After a year of sharing nothing about my life during our weekly calls, my mother never noticed the silence, and that deafening absence of curiosity revealed a truth about love I'd been too afraid to see for four decades.
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The day I realized my mother hadn't asked me a single question about my life in three months, I was sitting in my kitchen, staring at my phone.
We'd just finished our weekly call, the one where she told me about her neighbor's new fence, her doctor's appointment, and the sale at the grocery store.
When I hung up, I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd become a witness to her life rather than a participant in a relationship.
That was the day I decided to stop volunteering information about myself.
Not out of spite or anger, but out of curiosity: What would happen if I simply listened? If I asked her questions but didn't offer up my own stories unless she asked?
Six months passed, then a year.
She never asked why I'd grown quiet about my own life, not once.
The weight of one-sided conversations
Have you ever found yourself pouring your heart out to someone, only to realize they're not really listening? Or worse, have you discovered that someone you love deeply has never actually been curious about who you are beyond the role you play in their life?
After three decades of teaching high school English, I thought I understood communication pretty well.
I'd spent years helping teenagers articulate their thoughts, teaching them that good conversation is like tennis - you serve, they return, back and forth in a rhythm that builds connection.
But with my mother, I'd been playing against a wall, catching my own serves and tossing them back again.
The silence I created was an experiment born from exhaustion.
For forty years, I'd shared my triumphs and failures, my fears and dreams, filling the spaces in our conversations with stories she never asked to hear.
When I stopped, the void was deafening, but only to me.
What silence reveals about love
Virginia Woolf once wrote, "The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages."
But what happens when those eyes never really see you at all?
When I stopped sharing, I discovered that my mother's love for me existed in a strange bubble; complete and genuine, yet somehow separate from any real knowledge of who I'd become.
She loved me the way you might love a painting you've hung in your hallway for decades.
It's precious to you, part of your daily landscape, but you stopped really looking at it years ago.
You'd notice if it was gone, but you couldn't describe its details if someone asked.
During that year of silence, I watched our relationship with new eyes.
She would call me when she was lonely, talk for forty minutes about her day, her friends, her aches and pains.
She'd end with "Love you, honey," and hang up, satisfied.
The conversation had served its purpose for her: Connection, or at least her version of it.
The inheritance of emotional patterns
This revelation sent me searching through old family photos and memories, trying to understand where this pattern began.
Then I discovered old letters in my parents' attic that revealed a family history I'd never known - correspondence between my grandmother and her sister that painted a picture of women who loved fiercely but struggled to truly know each other.
The letters were full of updates about children, husbands, and household management, but rarely ventured into feelings, dreams, or inner lives.
Generation after generation of women in my family had mistaken proximity for intimacy, presence for connection.
I thought about my own children, now adults themselves: Had I done the same thing?
The thought terrified me.
I remembered the years when survival mode made me less present than I wanted to be, when getting through the day took precedence over really seeing who they were becoming.
At least I'd learned to apologize for those years, to acknowledge what I'd missed but had I really changed the pattern?
Breaking the cycle without breaking the relationship
Here's what I've learned: You can love someone deeply and never really know them, and you can be loved completely and never really be seen.
These truths can coexist, heartbreaking as that may be.
After that year of silence, I had choices to make.
I could confront my mother, demand that she see me, insist on reciprocal curiosity, I could continue the silence, accepting our relationship as it was, or I could find a third way.
I chose to see her pattern as information, not indictment.
My mother shows love through consistency: The weekly calls, the birthday cards, and the checking in.
She doesn't show it through curiosity.
Understanding this helped me stop taking it personally, though it didn't eliminate the grief.
Now, I share small pieces of my life without expecting follow-up questions.
I've lowered my expectations while raising my boundaries.
When I need to be truly seen and heard, I turn to friends who have that capacity; when my mother calls, I give her what she needs (an audience, a familiar voice, and the comfort of routine).
The unexpected gifts of acceptance
You might wonder if this resignation feels like giving up.
Some days, it does.
But I've learned something valuable from this experience that I've carried into all my relationships: Pay attention to who asks questions.
Notice who remembers what you've told them, and observe who creates space for your stories.
These are the people who truly see you.
They might not be who you expect or hope they'll be, but they're the ones who deserve the fullness of your inner life.
With my mother, I've found an unexpected peace.
Our relationship has become simpler, cleaner somehow: I no longer exhaust myself trying to build a bridge to someone who doesn't realize there's a river between us.
I love her for who she is, not who I wish she could be.
Final thoughts
That silence taught me that some relationships are meant to be treasured for what they are rather than mourned for what they're not.
My mother gave me life, consistency, and her version of love.
The fact that she doesn't ask about my life doesn't diminish those gifts; it simply clarifies the boundaries of our connection.
I've started a tradition of writing birthday letters to my children that they'll receive when they turn 25.
In them, I ask questions about their lives, their thoughts, their dreams.
I want them to know that I see them, that I'm curious about who they're becoming, that my love includes wanting to know them, not just love them.
The silence between my mother and me continues, but it no longer feels empty.
It's full of understanding, acceptance, and a different kind of love: A love that doesn't require reciprocal curiosity to be real.
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