Signs of a Codependent Mother and How To Deal

Your mom was a Rockstar Mom. She did anything and everything for you. She made sure to say “yes” to everything you needed to the extent that she didn’t take care of her own needs. You may have known that, but thought it was just what moms do. Finding out your mom was codependent can be confusing and hurtful. You may be wondering if your mom ever really loved you at all or if she was just giving to serve her own needs. Maybe she wanted to be the best mom in all the land, maybe she had a need to be needed, maybe she didn’t have much of an identity and being a mom was her identity. Either way, it left you feeling controlled and with undue expectations.

Codependency is a trendy term that gets thrown around a lot these days and the world has learned. Now we talk about boundaries and feelings, self-care and reciprocal relationships. Still, it’s hard to know what codependency looks like because it takes on so many forms depending on the relationship.

In this blog, I hope to clear up what a codependent mom is, how to deal, and how to protect yourself from codependent people in the future.

Signs You Had a Codependent Mother:

1.You were spoiled in a lot of ways, but still not given what you needed: love.

If you were raised by a codependent mom you may have entered college without knowing how to do your laundry. Your mom wanted to do it all for you from scrubbing the toilets and doing your laundry, to being at every single soccer game. Therefore, you were behind in a lot of ways. What you really needed was a mom who took care of her emotional needs and made you do your own chores (age appropriate) and then could spend quality time loving you.

You may be attracted to people in your life who don’t meet your emotional needs. You also might not know what your emotional needs are. Take some time to write down some of your emotional needs and assess whether your relationships are meeting them: seen, loved, valued, heard are good starts.

2.You think that control is love. There was a life plan she had for you.

If you were raised by a codependent mom, it comes with expectations. Since she invested so much extra time into you and deprived herself of her needs, what she wanted in return was for you to follow a specific plan. For some moms it might mean that you would follow a certain career path, others might need you to perform well so that they look good, or they needed you to stay home so that they weren’t lonely. Whatever it is, at some point you find out that she wants some control over your life and when if deviate from it there will be resentment.

You may come across people in your life who give you too much at the beginning of the relationship…This is a red flag, and you can go with your intuition here that there might be strings attached with expectations.

3. You feel guilt.

It’s not your fault that your mom sacrificed everything for you, but you still feel guilty. You may even feel like you owe things to her now because she gave you so much. However, your mom was responsible for her own decisions of how she spent her time and life.

You are responsible to take care of your own needs now and not repeat the same patterns.

4. You are out of touch with your feelings.

Of course you are. Your mom didn’t know her own feelings and needs, so this wasn’t taught to you.

You are now responsible for learning and tuning into your own feelings. Find a therapist, find a support group, meditation group- whatever it takes.

5. At some point, you outgrew your mom in strength.

There’s a psychological theory that we need parents that we can’t destroy. We need to be able to express our aggressive part and know that, with boundaries and love, our parents aren’t fragile. They will always be the authority figure and love us. I constantly have to remind my clients that I can handle them because if they had a codependent mom, they knew they couldn’t show their strength in the relationship. However, for you to become your authentic self, the aggressive part had to show up too. You had to outgrow your mom.

I recommend you grieve the loss that your mom wasn’t the parent that you couldn’t destroy. Also, try to find strong women in your life who can help you grow even more.