Doing Life Together

Doing Life Together

Mothers and Daughters: Adjusting Expectations for a Good Relationship

posted by Linda Mintle

When I was writing the book, I Love my Mother But…, women would ask me what I was writing about. When I told them it was a book about mothers and daughters, immediately they said, “Oh, you should interview me.  Let me  tell you about my mother!”

Obviously mothers make a lasting impression on us and it seems we all have a few complaints no matter how good our relationship is. This is because of the great expectations we have for mothers.

Most of us know that our mom’s aren’t perfect, yet that doesn’t stop us from wishing they were. So we make our moms responsible for everything from our self-esteem to our choice of mates. And we expect moms to be superwomen. Then, when they don’t measure up to our unrealistic expectations, we feel disappointed, or cheated. In fact, we often accuse our moms of ruining our lives and blame them for all sorts of things.

We forget that we  are responsible for our own choices and don’t realize that mom can’t give us what she doesn’t have. She can’t be all-knowing, all nurturing, all powerful and all giving. She is human and an imperfect woman –just like we are.

So lose those unrealistic expectations and look to another source to fulfill all your needs. The only perfect one is God. He’ll never disappoint or let you down because He is love. He chose you, accepts you unconditionally and highly esteems you. We do best when we work on completing ourselves through surrender to Him, releasing our past hurts to Him, grieving our losses and looking only to Him to complete us.



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