Daughter questions mom’s approach to mourning dad
Carolyn: My father passed away a few months ago, and I’ve been having difficulties with my mother ever since. Our relationship has become strained as a result of our different grieving styles (hers — jetting off to Paris, buying a new luxury car, having substantial cosmetic surgery). Although I understand we all deal with death in our own unique ways, I can’t seem to grasp this as a mourning period for her. Although I’m an adult and on my own for the most part, I still feel, well, abandoned and sometimes like I’ve lost both parents. I’ve tried talking to a grief counselor, but really, I’m handling my father’s death OK (though I miss him terribly) — but am hurt repeatedly by my mother’s actions. —Still Smarting
Still Smarting: I am sorry about your father. I am sorry, too, that you are alone in your grief.
But if you want your mom back, you’re going to have to stop judging her. Unless your mom stood you up to go to Paris, bought the car with your money or had surgery to erase any family resemblance, she really hasn’t hurt you.
You do claim to understand that people grieve in different ways, but you’ll crack a tooth if you clench any harder when you say it. Clearly, you think the widow is being excessively merry, dishonoring your dad’s memory and, therefore, unsettling you, I imagine profoundly. And I can see how you’d see that.
I also suspect, though, given the clenching, that you’ve thrown Paris in her new face — which would have made her defensive when you really just wanted support. To tell her that you feel alone, the best words are, “Mom, I feel alone.”
Unfortunately, it’s also not up to you to decide what memory your mom is supposed to honor. Not only will she grieve in her own way — and self-indulgence is hardly abnormal — but she’s also mourning a man you don’t fully know. Where you saw Daddy, she saw a husband, and those are two different things.
Look through her eyes and ask her to look through yours. You might see why she’d be trying to outrun her grief, or even feeling a kind of release.
Or you might see a selfish, insensitive woman, and that would present you with a choice: Either accept Mom as she is — or let go and grieve for her, too.
Carolyn: I am in a fairly new relationship. Recently I met my girlfriends after work at a bar. I conducted myself accordingly — no flirting, no approaching men, etc. My boyfriend says he trusts me, but that it is inconsistent to go to a typically singles place while in a relationship. As long as it is not a routine event and I am not at the bar for the wrong reasons, I think it shouldn’t be a problem. It has caused a serious strain in our relationship. Can you help us out? —Washington
Washington: I’ll help you out. Run. It is inconsistent with trusting you to put limits on your freedom. “As long as it’s not ... routine”?: You’re ceding ground to a control freak. Run, run while you can.