Don't fight the pain of your first birthday without Mom
Adapted from a recent online discussion. Question: It's my birthday, my first since my mom died last year. I am lucky to have a lot of friends and family, so I've been getting birthday messages all morning, but every time I get one, I'm feeling a pang because I know I won't hear from my mom.
Adapted from a recent online discussion.
Question: It's my birthday, my first since my mom died last year. I am lucky to have a lot of friends and family, so I've been getting birthday messages all morning, but every time I get one, I'm feeling a pang because I know I won't hear from my mom.
I know you've lost a parent yourself. Do you have any tips for how to keep appreciating those things and people I do have today? I'm afraid I'm letting the pain outweigh all the good things, and I know she wouldn't want that.
Answer: Sometimes, the pain outweighs the good things. It's OK. You don't have to remain in balance every minute of every day. Sometimes, the balance will tip toward joy, and you will feel lighter than you thought you ever could again, having felt the weight of loss. Then the loss hits you in the jaw out of nowhere, and you can't believe you're on the floor again after you thought you'd pulled yourself back up for good. It's just how feelings go.
The time to fight the push-pull of it is when you get stuck on the floor or when you hit such extremes that you're having a difficult time keeping your life in reasonable order. If your birthday is just a sad-reminder day, then be sad. And grateful, too, for your lovely friends, even though they're stirring up sadness. Be grateful, too, for having had the kind of mother who makes her absence so hard to accept.
Question: I'm recently married, and we're living with his parents for a few months. My mother-in-law worries as a hobby. I'm getting used to this, but sometimes it takes the form of criticizing her son to me - i.e., she's worried we're going to end up homeless and/or starving and/or poor because he procrastinates on job applications, or if he works from home, he's going to dawdle and not get anything done, etc.
When he was first applying for jobs, she tried - with an air of girlish cahoots - to enlist me in haranguing him. I've refused and generally say something mild like, "Well, I think all people struggle with this." But it does bother me, and this kind of criticism is very demoralizing to my husband. What can I do or say that isn't just trying to tell her how to run her relationship with her son?
Answer: In lieu of mildness, there's always, "I've found that fretting to him backfires and demoralizes him more than it motivates." Or just: "I'm not worried." You can also turn it back as curiosity: "Do you think talking that way helps, or would trusting him do more in the long run?"
It's nicer than, "Step off, lady," and it's your view vs. presuming to speak for your husband.
If she responds along the lines of, "He's my son, I think I know what works," you smile and say you hope she's right.
Otherwise, I suggest not trying to fix this. It's their relationship to navigate, as your last line suggests, and it's also a conflict whose circumstances will pass. For all your sakes, I hope soon.
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