You aren’t being weird, you’re dealing with a one-sided emotional expression. I have to deal with the same situation with my mother, who stopped caring for my brother and me when I was 12, but somehow still thinks she’s the best mother in the world.

My situation is complicated. I have a child and a wife, and I have an obligation to keep some semblance of normality for them. My wife knows and can see how narcissistic and fake my mom is, but my son does enjoy his time with his grandma.

I have come up with a placated version to respond with to people whom I must entertain versus those who actually deserve my affection. When I tell my wife or son that I love them, I say fully and wholly, “I love you.” For anyone else, it’s “love ya.” It doesn’t always feel good to say it at all, but at least I know when I’m being sincere versus an obligational pleasantry.

The phrase “I love you” is most meaningful when it is spontaneous, unrehearsed, and not spoken reciprocally. Parents use it all the time as a means to have you manage their emotions. Hearing it feels good, especially for managing their insecurities. It could also be a tool for control. When they say it expectantly, you saying it back to them has the psychological effect of lessening any anger or animosity you’re holding toward them. This is a useful tool used individually on your own accord, but in this context it’s emotional manipulation.

When your mom gets upset that you don’t say it back, she is struggling to manage her emotions and is getting you to do it for her. This process is called parentification.

I feel similarly disconnected from my mother, and describe the way I feel about her as a logical love rather than an emotional one. I’ve read a lot of your posts, and I think you have more reasons to feel this way than I do, but the feeling you describe resonates strongly with me.

I appreciate that I’m lucky to have the parents I have, and that they have supported me through a lot. However, particularly with my mother, I did not feel seen or understood at my lowest points. I felt chastised for being the way that I was instead of a different, better way that was more relatable to her.

There are other people, relatives and otherwise, who have made me feel more understood. People who didn’t make me feel inherently flawed for being the way I am, or have been. Those people have earned a more sincere love from me. It’s not a spiteful thing. That’s just the way it worked out. There are people in the world with whom I’ve found a deeper connection than the one I have with my mother, and I don’t feel a strong need to change that. I don’t see it as a problem.

One of my parents truly loves me dearly, but hurt me emotionally a lot and caused a lot of trouble. They had a version of me in their head, but didn’t really do the work to see and understand the layers of me and my experiences.

It’s been a very stormy relationship, because of course I’d strike back at some point when I’m hurt, or my emotions overflow at some point, and then they strike back, and so on. But eventually I learned to accept “ok, they are like this,” and focus on what’s in my power to deal with it. Which is mainly having boundaries. And with those boundaries I know the settings in which I can deal with them and have a decent time. We understand each other a lot better now as well.

Mind you, they are nothing like your mother and I was in my late twenties or so when I started to understand this and put it into action.

But it was a similar thing where they’d give me shit, give me zero room for expression, shut-down and then the next day say they love me and wanna hug me. So a part of me was - at least subconsciously - of course like, ‘wtf? I do not trust this’ and didn’t want to say it back or hug them as that wasn’t what I felt. They even made fun of me, like that it’s a weird thing of me, like “ooooh, ‘don’t touch me’”, which led to more resentment later.

It was very confusing. Now when they wanna hug me and I don’t feel like it, they get it. Or if they write “I love you” and I’m not feeling it, I might joke back, “I tolerate your presence too”.

I was always switching between appeasing, submitting and inevitably rebelling, lashing-, and freaking-out. So they had good exercise :)

Though you can say things that you don’t mean to be done with it, I think there might be better ways. I think I if I was in your shoes, I might reply with a measured response, like, “I appreciate you, but you know I also have my issues with you, and I’m not feeling it right now.” Perhaps adding, “bless your soul/wish you a good day” or whatever might be authentic and fitting for you.

I’m having trouble focusing right now, but I want to add that what your feeling makes total sense. If you hurt someone and there isn’t any acknowledgement or attempts resolve the mistake around it, you can’t just cover it up with love-bombing later. A part of the body remembers and has good reason not to trust this love as much as it’s thrown at you. I actually talked to someone professional about this exact thing recently, and they said that some people, whether conscious or not, they cover up their mistakes by just scrubbing it under the rug, and covering up with love, they don’t want to look at it, and they want to bring you to that point too.