Mothers Who Can't Love: A Healing Guide for Daughters

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The following catalog of what can happen to a daughter who grows up without a mother’s love and support is derived from anecdote, and not a scientific survey; it’s not meant to be inclusive, either. Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. If your parent ticks any of those boxes, then you are likely already aware of who and what you're dealing with.

To help you recognize if this dynamic echoes your experience, I’ve created a pair of checklists to help you identify how mothering your mother shaped and influenced a significant part of your life. This fully revised new edition features an innovative application of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to self-esteem and utilizes updated cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to help listeners create positive change and thrive. Remember that you always have the right to be treated with respect, and to protest unfair treatment or criticism. As a matter of fact, there are elements of greater importance that go beyond the controversial genetic hypothesis.

Abusive parents tend to share common traits - they are constantly negatively reactive, lack empathy, are extremely controlling, always critical, and continuously transfer blame to you. Readers will learn to incorporate love into situations that seem to require power and deal with power struggles that mask themselves as issues of love. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. But as Forward explains in Mothers Who Can't Love, it is possible to heal the mother wound and find help and validation. The author dismisses the assertion that “giving birth makes [women] inherently capable of nurturing.

That internalized maternal voice will continue to undermine her accomplishments and talents, unless there is some kind of intervention. Do they blame you for their problems, for being a thorn in their shoes, always endeavoring to make you feel like the most massive burden? Bestselling author Susan Forward looks at the devastating impact unloving mothers have on their daughters and provides effective techniques for overcoming that painful legacy. They’re the golden children, those figures who, for whatever reason, get all the recognition and reinforcements, leaving nothing for the rest. While my friends get teary-eyed over sappy mother-daughter newsfeed posts, I feel sick knowing I’ll never have that relationship.

Susan Forward draws on real-life voices and stories of both women and men struggling to free themselves from the frustrating, hurtful, and infuriating relationships with their toxic in-laws. The taboos about “dissing” our mothers, and the myths of motherhood which portray all mothers as loving, serve to isolate unloved daughters. Why these wounds are common is amply explained by attachment theory, first proposed by John Bowlby and then expanded by the work of Mary Ainsworth, Mary Main, and many others. At a time when toxic individualism is rending our society at every level, bestselling author and renowned marriage counselor Terrence Real sees how it poisons intimate relationships in his therapy practice, where he works with couples on the brink of disaster. Maybe depression, severe pain, or even chronic hospitalization made it impossible for her to be present for anyone but herself.