Could You Help Me Understand My Mother Better?

[alithinker]

Hi guys. This is my first post. I really need your help with something. Please read and leave your comments. I need to understand why is it that my mom behaves in the strange way that she does. But before I begin, allow me to present you with some basic facts:
I am a guy, 29 years old. I come from a large family consisting of 6 kids. I am the third among them. I have one sister- she is the oldest child in the family. And I have 5 brothers. My sister is 36, and my youngest brother is 8.
My dad works as a clergy man; a preacher. My mom is a house wife. And we live in Saudi Arabia. My sister works and is married. My older brother also works and is married. I work, but I am still single.
Now let’s get to the problem. My problem is that I don’t understand why my mom hates my dad so much, and why is it that she can’t talk to him about it. And also, why is it that she continues to be married to him even though she clearly despises him.
Now let’s go into details. I realized this problem very early on in my life- when I was a young teenager. I realized that my mom hates my dad. She hates him a lot. I don’t know if she loved him before- I don’t remember ever seeing them loving each other. But all I remember is that she always badmouths him when he is not around.
Now my dad on the other hand, was, and continues to be, oblivious to this fact. He thinks that my mom loves him. I tried telling him many times that my mom hates him but he never believed me. And to be honest, I am not surprised. That is because my mom NEVER reveals how she feels when he is around. She is like a super actor. She changes her attitude and vibe dramatically when he is around. When my dad is around, my mom is smiley, kind, and loyal. But the moment that my dad leaves, she completely changes. She becomes this whiny disgusting person and all she does is whine and complain about how much she hates him.
I don’t know why my mom acts like that. I tried asking her several times about it, and I confronted her with questions like: “why do you hate my dad?”, “why can’t you reveal your feelings to him?”, or “why is it that you are still married to him?”, but she always avoided answering my questions. She never told me the truth. It is like she just can’t. It is as if she can’t trust me with the truth. I think she is so afraid that if she tells me the truth, I might tell it to my dad. And for some reason, she just can’t seem to afford that.
But I didn’t give up. When I failed to obtain the truth from her, I tried hard to find out about it through asking others. I asked my mom’s family, I asked my mom’s friends, etc… but nobody seems to know. They know she hates my dad, but they don’t seem to know why. It is like she never told anyone why she hates my dad so much, or why she continues to be married to him. I don’t think she could ever afford trusting anyone with that secret.
So what did I do? I resorted to making theories. I needed a framework in order to understand why my mom behaves this way. And here are some of the theories that I came up with:
I first thought she must be in love with another man. I tried digging deep but I couldn’t find any compelling evidence that such thing might have happened. So I gave up on this theory.
Second, I thought maybe it is my dad who has cheated on my mom. And that this is why she hates him so much. While this theory might be true, (I don’t know for sure, I am just saying it “might” be true) this still doesn’t explain why my mom continues to be married to my dad.
So finally, I came up with a theory that I think might just be able to explain everything. And I want you to tell me if you think it is a plausible theory. Now before I tell you what it is, I want you to know that I tried confirming this theory with my mom, but she also refused to answer me. But if my theory is true, I think I can understand why. So anyways, here is my theory:
I realized that my mom doesn’t have any form of guaranteed financial support other than my dad’s support. I mean she isn’t educated- she only finished elementary school. And she also doesn’t have a job. She also doesn’t have any family that could support her; her family are all poor or dead. And while me and my older siblings aren’t exactly “poor”, she just can’t rely on us. Why is that? It is because it is not only about her who needs support. Supporting one person isn’t really hard. It is because she has two young kids that also need support.
Remember I said earlier that my youngest brother is 8. Well, I have another brother who is 12. Those two kids also need support. And if my mom was going to have a divorce, she must first secure a line of support for those two. And while we, the older kids, “might” be able to support our younger brothers, that is definitely Not a guarantee. Especially considering that most of us the elders have kids of our own. So as such, my mom can’t really rely on our support. As such, my mom has no choice but to continue to be the “loving-caring wife” she always was. Otherwise, she risks her children’s future.
So I don’t know, does that make sense to you guys? Do you guys understand the situation that I am trying to depict? Do you agree that this explains why my mom behaves in the dualistic manner that she does? And if you do, do you think I should try and help her? I mean, I wish I could do something to liberate my mom from her misery so that she could start taking better care of my brothers. What do you think? Should I aim for becoming richer so that I can support my mom and my brothers besides supporting myself and my possible future family? I think I should.
If you agree with me please let me know. I want to know I am aiming for the right thing. If you think that I am confused, however, and think that I might have just got it all wrong, please let me know in your comment. And tell me how you think I should go about finding the truth about my mom’s behavior. I really appreciate your help.
I wish you all the best,
Ali

[BackUpOrGetStng]

I'd say you're probably right, and while I doubt you're privy to all of the details of their relationship, your theory makes a lot of sense. I also don't think she'd ever admit this to you, maybe not even to herself. I know you want your mom to be happy, but I don't think this is a situation where your help is warranted or wanted. Expect any interactions about this with your mother to be tough.

[Valixy]

First, I think that you should stop involving other family members or friends in this. All families and marriages have problems but they learn to keep them to themselves, it's wiser this way. Second, I think that you should respect your mother's right to privacy and silence. You can tell her that you'll always be there for her if she needs to talk but you shouldn't keep pressuring her with too many questions too often. However, you should tell her that the negativity she exteriorizes whenever you father is not around, has a strong effect on you and your other siblings and she should either approach her problems with your father or learn to channel her negativity without directing it towards her children. Maybe her stress isn't related to your father directly but to the marriage itself and all the obligations it has conveyed during the years, or even to some personal issues that she might be projecting on her marriage. She'd probably need to see a psychologist/therapist and have a few honest chats and receive some kind of orientation, but she might not be open to this. In any case, she should become aware that just like the great majority of people, she needs to learn to handle her feelings better and look for some kind of help, if not in your father and her family or friends, she could read some books on dealing with stress and negative emotions or if not, she could look for internal support in prayer and religion.

[pcmaster]

First of all concentrate on your own life. Being single at 29 makes you care about parents relationship while remaining... single.

Maybe yourfather is good looking. So when hes around your mum feels positive and energised just because of his presence(Good looking guys do a lot of shit but girls are sweet when they around). Also why should he care? As long as shes good to him everything else doesnt matter.

Other thing could be that he cheated on her or just have tiny dick so shes unsatisfied while your father things hes a hero. She might be nice to him cause they have this bussines relationship where she hates him but still needs him.

However there is something artificial there that keeps this relationship in one piece. Showing whats wrong will just make new problem that have to be fixed. Living is easy with eyes closed.