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My Father’s Mother Complex and the History of the Parents as a Married Couple

The World of Dreams: Reality for the Subconscious

The morning after concluding the workshop about the Great Mother archtype adopted from Jungian psychology led by Xavier, a Mexican astrloger and my business partner, which took place last Friday and Saturday, I was awakened by a call from the Great Father, my own father. It seems my daughter (me) had a dream of going missing, according to my father. Being the Capricorn father he is, he was concerned that perhaps I wasn’t feeling well. His first words were,

“Are you alive?”

My exploration of relationship with my father began in my mid-thirties when I encountered Xavier who gave me the insight of father complexes from Jungian perspective through astrology. Recently, I’ve been aware that this process is shifting towards the theme of mother complexes. Interestingly, similar themes have been appearing in my dreams lately. So, when my father had a dream of “his daughter going missing,” it wasn’t just a “dream,” considering what Xavier mentioned during the workshop of “Dynamics of the Subconscious”:

“What happens in the dreams is reality for the subconscious.”

It seemed fitting. In my father’s subconscious, the absence of his daughter, me, might not be merely a “dream.”

My Father’s Mother Complex

To me, my father appeared as a tsundere-type son with a mother complex until my grandmother, who is his mother, passed away. Despite appearing cool in front of my grandmother, his approach to caregiving was that of being overly attached to his mother. Seeing him unable to be present during my grandmother’s final moments, despite his daily visits to hospitals and the nursing home where my grandmother spent her last years and days, made my mother and me quite worried about him. Subsequently, watching him handle funeral arrangements and procedures calmly and without shedding a tear was quite remarkable.

”Tsundere” is a Japanese slang term used to describe a character type whose emotions and attitude are inconsistent. This character appears cold and indifferent on the surface but actually harbors passionate and affectionate feelings internally.

By the way, both my grandmother and father are Capricorns. I feel like I’ve inherited that Capricorn, with Saturn (the ruling planet of Capricorn) positioned next to my Gemini sun.

Looking back now, there must have been a bond between my grandmother and father that my mother and I couldn’t understand. Even my grandmother’s decision to pass away when no one was around, a characteristic of someone who didn’t like to show vulnerability, seemed typical of her. From that perspective, I’ve been pondering lately whether the sudden illness my father experienced last summer was also part of his process of grieving his separation from my grandmother.

If my father has a mother complex, it’s only natural that his relationship with my mother, his partner, would be affected. Xavier also addressed this theme during the workshop and it was very insightful for me.

Crisis of the Couple Distantiated by the Parent-Child Triangle

The true “crisis of the couple,” for my parents as seen from the daughter’s perspective, occurred after my grandmother passed away at the age of 100. It was when the couple, who had been living with the mother-in-law since their marriage, had to face each other as a man and a woman after her death. It was the first time I heard the word “divorce” from each of their mouths.

Until then, whenever the couple clashed, the reason was always either the presence of my grandmother or the fact that I, their only daughter, was involved. There was always a “triangle.” Again, thanks to Xavier and my other linw of interest which is a family therapy called Family Constellation, I came to understand that they avoided facing each other as a man and a woman by allocating them in this triangle. By the time I understood this, I was already in my late forties.

During this time, the “real crisis of the couple” arrived for my parents. They began to clash because of each other. At that time, I decided not to intervene and maintained a stance of “I won’t interfere.” But deep down, I couldn’t help but worry,

“Wait, what if they end up divorcing now, in this stage of their lives, what should I do as being their only daughter?”

I think they must have sorted something out between themselves without my knowledge. Since then, I felt that the atmosphere between them had changed slightly. Strangely enough, I started to sense “intimacy between a man and a woman” between them. Around that time, my mother started wearing the wedding ring she hadn’t worn for a long time, which was symbolic. When I mentioned this to Xavier, he said, “Putting the wedding ring back on is erotic. You can tell that the energy between the couple has changed.”

The Fictional Image of the Couple I Held and Its Consequences

Through these events, I realized that my ideal image of a couple, as their daughter, had been formed by continually witnessing them as a man and a woman, as a couple, rather than the idealized image of a “happy couple” I held onto, where they were always holding hands and smiling. This image was nothing but a combination of the good aspects of my parents’ relationship. It might be likened to a photo of a “smiling couple holding hands,” carefully preserved and displayed in a glass case rather than a frame. As proof, I used to say without embarrassment in my youth, “I want a relationship like my parents’.

The price I paid for holding onto this fictional image of marriage and the couple had made me experiencing it firsthand after I got married.

After waiting two and a half years due to the border closures caused by the pandemic, my husband and I finally began living together. About six months into it, I realized that I had been afraid of facing my husband head-on. The energy that had accumulated from avoiding confrontation would occasionally erupt explosively from either of us. The bigger the explosion, the greater the impact, and I realized that I had been hiding the pain and struggle I felt during those times. Subsequently, having a “frank discussion” with my husband became the first breakthrough. Recently, I’ve gradually become accustomed to facing conflicts little by little, but I still feel like I have a long way to go.

Additional Note

By the way, when I use the term “complex” here, I’m not referring to the Japanese-made English terms like “mother complex” or “father complex,” but rather to the complexes proposed by psychologists such as Jung and Freud as part of the Oedipus complex, in the realm of psychology. As a premise, I’m not judging these complexes as good or bad. After finishing Xavier’s discussion on archetypes and the Great Mother last weekend, I’ve come to think that everyone’s journey starts with harboring a complex towards their parents.