Mother Wounds: Can A Man Hide His True Self If He Had An Emotionally Unavailable Mother?

When a man is around others, it can be normal for him to play a role and do what he can to please them. As a result of this, he won’t freely express himself and his own needs will be overlooked.

This can be something that just happens without him consciously choosing to behave in this way. If he is aware of this, he can be fed up with how he behaves and wonder why he is this way.

One Area

What might soon stand out is that this is how he behaves when he is in a relationship. He could think about how when he is with a woman, he ends up coming across as needless and easy-going.

Thus, he focuses on her needs and does what he can to please her, causing him to put himself to one side. He could also see how this causes him to experience resentment and even hate.

Two Extremes

When he first starts dating a woman, then, he can feel happy and energised. But, as time passes, he will feel down and he won’t have a great deal of energy.

The positive view that he had of her will have gradually changed into a negative view. However, while he may believe that the women that he has been with have used him, it might not be this black and white.

Another Outlook

He might see that some of them did but he could also see that some of them didn’t. If this is the case, he can see how some of these women were not self-absorbed but that as he was so focused on pleasing them, it didn’t matter.

It will be clear to him that he chose to go along with what was going on and wasn’t forced to do so. After having experienced life in this way for as long as he can remember, he will want to experience life differently.

A Closer Look

If he were to imagine that he was around a friend and freely expressed himself and wasn’t focused on pleasing them, he could end up feeling free and relieved. Yet, after a while he could end up feeling anxious and fearful.

He could also experience guilt and shame. If so, being himself will be seen as something that is wrong and a threat to his survival.

A Strange Scenario

With this in mind, it is not going to be a surprise that he has the tendency to hide himself. At this point, he could believe that there is no reason for him to be this way.

He could say that being himself isn’t wrong and it is unlikely that he would die. Nonetheless, as irrational as what is going on for him will seem, if he were to reflect on what his early years were like, it might soon make complete sense.

Back In Time

During his formative years, he may have had a mother who was emotionally unavailable and out of reach. In addition to being neglected by her, she may have also often been critical and verbally and even physically abusive.

Consequently, he would have been greatly deprived and deeply wounded. To handle what was going on, his brain would have repressed how he felt and a number of his needs.

Self-Alienation

This would have caused him to lose touch with his body and create a disconnected false self. Unlike his true self, this false self would have been outer-directed and its priority would have been to please his mother and perhaps his father.

He would have lived in the hope, the false hope, that if he did what he could to please her, she would provide him with the love that he needed. This is because he wasn’t able to accept that his mother couldn’t love him, so he had to believe that he was the problem and was worthless and unlovable.

A continuation

Many years will have passed since that stage of his life but a big part of him won’t realise that it is over. When he was a child, freely expressing himself would have caused him to be rejected, abandoned and even harmed, and, to this part of him, this will still take place if he freely expresses himself.

If how he felt had been faced and integrated as opposed to repressed, he would know that this stage of his life was over. But, as he would have briefly felt rejected, helpless and hopeless, for instance, and these feelings were soon repressed, what happened will be seen as something that will happen.

A New Reality

For him to know, at the core of his being, that this stage of his life is over, he will have beliefs to question, pain to face and work through and unmet developmental needs to experience. This will take courage, patience and persistence.

Awareness

If a man can relate to this and he is ready to change his life, he may need to reach out for external support. This is something that can be provided with the assistance of a therapist or healer.