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Your siblings and cousins are gaslighting you.
Your feelings are valid.
If you love someone more than your mother as a mother, then you love that person more than your mother as a mother. That's totally fine.
Many LGBTQ+ people have to create their families out of caring people that they meet and come to love and trust, because their families reject and hate them. Those bonds are as valid (and in some cases many times more valid) than bonds of mere blood.
This brings to mind the saying: " The blood of the covenant is stronger than the water of the womb." Which means the relationships you CHOOSE are often stronger than the ones you're born into. If your found family supports and loves you but your biological family doesn't, then your true family is your found/chosen family. You don't need to associate with people who mistreat you.
It's funny how often this adage is misused. But yeah, this is right! What Mack said.
Was skimming the thread to see if someone had already said this.
Your siblings and cousins suck. Don’t listen to them.
I’ve been in your position, and had people, at certain points in my life, who changed my life without really doing anything, or realizing it.
We all take bits and pieces of who, and what we interact with in the world. Those bits may be amazingly beautiful, or they may be world shattering. Your bio parents probably were more of the latter, but your ex’s mom might have been someone that set your life in a completely different, and better path, with a word, or a hug, or a shoulder.
I can only speak for myself, but having someone show an ounce of compassion, or empathy can be everything to someone who grew up with a shitty family (whatever that looks like).
That’s where the term “chosen family” comes from.
I love her, but is it true love to love someone as a mother if they aren’t your biological mother?
Do you think a child that was adopted, but never told it was adopted, would love its parents any less than children of biological parents?
No, they wouldn't. Because emotions are not in any way influenced by our "blood relations." If that actually influenced love, there would be far fewer shitty parents in the world.
Always be suspicious if someone OUTSIDE of you--someone who is NOT you--is trying to tell you what you feel.
I have never found a case where that outside person was correct.
And they are often *especially * wrong when they try to "reverse" what you feel. Like, if you feel something good, and they say it is bad. Or if you feel something bad, and they say no, the thing that makes you feel that way is good. There's usually ulterior motivations here. (And not necessarily well-thought-out evil mastermind ones...some people are very manipulative in a "cunning" or "canny" way, where they've learned such things work, but don't actually think out their plans or motivations...they manipulate on instinct.)
I've always had much more success figuring out my emotions when I looked within and slowly picked apart what I felt and WHY I felt it, even if that way was much slower than listening to someone else trying to tell me what to think and feel.
Also--I've never personally been able to identify any difference between "true" love and other forms of love. As far as I can tell, love is love, and it's very common for people who grew up with abusive family to later seek out "found family", where people regardless of their blood kinship have proven they are safe for you to be around by their benign or benevolent actions towards you.
There's plenty of ways to point out that what your siblings are saying is just terrible and wrong on all levels, and utterly dismissive of the experience of so many adopted kids, but I think the most important thing is this: what good are words like "true" or "real" if what your siblings said were true?
It would be like if someone said that the manufactured insulin a diabetic took wasn't real insulin. If your definition of "real" doesn't include the thing that fulfills a things fundamental role, then your definition of real and true is reserved for useless nonsense.
This woman made you feel like you had someone looking out for you in the world, concerned for you. That is what love is. If that's not real, then I don't want whatever "real" is. This world is full of people who could give each other the care we each need, and anyone who thinks we need to limit that based on something as primitive as bloodlines needs is, forgive my language, an effing idiot.
Absolutely! You don't have any say in what family you are born into, they might be good, might suck ducks, more likely somewhere in between. You can choose family that are not biologically related to you, and love them as purely or even more so than you do biological family. Many refer to their close friends as chosen family for this very reason. Love who you love and be happy, no matter who may try to piss on your happiness.
Your motherly figure doesn't have to be your blood mother
Growing up, I always hated my uninvolved authoritarian parents. For some unconscious reasons, I picked up on Richard Dawkins as my fatherly figure, although he is the age of my grandfather now and I never met him inperson. I loved the way he charmingly calmly and rationaly replied, not because "I said so". I loved that he was successful. I loved his non-snarky absolute confident way of looking and talking. I really looked up to him
Do you believe a mother can love her adopted child and the other way around? Then you have your answer. You love her, she loves you. Do you need any more labeling (it is absolutely fine if you do, just something to think about)?
These feelings are so complex you could spend a lifetime untangling them.
All that matters is what it means to you.
Categorisation like whether it's actually a mother daughter love isn't really helpful in any way.
If you care for each other then that's enough.
The caveat is... given your bio mums douchebaggery you should be sure you're not "helping" this woman in exchange for her love.
I'm adopted and know both my mothers. Birth mom didn't want me at put me up for adoption and my mother adopted me. Birth mother came around when I was 25 wanting me back even though I'd never met her, I knew she wasn't MY mom. I want nothing to do with my birthmother because she was just a vessel for me to end up with my real mom.
If you feel that pull from your heart that this person is your mother, then she is ( as long as everyone's cool).
I am both happy and sad for you, as your birth mom was/is someone coming back to claim you. And your adopted mom loves you, absolutely, from your comments I am sure of that.
I love this woman I referred to, as a mom.
My birth/bio mom now is in a severe state of dementia, and my "bio" family refused to accept that until I had managed to pull her through a thorough investigation by several doctors and clinics. Apparently, according to her, I am the one child who loved her the most. And I don't love her. She has been an abuser all of my life, up until now that she can't even remember doing it. This prompted me to write my post previously. Because I still feel conflicted. I love someone else as a mom. All I feel for my birth mom is utter pity.
You are a lovely soul. Do not ever forget it.
Blood isn't everything. The ex's mom was a decent person and treated you well. Blood relatives don't always do that. Sometimes they're so awful it even makes sense to go no contact. Sometimes their actions are literally criminal. On the flip side there are friends that are basically family and people who adopt.
What you felt with the ex's mom was real as anything. Don't listen to people who say otherwise. The blood relatives who said it was fake were being manipulative or saying something based on being manipulated.
"True" is only a word that has different meanings. The only things important here are your feelings. Your feelings can't be fake (for you), it is just what you feel. If someone tells you that your actual feelings are fake, they're lying, and you should a single fuck about what they say.
How do you know if you truly love someone as a mother?
You never ask yourself this question if you do.
Why not? Especially if other people tell you that your feelings are wrong, you might question them.
Why not?
Because there's no reason to do so.
Imagine Sun. It's there. You see it every day. You know it shines in the day.
Do you ask yourself whether it's really there and whether it shines? No, you don't. That's because there's no reason to - you see it every day, you feel its effect. If you didn't, there would be some ground to question its reality. But you do, and therefore you don't ask this question.
Same with love, and not just parental, but any kind of love.
Spoken like someone who hasn't grown up with tons of trauma that makes you question every little thing you feel because you honestly don't know what's normal or "good" or "right". Bad people--especially abusive family--are VERY good at making you question natural inclinations, esp. if they are jealous that you might be finding something good that they haven't managed to grasp.
I hope you understand--because I am telling you, right now--what sort of damage your comment can do to people who were not lucky enough to grow up with a solid, loving foundation at home.
I hope you understand how wrong you are, because I grew up in a family that gave me enough traumas for decades of years. Some didn't heal to this day. You absolutely need to understand it, because your assumptious comment is enabling highly damaging, scornful and stress-inducing style of thinking and commenting, that has no place in online discourse.
I’m sorry, but no.
I THOUGHT loved people who were abusing me, until I saw what REAL love is. I thought I KNEW what love is. I THOUGHT love was, what I now know to be abuse.
It’s absolutely a valid question to ask, and your reply is literally gaslighting.
If you have no frame of reference for a healthy relationship, how do you KNOW it’s good, without asking?
It’s absolutely a valid question to ask, and your reply is literally gaslighting.
It's a valid question, but the answer is also valid and far from gaslighting. The process of questioning one's love/feelings > IS < an indicator, that there's something wrong, that it's not entirely complete, perfect, proper state of affairs.
It applies to many things. If you question your job efficiency, you aren't as efficient as you know you could've been. If you question your happiness, you're not fully happy. If you question your love, or the love someone else should feel towards you... Well, there's some imperfection in it too.
OP seemed very confident that they love the mother figure they’re talking about, they just wanted to know if that counted as loving them “as a mother”. I don’t think asking “what type of love does this count as” is an indicator that you don’t actually love someone. Or, at least, it’s not nearly as strong an indicator as having to ask “do I love them”.
I don’t think it’s uncommon at all to experience love and then have trouble figuring out what exactly caused that feeling—and having to do this questioning doesn’t necessarily imply that the love was imperfect or incomplete.
I don't see it that way.
You don't question what you feel is truth. And if you do it - enough that it warrants an online search - then it is a strong indicator, that there might, indeed, be some crack in the wall, so to speak.
Bear in mind that I acknowledge the vastness between "it's x" and "it's not x". I simply point out that if one questions himself, then it's "the vastness" territory already, rather than "it's x". How far it is into the "vastness", is entirely different discussion.
I think that’s an unnecessarily high standard to hold love to before it starts to count as “true”. Though, at that point, we’re just arguing semantics. I agree that there’s many things love can be between “not love” and “true love”. I’m not sure we disagree on how much the love matters, just whether or not it counts as true.
I misinterpreted you saying “if the love can be questioned then it isn’t true” as meaning “if the love can be questioned then it is lesser, and OP is wrong to value their relationship with their ex’s mother so highly”. I see now that that’s not what you meant.
Thank you for responding, and have a good day!
No prob. It's often hard to properly put one's thoughts into words, especially if the language barrier stands in the way...
This is a dumb analogy that just doesn't apply here.
OP is saying that she has unique feelings for this person but no point of reference.
As in... we both know the sun is "yellow" but IDK if your yellow is the same as my yellow.
Your analogy is weak.
It doesn't matter how you perceive the color of Sun as long as we both agree to call it "yellow".
Sure mate. That's pretty much exactly my answer to OP.
if loving this woman as a mother feels right to you then that's enough.
What's a sun? You're trippin?
I want to thank everyone who replied. I love this woman as a mother, and I've repeatably had to explain myself to my "other" family as it's apparently not OK to disobey or not procreate. I am happy that I won't have to pass this on to a child. I would be fearful and paranoid if I had one, due to the abuse that is normalized. Yet, I am apparently less of a person as I have not produced progeny. Irregardless, thank you to the lovely people who supported me. I wish that this woman, who I wish would have been my birth mother, keeps being happy. The help I provide her with is small, but daily, such as her wifi, phone accounts, spam prevention. I don't even help my blood family with this. I feel that your comments have helped me. Thank you. I love her, and I wish she had been my mother instead of the woman who bore me.