Recently, I saw a video clip of a young lady questioning how to reconcile the broken relationship between she and her mother. She mentioned their relationship had been “horrible” as long as she could remember. When she was asked about her parents relationship, the young lady mentioned that her parents were abusive to each other and they were no longer together by the time she turned five-years-old.

The advice she was given was that part of the reason her mother may be behaving this way towards her daughter could be due to the fact that she (daughter) reminds her mother of the father and that [apparently] bad relationship. The young lady was advised to continue to make an effort to patch everything up and mend fences with her mother.

While I understood where the advice was coming from because the person giving the advice stated they had a wonderful relationship with their mother, that would not have been my advice to someone that stated they’ve always had a horrible relationship with their parent. That would not be my advice to that young lady and I’ll explain why.

To continue to extend an olive branch and make a best effort to build or rebuild a relationship wit a parent, who is not invested in doing the same can be damaging to that individual both mentally and emotionally. While I think it can be a good idea to remain open and optimistic about the relationship getting better, there is no need to continue to try if your efforts aren’t being reciprocated. I think as long as she wants to build the relationship, she should definitely try to reach out and maybe attend therapy with her mother, but to continue to try with little to no effort on the part of her mother is not a good idea. Sometimes, you have to know when to let a relationship go particularly if it is not serving you in any way.

Overall, I got the impression that this young lady was hurt that her relationship with her mother was not better, particularly given the fact that she expressed her other siblings don’t see this version of their mother. To expect her, as the child, to continue to expose herself to further heartache and frustration is not fair. I think the person who bears the larger burden of repairing the relationship belongs to the parent and if that is not their desire, then that would tell the child how much they should be interested in rebuilding the relationship.

The emotional pain this young lady must feel from being essentially shunned by her mother for exact reasons she doesn’t even know if enough and to expect her to continue to expose that vulnerability in the hope that her mother will come around is not conducive to her mental well-being.

What are your thoughts? Have you had a difficult relationship with your parents? Did it improve? IF so, how did you make that happen?