Sorry, GG, but I'm going to have to strongly disagree.
Ignoring this any further just allows her to create more melodramatic "my Son does this to hurt me, I'm so brokenhearted" bullshit.
My apologies to you nw, but your mother sounds like a classic controlling mother. I've seen enough of these emails and heard enough of these conversations to see that she just wants to control you with guilt. You're such a horrible person for doing this to your frail old mother, waa, waa.
What you really need to do, I think, is discuss it - FRANKLY.
Quote:
However, I want to stand my ground and force my parents to recognize us as a COUPLE (the way her family does), and understand that as a couple, we must split up holiday time between both families. And this will necessitate compromise on BOTH sides, not just one.
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This is
exactly what you need to do. She's treating you like a wayward child, drawn away from his only true love (his family) by an evil temptress of distruction. The biggest flaw in her argument is that you're not a child and she's treating you like one. Her email is LITTERED, absolutely LITTERED with garbage metaphors designed to make you feel bad - "when you're mature enough to understand", "we are silently watching you wither away, leave your family and the family values behind, and become less of a man."
If this were any person but your mother, you'd leave them in a dust for saying such manipulative pyscho-babble.
Make it clear that you are with LPM for a reason, that you want to split the time equally between two families, and that any "breaking of the relationship" beyond that is entirely her fault. She can't expect you to be around forever, and she can't expect that SHE knows what is right for you.
The reason you're in this position is that you've never asserted your fundamental right to decide your own future. Reading this email makes me demonstrably ill, considering what kind of mother would say this to her son, regardless of her intent.
The communication lines are waaayyyy too closed. I know this sounds backwards from your innate desire to retract, but it's only occuring because she STILL fails to see your independence. And she needs to understand that despite her disinterest in LPM,
it doesn't matter. You're the one dating her, not your mother. If your mother has a problem with it, then she needs to learn how to live her own life and not yours.
The hardest part of this conversation is doing it calmly. If you send her a scathing email, or reply in any anger - she's going to immediately become defensive. You need a firm, but not demanding or angry, tone.
All of that said, I (from the distance that I'm at) think her characterization of the "disorder" in paragraphs four and seven might not be entirely incorrect.