me that the hardest part of all of this for her was to see me so sad and upset all the time. My guess is your mom thinks she is helping by trying to get you to focus on feeling better. I don't know if that helps at all, but maybe if you try to see things from her point of view than she won't annoy you as much.

    ((Hugs))

    Holly stated it well. I can't even talk to my mom about this.

    ME:46 MH:44 DE IVF 2014
    Met with RE 4/11. 2 IUI's BFN. DE best option. Switched clinics to do "shared" program. Had to retake all tests and a mamm that put me behind and then on a DE waiting list for 12 months. Picked a donor!! (10/13/13) Got matched. Estimated transfer in December. After 2.5 years of patiently waiting I will finally cycle....can hardly believe it. DE cycle got cancelled. One of her tests came back positive.  Waiting for another donor. Donor picked!! (1/18/14)

    DE IVF #1 (4/26) BFN  DE FET #1 (6/4) BFP! Beta 1=339 Beta 2=852 Beta 3=9957 EDD 2/22/15!!


     

     

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