As a man, if you don't heal from your mother wounds, you'll marry her representative.
I have had about three failed relationships and very painful breakups. I'm 37 and I thought I would be married with children by now. I read one of your articles about mother wounds and I could relate because, looking back, my ex-partners were all like my mother. Strict and hard to please. And I ended up greatly exhausted after trying to get them to commit to me. I spent so much and still got jilted. Please tell me how to handle the mother wound.
As a man, if you don't heal from your mother wounds, you'll marry her representative. And since many men never reflect on their experiences and their patterns, you won't know why you end up with the same type of woman with different names. This is not logical but psychological. It is not a conscious choice but psychological programming.
If your mother was distant, stern, and hard to please, you'll find yourself with women who treat you with coldness and contempt. You will fall the deepest for those who care the least about you.
The inner child who wanted to win his mother's affection will take over and you'll be trying to convince her through this woman. We always repeat what we did not resolve. You were left wondering why you weren't worthy of her attention, and that quest to win her will be your strongest drive.
When a woman loves you and cares for you consistently, you get bored. When another one is warm today and cold tomorrow, you pursue that one. Whenever you hear that a man became suicidal or alcoholic after a breakup, it's usually not a breakup with a lover. Because lovers are many and he can always find another one.
It's usually a breakup with a representative of his mother. A second rejection. A confirmation that he's unlovable. And since he can't replace his mother, the pain can get overwhelming. Sometimes healing is not a luxury but an act of self-love to reclaim control over your life.
How do you know whether you have a mother wound? Imagine I handed you a paper with four drawings, all involving a mother and her baby. Image one shows the mother lifting the child, their laughing faces and eyes locked. It is a happy image of a doting mother-child moment.
Image two shows the baby breastfeeding while the mother is sad with teary eyes. She's sad or stressed. The child is looking at her face but she's deep in sadness. Image three shows a mother carrying the child on the front while also carrying heavy luggage on her back and also holding another child. She's walking while overburdened. Image four shows the mother holding the baby in her hands but looking away. She's emotionless and inattentive to the child. Which of these images would you say represents your mother?
If you pick any other except number one, you have a mother wound. The image showing a sad mother with teary eyes produces deep fear and low self-esteem in the child. They either become the mother's rescuer and a surrogate husband emotionally, or they become a fragile empath. Worrying so much about other people's pain and neglect their own.
These are the men who marry emotionally unstable women because they mistake rescuing for love and relevance. He only sees his importance when dealing with a woman whose moods are erratic and unpredictable.
Image three, where the woman is overburdened, produces a child full of guilt and self-condemnation as the child regrets the fact that their needs add stress to an already overwhelmed mother. You grow to feel like you don't deserve good things and you gravitate to women who only take from you. You mistake femininity with fragility. And the last image of the mother facing away is an emotionally abandoning mother. The child is always trying to win the mother's attention and affection.
You'll know you have this wound if you find yourself so afraid of rejection that you'll do anything to be accepted. You struggle to leave a relationship even when it's obviously hurting you. So how do you heal? Seek professional help, self-care, and set strong boundaries. You seek professional help from a psychologist to be helped in reconstructing your self-concept. You unpack the deep-seated guilt, shame, fear, and anger. Guilt is the feeling that you've done something wrong. Shame is the feeling that you are something wrong yourself.
Fear is the feeling that something wrong is about to happen to you. Anger is the feeling that something wrong has been done to you. In summary, these feelings make you think something is wrong. When you release and dispute them, you change the self-talk into, "There's nothing wrong with me. I am strong enough for life and happiness." Self-care is about being gentle and generous with yourself. Treat yourself well without feeling like you're wasting resources. Lastly, strong boundaries teach you to say no to connections that take you back to emotional turmoil.
When you're wounded, you struggle to say no to women and it shows in how toxic your relationships are. When you heal, you stop these relationships the moment red flags appear. In short, healing is not pretty but it's worth it. It takes effort and vulnerability but it leaves you stronger in the long run. All the best!
Benjamin Zulu is a life coach and counseling psychologist
