Why am I looking for mother figures? I have done so since I was a child

This it not just an ordinary relationship issue and I choose to post it here as a I hope I´ll find some answers to why and perhaps also find other people who feel the same.

My thoughts about this came up when I realised I don´t feel loved by my parents. I know they love me but I can´t feel it, they are rather emotionally distant. I can´t really remember that much closeness or hugs when I was a child even if there never were any abuse or anything.

I remember how I already in grammar school sought out some of the female teachers, that I liked talking to them and I wanted them to like me. I tried to impress them, especially by getting good grades in almost every subject.

When entering into high school I remembered I wanted to be close to some of the female teachers. I now don´t mean I tried to get them to hug me or such but again, I got good grades, I helped them erase the chalk board, I stayed after class just to be able to talk to them.

When in my 20s I became "friends" with a couple of elder women at a workplace, nothing sexual or anything but now I realise it was because of the same reason, trying to find a mother figure.

The therapist I saw was a women in her 60s, I didn´t choose her actively, she was choosen by my insurance company, but in therapy she became a mother figure for me almost instantly. I got terminated but still after many months I try to imagine how it would be to get a hug from her, I wish she could be here and comfort me when I´m sad.

With my own mum I don´t really want hugs, it doesn´t feel natural and I also feel more "real love" when I got some attention from a teacher. I know of course it wasn´t love but I felt liked in a complete different way.

I realise I´ve had a long history of looking for mother figures in elder women and I also feel very lonely because of this. It´s not about "go talk to your mother about it" as it´s not a temporary feeling, I´ve had it for very long.

Why do I feel this way? Why do I search for mother figures? What to ask for in therapy to be able to work on this issue?

I could have written your post.

I've had mother-figures in my life since age 5 with my kindergarten teacher. I would cry when my mom took me home. There was also my modeling teacher at age 5. In elementary school there was the taxidermy teacher (all I know is she had all kinds of dead animals). In jr. high it was my counselor. In h.s. it was a bunch of teachers. In college there were my counselors. In church there was my mentor and two other older women. And then there were several of my Ts.

My parents rarely touched me. I don't remember being touched, kissed, or hugged. I didn't have a relationship with my mom; she hated me growing up. I didn't have a relationship with my sisters. I was always with my dad, but quietly playing under his desk. And I rarely had friends.

Now, I have worked on my relationship with my mom. We are now best friends. But it's too late. She can't mother me.

I've learned that nothing will fill that hole my mother caused. Maybe, as some people on here say, I need to fill that hole myself? But I know for sure no one else can. So I try to stay away from motherly relationships. They're not healthy for me. They enable me and keep me stuck in those feelings. For me, it's just best to not have any more mother-figures.

It sounds like you feel needy because your mother wasn't the nurturing, comforting, warm type. You search for what you didn't experience but have seen others have to varying degrees. Working on the issue in therapy usually involves acknowledging what you missed, dealing with the feelings of loss, and any other feelings like anger, and developing ways to mother yourself and accept maternal influences in your life from your therapist and community you create, as well as other influences. In my case, for example, I've incorporated feminine-based spirituality, teachers, support group members, therapy, books, and of course, lots and lots of work self-parenting to fill that hole over the years.

I have had a similar issue, mostly in my 20s, when I felt very disconnected (for the first time) from my mother after my father's death. I too became "friends" with older women around her age.

Eventually it resolved itself as our relationship improved and returned to normal, and that pattern stopped. Still, I have been very wary of not repeating it with my therapists - they are not as old as she is, but they are old enough to be my mother.

You probably do feel this way because you wanted more closeness to an older woman. I don't know your current therapist's age or gender, but it's something you should bring up. It sounds like you try to please these women instead of living for yourself. I'd describe it just as you did here.

Sorry, but I don't think there's a more fundamentally lonely and heatbreaking phrase in the world than 'self-parent'. It takes someone who is already at a deficit and tells them that they have to do yet more on their own. There's nothing wrong with having needs and seeking fulfilment in others for those needs, as long as nobody is harmed in the process.

What's the big problem with wanting a mother figure? I am sure there are many ways to meet and spend time with older women in productive and friendly fashions. Why not just accept the need for what it is?

I can't speak for the OP, but for me it was unhealthy - yes, these women met that need, but I got clingy, needy, possessive of them, just like a small child with its mother. I'd obsess about them. I would lose my identity in them and restructure myself to please them or get their approval. I think the OP has some concern or she wouldn't have posted.

Call it transference with a non-therapist. And transference with a therapist can be dangerous enough (to me, anyway - others' mileage will vary).

Hm, well, that makes sense I guess if it creates a situation which is unhealthy. I wonder if therapy could help someone relate to older women in a healthier way which would simultaneously fulfil the need in a healthy way.

I think the combination is essential, self-parenting and accepting maternal influences in our lives. In my life, it's just been important to grieve what I didn't have though, because while the wonderful patchwork of influences I have woven together is "enough," it is not the same as having a reliable, kind mother.

My therapist is very wise about this, having done some of it herself. She also spent 15 years in therapy and refers to her own longterm female therapist as a mother figure. I don't think it has to be either-or at all!

I think Mother is the most terrifying word in the world, why would i want to replace the original with something else that is more of the same?

Wow, I could have written this--except about my father. I've always been shy and afraid of rejection, so I more admired teachers or authority who could be a "fatherly" figure from afar and desperately wished my father could be as caring and kind as them.

And I completely relate about what you said about receiving hugs...I am repulsed by the thought of hugging my father. I thought I was weird for that. I can count on one hand the number of times we have hugged, so I don't even want it anymore and I don't think I ever did. But the one time my therapist hugged me several months ago when we thought it was possible I wouldn't see him anymore, I went home and sobbed that night. It was the warmest hug I have ever received from a male figure in my life...And it came from a therapist at the age of 21. Sad, really.

I think it just comes from that gap in emotional presence from a parent or parents. That gap was really apparent when I was younger, but as I got more independent I ignored for awhile until the past year or so. It's started to become an issue again (i.e. I tear up when I see a little girl being shown affection from her dad or the sheer amount of innocence and trust children have in their parents to not break their heart). I have absolutely no idea how to deal with it. What can you even do? It's not like we can go back in time and have our parents who were distant show that outward affection and love. At this point in my life, I'm not sure how to move on. I haven't talked to my therapist about it much either. I at least have a mother who very obviously loves me and was always affectionate...I would have ended up an absolute wreck without her.

That's what I think.

When I was growing up I rejected my mother, I pushed her away when she tried to hug me. I'm not entirely sure I understand why I did this other than I didn't feel that it was real. My mother made me feel really terrible about my rejection of her. My brother would run up and jump into her arms. Though I rejected her I sought out a mother figure through teachers, an aunt, and when I got older, some older friends. As for my father, I don't recall any hugging at all and yet I don't seek out a father figure. I suspect some of this had to do with my very strict religious upbringing.

So when you say you don't feel loved by your parents even though they say they love you, I completely understand this. I don't feel it either, never have and I still don't as an adult. My parents tell me that they miss me and somehow that just doesn't feel real to me either.

It's definitely something that needs to be explored in therapy, something I have yet to do and need to because I have no feelings of love toward my parents at all.

Same situation here, Sarah. I've been longing for a loving relationship with an older woman for my entire life to fill the void that my own mother left me with. I believe it's just an innate response for some people to have when they are emotionally neglected by their own mother. There is no shame in wanting or needing this.

I am in my mid-40's and I have finally found this relationship, unexpectedly. It's been the single most heart-healing experience for me and I wish for everyone who needs it to find it.

You have such a way with words, SkyscraperMeow. Couldn't agree more with all of the above.

I think you are looking for a mother figure because you didn't have the relationship that you needed when you were growing up. A void is there, and you have been trying to fill it. But you have not found someone who can fill the void.

Oh, I know such a feeling so well. I could never stand hugs from my mother. I just wanted to get away as soon as I could.

I think you said that you were with an older female T but therapy got terminated. How much did you work on mother issues with her? What brought about the termination?

Agree, agree, agree. Have you read The Five Love Languages? I read it for my marriage and my kids and realized I knew my parents loved me but never felt it because they didn't speak my love language. And, one of mine was touch and I was rarely hugged. So, they could say all day long that they love me but I never FELT it. I've also realized that I can say I love you to people but I rarely have the feelings behind the words. My T. is one of the first people (other than my husband) that I felt the feelings behind the words.

Well. I never felt loved by my mother, no hugs, cuddles, kisses or comfort. She broke my heart.
How l longed for a mother.

I now know why I never felt loved by her, simple, harsh truth is. She didn't love me!

Its a fact that is hard to take on board but once l'd accepted the truth, after a period of grief I felt better, better than carrying on with the pretense.

I mean, if you don't feel the love, maybe that's because it just ain't there.

I relate to your post bigtime. I believe that my parents love me and I also believe they have tried their best with me. For some reason I stopped being able to accept their love at around age 12. I rejected them, a relationship with them seemed like the most unnatural thing in the world to me. It didn't feel safe to have them near me anymore and 13 years later I still feel this way.
I grew up desperately trying to find a mother figure. I didn't know what I was doing at the time or why I was falling in love with a certain type of woman. Teachers, guidance counsellors, neighbours, friend's mothers. As long as they were old enough and warm and caring. I didn't even know I wanted a mother because I didn't think that sort of love could come from a mother, I believed it had to come from an outside source.
I acted out, and I so desperately wanted whichever woman I was obsessed with at the time to rescue me from my life. And the only thing that ever happened was my own mother being informed of whatever I had done, but I didn't want her attention because it felt so wrong. So I stopped trying to get anyone's attention.
Years later, once I spotted the pattern of what I was doing and worked out why I was doing it, I magically just stopped needing to do it. Once I realised that this is an actual problem that some people have and not just my weird thing, the shame went away. I still have no idea why I felt the need to reject my parents love though.
I have lots of older friends and I often prefer their company to people my own age, but I've stopped fantasising about manipulating them into caring for me. They are what they are and I stay very guarded with them. They know very little about the real me, they seem to think I'm this fun, carefree, shallow sort of person and that is the way it has to stay for them to like me. But they are there for now and I am glad.

I think I could have written your post as well. My mother emotionally abused me and never showed any affection. It has caused significant damage. I have always craved for a mother figure and I had one for many years and then she abandoned me.

I also have been looking for a mother-figure since about the age of 11. I could have written everything you wrote. I have a very troubled relationship with my mom. She was extremely angry as I entered adolescence and when I came home from school I never knew what I was coming home to. Sometimes she would be fine, but other days it was like the house was exploding with her emotions. Then other days she would be in bed and my sisters and I would have to tiptoe around the house and not make a sound. I eventually stopped letting my mom hug me, because it was too confusing. Sometimes she acted like she hated me, and then moments later she would be apologizing and asking for forgiveness and wanting to hug me. There are so many women over the years that I have become attached to and wanted hugs from because I saw something in them that was different from the way my mom treated me. I still look for mother-figures even though I'm way too old to be doing that. In my head sometimes I think of my therapist as my "momma."

I also think it´s a great thing if you find a person who can be that mother figure for you but I don´t think that´s easy. It´s perhaps easier to find an older women to be your friend but if you want more closeness, like wanting her to also act like a mother I think it´s hard to find that person.

I know mean acting like a mother in that way you want her to comfort you, that you can call her and tell her "everything". It´s much harder when you´re already an adult yourself but I would really want to know such a woman if it was possible.

Thanks for sharing. I can relate to that you say your parents tell you they miss you but you don´t feel it´s for real. I think mine miss me but I can´t say I miss them back. We live quite far away from each other and especially my mum would want me to move back to where they live.

I think some of this wanting a mother figure depends on that I look up to older women who I admire, who have studied and who are intelligent and successful. As I myself strive for.

My parents didn´t go to university and they don´t have interests or such that I admire either. Perhaps that´s one clue to why I look for mother figures.

Thanks for sharing. How did you find this woman? If you´d like to share that. Is she older, like she could have been your mother? In what way is she a mother figure to you, can you turn to her for a hug for example?

Thanks. Did you find your mother figure as you´ve experienced the same or are you still looking?

I didn´t work on mother issues at all, nothing about feeling for my therapist as she was my mother. We talked about my own mother and that I don´t feel that emotionally close to her but we never entered into talking about my feelings for my therapist. I often told my T I appreciated her and what she did for me but I never spoke in terms of seeing her as a mother figure.

The cause for termination is a long story but basically it happened because my T couldn´t handle a couple of opinions I had on things that happened in therapy. She became defensive instead of trying to talk about it and I still don´t know if she thought of it as negative transference or if she just felt disappointed of herself and that she didn´t want the risk of hurting me again. It´s the deepest sorrow I´ve ever had.

Thanks for sharing. It´s sad to hear what you gone through. Did your mother ever get a diagnosis? Perhaps you don´t want to speak about that in this forum but the description of how she acted sounds a bit like borderline. But that´s just my thought when I read your post.