My (29F) mother (58F) is trying to reconnect with me without addressing any of our past issues and I don't know what to do about it.

My mother and I have always had a tumultuous relationship. She's very much a typical Chinese mother - negative comments about my appearance, no affection/recognition of my achievements, homophobic, racist, etc. She also doesn't believe in depression/anxiety and doesn't see value in seeing therapists.

When I was 17, I was dating a girl for the first time. I would write about it in my diary that I didn't hide - I've kept a diary since I was 8 and I always trusted that she would respect my privacy. I guess something tipped her off and one day she took my diary and read all about my relationship with this girl.

She asked me if I was gay, and I said no I'm bisexual and she flipped out on me. She said that if I was gay she could accept it but "bisexual" is disgusting and you can't like both men and women. She threatened to kill the girl I was dating, so I tried to calm her down and I told her that wouldn't help and I didn't want her to go to jail. She then said she'd have no issues because she'd kill her, then me, then herself.

I called my dad who was in China (they've been divorced for a long time), who accepted my sexuality as is, and cut a deal with my mom that I would "stop seeing this girl" until I graduated high school, but then once I was in university, my dad would be paying my tuition and housing so I wouldn't live with her and I could do whatever I want. She agreed. She quit her job shortly after, telling me she couldn't handle the stress of me dating a girl which was a lie, she was actually about to be fired. Right before I moved out at 18, she told me "I don't care what you do with your life, I don't care if you smoke, I don't care if you die from a drug overdose, I just don't want to find out."

My mom has never since apologised or addressed the issue. Whenever she sees gay couples on TV or whatever, she'll point it out to me and say "isn't that disgusting?". Because of these comments, I've never taken the initiative to say anything about it and I really don't expect anything from her at this point. She also manipulated me a lot but for brevity's sake, this is really the main thing that soured our relationship.

Over the years we speak maybe once a month. Some family stuff happened in the last few years where she moved out of the country but now she's back and she's been saying things like "I don't like how I don't feel close to your anymore" or "It's like I don't even have a daughter" all the while not actually calling me or messaging me or any tangible effort.

I feel like she can't accept the fact that we will never have that really close mother-daughter bond that she expects. I don't think she even realises how traumatic everything has been for me. Those few years of her being gone were some of the most stress free years I've had in a long time. If I had it my way, I'd be okay never speaking to her again. I can have a cordial relationship with her, but nothing beyond seeing each other maybe once a month. Do I tell her the truth, knowing she wouldn't understand? Do I just thwart all her attempts to reconnect?

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**TL;DR;** : My mother expects us to have a really close mother-daughter bond without ever acknowledging the trauma of rejecting me based on my sexuality when I was younger, and other grievances over the years, none of which I think I've fully recovered from.

Submitted July 29, 2020 at 09:46AM by throwawayaznmam https://ift.tt/3jO1BHv