I can’t say many positive things about my mother, but I do remember a few. She loved books and was really good at reading—better than I ever will be. When she was relaxed, she was careful with her words. Sometimes, even, she could be loving. But most of the time, she was a monster to me. And honestly, she couldn’t help it. She never had a proper home. She struggled with her adoptive parents as a teenager, was almost given up by them—just like her biological mother had given her up. She never learned how to love, so she couldn’t teach me.
But I learned.
The first mother I truly desired was Maria. I wasn’t Catholic at heart, but her story fascinated me. The second was my aunt, Dr. Johanna. She was perfection in every way—disciplined, elegant, her apartment immaculate, utterly stable. For years, I wished she could be my mother. And the third was my neighbour in Germany, the most loving woman I have ever met. She was lonely, I had no mother, and somehow we fit. Perfect match. I realise now that I searched for women with curly hair. I believed, for a long time, that straight hair meant aggression, or at least a higher potential for it, compared to curly hair. It sounds ridiculous, right? But somehow, my self-image practised that distinction. And every single woman with curly hair seemed warmer, softer, more loving than my mother ever was. The first hug I ever received was from a man in Germany, when I was nineteen. My first taste of milk products, like yogurt, came from my aunt at the age of ten. The first time someone called me by my real name was in kindergarten, at five years old. So, as you can see, living with your mother can be… complicated. But we love talking about daddy issues, don’t we? It sounds nice, melodic even. But what if we flip the script and look at mothers? Because believe it or not, there’s something called mommy issues too. And when I started reading about them, I was shocked—how many people struggle with them, and why? Let’s explore that.
What Are “Mummy Issues”?
“Mummy issues” aren’t just a clinical term—they’re a lived experience, a shadow that follows you into adulthood. They arise from the emotional and psychological gaps left by a mother who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, give what was needed. These gaps can take many shapes:
• Attachment Disorders: The inability to form healthy emotional bonds, often because maternal care was inconsistent, neglectful, or outright absent.
• Low Self-Esteem: Feeling never quite enough, internalising messages of inadequacy when a mother was critical or emotionally unavailable.
• Relationship Difficulties: Trust issues, fear of intimacy, constant searching for reassurance—all patterns learned before you even knew the world existed outside your mother’s eyes.
• Emotional Dysregulation: Struggling to manage emotions, swinging between anger, sadness, and anxiety, often without a blueprint for balance.
For me, this became real when I recognised it in my partner. A man in his fifties, yet expecting from me the kind of emotional care that should have come from his mother—care, validation, praise, stability. When I saw him lash out in frustration, demanding regulation and comfort, I understood: this was not just personality. It was the echo of years of maternal absence, of repeated hurt. His mother never offered compliments. She regularly reminded him he “should never have been born.” Those messages, those omissions, shaped a life where aggression became a tool of control, where emotional regulation remained foreign, and where risk and conflict were often met with force rather than reason.
The Gendered Impact of Maternal Attachment
Attachment theory, pioneered by John Bowlby, shows how early bonds—or the lack thereof—with caregivers shape our emotional lives. There are often gendered patterns:
• Men tend to develop avoidant attachment. They struggle with intimacy, withdraw emotionally, and avoid vulnerability. When their early maternal needs are unmet, this can escalate to narcissistic traits, using power, aggression, or emotional manipulation as a substitute for self-worth. They may demand from partners what was never given to them, expecting others to manage emotions they’ve never learned to handle.
• Women more commonly display anxious attachment, seeking reassurance and fearing abandonment, sometimes overcompensating in relationships to secure love they feel they never received.
For my partner, this dynamic is palpable. His unresolved maternal wounds translate into a lifelong expectation: that I step into the maternal void. And the harder I resist, the more explosive the reaction—because for him, control and aggression have long been the tools for coping with fear and emptiness.
Prevalence and Consequences
Insecure attachment isn’t rare. Studies suggest around 40% of adults carry patterns of ambivalent, avoidant, or disorganised attachment. These unresolved maternal relationships can ripple through life, affecting not just mental health but the very architecture of one’s relationships.
The consequences can be profound:
• Mental Health Disorders: Anxiety, depression, and chronic stress are common.
• Relationship Struggles: Difficulty maintaining healthy intimacy, repetition of destructive patterns, and emotional co-dependence.
• Parenting Challenges: Without intervention, the cycle often repeats with the next generation.
• Narcissistic Traits in Men: Aggression, entitlement, and an expectation that partners or friends must supply the missing maternal validation.
When you witness it in real life—as I do—it becomes impossible to ignore. You see the patterns, the triggers, the repeated lapses, and you understand why boundaries are necessary. You also realise how personal history shapes expectations and reactions, often in ways invisible to the person living them.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/mommy-issues
Reflection :
When I reflect on all of this, it becomes painfully clear how much of the past still lives in the present. My partner struggles with self-regulation, with clear communication, and above all with accepting boundaries. Time and again, he pushes me into old patterns, unavoidably creating distance between us—even when I know it is unconscious. The man I once thought would embody stability and dominance, the one whose profession suggested a calm, reliable presence, often reveals himself as a three-year-old in need of protection, whose emotions I am expected to manage. I have been accustomed to raising my mother, to nurturing where care was absent. And though I have strong maternal archetypes and a deeply ingrained desire to nurture, this is part of why I do not want children: I have already, technically, raised a child. The confrontation between my boundary-setting and his childish, frustrated defiance is exhausting, sometimes unbearable. And I cannot yet tell whether the relationship will survive if this pattern continues. He is used to partners who were needy, emotionally unreachable, unfaithful, or pathologically insecure. I am entirely uncharted territory for him, with my expectations that he reflect on himself, attend therapy, respect my boundaries, and—most crucially—speak openly about his feelings.
Perhaps I overwhelm him. And I cannot help but ask: why do we not speak louder about this? Not every woman is made to mother. And yet society seems determined to insist that women must take up that role, simply because they possess a womb. Perhaps, just perhaps, the message should be different: women must learn to love themselves first. Only then can they truly love another.
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