Hello, I tried to post this before but I forgot the tl;dr. I am 16F, my mother is 50sF. I’m writing on mobile so apologies for any mistakes.
As the title says, my friends and I were recently discussing our relationships with our mothers, and when I went on to describe mine, they looked extremely concerned and said that my mother and I have an emotionally incestuous
To be honest, I was incredibly offended and upset, but now that I think about it, I’m starting to get scared that my relationship with my mother is something other than what I thought it was.
I always considered my mother and I to be close, both physically and mentally. My friends say that these are the reasons I should move out once I hit 18.
– My mother walks around naked in front of me, and specifically only me. It’s not like she plays it up or anything, but it happens pretty often. My friends tell me this isn’t normal, and I guess it isn’t, but I always assumed it was because we were the same gender. This was the biggest reason to them.
– My mother and I play fight. I playfully bite her, or pretend to hit her, and she does the same to me. She also threatens to hit me when I’m being purposefully annoying, or calls me a “little shit”. My friends say this isn’t normal.
– My mother and father never had a good marriage and my father and I don’t have the best relationship due to prior abuse. It’s complicated and not the point, but she often vents her frustrations with him on me. He abused her for the entirety of their relationship and she often insults him, yells at him in front of me, or spills out secrets from their relationship (romantically, not sexually). My friends say she shouldn’t be doing this, and I guess I agree to an extent as I often shut down when an argument occurs or I get scared easily, but she’s been abused by him for more than twenty years and I want her to have a safe space to talk about her feelings.
– She talks to me openly about sex. Not her prior sexual experiences, of course, but moreso what happens, what I should expect, and what I shouldn’t tolerate. I don’t talk to her about my sexual experiences, but I am open about what I think was weird in the experience/what I didn’t like, and she gives me advice on what I should do. My friends say my mother shouldn’t be talking to me about sex period, and I get that, I suppose, but still.
– She doesn’t like any of my friends or any partners. I get this, because I’ve had some experiences with bad friends and I almost got myself into a sexual/romantic relationship with someone not my age (20s) when I was 13 before I told her. She tells me it’s because she’s protective of me and wants me to be treated fairly, and I’m happy she watches out for me, but my friends call this overbearing. It does get annoying sometimes, but I get she just wants the best for me.
– She’s very physically affectionate with me. She kisses my head, hugs me a lot, strokes/sniffs my hair, holds my hand, etc. She does this a lot in public and in private, and my friends say this is weird of her to be this affectionate. Maybe it is, but I never thought it crossed into anything inappropriate.
– She’s closer than me out of any of our siblings and calls me the favorite (just to me). She’s never treated us any differently to my knowledge and still is affectionate and loving to my other siblings, but my friends say this isn’t healthy.
I never saw anything wrong with her behavior until this was pointed out to me, and I’m starting to get scared that maybe this isn’t normal, or maybe I’m reading too much into it and I need better friends.
Tl;dr: My friends say I have an incestuous relationship with my mother and listed reasons as to why — such as she walks around me naked, she often vents to me about my father, and talks to me about sex (not her sexual experiences) to me openly. I’m starting to think that maybe they are right.
Edit: Idk if anyone will see this or care but the general consensus seems to be that everything is normal besides the favoritism and venting to me about my father.
I will make it clear I am in no way uncomfortable with anything besides the venting. When I said my mother walks around me naked, I meant that she gets changed in front of me and doesn’t rush to do so. I am not and was never uncomfortable with this, and if I was, it’s not like I couldn’t just ask her to stop. She has always respected my boundaries and my words as the truth.
I will talk to my mom about toning down the bashing of my dad, and probably tell my friends off for being so weird about it lol. Thank you all for the support!