Men and the Mother Wound: A Journey of Healing and Strength

Have you ever noticed patterns in your relationships that seem beyond your control? Maybe the way you withdraw when things get tough, your fear of abandonment, or perhaps how you lose yourself completely in your partner? These patterns often go back to our earliest and most formative relationship - the one with our mother.

The mother wound is a real thing that affects so many men, who are often not even aware. In this episode, I share my own mother wound, and George's story, who had an overbearing and controlling mother. His mother wound caused him to have dependency issues that nearly destroyed his relationship with his partner Gracie. I identify 4 common mother wounds, and what can be done to heal from them. Check out the Men and the Mother Wound: A Journey of Healing and Strength, episode.

Remember to join me for my live "Beyond the Episode" Zoom event Wednesday 5/21 at 7pm Eastern US/Canada where we'll dive deeper into healing the mother wound. Link: Beyond The Episode 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to the Mother Wound
• 3:34 George's Story of Maternal Control
• 7:31 Four Common Mother Wounds Explained
• 11:35 Healing From Mother Wounds
• 14:20 Next Episode Preview and Closing

Transcript

Bill Simpson: 0:06

Hi and welcome to the Men on the Path to Love podcast. The men and the mother wound a journey of healing and strength episode. I'm Bill Simpson, your host. I coach men who are done suffering in their relationships, men who want deeper love, real connection and to finally feel like themselves again. I help them become the best version of themselves for themselves and for their current relationship or the one they're ready to find so they can live the life they love.

Bill Simpson: 0:42

So I mentioned last week that this week's episode would be about how to handle a career change in relationship. Well, I decided to postpone that episode to next week because, well, last week's episode went out on Monday, the day after Mother's Day. And frankly, it wasn't until I had recorded last week's episode that I had done some self-reflecting about my mom on Mother's Day and I was like, oh snap, man, I could have done a show coinciding with Mother's Day. You talk about the mother wound. It would have been much more timely to cover the topic of the mother wound, with it dropping the day after Mother's Day, right, okay, so I dropped the ball on the timing and I decided to cover it a week later. No big deal, I'll do the career change next week, alright, alright.

Bill Simpson: 1:31

So what is this mother wound thing anyway, you may be asking. Well, it's kind of self-explanatory, but the official definition is that it refers to the pain and trauma resulting from a mother's emotional unavailability, criticism or neglect, leading to challenges in self-esteem and interpersonal relationships. And man? I've talked to a lot of men whose mother wounds run deep and have had serious impact on their relationships. It takes a lot of courage and strength for men to face their mother wounds. I know it took a lot of work for me to heal and overcome mine. I've mentioned before on this podcast.

Bill Simpson: 2:14

My main mother wound was being abandoned by my mom when I was eight years old. She had given custody of my older brother and me to my father and I didn't have any contact with her after that and she died five years later. And I remember how she could be the most nurturing and loving mom you'd ever want and she could also be quite critical at times and I feared her emotional outbursts, which caused me to have a lot of anxiety. I never knew what I was going to get at any given time the nurturing mom or the one that I feared. Well, this mother wound had a negative impact on my future relationships to where I overlapped relationships from high school all the way up to my first marriage. I would always leave for another relationship for fear of being abandoned. I had to leave before they abandoned me, and it also impacted my ability to be vulnerable and my sense of self, feeling like I had to people-please all the time.

Bill Simpson: 3:23

And these symptoms, if you want to call them that, are pretty common with men who have experienced mother wounds. I'm going to dive deeper in some other ways mother wounds can manifest in men, but first I'm going to share George's story. Not his real name. George was a patient in my clinical practice. He was referred to me by his therapist and we worked together to help him with his mother wound.

Bill Simpson: 3:52

You see, george grew up with a very controlling mother. She and his father had divorced when he was like two years old and he didn't have much contact with his father until later in life, mostly birthdays and holidays. George was an only child and was under his mother's thumb constantly, all the way through high school and even into his young adult years. His mother made all his decisions, from what clothes he wore to what classes he would take, tv shows he could watch, music he could listen to and on and on, and she co-slept with George for years when he was really young, and on the few occasions that he would spend the night with his father, before he would leave she would say things like who's going to cuddle with me when you're gone? Well, by the time George reached his teens, it started to wear thin and got really old. He would constantly be arguing with his mother and he told me that he even hated her at times. George didn't even date until he was into his 20s.

Bill Simpson: 4:58

After becoming a diesel truck mechanic, he had a hard time staying in relationship. The moment his girlfriends would start complaining or he felt like they were trying to control a situation, he would get angry and drop them without any explanation. Well, eventually he met Gracie not her real name, of course and they fell in love. Things were going pretty well for maybe a year or so, but then his mother wound started creeping in. He was becoming more and more dependent on Gracie and he said that he started to lose himself in the relationship. He told me that they always did what she wanted to do, whether it was going to a restaurant, what movie they would go to TV shows to watch. She controlled the finances and basically everything. Yet George loved her and didn't want to lose her.

Bill Simpson: 5:55

Well, over time, the relationship started to crumble and George became depressed. It wasn't until he went to therapy that he was made aware of his mother wound and how he had created a similar dynamic with Gracie that he had with his mother. And through him seeing his therapist and getting coaching from me, george slowly started to make progress by getting in touch with the pain of being controlled by his mother for all those years. By getting in touch with the pain of being controlled by his mother for all those years, feeling enmeshed with her, responsible for her and seeing how it impacted his relationship with Gracie. George was committed to his personal growth and he put a lot of effort into it. He learned to accept himself, to have self-compassion for all that he had been, through practicing forgiveness, understanding mindfulness and how to use it to respond to his thoughts and his feelings, setting boundaries and effectively communicating his feelings and his needs and making his own decisions. And, surprisingly to George, gracie had changed too. She was relieved from carrying the burden of having to make all the decisions all the time, and this was a case where George had the courage to self-reflect, to have compassion for himself and to take action, to grow to where his mother wound didn't have the grip on him as much as it used to and his relationship with Gracie was much better because of it.

Bill Simpson: 7:31

And, man, I'm not going to lie to you, man, healing from a mother wound can take a lot of hard work. I know it did for me and it takes strength and courage to face those wounds, like I said. And it takes strength and courage to face those wounds, like I said. And yet having the awareness of the impact of how we were raised by our moms can have on our relationships can make all the difference in the world, allowing yourself to feel free and whole again. All right. So let's dive deeper into what shows up for men with mother wounds, and I want to clarify, to say that just because you may have some of these issues doesn't necessarily mean that you have a mother wound. Okay, all right.

Bill Simpson: 8:14

So first I want to go through four basic mother wounds that tend to show up for men. I'll start with George's mother wound where it came from it's the overbearing mother. The overbearing mother is when the mother is over-controlling or enmeshed emotionally and smothering right and, as a result. In George's case he had dependency issues. You know he was too dependent on Gracie and he lost his identity in the relationship. Now the mother wound that affected me the most is what's called the absent mother, and in my case she was literally physically absent since I was eight. But absent can also mean emotionally absent. But absent can also mean emotionally absent, which can be from a variety of reasons. Right, the bottom line. Whether it's physical or emotional absence, it can leave, like it did with me, leave him with a fear of abandonment and having difficult trusting in relationship, and with me it was me having to leave the relationship before they abandoned me.

Bill Simpson: 9:27

Now the next mother wound is the dismissive mother. This is when the mother is emotionally neglectful or indifferent or unconcerned, and this wound could cause the man to feel unworthy, to be emotionally unavailable, you know, stuffing his emotions, that kind of thing. An example of the dismissive mother would be say, a guy grew up with a mother who rarely showed affection or didn't acknowledge his feelings. Say he shared with her that he was being picked on at school and instead of supporting him she would brush it off by saying, oh, stop being so sensitive. So as an adult he could find himself having a hard time expressing his feelings and maybe even doubt that his feelings are valid or even real. And you know, and it's hard enough for us guys to express our emotions because of our conditioning, and if you learn as a kid that you don't get your feelings validated by your mom, so that's going to have an impact as you get older into relationships that well, I can't do with my mom. I'm certainly not going to do it with my partner or spouse, right?

Bill Simpson: 10:41

And the last mother wound I'll mention is the critical mother. This is when she's overly critical or has expectations that are not realistic, expecting too much, you know, nothing is good enough for her. And this wound could show up as him being overly critical of himself. You know, feeling insecure, having to be perfect, needing external validation, right. An example would be a mom that's always pointing out his mistakes or his flaws. You know like how he looks, you know fix your hair, you know your clothes, the grades, his sports performances and so on. And if he did succeed at something, she would always say that he needed to improve rather than acknowledge his success. And as a result, with this mother wound, he can become again overcritical of himself and others, be a perfectionist and maybe even being afraid of being judged by others. So that's what the critical mother wound can do. So those are four common mother wounds you know the overbearing mother, absent mother, dismissive mother and critical mother. And you may come up with other mother wounds and I'd love for you to share them with me if you'd like.

Bill Simpson: 12:06

Now the mother wound, like I said, can run deep, and the main thing here is to have the awareness of the mother wound so you can see the impact it can have on your relationships, so you can heal and grow, take responsibility for your growth, moving forward for the long term of your relationship. And I really want to stress this because a lot of times when we find out stuff about our past, we use it as an excuse. So it's not to use the mother wound as an excuse oh well, my mom did this, so I can get away with it. No, having the mother wound doesn't give you the right to act out, to withdraw or disconnect. It's simply an awareness and once you have it, have compassion for that experience, have compassion for the impact that it's had on you and your relationships and move forward with your growth and see it with a sense of curiosity. You know like it's a lifelong journey of self-discovery and being empowered in spite of your wound instead of letting it take you down into the pit.

Bill Simpson: 13:15

Now I want to clarify that I'm a coach, not a therapist, even though some of our techniques may overlap. Therapy is where you can process your feelings around your mother wound, you know, to heal and get clarity around it. My job as a coach is to help you move from today forward. I don't process the past. Yet once you have the awareness and acceptance of your mother wound, I can coach you how to respond to your triggers in the present moment and in moving forward, if that makes sense. You know it's all about learning self-compassion. It's all about learning tools to get you through this, to heal and to move forward Learning self-compassion, mindfulness, learning how to be vulnerable and empathetic compassion, mindfulness, learning how to be vulnerable and empathetic. It's learning effective communication skills, setting strong boundaries and more.

Bill Simpson: 14:12

And if you have any questions or if you're struggling with a mother wound, please reach out to me. I'm here to help. We can do a free hour-long coaching session, so check that out at my website. All right, can do a free hour-long coaching session, so check that out at my website. All right, I have a simple quote I found inspiring in dealing with my own mother wound and it's a great reminder. It's from world-famous psychologist Carl Jung. He says, quote I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become. Unquote yeah, that's right, the mother wound doesn't define me. I decide, I choose who I want to become, regardless of what happened to me in the past.

Bill Simpson: 15:01

And that will bring this episode of the Men on the Path to Love podcast to a close. I'm Bill Simpson, your host. Thank you for taking the time to listen. You could have been doing a hundred other things, but you chose to take the time to listen and I do appreciate it.

Bill Simpson: 15:18

Now coming up on the next episode of the Men on the Path to Love podcast, as I mentioned at the beginning, I'm going to do what I plan to do this week. I'll be sharing John and Chrissy's story and how Chrissy's career change threw that wrench into their relationship, and I'll tell you what they did about it and what you can do if there's a career change in your relationship to make it go as smoothly as possible. So please join me for how to Handle a Career Change in Relationship episode.

Bill Simpson: 15:50

And, as always, if you have any questions, comments or just need to talk, please reach out to me through my show notes or from my website, menonthepathtolove. com. And remember to join me for my live post-episode Zoom event Beyond the Episode, as I'll go deeper into the mother womb. That's Wednesdays at 7 pm, eastern and US-Canada time, and you can find the link in the show notes. So I hope to see you there and remember until next time, keep your heart open and stay on the path to love.