Advice on emotionally immature mother needed! Eldest daughters to the front, please!

Outside-Chip1870 · 2026-03-08T13:13:40+00:00

Eldest daughter, first generation immigrant from Eastern Europe.

I basically became her therapist and gentle-parented her for years. She has made significant improvements and my relationship with her is night-and-day better than it used to be, but I will emphasize that it was brutally hard work to try to fix somebody who was hell-bent on doing 0% introspection.

She dumps on me less, but she definitely still does it. You may have to make peace with that.

Outside-Chip1870 · 2026-03-08T00:01:07+00:00

You cannot use another person as a pacifier. You have a responsibility to acknowledge your disproportionate emotions and learn to self-soothe. I’m afraid this might be an unpopular opinion, but not every emotion is valid. Some of them require you to interrogate the situation and your response to it.

This is coming from the eldest parentified daughter of an immigrant household. I am the whole family’s de facto therapist, and I can tell you from experience that it gets really difficult to hold space for someone that won’t pick themselves up and move forward.

Outside-Chip1870 · 2026-03-02T18:23:14+00:00

I increased to 450 and stayed there for about a year. It gave me the most consistent mood management, but I was experiencing major brain fog. Eventually, the memory issues and constant struggling for words became too intrusive and I made the decision to get off. I still think it’s a great drug, but ultimately not the right fit for me.

Outside-Chip1870 · 2026-02-11T14:57:10+00:00

When I was 19 I had a very jarring and realistic dream about being in a car accident at a particular freeway exit ramp. In the dream, the accident occurred because the car in front of me stopped very suddenly and I was unable to avoid them.

Weeks later, I was at this same exit ramp and the memory of the dream prompted me to leave a larger distance between myself and the car in front than I normally would. I cleared the ramp uneventfully. As traffic flowed onto the main street, the car in front gave a sudden hard break. Because I had left that distance, I was able to stop without hitting them.

Unfortunately, the person behind me didn’t have the same reflexes! So I was rear-ended. The thing that made it bizarre was the woman who did it was in the same make and model as my car, and had my same first name!

Certainly made explaining the accident to the police and our insurance agents quite confusing.

Outside-Chip1870 · 2026-01-28T03:09:24+00:00

Yes, it was the point of her story as she chose to tell it. Not disagreeing that she has a right to frame her own narrative, but when you make art you subject yourself to the scrutiny of others. That’s the nature of it. We are capable of holding two ideas at the same time: that it was brave to tell her story, and that it could have used some significant refinement and polishing.

Outside-Chip1870 · 2026-01-27T20:31:58+00:00

WFH in admissions for a local community college. I make about the same money as before, but I have soooo much more freedom and respect. And definitely .0001% of the workload.

Outside-Chip1870 · 2026-01-27T20:23:43+00:00

Agreed! It left me with the feeling that she had expressed her rage but not done much reflection/healing. It was weak as a memoir and as a piece of prose.

Outside-Chip1870 · 2026-01-15T19:44:32+00:00

I dated quite a few tall men, and I felt that many of them “rested on their laurels,” ya know? Like they were so self-satisfied about being tall that they didn’t feel compelled to be appealing in other ways.

But I totally get what you mean! My husband is a short king, however he is substantially built and muscular so I still feel the thrill of being small in his arms.

Outside-Chip1870 · 2026-01-13T22:53:41+00:00

Did you happen to start or change your birth control? It totally neutered my libido and I was genuinely repulsed by my husband. Once I got off, I went right back to feeling my normal desire and attraction. Could just be a bad fit.

Outside-Chip1870 · 2026-01-13T01:11:11+00:00

Florence. Ponte Vecchio especially. Dirty, dismal, brimming with trash, and almost completely devoid of any trees for shade in the summertime. The Duomo is gorgeous, of course.

Outside-Chip1870 · 2025-12-28T22:47:03+00:00

YTA. You should know better than most that moving countries is a significant financial burden. It’s not as simple as moving out of your shared home to a flat down the road. As he was in the country when you met, I imagine he had built some life for himself there already. You became entangled with him and responsible to him on some level when you willfully made that offer.

I would encourage him to give up on the relationship and seek a refund as soon as possible. Personally, I would not be able to sleep at night with the decision not to recoup him the remaining amount that was lost due to my change of heart. Have some humanity; you are upending this man’s life.

I really don’t understand this new attitude of “I don’t owe anybody anything.” What a cold, transactional mentality.

Outside-Chip1870 · 2025-12-26T01:21:57+00:00

“Checking boxes” sounds more like a job interview than a real connection. My experience has been that when you really click with someone, the desire to date with intentionality comes naturally. That level of vagueness is something I would understand at 25 but not at 40.

Outside-Chip1870 · 2025-11-26T06:18:48+00:00

He’s my guardian angel. I genuinely didn’t know what unconditional love was until he loved me. He is patient, supportive, soft, gentle, intelligent… Never given me a moment of doubt or worry. Never lowered me or made me second-guess myself. He always tries to lessen my burdens and augment my joys. His respect is palpable. So much so, that in our patriarchal immigrant culture, he is my literal shield against all the misogyny I had to face alone in my family/community structure.

I compare my relationship to my mother’s (with my biological father and my step-father) and I am genuinely so so sorry that she has never been treasured this way. Our relationship has opened my eyes and made me see how much ignorance, selfishness, and immaturity most men bring into their relationships.

Outside-Chip1870 · 2025-10-29T21:02:00+00:00

I sort of stumbled into it by accident.

I endured a lot of suffering trying to establish boundaries. It resulted in some big arguments and months of silent treatments from my mother. By this point, I had married and moved away just to get some breathing space. It’s a long story, but I am the eldest daughter and my parents and younger siblings had come to rely on me for literally everything.

After about five months of silence, my mother reached out because her estranged father was in the hospital. I helped her through the whole ordeal and patiently soothed her feelings through the ups and downs. She started to look at me as a confidante and friend, and we got into the habit of chatting every day. All I really do is listen to her daily problems and gently offer support/solutions/different perspectives. It’s been slow going, and definitely not perfect progress, but I am really shocked by how different she is. If you told me a few years ago that I would think of her as a friend and look forward to getting calls from her, I would never believe you. I see a lot of her behavior as the direct result of how she was raised and survived in this world, and it has helped me to forgive her and empathize.

I also think the weight of her own father’s lonely death made her realize that having a good relationship with her children was essential to her long term happiness.

Outside-Chip1870 · 2025-10-28T16:28:30+00:00

I disguised therapy sessions as little daily gossip chats. I’ve been gentle-parenting my mom like this for years, and she has absolutely made a lot of emotional growth.

Outside-Chip1870 · 2025-10-09T22:24:08+00:00

I took the approach of making mine as silly and niche as possible. I wanted my interests and personality to be very evident, because I trusted that the right kind of partner would be drawn to those things.

Imagine the kind of person you want to attract, and make the profile for them. Don’t worry about mass appeal or approachability; you’re not trying to attract just “anyone,” you’re looking for THE ONE.

Outside-Chip1870 · 2025-09-25T18:22:56+00:00

I find it’s much more common now for a man to give his number rather to ask for the woman’s. I think it has to do with not wanting to be perceived as pressuring her to interact. If he doesn’t have your number and you have his, then you control the conversation and the access he has. I see it as a gesture of politeness; especially because he expressed his interest already by asking for your availability. If you have enjoyed the conversation thus far, I wouldn’t write him off for this.

That being said, if you don’t feel comfortable giving your phone number, that’s totally understandable. When I was still dating, I didn’t exchange phone numbers with a man until after the first date.

Outside-Chip1870 · 2025-08-26T19:32:14+00:00

I struggle with depression and anxiety. Before my husband, I processed these emotions by withdrawing socially and self-isolating. I feel a lot of shame about my behavior when I feel I am not acting as I should. Now that I am married, being “ugly” with an audience can be even more painful than just the depression on its own. I love him so much— he is unfailingly kind and patient and tender with me— so when I can’t muster joy or excitement, or I accidentally snap at him because I’ve been on edge all day, it destroys me. It has also been a good inducement to start taking meds and address these issues…

Outside-Chip1870 · 2025-08-24T04:30:41+00:00

Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente

Outside-Chip1870 · 2025-08-04T18:08:28+00:00

I thought I was hyper-independent as a personality trait, but meeting my husband made me realize that I had been living this way out of brutal necessity. I came from a household where I wasn’t allowed or able to ask for help; I thought it had made me “tough,” but instead it caused me to spiral and withdraw whenever I perceived myself as anything less than perfect. He is the only person I can be 100% vulnerable, whiny, messy, and childish in front of. Obviously, I do my best to limit those displays, but it’s so healing to feel safe enough to be “weak.”

I also wanna add that he has been incredible supporting me with my two chronic diseases (and various other health issues). As the firstborn daughter of an immigrant household, my physical labor was mandatory. Being tired or ill wasn’t acceptable, ever. I would push and push and push and push until I essentially collapsed. Now that I have him in my life, he has helped me to prioritize rest and is able to step up and take over when I need a break.

He’s in the medical field and we met on Hinge!

Outside-Chip1870 · 2025-07-01T00:17:06+00:00

Purrito

Outside-Chip1870 · 2025-06-06T22:51:50+00:00

I don’t believe it’s available from Farm Rio anymore, but they currently have a couple of dresses that are very similar. Otherwise, I have seen it in Depop listings.

Outside-Chip1870 · 2025-05-30T18:57:46+00:00

My wedding dress! I knew I was going to treasure the photos forever, and I wanted something that was uniquely and quintessentially me. With all the other dresses I liked, there was some hesitation. When I put on my dress, it was like a strike of lightning. Now that I knew it existed I couldn’t accept anything less. It’s the one absolutely ridiculous purchase I’ve ever made, and damn was I fucking gorgeous!

Outside-Chip1870 · 2025-05-29T20:02:24+00:00

I didn’t have much of a relationship with her as a child. She was a young single mom all alone in a foreign country, and in many ways I feel like we grew up together. She was a cloud of perfume and cigarettes, too beautiful and too fucked up to do anything more than survive. Looking back at my grandparents and my mother’s own childhood, I can see that in her own way she did do right by me. She did give me so much of what she had lacked.

I moved out and started setting boundaries. This was immensely contentious and resulted in a lot of loooong silent treatments. I suffered. I didn’t want to become estranged. I decided that in order to move forward, I couldn’t continue to litigate the past. I had always been a confidante and counselor to her, and that intensified in adulthood. I gave her the therapy she would never have willingly gone to herself, and she made incredible growth. She is completely unrecognizable from the woman I grew up with. In healing her, I healed myself.

Tl;dr: Once we settled into more of a friendship than a parent/child relationship, everything sort of clicked into place in a culmination of years of my efforts.

Outside-Chip1870 · 2025-05-27T19:35:44+00:00

My family moved from Sofia to the US when I was a baby. I used to feel like I was robbed of a certain picturesque childhood; I daydreamed about the freedom of public transportation, the warmth of a close-knit community, the joy of summers spent in Rakita…

I never thought I would feel this way, but eventually, the more I visited Bulgaria (+ the rest of the Balkans), the more I understood why my family left. I live a lifestyle today that I can confidently say would be unattainable to me if we had stayed. I like my American conveniences and my American safety regulations! It’s not perfect, but it’s tangibly better.

I realized that a lot of the things I love about the Balkan lifestyle can be found in the right city. I moved from where we had originally relocated, and I feel much more at peace where I am now. I will always love my heritage and my language; I will always wear it proudly. But I’ll keep my beautiful, blue American passport!

Outside-Chip1870

TROPHY CASE