"If a mother and daughter are codependent on each other, the young woman may have trouble developing and maintaining successful relationships with others," Forshee says. This is particularly tricky if your mom calls you her best friend, but you definitely don't feel the same way.Įven if you do feel like she's your BFF, it's important to unpack that, too. "Instead of a mom developing her own friends and support network, the mother relies on the child to fulfill these needs - for example - no friends of her own and to her child as her 'best friend,'" Williamson says. It may seem like a positive thing to be super-close to your mom, especially if you have ~the best mom ever~, but really this sort of blurred relationship could be paving the way to other major types of boundary crossing. Here are 13 phrases that toxic parents might use.Įxperts repeat this time and time again when it comes to identifying toxic mother-child relationships: she's not your friend, she's your mother. It is up to you how you proceed with this relationship once you have that info, but a family therapist might be able to correct the relationship, or a personal therapist could help to support you independently. (Not exactly “best mom ever” behavior.) And while evidence of this imbalance might be clear to an expert, people inside of the dynamic might have a hard time recognizing toxicity for what it is.
Only, that doesn’t always happen.Ī key indicator of a toxic mother-child relationship “is the mother being dependent on the child for her own emotional needs, or for needs not typically met within a mother-child relationship," family therapist Julie Williamson, L.P.C., tells Bustle.
" It becomes emotional abuse when there is character assassination and put-downs that continue despite your attempts at communicating how it affects you." This can be a sign of a toxic daughter, too, but because the parent is supposed to be in charge in a relationship, the onus is on them to model good behavior. "A toxic relationship is a dynamic between two or more people where emotional needs generally go unmet because of issues that have nothing to do with the other person," Danielle Forshee, Psy.D, L.C.S.W., tells Bustle. It’s not always clear when a parent is crossing a line, but experts agree that signs your mom is toxic can be found in the way she speaks to you.Īlthough it’s a fine line, a toxic relationship isn’t always synonymous with emotional abuse, which can also come out in the words your mom uses. But in a mother-child relationship, the parent does wield the bulk of the emotional responsibility - hence why there are a lot more toxic moms than toxic daughters. A toxic relationship is typically a two-way street.