Your siblings and cousins are gaslighting you.

Your feelings are valid.

If you love someone more than your mother as a mother, then you love that person more than your mother as a mother. That’s totally fine.

Many LGBTQ+ people have to create their families out of caring people that they meet and come to love and trust, because their families reject and hate them. Those bonds are as valid (and in some cases many times more valid) than bonds of mere blood.

This brings to mind the saying: " The blood of the covenant is stronger than the water of the womb." Which means the relationships you CHOOSE are often stronger than the ones you’re born into. If your found family supports and loves you but your biological family doesn’t, then your true family is your found/chosen family. You don’t need to associate with people who mistreat you.

Your siblings and cousins suck. Don’t listen to them.

I’ve been in your position, and had people, at certain points in my life, who changed my life without really doing anything, or realizing it.

We all take bits and pieces of who, and what we interact with in the world. Those bits may be amazingly beautiful, or they may be world shattering. Your bio parents probably were more of the latter, but your ex’s mom might have been someone that set your life in a completely different, and better path, with a word, or a hug, or a shoulder.

I can only speak for myself, but having someone show an ounce of compassion, or empathy can be everything to someone who grew up with a shitty family (whatever that looks like).

That’s where the term “chosen family” comes from.

I love her, but is it true love to love someone as a mother if they aren’t your biological mother?

Do you think a child that was adopted, but never told it was adopted, would love its parents any less than children of biological parents?

No, they wouldn’t. Because emotions are not in any way influenced by our “blood relations.” If that actually influenced love, there would be far fewer shitty parents in the world.

There’s plenty of ways to point out that what your siblings are saying is just terrible and wrong on all levels, and utterly dismissive of the experience of so many adopted kids, but I think the most important thing is this: what good are words like “true” or “real” if what your siblings said were true?

It would be like if someone said that the manufactured insulin a diabetic took wasn’t real insulin. If your definition of “real” doesn’t include the thing that fulfills a things fundamental role, then your definition of real and true is reserved for useless nonsense.

This woman made you feel like you had someone looking out for you in the world, concerned for you. That is what love is. If that’s not real, then I don’t want whatever “real” is. This world is full of people who could give each other the care we each need, and anyone who thinks we need to limit that based on something as primitive as bloodlines needs is, forgive my language, an effing idiot.

Always be suspicious if someone OUTSIDE of you–someone who is NOT you–is trying to tell you what you feel.

I have never found a case where that outside person was correct.

And they are often *especially * wrong when they try to “reverse” what you feel. Like, if you feel something good, and they say it is bad. Or if you feel something bad, and they say no, the thing that makes you feel that way is good. There’s usually ulterior motivations here. (And not necessarily well-thought-out evil mastermind ones…some people are very manipulative in a “cunning” or “canny” way, where they’ve learned such things work, but don’t actually think out their plans or motivations…they manipulate on instinct.)

I’ve always had much more success figuring out my emotions when I looked within and slowly picked apart what I felt and WHY I felt it, even if that way was much slower than listening to someone else trying to tell me what to think and feel.

Also–I’ve never personally been able to identify any difference between “true” love and other forms of love. As far as I can tell, love is love, and it’s very common for people who grew up with abusive family to later seek out “found family”, where people regardless of their blood kinship have proven they are safe for you to be around by their benign or benevolent actions towards you.

Absolutely! You don’t have any say in what family you are born into, they might be good, might suck ducks, more likely somewhere in between. You can choose family that are not biologically related to you, and love them as purely or even more so than you do biological family. Many refer to their close friends as chosen family for this very reason. Love who you love and be happy, no matter who may try to piss on your happiness.

Your motherly figure doesn’t have to be your blood mother

Growing up, I always hated my uninvolved authoritarian parents. For some unconscious reasons, I picked up on Richard Dawkins as my fatherly figure, although he is the age of my grandfather now and I never met him inperson. I loved the way he charmingly calmly and rationaly replied, not because “I said so”. I loved that he was successful. I loved his non-snarky absolute confident way of looking and talking. I really looked up to him

Do you believe a mother can love her adopted child and the other way around? Then you have your answer. You love her, she loves you. Do you need any more labeling (it is absolutely fine if you do, just something to think about)?

These feelings are so complex you could spend a lifetime untangling them.

All that matters is what it means to you.

Categorisation like whether it’s actually a mother daughter love isn’t really helpful in any way.

If you care for each other then that’s enough.

The caveat is… given your bio mums douchebaggery you should be sure you’re not “helping” this woman in exchange for her love.

I’m adopted and know both my mothers. Birth mom didn’t want me at put me up for adoption and my mother adopted me. Birth mother came around when I was 25 wanting me back even though I’d never met her, I knew she wasn’t MY mom. I want nothing to do with my birthmother because she was just a vessel for me to end up with my real mom.

If you feel that pull from your heart that this person is your mother, then she is ( as long as everyone’s cool).

Blood isn’t everything. The ex’s mom was a decent person and treated you well. Blood relatives don’t always do that. Sometimes they’re so awful it even makes sense to go no contact. Sometimes their actions are literally criminal. On the flip side there are friends that are basically family and people who adopt.

What you felt with the ex’s mom was real as anything. Don’t listen to people who say otherwise. The blood relatives who said it was fake were being manipulative or saying something based on being manipulated.

“True” is only a word that has different meanings. The only things important here are your feelings. Your feelings can’t be fake (for you), it is just what you feel. If someone tells you that your actual feelings are fake, they’re lying, and you should a single fuck about what they say.

I want to thank everyone who replied. I love this woman as a mother, and I’ve repeatably had to explain myself to my “other” family as it’s apparently not OK to disobey or not procreate. I am happy that I won’t have to pass this on to a child. I would be fearful and paranoid if I had one, due to the abuse that is normalized. Yet, I am apparently less of a person as I have not produced progeny. Irregardless, thank you to the lovely people who supported me. I wish that this woman, who I wish would have been my birth mother, keeps being happy. The help I provide her with is small, but daily, such as her wifi, phone accounts, spam prevention. I don’t even help my blood family with this. I feel that your comments have helped me. Thank you. I love her, and I wish she had been my mother instead of the woman who bore me.

How do you know if you truly love someone as a mother?

You never ask yourself this question if you do.