I love my mom. I know “things were different then” and I’m in therapy working through why I am the way I am. She’s planned a trip this spring by herself. She’s begged me to go with her, offered to pay. It would be just her and I. I go back and forth daily. No, I’m not going because over a week with her so far away from home I would be at her whim- and wrath. Yes, I should go because she’s my mom and I love her. It’s only x amount of days in my life and it could be the last trip I take with her. We lost my dad recently. You never know. It would make her so happy if I went. I’m the peace maker, emotional support, dependable child. My sibling has not had to deal with anything when it comes to her. While I recognize the generational trauma, it stops here. I’m working on it. My brain knows it would not be a safe space for me to go on this vacation, but my heart says suck it up, she’s your mother, do this for her. Please help. The guilt is eating me alive.
Stop feeling guilty. Your mother is not a nice person. It sounds like she abused you as a child (emotionally at the minimum I don't know if she abused you in other ways too) and she is still using you as her whipping post verbally.
Here's the thing you don't have to do anything for your mother. She certainly doesn't deserve anything after how she treated a helpless and defenseless child. The fact that she is still doing these terrible things to you is reason enough for you to say, "No mom. I am not going on this trip with you." You could tell her the reason why but I am sure she would just blow that off as you being too sensitive or she would deny her abusiveness.
Yes generational trauma exists and we can say mom is the way she is because of how she was treated as a child. But is that really an excuse? Because if that was the case every single child that was abused would be abusive to their own children. The reality is that she chose to abuse her children. There is something broken and wrong in her brain and she lacks empathy for others. Sadly especially for her own children. It is all about her and her feelings and her needs and her wants. I say screw that. It is time for you to focus on you and your needs and your wants and to hell with your mother.
It would be a positive thing for you if your mother died. That's just how I see it when these abusers are still abusing their adult children and said adult children cannot cut off all contact (as they should).
Love her from a distance (if you must) but please stop trying to make her happy. If she endures just a small dose of misery as a consequence of her actions that would be a very good thing. She will never emphasize with what she did and is doing to you mentally but at least you are standing up for yourself and saying NO MORE. I will not allow this person to do this to me just because she is my mother.
Loving someone does not mean being their doormat.
Making a plan with mom BEFORE the trip for a certain amount of time for each of you to be on your own (to go to different museums, activities or cafes or just be alone) will tell you loads about whether you should go.
Read up on Fear Obligation and Guilt.
https://outofthefog.website/
Your mental health is WAY more important than any trip with your mom could ever be.
What you're feeling is grief not guilt. Grief that you didn't have the kind of mom you needed growing up, and grief that you never will. That's not your fault and you have nothing to feel guilty about.
So follow your brain on this one and kick that guilt to the curb.
My therapy cost me a lot of money, way back when, and taught me ONE thing: you'll never be friends with your mother. And that's okay.
What on earth are YOU eaten up with guilt over? Isn't SHE the one whose supposed to be eaten up with guilt over her treatment of YOU?
Stay home and stop trying to be the daughter she'll never appreciate, or trying to make her the mother she's incapable of being.
There's freedom in that acknowledgement, my friend.
I went on vacation with my mother one time many years ago for a week.
One time was one time too many.
NEVER again.
I have been on vacation with both sets of in-laws and it was always a good time.
One time my mother was invited to come along with my in-laws to Cape Cod for a week. They paid for everything and thought it would be nice to invite my mother to come along.
They didn't know any better.
The plan was that they were going to stay for one week then let my husband and I have the beach house for a week on our own. We didn't have a proper honeymoon so we were looking forward to it.
My mother didn't even wait until we got there to start with the passive/aggressive "BS". She started in the car on the ride up. Everyone was trying really hard because we wanted to have a good time and wanted her to also. She did not. I think it was around the second day of the trip, my husband finally lost it with her. She was forced into the car and he drove over four hours to drop her off home. Then he got in the car and drove right back another four hours.
First and only time I ever took a vacation with my mother.
Full stop.
Don't go.
What things were different? Emotional and physical abuse are and were always wrong.
So is trying to control via money, which her paying for the trip amounts to, a bribe.
Mom will also treat the daughter like a servant since she paid.
She is pulling a classic abusive tactic. Being nice, wanting to pay for the whole trip, wanting to spend time with you. So you go on the trip where you’re in close quarters and you can’t just up and leave. She now has every opportunity to make the rest of the trip a living hell for you. You’re a trapped audience.
You’re in therapy because of this woman. Why would you want to go on a trip with her? If you’re hoping for her to be different this time. It won’t happen.
You mention repeatedly that you love your mother. It’s like you’re trying to convince yourself that you truly love her? I get it, but why do you love someone who hurt you so much? You didn’t deserve that. You want her to love you back SO badly. She doesn’t sound capable of that. Stop trying to make her happy with you, or happy in general. Abusers are only happy when they’re hurting someone.
My mother said recently how she wished she could go on another cruise. My husband thought it would be nice for me to take her on one. But I am certain I could not do it. She’s tough and demanding and can turn on you. Not to mention she has heart trouble and is not mobile anymore. It would be a horrible trip.
It can’t happen now anyway since she is in a NH. So thankfully it’s a non issue.