Finding an acceptable distance in a relationship is a difficult task for both mother and daughter. In a time that encourages fusion and makes finding an identity difficult, it becomes even more difficult.
In fairy tales, girls, whether they are Snow White or Cinderella, now and then encounter the dark side of their mother, embodied in the image of an evil stepmother or a cruel queen.
Fortunately, the reality is not so terrible: in general, the relationship between mother and daughter is getting better than before — closer and warmer. This is facilitated by modern culture, erasing the difference between generations.
“We are all scammers today,” remarks Anna Varga, a family therapist, “and sensitive fashion responds to this by offering everyone the same T-shirts and sneakers.”
Advertising capitalizes on this growing similarity, proclaiming, for example, «Mother and daughter have so much in common,» and portraying them as almost twins. But rapprochement generates not only joy.
This leads to a merger that compromises the identity of both parties.
Psychoanalyst Maria Timofeeva sees in her practice the difficulties arising from the fact that there are more and more families with one parent, the role of the father is diminished, and the cult of youth reigns in society. This leads to a merger that compromises the identity of both parties.
“Equalization,” concludes the psychoanalyst, “forces women to pose two fundamentally important questions. For a mother: how to maintain intimacy while remaining in your parental place? For a daughter: how to separate in order to find yourself?
Dangerous convergence
The relationship with the mother is the foundation of our mental life. The mother not only influences the child, she is the environment for him, and the relationship with her is the relationship with the world.
“The creation of the mental structures of the child depends on these relationships,” continues Maria Timofeeva. This is true for children of both sexes. But it’s harder for a daughter to separate herself from her mother.”
And because they are «both girls», and because the mother often perceives her as her continuation, it is difficult for her to see the daughter as a separate person.
But maybe if mother and daughter are not so close from the very beginning, then there will be no problem? Quite the opposite. “The lack of closeness with the mother in early childhood often leads to attempts to compensate in the future,” explains Maria Timofeeva, “when a growing daughter tries to please her mother, to be as close to her as possible. As if what is happening now could be taken into the past and changed.”
This movement towards is not love, but the desire to receive it from the mother
But even behind the mother’s desire to get close to her daughter, to coincide with her in tastes and views, sometimes there is not only love.
The youth and femininity of a daughter can cause unconscious jealousy in the mother. This feeling is painful, and the mother also unconsciously tries to get rid of it, identifying herself with her daughter: «My daughter is me, my daughter is beautiful — and therefore I am.»
The influence of society also affects the initially difficult family plot. “In our society, the hierarchy of generations is often broken or not built at all,” says Anna Varga. “The reason is the anxiety that arises when a society stops developing.
Each of us is more anxious than a member of a prosperous society. Anxiety prevents you from making a choice (everything seems equally important to an anxious person) and building any boundaries: between generations, between people.
Mother and daughter «merge», sometimes finding in this relationship a refuge that helps to withstand the threats of the outside world. This tendency is especially strong in such intergenerational couples, where there is no third — husband and father. But since that’s the way it is, why shouldn’t mother and daughter enjoy their closeness?
Control and competition
“Relationships in the style of “two girlfriends” are self-deception,” Maria Timofeeva is convinced. “This is a denial of the reality that there is a difference in age and strength of repulsion between two women. This path leads to explosive fusion and control.»
Each of us wants to control ourselves. And if “my daughter is me,” then she must feel the same way as I do and want the same thing that I do. “The mother, striving for sincerity, imagines that her daughter wants the same thing,” explains Anna Varga. “A sign of fusion is when the feelings of the mother are inseparably linked with the feelings of the daughter.”
The desire to control a daughter increases when the mother perceives the possibility of her separation as a threat to herself.
A conflict arises: the more actively the daughter tries to leave, the more persistently the mother holds her back: by force and orders, weakness and reproaches. If the daughter has a sense of guilt and lacks internal resources, she gives up and gives in.
But it is difficult for a woman who has not separated from her mother to build her own life. Even if she marries, she most often divorces quickly to return to her mother, sometimes with her child.
And often the mother and daughter begin to compete for who of them will be the “best mother” for the child — the daughter who has become a mother, or the grandmother who wants to return to the “legitimate” maternal place. If the grandmother won, then the daughter gets the role of the breadwinner or the elder sister of her own child, and sometimes she does not have a place at all in this family.
The test to be passed
Fortunately, relationships aren’t always so dramatic. The presence of a father or another man nearby reduces the risk of merging. Despite the inevitable friction and periods of greater or lesser intimacy, many mother-daughter couples maintain relationships in which tenderness and goodwill prevail over irritation.
But even the most friendly will have to go through separation, to separate from each other. The process may be painful, but only it will allow everyone to live their lives. If there are several daughters in the family, often one of them allows the mother to “enslave” her more.
Sisters may think that this is the place of their beloved daughter, but it alienates this daughter from herself and prevents her from fulfilling herself. The question is how to find the right distance.
“In order to take her place in life, a young woman has to solve two tasks at the same time: to identify with her mother in terms of her role, and at the same time “disidentify” with her in terms of her personality,” notes Maria Timofeev.
Solving them is especially difficult if the mother resists
“Sometimes a daughter seeks quarrels with her mother,” notes Anna Varga, “in order to put an end to too much attention to her life.” Sometimes the solution is physical separation, moving to another apartment, city or even country.
In any case, whether they are together or apart, they will have to rebuild the boundaries. “It all starts with respect for property,” insists Anna Varga. — Everyone has their own things, and no one takes someone else’s without asking. It is known where whose territory is, and you cannot go there without an invitation, all the more so to establish your own rules there.
Of course, it is not easy for a mother to let go of a part of herself — her daughter. Therefore, the older woman will need her own, independent of her daughter’s affections, internal and external resources that will allow her to survive the grief of parting, turning it into bright sadness.
“Sharing what you have with another and giving him freedom is exactly what love is, including maternal love,” remarks Maria Timofeeva. But our human nature includes gratitude.
Natural, not forced, but free gratitude can become the basis for a new, more mature and open emotional exchange between mother and daughter. And for a new relationship with well-built boundaries.