You are trying so hard to keep her stable. You don't wanna say the wrong thing. You don't wanna do the wrong thing. You don't wanna look at her the wrong way. You are emotionally supporting her in a way that keeps her stable, because if she becomes unstable, then you become unsafe. When your mom needs you to take care of her in these ways, in these emotional ways, it affects you very deeply. Welcome to the Mother-Daughter Relationship. Show the podcast for mothers and daughters who want to build stronger bonds, deepen their understanding and transform their relationships. I'm your host, Brittany Scott, licensed therapist and mother-daughter relationship coach. After years of working with hundreds of daughters. And mothers. I've developed strategies that help break generational patterns, heal wounds, and create the loving relationships you've always wanted. Each week I'll be sharing insights from real clients, expert interviews and practical tools you can use immediately to improve your mother-daughter dynamic. Whether you're struggling with communication breakdowns, navigating major life transitions, or simply wanna take your already good relationship to the next level. The show is for you. And yes, the transformation I guide my clients through can be yours too. I'll share more about how you can work with me. It's time to experience the relationship you both deserve. Are you ready? Let's dive in. Welcome back to the Mother-Daughter Relationship show. I'm your host, Brittany. I was talking to a client recently and we were talking about, one of the ways in which moms sometimes pulls emotional support from their daughters and make emotional support flow in the wrong way, and how this was supportive to the mom, but detrimental to the daughter. And I decided I wanted to go deeper in that and share it with you guys. So that is what we're gonna talk about today. If you are interested in how emotional support flows from daughter to mom in a way that's not supportive of the daughter, stick around. Let's get into it. I wanna first start by saying that a daughter emotionally supporting her mom isn't immediately wrong. It's not immediately something that shouldn't happen, but a child emotionally supporting an adult should make you pause because that's not how that should be happening. An adult emotionally supports a child because they're still growing and learning. It should not be happening the other way. As daughters grow into adults, their relationship naturally becomes a lot more reciprocal. But there's a big difference between healthy mutual support and unhealthy emotional dependence. If you've ever felt like your mom's therapist or like you're responsible for managing her emotions. Or like you can't have your own life because she needs you too much. This episode might be for you if you are an adult daughter and not a daughter. That's still a child. if you're an adult daughter, healthy emotional support should be a part of your relationship with your mom. And this can look like your mom occasionally venting about work stress or daily frustrations, and you listen with empathy. You don't have to solve anything or fix it for her, but you're a listening ear. Your mom might ask for perspectives on decisions she's making, maybe about her career or her friendships. is reciprocal and respects your growing wisdom and respects you in your adulthood. Your mom might share some vulnerabilities with you, maybe some things she's afraid of, or insecurities that she has, and you respond with understanding. She's not making you responsible for her feelings. She's just trusting you with them during difficult times like illness or grief. Maybe you check in more often to make sure she's okay. This is situational. Maybe it's temporary, but it's something that you would want to provide for your mom and that's healthy. Maybe you celebrate each other in accomplishments. she's genuinely proud of you and you're genuinely proud of her. The key here is balance, boundaries and reciprocity. both people can be vulnerable. Both people give support and neither person becomes responsible for the other's emotional wellbeing. I wanted to start with that. That way this episode doesn't feel like there should be no emotional support going from the daughter to the mom ever. What we're gonna talk about here is when emotional support flows from daughter to mom in unhealthy ways, and when there's no reciprocity and when the daughter is a child. So the first ways that moms pull emotional support from their daughters is when mom's life is hard, or she's going through a lot, or there's just a lot happening for mom and she needs her daughter to act a certain way to make life easier for her. Not show emotion or express emotion, but to please just be happy and please just be okay because that's gonna make Mom okay, because everything else is kind of spiraling around her. So when mom has no other support system, her support system becomes her daughter. And so she pulls that from her. And so the daughter now who is a child, needs to. Be emotionless like, please don't show tough emotions. We, we can't deal with that right now. We just have to keep going. Please don't make life harder. Please just do what I say. Please just make this easier because we don't have time for you to have emotions that I have to stop and take care of. So if you can just be good for mommy, then you know everything else will be good. And so we don't give that child misses the chance to get emotional support from her mom because she has to just be. Strong so her mom can get through whatever she's going through. The next one would be emotional parentification. This is when your mom consistently treats you like her therapist or emotional caretaker. You're forced to manage her feelings and problems, which reverses the parent child dynamic and burdens you with adult responsibilities you shouldn't have to carry. This often starts in childhood. Maybe you were the kid who had to comfort your mom when she was upset or who had to worry about whether she was okay. This pattern often continues in adulthood. suddenly you're 30 years old, and you're still managing your mother's emotions. The next one is oversharing. Inappropriate details. When your mom discusses intimate details about maybe her romantic relationships. Her sex life or deeply personal issues that cross generational boundaries. This can make you extremely uncomfortable and forces you into an inappropriate confidant role. There's a reason children shouldn't know about their parents' personal lives. Those boundaries exist to protect the child, even when the child is now an adult. The next one is using you as a substitute partner. This can also be like a co-parent if there are younger siblings after divorce or loss. Some mothers lean heavily on their daughters for companionship and emotional fulfillment that it prevents both of you from developing healthy outside relationships. This creates unhealthy enmeshment or a mom's entire emotional world revolves around you, her daughter, or she needs you to pick up whatever slack is now there because of the loss of a partner. And so you're almost a co-parent who may have to take care of younger siblings and do what another parent would do in order to help your mom. Another one is guilting you for having independence, making you feel responsible for her happiness or emotional stability. Using phrases like you're all I have or expressing hurt When you pursue your own life or friends or interest, This guilt keeps you trapped in a caretaking role and prevents you from living your own life fully. Another one is competing or comparing, seeking validation by putting you down, competing with your accomplishments, or making you feel like you need to diminish yourself to protect self-esteem. A mother who needs you to be less successful, less happy, or less fulfilled so she can feel okay about herself is operating from a wounded place. This can sound like, you know, I can't wait for your relationship to fail. I can't wait for that to not work out for you. Like I, I can't wait for you to have to come back to me because all of these things in your life just don't work out. And the last one can be volatile emotional dependence. creating a dynamic where you must constantly monitor or manage her moods, walking on eggshells to prevent emotional outbursts or withdrawal of affection. This is exhausting and keeps you in constant state of anxiety. You are trying so hard to keep her stable. You don't wanna say the wrong thing. You don't wanna do the wrong thing. You don't wanna look at her the wrong way. You are emotionally supporting her in a way that keeps her stable. Because if she becomes unstable, then you become unsafe when your mom needs you to take care of her in these ways, in these emotional ways. It affects you very deeply. You can develop anxiety around her emotional state. You're always wondering if she's okay, if she's upset with you, if something you did triggered her. You may struggle to set boundaries in all of your relationships because you've been trained that other people's emotions are your responsibility. You've been trained to. Want to be the fixer and want to be the doer and want to be the person that just makes everything okay. You might feel guilty for having your own life or your own joy or your own success. You feel like you're abandoning her when you focus on yourself, and that's not true. You might become a people pleaser, constantly scanning for what others need from you and putting your own needs last. Learning to make sure you take care of everyone else first, because if they're okay, then that means you're okay. You have difficulty identifying your own emotions because you spent so much time and energy managing hers. You don't even know how to reflect on how you're feeling. You just try to make sure that your baseline is whatever okay means, because as long as she's happy, then everything's going to be fine. You might also avoid close relationships or become overly responsible in them. Recreating the caretaker role you've learned with your mom. Okay. now that I've given you some ideas on how moms can pull emotional support from their daughters, Let me give you some specific examples so you can recognize if these patterns are showing up in your relationship. Your mom calls you multiple times a day, often in crisis, and gets upset if you don't answer. She might say things like, I really needed you and you weren't there. She shares details about her romantic or sexual relationships that make you uncomfortable and when you try to set a boundary, she accuses you of not caring about her life, and she just wanted to tell you. She makes comments like, you're all I have, or, I don't know what I'd do without you Placing the weight of her emotional survival on your shoulders when you have good news or achievements. She finds ways to make it about her struggle or diminishes your success to protect her own feelings. She expects you to be available whenever she needs you, but when you need support, she's often unavailable, dismissive, or turns the conversation back to herself. She has emotional outbursts or gives you the silent treatment when you try to have your own life making you feel like your independence is hurting her. She shares heavy trauma or mental health struggles with you repeatedly, but she refuses to see a therapist because talking to you is enough for her. Understanding why your mom does this doesn't excuse the behavior, but it can help make sense of it. Often mothers who lean on their daughters this way are dealing with their own unhealed wounds. Maybe she didn't receive emotional support from her own mother. Maybe she's dealing with unprocessed trauma, mental health issues, or deep sense of loneliness. She may not have healthy adult relationships because she never learned how to maintain them, or she may have been abandoned or betrayed by partners and now sees her daughter as the only safe place to depend on. Some mothers were parentified themselves as children and don't know any other way to be in a relationship. This is generational. The pattern just gets passed down. None of this makes it okay, but it explains why it's happening. So what do you do if you recognize these patterns in your relationship with your mom? First, acknowledge the reality. Stop telling yourself it's not that bad. She just needs me. Name what's happening. My mom is treating me like her therapist, and it's damaging our relationship and my wellbeing. Number two, recognize you're not responsible for her emotions. This is huge and it's also hard, but you are not responsible for managing your mother's emotional state. You are not responsible for her happiness. You are not responsible for fixing her problems or filling the voids in her life. Number three. Start setting some healthy boundaries. This is going to feel uncomfortable, especially if you've been in this pattern for years. So start small. Something like, mom, I care about you, but I'm not the right person to help you with this. Have you thought about talking to a therapist? Have you shared this with your friends? Is there anyone else in your life that you could have this conversation with? Or I can talk for 20 minutes, but then I need to go, or that topic makes me uncomfortable. Let's change and talk about something else. Those are some examples of kind of starter boundaries that can help you with getting out of certain conversations or changing the subject, or maybe removing yourself from a certain part of your mom's life altogether. And I don't say that to say like estrangement. I just mean maybe there's certain conversations or certain areas of her life that you don't wanna be her go-to. For number four, you have to stop being available 24 7. You don't have to answer every call. You don't have to respond to every text immediately. Create some space for yourself. If it's not truly an emergency, you don't have to make it one. Number five, redirect to appropriate support. When your mom tries to trauma, dump or seek therapeutic support from you. Gently redirect. mom, this sounds like something that would really benefit from professional support. I care about you and I want you to get the help you need, but I'm not equipped to help you process this. Number six, build your own life. Invest in your own relationships, hobbies and interests. Your mom's emotional wellbeing cannot be the center of your life. And lastly, work through your own guilt. The guilt is going to come up. You're going to feel like you're abandoning her or being a bad daughter. Maybe you don't feel this way, but I know that some daughters can work through this with a therapist or a coach who understands these dynamics. If they know what's happening between a mom and a daughter, then they can help you to process what is happening in your relationship with your mom or daughter. You know, someone like me. Shameless plug. It is my podcast. Okay, so I wanna be clear about what I'm not saying. I am not saying you should cut your mom off or never provide emotional support. I'm saying the support needs to be appropriate. It needs to have healthy boundaries, and it needs to be reciprocal. I'm not saying your mom is a bad person. She's likely operating from her own pain and doesn't fully understand the impact of her behavior. I'm not saying you should be cold or uncaring. You can be compassionate while still maintaining boundaries. You are allowed to be in a relationship with your mother and take care of yourself first. Those two can go together and you can be kind about it while still making sure that your boundaries take care of you. I know how hard this is. You love your mom, you don't want her to be in pain, and when you set boundaries, she might react with hurt anger or guilt trips. But by continuing to be her emotional support system, you're actually preventing her from developing healthy coping mechanisms and relationships. You're not helping her by being her therapist. You're enabling the dynamic to keep going and going, and it's going to keep you both stuck and it's going to cause resentment from you. None of this feels good, so don't keep it up just to keep the peace or just because it's always been happening. Setting boundaries isn't a mean thing. It's necessary for both of you. It's how you protect the relationship and yourself. If these patterns started when you were a child, there's additional healing work to do. You didn't just wake up one day as an adult in this dynamic. You were trained into it. you learned that your worth came from taking care of your mother's emotions. You learned that love meant sacrificing your own needs. You learned that being a good daughter, and I'm putting that in quotes, meant putting yourself last and making sure she was okay. That little girl inside of you still believes these things. Part of your healing is reparenting that inner child and teaching her that she's worthy just for existing, not for what she provides to others, that she's worthy for just being exactly who she is and who she desires to be. We all have different parts of ourselves that show up in our healing. You might have the 8-year-old part of yourself showing up. What does she need? What is she asking for? How is she still hurting? And sometimes how is that little girl still in the driver's seat doing some of these behaviors for you? Because it's just what you know if you are a mother listening to this and recognizing yourself in these patterns. first, I want you to acknowledge your courage in hearing this. Your daughter is not rejecting you when she sets boundaries. She's trying to save the relationship by making it healthier. If you find yourself leaning on your daughter in these ways, please consider getting your own therapist. Your daughter cannot be your therapist. She can be your daughter. If she's an adult, she can be your friend if she chooses to, but daughter is enough. It's already a beautiful role, but she cannot fill all of your emotional needs and be too many things to you. Let her just be a daughter. Work on developing other support systems, build friendships. Consider support groups. Invest in your own healing. Your relationship with your daughter will actually improve when you stop making her responsible for your emotional wellbeing. The relationship between mothers and daughters can be deeply meaningful and supportive, but only when there are appropriate boundaries in place. You can love your mother and still refuse to be her therapist. You can care about her wellbeing without being responsible for it. can support her through difficult times without sacrificing your own mental health. Setting boundaries doesn't make you a bad daughter. It makes you a healthier daughter. Who's trying to build a relationship that works for both of you, A relationship that is joyful and full of love and can have laughter in it because it gets lighter and it stops being so heavy. I know that breaking these cycles and choosing different behavior patterns inside of these relationships is overwhelming. It can bring up guilt. It can be hard to actually do, like, it's easy To listen to this and, and know that these are things that you should do, or know that these are patterns that should break, but actually breaking them can be quite difficult and figuring out how to replace them and create healthier behaviors and boundaries, like none of that is easy to do, but your relationship becomes lighter when you do it. You have to remember that you're not responsible for managing your mother's emotions. Or anyone else's for that matter. In any relationship that you're in, that's not your responsibility, okay? It never was your responsibility. It will never be your responsibility. It's not your job. So you have to be prepared to take that step back, so that the relationship can get lighter and fun and joyful. And not be so heavy and burdened with emotions that were never yours to take care of. That's all I have for you today. Thank you for being here and for listening. If any of this resonated with you, I'd love to hear from you. I like when I get emails from some of the listeners, and thank you so much for being here. I will catch you on the next one. That's all for today's episode of the Mother-Daughter Relationship Show. Thanks so much for spending this time with me. I hope you picked up some valuable insights that you can start using right away in your own relationship to create deeper connection and understanding. If something from today's episode resonated with you, don't keep it to yourself. Share it with the mother or daughter in your life who needs to hear this message. And while you're at it, please consider leaving a rating. And review so we can reach more families and transform the way mothers and daughters relate to each other. For those ready to take the next step, you can visit my website to learn more about my private coaching programs and my program designed specifically for mother-daughter pairs. Whether you're dealing with communication challenges, life transitions, or just wanna strengthen an already good relationship, I'm here to help. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you in the next one.