Is it truly an obligation to love one’s mother? How does not receiving love in childhood affect us, and what can we do about the guilt of not feeling affection for her? In this article, we explore the mother’s wound.
The conflict of existing
From a very young age, I had a strange awareness of my surroundings. I felt like an adult child in a world of adults who acted like children. Nothing made sense.
Before I was 12, I had my first existential crisis. I wanted to die, and one day I tried to suffocate myself with a pillow, but when I started running out of air, I got scared and abandoned the plan. I continued to exist, but in conflict.
The trigger: Not feeling loved by those who were supposed to be my source of love, and instead feeling mistreated. I asked myself, “Why was I brought into this world if I wasn’t going to be loved? Who in their right mind would want to be born to suffer?” I wished I had never been born.
The guilt of no loving my mother
For much of my life, I carried the guilt of not feeling love for my mother. I heard the saying, “You love your parents above all else,” and I felt like a bad person.
Life went on, but the discomfort persisted. So I decided to try to resolve the conflict by any means possible: therapy, unsent letters, meditation, family constellations, psychology books, etc.
As I delved into my mother’s personal history, something began to click at an intellectual level. I understood that she was simply another victim of a lineage of toxic relationships and inherited abuse. I understood that she couldn’t give me what she never received, and that’s why I couldn’t condemn her.
My conscious mind processes and understands this. I try to let go of the past and move forward with my life.
The screams of the subconscious
Despite having intellectually processed that my mother did the best she could with the resources she had, my subconscious screamed at me that the conflict was still there. I had nightmares where I was in the middle of a confrontation with my mother; she was yelling at me and saying very harsh things. As I listened, I felt a deep hatred for her, the same hatred she felt for me. I would wake up with my nerves on edge.
The nightmares made me write again, analyze, talk to her, try to find closure for something that just wouldn’t close.
The conflict of the present: calls that hurt
I realized that my conflict was being reignited by certain interactions with my mother. For example, when she suddenly started ending our calls by telling me how much she loved me. Something that, in theory, should have been positive.
But it generated rejection in me. I didn’t feel it was real. The facts, the story, proved otherwise. And then a new conflict would arise:
- I couldn’t say “me too” because I didn’t feel it.
- Not saying it made me feel guilty.
- Saying it would be lying.
I started dreading our calls. I knew how they were going to end. Until one day I set a boundary:
I asked her to stop.
two opposing worlds
Adding to the above was another reality: my mother and I operate under very different thought systems, and therefore our current interactions generate clashes that end up reactivating old wounds. Then a new question arose: how do I free myself from the past if the present remains the same?
The solution: turn off “Repair Mode”
My resolution is not a movie ending, it’s a survival decision:
- End of repair mode: I’ve done my part. It’s not my job to fix a relationship that was broken from the start.
- Managed contact: Limiting interaction to the bare minimum to avoid burnout. If a genuine connection develops in the future, there will be room; in the meantime, silence is my refuge.
- Radical acceptance: She is who she is, and I am who I am. Distance isn’t punishment, it’s preventative maintenance.
For a long time, I believed I was the problem. Today I understand something different: I wasn’t guilty; I just carried burdens that weren’t mine to bear. And although that doesn’t erase the wound, this understanding finally allows me to breathe a little more freely.
Final thoughts
The saying that “children should love their parents above all else” is a trap. Here’s why:
- Life is not a loan: a child doesn’t choose to be born; it’s a decision made by the parents. You can’t collect a debt from someone who didn’t sign a contract.
- Emotional bonds are born from care, not from kinship. Love isn’t obligatory; it’s reciprocal. Forcing love out of a sense of duty generates guilt and anxiety. Authentic love is earned with respect and presence, not demanded through hierarchy.
So I ask you, who have come this far: have you been forcing a love that wasn’t meant for you? And if you stopped doing that, what would happen?
If you found this analysis of the maternal bond interesting, you might want to read my reflection on [The Father’s Wound: The Limit as a Shield].
Or to delve deeper into healing what was never said, you can read the closing of this series: [Cleaning Under the Rug: A Generational Virus].
