How Do I Overcome My Mom’s Guilt-Tripping?

Reader’s Question

I was only three years old when my mother and father divorced. My father is now deceased. My mom didn’t date much after the divorce. She now blames me for still being single. When I was younger, I was unhappy when she dated, and now I have a busy soccer travel schedule, so I’m not there a lot. My mother says that because of these things, I wrecked her life and health and owe it to her to take care of her for the rest of her life. I am now 22, an only child, and have been manipulated by guilt into living with her while attending graduate school.

My mother behaves like she can’t do anything for herself. She will ask me to “hand” her things that are right next to her even when I’m in another room and becomes angry with me when I don’t know how to fix something she needs fixed. She has told me that I’m a bad person, has sworn at me, and in a fit of hysteria told me that “all [she] ever wanted” was a daughter but instead she got me. In addition to the verbal abuse, she has nudged me into the kitchen counter or purposely let a door hit me. She seems to relish punishing me in some way.

As much as my mother says she dislikes me, she insists that she should live with me even when I’m married because she has very little savings and that her circumstances (she lives in an affluent neighborhood, and has a lot more luxuries than your average single school teacher) are my fault.

I’ve been trying to get my mother to date or develop friendships, but what you’ve previously said about sharks swimming alone seems to be very true. I’m starting to doubt my own sanity and am not as confident as I should be. I’ve even begun to doubt that I have the right to live on my own and lead my own life while she is alone.

What steps can I take to make sure my mom doesn’t poison my relationships? How can I break free of the guilt that keeps me tied to her so negatively?

Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

Using guilt as a weapon is a powerful manipulation tactic and a form of emotional blackmail. It only works, however, when the person upon whom the guilt-tripping is perpetrated has an imbalanced sense of conscientiousness and responsibility. People who use guilt-tripping as a manipulation and control tactic know this well. And the willingness of some folks to use the conscientiousness of others against them says a whole lot about their character.

The truth is that you and your mother are both adults and are responsible for your own actions. Your mother’s poor choices are not “your fault” — and it is not your responsibility to tend to needs that she is capable of tending to herself. If she were truly disabled, incapacitated, etc., it would be a different story. Freely giving her loving support is one thing, but allowing yourself to be her emotional “whipping boy” is another. Similarly, it’s not appropriate for you to blame your mother for your own distorted sense of responsibility.

As to how you break free of the guilt, the answer is simple but not easy. Making decisions out of guilt as opposed to a loving, free choice is almost always a recipe for disaster. So drop the irrational guilt like a hot potato. Stop enabling this emotionally abusive behavior by not allowing yourself to be subjected to it or be affected by it. In time, your mother may not only have to reckon with what she needs to do to foster a healthy relationship with you but also with what she needs to do to have other healthy relationships in her life. You indicate your mother says she has always wanted a daughter. Right now, your roles still appear reversed. But it takes two people to reverse roles and enable family dysfunction. You only have power to correct your end of this dysfunction. After doing so, however, you should feel less guilty and more empowered.