The Hidden Reason You Keep Choosing Emotionally Unavailable People

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: The Tamsen Show
Host: Tamsen Fadal
Episode: The Hidden Reason You Keep Choosing Emotionally Unavailable People
Guest: Kelly McDaniel, Therapist and Author
Date: July 30, 2026

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Episode Overview

This thought-provoking episode features an in-depth conversation between host Tamsen Fadal and therapist/author Kelly McDaniel, who coined the term "Mother Hunger." The discussion explores the concept of emotional hunger rooted in unmet motherly needs and how it influences adult behaviors, particularly in relationships and emotional eating. Tamsen shares her personal experiences around the loss of her mother, and together they delve into how unaddressed wounds can surface throughout a woman’s life. The episode provides powerful insights for anyone questioning their relationship patterns, their bond (or lack thereof) with their mother, and their approach to self-nurturing.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction to Mother Hunger

• Origin & Definition
  • Kelly McDaniel recounts the accidental discovery of "mother hunger" through clinical work and literary inspiration.
  • Mother hunger is “a distinct craving or yearning for a quality of love that we actually assign to mothers … a craving for nurturing and safety and for someone to admire.” (Kelly McDaniel, 04:31)
• Who Experiences It?
  • Both women and men experience it, but societal norms and gender roles influence its expression. Men are often less likely to identify or verbalize it.
    • “Women are not generally getting nurtured in their primary relationships.” (Kelly McDaniel, 06:28)

2. Spectrum of Mother Hunger

• Degrees of Loss & Disconnection
  • Not limited to early death or estrangement—can manifest when a mother is physically present but emotionally unavailable.
  • Developmental gaps can arise from missing nurturing, protection, or guidance.
  • “Depending on which developmental need was missing, or if all three were missing, it can definitely impact the degree of mother hunger.” (Kelly McDaniel, 07:40)
• How It Changes Over Lifetime
  • Younger women may not recognize it; major life events or “rites of passage” can bring it to the surface in midlife or later.
    • “As women, we always want our mom. … To question that relationship could be really, deeply threatening to the most important bond that we have.” (Kelly McDaniel, 08:36)

3. Impact on Adult Relationships

• Attachment Styles
  • The mother relationship sets the “template.”
    • “If we think about this for all of us, our first love is our mother. … Based on how that unfolds, it’s going to set our attachment style.” (Kelly McDaniel, 10:13)
  • Anxious, avoidant, or secure attachment patterns start here and surface in friendships, romantic relationships, and work dynamics.
  • Attachment theory terms (anxious, avoidant, secure, disorganized) are descriptors, not labels.
• Patterns in Romantic Relationships
  • Women with mother hunger are often drawn to emotionally unavailable or inconsistent partners.
  • Attachment responses can “flip-flop” depending on the partner’s style (anxious vs. avoidant).
    • “If I’m attracting a partner who is more needy … I’m going to look avoidant. … If I’m in a relationship with someone who’s more avoidant … I’m going to look a lot more anxious.” (Kelly McDaniel, 15:52-16:43)

4. Relationship with Food

• Why Food Becomes a Substitute
  • Food and nurturing are intertwined at the earliest moments of life; unmet comfort needs can translate to emotional eating.
  • “The first experience we have of feeling good may come from having a full belly.” (Kelly McDaniel, 18:01)
• Eating Disorders and Emotional Eating
  • Mother hunger can underlie both ends of the spectrum: restriction and overeating.
  • “Whenever I work with women, whether they’re healing their relationship with their body and food or with lovers and friends, the root is mother hunger.” (Kelly McDaniel, 18:17)

5. Ambiguous Loss, Grief, and Shame

• Ambiguous Loss
  • Mother hunger often reflects a loss that’s hard to name—when a mother is absent emotionally, not just physically.
    • “A lot of Mother Hunger is ambiguous loss, meaning unless she died, if she’s physically there but emotionally not there, we’re going to feel the loss but not know what it is or why.” (Kelly McDaniel, 24:14)
• Frozen Grief and Shame
  • Grief can become “frozen,” manifesting as chronic loneliness, anger, or guilt.
    • “The essence of Mother Hunger is twofold. One is frozen grief. … The other element is shame.” (Kelly McDaniel, 25:17)

6. Healing and Forgiveness

• Naming It Is Step One
  • “The correct environment begins with a name. If the name resonates, the body’s already like, ah. And healing begins.” (Kelly McDaniel, 26:35)
• Recreating What Was Missing
  • Healing often comes through receiving (or giving oneself) nurturing, safety, and guidance in adulthood.
• Forgiveness as Freedom
  • Forgiving one’s mother is key to internal peace and to reduce “apology ache”—the longing for mothers to acknowledge their shortcomings.
    • “In forgiving our mothers, that apology ache gets smaller, and then we don’t project it onto our lovers and friends.” (Kelly McDaniel, 41:20)

7. Navigating Midlife and Role Reversal

• Midlife Reflections & Menopause
  • Tamsen and Kelly discuss how midlife, menopause, and caring for aging parents bring these themes back to the forefront.
  • The lack of open conversation about these transitions leaves many women feeling unprepared and isolated.
• Daughters Caring for Mothers
  • Role reversal can trigger resentment, especially if the daughter was inadequately nurtured.
    • “If you were not adequately mothered, to turn around now and mother—the mother hurts, physically hurts, and it’s tiring.” (Kelly McDaniel, 33:27)

8. Mother Hunger, Dating, and Toxic Love

• Dating Later in Life
  • Old attachment patterns surface in new relationships.
    • “It can be a time where you’re … looking for companionship long term, but there’s a lot of those things that are leftover from mother hunger.” (Tamsen Fadal, 36:32)
• Addicted to Romance
  • The dopamine “high” of new love can mimic addiction for those with unmet early needs, leading to patterns of pursuing emotionally unavailable partners (i.e., “toxic love,” or what Kelly calls “an apology ache”).
    • “It’s easy to get trapped in a cycle of falling in love without staying in love.” (Kelly McDaniel, 47:51)

9. Advice, Takeaways, and Self-Nurturing

• Validating Grief, Anger, and Shame
  • “Part of grief is anger. Part of grief is blame. … Not to feel guilty about anger when it gets mixed with shame.” (Kelly McDaniel, 43:34)
• Self-Nurturing Practices
  • Seeking healthy touch (e.g., massage), gentle routines, and rest is essential.
    • “If I missed out on nurturing, I’m probably going to really need to get regular massage … take walks, take naps, rest.” (Kelly McDaniel, 44:23)
• Advice to Young Women
  • Distinguish between self-nurturing and indulgence; recognize the need for healthy touch and support.
    • “A lot of what we see on social media might err on indulgence and not necessarily teach what the body needs to heal a lack of nurturing.” (Kelly McDaniel, 48:25)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The loss of the mother to the daughter and the daughter to the mother is the essential female tragedy.” – Kelly McDaniel quoting Adrienne Rich (02:59)
• “Our attachment system is a biological drive that is the strongest drive in our entire body, stronger even than the need to protect ourselves.” – Kelly McDaniel (11:27)
• “Mother hunger is essentially a word for loneliness. Like, I’m alone in the world, I don’t have a place to land to feel safe and feel good.” – Kelly McDaniel (43:38)
• “It is not your fault. Love addiction, emotional eating, toxic relationships—these are not personal failures. They’re survival responses to unmet needs.” – Tamsen Fadal (49:43)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction & Origin of Mother Hunger: 02:30–06:32
• Defining Mother Hunger and Attachment: 06:32–13:20
• How It Manifests in Relationships & Food: 13:20–19:38
• Ambiguous Loss, Grief & Shame: 23:39–27:20
• Midlife, Role Reversal, and Intergenerational Patterns: 28:13–34:07
• Dating, Love Addiction & Seeking Unavailable Partners: 36:32–47:51
• Practical Advice & Self-Nurturing: 44:09–46:43, 48:19–49:11

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Final Thoughts & Resources

Key takeaway:
Naming, validating, and gently addressing the unmet needs behind mother hunger can break old patterns and open the way to genuine healing and fulfilling relationships—romantic and otherwise. The journey is complex but deeply human.

Resources:

• Kelly McDaniel: Instagram @kellymcdanieltherapy | kellymcdanieltherapy.com
• Tamsen Fadal: @thetamsenshow for more honest conversations

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This summary captures the heart of the conversation on mother hunger, emotional attachment, and healing, with clear timestamps and direct speaker insights for listeners seeking understanding or a roadmap for personal growth.

Transcript

[Kelly McDaniel]

Foreign.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Hi, friends. I'm so glad you're here with me today. Welcome back to the Tamsen Show. So when this episode first came out, I had no idea how it was going to land. I was actually a little bit nervous. So many of you, though, wrote to me afterwards saying that you finally had a name for something you'd been carrying around your whole life and that no one had ever put words to it before. And that is exactly how I felt after this interview. So I knew I had to bring this one back. The first time I heard the phrase mother hunger, I sort of paused, like I didn't really know what it meant, and I wasn't sure if it had anything to do with me. I lost my own mom when I was 20 years old, and I spent years, maybe decades, telling myself I'd already done that grieving. Then Kelly McDaniel walked into our Soho Studios. A therapist who coined the term. She sat with me and opened my eyes to something I'd been missing for decades. Mother hunger isn't only about losing a mother. It's about the nurturing and the safety that we're wired to need from the very beginning and what it does to us when we don't get enough of it. This conversation has stayed with me ever since. So if it moved you the first time or you're finding this for the first time, I promise you're gonna love this episode. I cannot wait to hear from you before we get started. If you have a moment, I would love if you could leave a review. Please, please, don't make me beg. I'd really appreciate it. It helps the show and the people who make it happen. Let's go ahead and get into it.

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[Tamsen Fadal]

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[Tamsen Fadal]

Kelly, it is good to see you.

[Kelly McDaniel]

Thank you for having me. Yeah, it's wonderful to be here.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Well, I'm excited. This conversation is going to go a lot of ways, I think, just because it's so personal to me. But I was excited to talk to you because I feel like, you know, looking through the book and reading it and just getting into parts of it that were really personal to me, it changed a lot of my perspective of some different things. So I want to start by asking you, how did you get involved in this area in this specific space?

[Kelly McDaniel]

Well, it was an accident. There was no term mother hunger. But I remember when I was a young woman and I was in my graduate program for English literature and I read Adrienne Richard. She wrote this beautiful book of woman born. And in that book it said, the loss of the mother to the daughter and the daughter to the mother is the essential female tragedy. And that hit me. I didn't know why, but my whole body reacted. The fact that a mother, daughter could be central in any way was already kind of mind blowing. But then to really acknowledge that that loss is tragic felt very true to me. Fast forward 20 years and some other trainings, and I'm working as a clinician with women primarily. And these are women that are struggling with things that most of us struggle with. Relationships and food. And so if either had become addictive and we were distilling it a bit like what's happening? I heard over and over again, I want my mom.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Wow. It's interesting that it's relationships and food. Like I get relationships. And I think the food part surprised

me, but didn't surprise me.

So let's define. Let's start at the beginning and define what is mother hunger.

[Kelly McDaniel]

I define it as a distinct craving or yearning for. For a quality of love that we actually assign to mothers. This yearning can get confused with romantic love, but it's a craving for nurturing and safety and for someone to admire.

[Tamsen Fadal]

But it's mother to daughter. But what about mother and son? Is that a different kind of relationship?

[Kelly McDaniel]

Yes, I find that because mother hunger forms early on in the lifespan, generally between the age of 0 and 5. 5, every infant born needs the same thing, nurturing and protection. So boys, girls, doesn't matter. Human infants need those things. Not because we're needy or broken, but because we're human.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Yeah.

[Kelly McDaniel]

Where I see it, change for men is, and I'm speaking primarily about cisgendered heterosexual men, is that as they move into the world of men and women, they may look outside their mother for guidance, whereas daughters don't have to. We can keep the focus on our mother, ideally. I also find that men don't necessarily identify with this term. I think men have been taught from a very young age, don't feel, don't trust. And so emotions are not accessible. And then if you associate something with mom, it might be a sign of weakness. So I find that men will speak about their mothers in very reverential ways, respectful ways, or not speak about her at all. And as men grow, if they are fortunate enough to be attached to a nurturing female partner, or any partner who's nurturing, they don't feel mother hunger because they're getting nurtured. Women are not generally getting nurtured in their primary relationships.

[Tamsen Fadal]

That's so fascinating. Okay, so I guess I want to. I know that, you know, there's a lot of different areas of mother hunger. Whether it's like me who lost a mother at an early age, or it's somebody who has her mother but doesn't maybe have that, you know, connection or is estranged. I mean, there's so many different things.

[Sponsored Segment Host]

So many.

[Tamsen Fadal]

And I know, you know, when I was reading your book, you talk about the. I think the part that really hit me was the adoption part of when children are adopted at an early age. So, you know my story. But for anybody that doesn't. My mother got sick when I was 14 years old, and I became kind of the mother, you know, during. During that. Because that's usually what happens when a mother's sick. And I lost her at 20 and didn't.

Horrible grief, obviously.

And I always wondered if relationships were, you know, based off of that. But. But now as I go forward, at 54 years old, I think about her more and differently. So that's why it was. That's why I was so. To have you on here to talk about this, because I feel like there's so many different level or layers that I've seen through the different decades that I've been around. Is that normal?

[Kelly McDaniel]

So normal mother hunger, I think, exists on a spectrum because mother hunger comes from inadequate nurturing, protection, or guidance for some daughters. They may have had a lot of cozy, loving moments with mom, but didn't always feel safe, let's say, or couldn't really look to her for guidance because either she died during formative years or she didn't get the chance to develop herself. So she can't necessarily guide her daughter into full development. So depending on which developmental need was missing, or if all three were missing, it can definitely impact the degree of mother hunger.

[Tamsen Fadal]

So where does that show up later in life? Or how does that start showing up, especially in the. In the. I guess anytime, but in your 20s, 30s, 40s, and keep going. It's different in each one of those decades.

[Kelly McDaniel]

I find that it is very different in each one of those decades that younger women in their 20s and 30s, unless their mother died young, are not necessarily ready or able to examine deeply the relationship with Mom. And I think there are lots of reasons for that. First of all, as women, we always want our mom. We will always need our mom. So to question that relationship could be really, deeply threatening to the most important bond that we have. And I think Mother Nature protects us from that. So it may take a woman going through a rite of passage, such as marriage or childbirth, or the loss of something very significant when she really, again needs her mother. And if mom is not able to show up, it's more evident later in life than as children. When Mother Nature can't let us see if Mom's not showing up. We think the problem's us. Let's say mom can't be present when we really need her. It doesn't occur to us that maybe she's having a bad day or not feeling well. Instead, what we'll come up with is a different way to react. So maybe we get her attention and that forms our personality.

[Tamsen Fadal]

What are some of the ways that you see women in particular? I know we're kind of generalizing here, but when a woman has lost a mother or is not close to a mother or is estranged, how does that show up in a relationship? Does that show up in a relationship, romantic relationships, or all relationships that we're talking about?

[Kelly McDaniel]

It can impact all relationships. So if we think about this for all of us, our first love is our mother. We fall in love in utero. We hear her voice. We know the sound of her heartbeat. We know her smell. And so when we come into the world, we're designed to stay close to her. Based on how that unfolds, it's going to set our attachment style. Do we attach anxiously? Do we attach avoidantly? Are we a little disorganized, or are we securely, happily attached? Now, most of us who are securely, happily attached do not end up in my office.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Understood? The ones that do, what are those different attachments? If we Break down each one of those.

[Kelly McDaniel]

Right. It's really nice that attachment theory has become part of mainstream.

[Tamsen Fadal]

It's got a word.

[Kelly McDaniel]

Yes. And I think more of us are kind of finding good information about what does it mean to be anxious or avoidant. But it's good to keep in mind these terms were created for research purposes, not so that we label ourselves.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Not for Instagram.

[Kelly McDaniel]

Not for just Instagram, exactly. But there's some real validity to seeing how we predominantly attach, because our attachment system is a biological drive that is the strongest drive in our entire body, stronger than the need even to protect ourselves. So how we attach is essential. And we learn that with our first primary caregiver. So let's say we needed more. We wanted more attention, we needed more attunement, we needed more presence. We're probably going to end up on closer, on the insecure spectrum of anxiety. We're going to feel anxious, we're going to want and need more than we're comfortable with. I find that women who are on the more anxious end of the spectrum identify with mother hunger pretty readily. As soon as they hear the term, their belly recognizes it. Like, oh, that's what this is. Huge relief. On the flip side, though, let's say a woman experienced her mother as maybe suffocating, little too much mom. Or there was so little that at a very young age, the need for her shut down. Like, I just won't need anything, and then it won't hurt that she's not here.

[DSW Ad Voice]

Right.

[Kelly McDaniel]

So whether we become needless wantless or we've been a little suffocated, we may be on the avoidant spectrum where we're just like, I don't identify a need. I don't need relational closeness. The truth is, we're all somewhere on that spectrum. If we are not securely attached, the science says 50% of us are securely attached.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Wow.

[Kelly McDaniel]

I find that really generous.

[Sponsored Segment Host]

Do you?

[Kelly McDaniel]

Yes, I do. Because. Probably because my perspective. I've talked to thousands of women who did not experience enough nurturing or protection or guidance and don't feel securely attached. So it can impact relationships with friends, with lovers, with children that you may or may not have, with employers, with everyone. Because our relationship with our mother sets the template for all others.

[Tamsen Fadal]

If somebody is listening to this right now and they're trying to figure out whether or not this is something that they're dealing with. I mean, obviously, if you've lost a mother, that's a little more obvious if you have a mother here, but you might not have that closeness but you don't know exactly. You know, if you fall into one of these categories, how do you identify that in yourself?

[Kelly McDaniel]

Well, it's not easy. And the reason it's so difficult is because of the primary nature of this bond, how important this bond is. Our body's really designed to keep us unaware, to protect us. To protect us. Mother Nature is very gentle. And so it's. Actually, there's a researcher, psychologist Jennifer Fried, who wrote the book Betrayal Blindness. And she wrote it for women who have experienced infidelity in their romantic relationships. And how we can just not know. We can truly not know what's happening. We don't see it. Mother Nature has blinders on us. And when we find out, it can be terribly shocking and really difficult. So I took that theory to apply. What happens when a little girl has a mother who can be frightening? Mother Nature will protect us from knowing that. Or let's say that she's just unavailable or not feeling well, but we need her. We're going to miss the ways she's unavailable. And then we may find ourselves attracted to friends who are not available or lovers who are not available.

[Tamsen Fadal]

So let's talk about the two areas. It can go into relationships. It can go into food relationships. With regard to partners, what kind of relationships would you find that person unavailable? Is one type of attachment. Right, right.

[Kelly McDaniel]

You know, and it's interesting because whoever we're in relationship with, we may find our attachment style sliding on the spectrum.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Sure.

[Kelly McDaniel]

For example, for me, if I am attracting a partner who is more on the anxious end of the spectrum, perhaps more needy, wants more of me than my intimacy threshold might be comfortable with, I'm going to look avoidant. I'm going to back off. Flip side, if I'm in a relationship with someone who's more avoidant, they have lots of other priorities. I'm not one of them. I'm going to look a lot more anxious. That's really normal. That's part of the spectrum. And what I have found with my clients and with myself is that in romantic relationships specifically, I may flip flop. So if I've experienced a romantic relationship as a little suffocating, I was with someone who was more anxious than I. The next time I'm dating someone or intrigued, probably they're going to be more avoidant.

[Tamsen Fadal]

The other way.

[Kelly McDaniel]

Yeah, the other way.

[Tamsen Fadal]

And then how does it apply to food in the relationship? And why is there a relationship with food when it comes to mothers?

[Kelly McDaniel]

Such a good question. And it's interesting because when I was thinking of Writing this book, my clients were like, please talk about food.

[Sponsored Segment Host]

Really?

[Kelly McDaniel]

I think it impacts so many of us as women in this culture and the eating disorder. Language can be very helpful if it's critical.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Sure.

[Kelly McDaniel]

But for those of us that are on a spectrum of eating that we're not really comfortable with, it doesn't always help. So I have come to understand mother hunger. And I use the word hunger because hunger is biological. We have to eat. The need for love is biological. We have to attach if that attachment doesn't happen early. And let's say we're born to a mother who's not available very often, and we're passed around a bunch of caregivers, and some feed us well and some don't. Or let's say we're born to a mother who tries her best. She's holding us, she's feeding us, nursing us, but she's not really comfortable, and we're not really comfortable in her arms. The first experience we have of feeling good may come from having a full belly.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Oh, wow. Okay.

[Kelly McDaniel]

When we're full.

[Tamsen Fadal]

So that's a comfort.

[Kelly McDaniel]

It literally takes away a hunger pain.

[Tamsen Fadal]

So does that mother hunger, though, go right into eating disorder or food food relationships or different types of relationships with food? What is that correlation?

[Kelly McDaniel]

Whenever I work with women, whether they're healing their relationship with their body and food or with lovers and friends, the root is mother hunger.

[Tamsen Fadal]

But did that surprise you? I mean, did it just keep coming up over and over? How did that happen that you realize that?

[Kelly McDaniel]

I think what surprised me is there was nothing in my clinical training that prepared me for this. It wasn't discussed. The primacy of early attachment was not being looked at. And so I was needing to go find other ways to train myself. One of the anthropologist authors I really enjoyed learning from was Helen Fisher. Dr. Helen Fisher. She talks about how when we fall in love, it's temporary madness. We literally lose our mind. And that's universal because there's so much dopamine when we fall in love, and we need that dopamine to feel good. They did brain scans on the brain in love and notice that the same parts of the brain light up with love as cocaine. And so when you think about how primary this need for love is, if it's not getting met in a healthy way, we're going to find a substitute. We have to. And a lot of times, the first substitute we have access to before the high that comes from cocaine or alcohol or work is food.

[Tamsen Fadal]

It totally makes sense.

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all right, let's talk about the different types of love there are, because I know that you've talked about toxic love before, healthy love. There's a lot of different types that come out of this. Does that all stem from. From your mother?

[Kelly McDaniel]

Well, let's look again at the word mother when we think of what does a mother do? I was not sure when I was going to write this book. I was seeing Mother Hunger in my office. I had named it. I didn't know how to operationalize it or write about it. So I looked up in the dictionary, what's the definition of mothering? And it said, to care for someone as a mother would. How is that helpful? So I think there's a real blind spot here culturally about the primacy of the mother child dyad, how important it is. With that said, any adult who has the time, the willingness to nurture, protect and guide the child can do that. It doesn't have to be the biological mother, but it needs to be a primary attachment figure who's spending most of the time with this child in order for secure attachment to happen. So even though we're saying mother hunger, I like to think of mother in terms of those three things. When we need a mother, we need nurturing. When we need a mother, we need protection and we need guidance.

[Tamsen Fadal]

There are women that are not yet grieving the lack of a mother. Do you notice that it comes up years later? I mean, I find myself oftentimes when I said, oh, my mom's not alive. Someone will say, I'm sorry. And I go, it's okay. I don't even want to talk about it. Not because. Because I don't want to make them uncomfortable.

[Kelly McDaniel]

Exactly.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Not because of me, because I don't want to make them uncomfortable. So I don't know if that's a form of grief. I don't know if that's a form of us protecting somebody else. But can we talk a little bit about grief? And I don't think that just ends in the first three years of loss,

whatever type of loss it is.

[Kelly McDaniel]

I love that you said whatever kind of loss it is, because a lot of Mother Hunger is ambiguous loss, meaning unless she Died. If she's physically there, but emotionally not there, we're going to feel the loss, but not know what it is or why. So a lot of Mother Hunger is very ambiguous. And for this reason, and because it's taboo to talk about our mothers in any authentic kind of way, I think the essence of Mother Hunger is twofold. One is frozen grief. The grief for not having access to her in the way we need her, whether she's alive or alive or gone. Freezes in our body because it's disenfranchised. Where do we go to talk about it? There's not a support group. If we find out we have cancer, we know we need support in order to go through the healing process of what's gonna be involved, the treatments and the visitors.

[Tamsen Fadal]

There's a roadmap.

[Kelly McDaniel]

There's a roadmap for grief so the grief doesn't get frozen. It can flow with something that's disenfranchised in our culture that we don't acknowledge or we don't know about. We don't have a name for it. The grief will freeze in the body. That can cause all kinds of complications that we can talk about. But the other element is shame. I think for lots of daughters, lots of us, to even identify that maybe we didn't feel loved by our mother is going to trigger a real primal sense of shame. What's wrong with me that she couldn't love me? What's wrong with me that I lost her? What did I do wrong?

[Tamsen Fadal]

How do you move past that with

people that come to see you? Whether it's the frozen grief or the what did I do wrong?

[Kelly McDaniel]

Well, moving past it can take quite some time and tenderness. And I find that our bodies, the wisdom of our body, knows what we need for healing. We're designed to heal, actually. But the body will wait till there's the correct environment. The correct environment begins with a name. If the name resonates, the body's already like, ah. And healing begins. But then we also need those missing elements.

[Tamsen Fadal]

A name, like a person's name or identifying.

[Kelly McDaniel]

I mean, like Mother Hunger.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Oh, got it. Okay.

[Kelly McDaniel]

Like, until I knew what I didn't know what it was.

[Tamsen Fadal]

You didn't even know how to identify. You didn't even know how to identify it. Yep.

[Kelly McDaniel]

You don't even know what it is. And people feel this way sometimes about the right diagnoses, right?

[Tamsen Fadal]

Sure.

[Kelly McDaniel]

As soon as somebody says, oh, well, maybe you're struggling with attention deficit problems, it's like, oh, but it's interesting that what children, infants need nurturing, protection, guidance. I find that that's what my clients need to heal. So if I can provide the environment that feels nurturing and safe and appropriate guidance, which is where I needed to go, get a lot more training because I wasn't taught this. That's what creates healing.

[Tamsen Fadal]

What do you think you weren't taught that?

[Kelly McDaniel]

I believe we live in a culture that sentimentalizes motherhood, romanticizes motherhood, does not give motherhood the right amount of study, not unlike what we're finding with women and menopause or any health issue. The funding isn't there, the priority isn't there. And so a lot of us are wandering around going, what's wrong with my body? As we enter menopause. I think the same with mothering. Mothers aren't taught. Every mother is first a daughter. Where do we learn from our mothers, from our grandmothers? Where did they learn? And so I don't think. I think psychology, just like medicine, is not well informed about the primacy of this relationship.

[Tamsen Fadal]

It's interesting you say that, people walking around trying to figure it out, because I do. I do feel like that's what it's like in midlife. I feel like there's no more of that roadmap for. And I do wonder whether you have a mother or not, how midlife is defined in that second half by that relationship with the mother. Whether or not you look at your mother and see them going through certain things as they've gotten older. How we're gonna live in the second half is probably gonna be very different from how at least our grandmothers lived, because we're gonna have longevity, we're probably gonna have a little better health in a lot of ways because we're paying attention to that stuff. But I just wonder what those relationships in the past due to the next

[Kelly McDaniel]

chapter for us, such a powerful question. The relationship with our mothers changes throughout the lifespan. And I find that some mothers are more transparent with their daughters than others about their own menopause journey. I think every menopause journey is as unique as each mother daughter bond. Perhaps my mother, for example, if you were to talk to her about menopause, she'd say, menopause. I didn't have any problems. No problems at all, you know, never. But in hindsight, I can remember I didn't know what it was. Seeing some mood swings and some unpredictable behavior, and maybe I even saw some hot flashes, but it was just written off as, oh, it's just hot in here. But I did come to it Totally unprepared because she sailed through it. So I thought, it's not going to happen to me.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Or she thinks she sailed through it.

[Kelly McDaniel]

She thinks she sailed through it. And I do feel like for her mother and for herself, that it wasn't permitted to even admit. I'm struggling. There was a real ethic of, I got this. I can do everything.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Why do you think we have that as women? Why do you think there is that shamefulness around any type of suffering or admitting suffering?

[Kelly McDaniel]

Well, I think when we live in a culture that values pull yourself up by your bootstraps and independence more than interdependence and the fact that we need each other, anything that would make us feel a little vulnerable might also leave us feeling worn down, that we are below someone with more capacity, someone with more power. And that's a threatening feeling.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Yeah, there's no question about that. It's interesting you brought up menopause because the number one statement I constantly get is my mother never talked to me about this.

[Kelly McDaniel]

Right.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Every time no one says, my dad never told me about menopause, they say, my mother never told me about this. So I do think there's a lot of looking back during this time in life about trying to understand why. Feeling a little let down by that. Even though it's not your mom's fault or any other female figure, I do think there's a little bit of that disappointment there.

[Kelly McDaniel]

Which reminds me, one of the things I will ask a woman when we're working together to help her identify her story. What happened when you got your period for the first time? Had you been told about it? Was your mother there? Did you know what was happening? Do you remember what happened?

[Tamsen Fadal]

What does that show you?

[Kelly McDaniel]

Well, our menstruation story can tell us a lot about the mother daughter bond.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Yeah. If the mother's there, present, willing to talk about it, open.

[Kelly McDaniel]

If she had prepared her daughter, if she was celebratory, or if she was repulsed or dismissive. Generally, how a mother approaches menstruation for her daughter is how she may feel about her own body, her own menstrual cycle. So I think it's just really positive when I hear of a mother who celebrated it with her daughter. Those stories are not as common as the ones where daughters would begin to bleed and didn't know where her mom was or didn't know what was happening.

[Tamsen Fadal]

I'm curious.

You know, we get to this age in midlife where we're oftentimes either taking care of parents now, the daughter is mothering. We're getting back out there on the dating scene. Sometimes if someone's gone through a divorce or widowed or starting over again. So I want to hit those two areas first. I want to talk about the daughter mothering elderly parents, because I think that's a topic that keeps coming up over and over. And there's a lot of confusion around that in your mind about how that's supposed to work.

[Kelly McDaniel]

You're so right. And I hear over and over again, women feeling really guilty when they feel resentful about needing to take care of their mother, about being dutiful, because if they weren't adequately cared for and now they need to turn around and provide care, the ache will re emerge, and it may come with anger and resentment. And I see a lot of women facing burnout when this is happening.

[Tamsen Fadal]

What do you do if you're one of those women dealing with that right now or feeling that type of resentment?

[Kelly McDaniel]

I think it's helpful just to know that it's okay. That of course, if you were not adequately mothered, to turn around now and mother. The mother hurts, physically hurts, and it's tiring and you can't really explain it to her. And it may feel like nobody understands. And you may feel like a really ungrateful daughter if you try to talk to anyone. So you get lonely. You don't know what to do with these feelings. And so I just think if maybe hearing this can soothe the part of you that feels like a bad girl. You're not a bad girl if you feel burned out or tired or you just don't want to do it.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Yeah, it keeps coming up over and over again.

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Let's talk about women that are starting to date again, because I do think that we're seeing that. I think that it can be a time where you're either looking for companionship long term in life, you know, for the second half, but there's a lot of those things that are left over from mother hunger.

[Kelly McDaniel]

Mother hunger definitely impacts dating at any age, whether that's when we're teenagers and we're new falling in love. And don't you wish someone had told you you're never going to forget those first loves?

[Tamsen Fadal]

Yeah. Why is that? Why is that?

[Kelly McDaniel]

I think they're so impactful and our brain, because we have a woman's brain, yes, of course, is designed for relational connection. So every relational connection that goes in to our heart and penetrates, we're going to remember it. But I remember as a little girl and a developing adolescent, people saying, oh, you know, you're young, you'll get over it. What I have found is that with women with mother hunger, which means on some way we are insecurely attached, sometimes we don't get over those early, early heartbreaks that come from love, that it doesn't go well. But the truth is, whoever we had a crush on, whoever we want to date, whoever we fall in love with, is part of our story of how we attach.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Sure. All right. Mother's Day. I want to discuss this one, because this is one of those ones where after my mother died, I avoided malls. I didn't want to talk about it. I completely shut that off. It can be really triggering for women, whether your mother's here or not. Just depending on the relationship advice. You have to kind of emotionally protect yourself or at least care for yourself during these times.

[Kelly McDaniel]

Mother's Day is so difficult. I hear so many stories of women that would stand in front of the row of Hallmark cards reading them, and not one single card felt authentic, felt real, like, I can't pick up this car because that's not the way my mother. That's not how I experience her. And I've talked to women who lost their mothers and on Mother's Day, being in school, and there are things you're supposed to be doing, artwork or projects to bring home to mom. How tragic that is. I have noticed, and I don't know if you've noticed this, but in the last three years, I've noticed that some social media and marketing campaigns have started to develop some sensitivity to this. They may even put a trigger warning out. If you don't want to hear about us or about Mother's Day, block us during May. I've been encouraged by this, that there's a recognition that this is not going to feel good for everybody. And it can be difficult as a daughter. It can be difficult as a woman who wanted children and didn't get to have them. It can be difficult for mothers who lost children. It is difficult in so many ways and speaks right to the fact that our culture sentimentalizes, it minimizes what an essential, important relationship this is.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Yeah, I agree. It's funny. I don't know whether the advice is to ignore social media or to just be. I mean, you know, you don't want to go around ignoring everything. But I think that's a tough, really a tough day. I have figured out, like, my own methodology of dealing with it, which I just move on and that's it. And I don't know if that's good or bad or denial, but I have noticed those warnings now, or people identifying mothers in different ways. They'll say, like, you know, somebody who is like a mother to me, somebody who is, you know, it doesn't have to be somebody that biologically had a, you know, that took care of you.

[Kelly McDaniel]

Right. Or saw you. Maybe it was a third grade teacher who every time you walked into her classroom, her eyes lit up. She clearly took delight in you. That makes an impact. And that is who you could think about on Mother's Day. Whether it was an aunt, a friend, a babysitter, a teacher, whoever gave you a sense, even if it was only for 30 seconds.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Right, right.

[Kelly McDaniel]

That you are delightful. That's something to think about on Mother's Day.

[Tamsen Fadal]

So do we need to forgive our mothers in order to find healthy love?

[Kelly McDaniel]

I think we need to forgive our mothers in order to be happy within ourselves. Forgiveness is something we really do to loosen up any resentment we feel to let ourselves off the hook of being angry or hurt or jealous. We can forgive our mother whether she's alive or not. We can forgive our mother whether she apologizes or not. One of the terms I came up with in mother hunger is called an apology ache. Most adult daughters that I talk to are aching for their mother to see them acknowledge where she was hurtful, not available, and say, I'm sorry and change the behavior. Not just say, I'm sorry, oh, poor me, but literally change the behavior. What I find is that in forgiving our mothers, that apology ache gets smaller, and then we don't project it onto our lovers and friends. But until we forgive our mothers, we might be looking to our lovers and friends to compensate for where she was actually the one that was hurtful.

[Tamsen Fadal]

If somebody is dealing with food as a result of things and emotional eating, are there some tips that you can give us to help somebody who may say, I'm an emotional eater?

[Kelly McDaniel]

Well, being an emotional eater is also part of being human. Eating is like love, it's nurturing. So it depends on the spectrum of deprivation. Am I working with a woman who's feeling deprived that you starve yourself? I'm going to encourage that. Eating well is a form of self care and fuel and keeps us healthy in life. Sure, but that's gonna take a long Time. If I'm working with a woman who's struggling to find balance because she overeats again, awareness of health is gonna help. Knowing that eating well is part of self nurturing. And the best way I've found to ask a woman is, would you feed your daughter that way even if you don't have a daughter, Right. The hypothetical daughter, would you feed her the way you're eating?

[Tamsen Fadal]

What is the most important thing for I think women to take away from this? I think that, you know, women, we struggle during this time with a lot of different things. Many will lose mothers as they go into. As they go into midlife or already have or don't have the relationship. Is there one key, something that they can take away from it? Because I do think there's guilt and shame and sometimes anger wrapped up in all these things.

[Kelly McDaniel]

You're exactly right.

[Tamsen Fadal]

And you don't even know a couple

[Kelly McDaniel]

of things I'd want to say. I want to validate anger. That part of grief is anger. Part of grief is blame. And those are stages to go through not to feel guilty about anger when it gets mixed with shame. And shame is part of mother hunger. Because mother hunger is essentially a word for loneliness. Like, I'm alone in the world, I don't have a place to land to feel safe and feel good.

[Tamsen Fadal]

If you don't have that, what do you do? Do you look for other people that can fill that role? I mean, I'm sure you fill that role for a lot of your people that come to see you. And I'm sure that's not easy, but I'm sure you do.

[Kelly McDaniel]

It's an honor. I love that I get to do it.

[Tamsen Fadal]

It's so nice to hear.

[Kelly McDaniel]

I love what I get to do. But yes, because we're human, we're going to need to fill those needs that were lost.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Right.

[Kelly McDaniel]

So if I missed out on nurturing, I'm probably going to really need to get regular massage. I'm going to need to eat really well, take walks, take naps, rest. How many of us saw our mothers rest?

[Tamsen Fadal]

Never, Never, never.

[Kelly McDaniel]

It was seen as lazy, but it's actually really a form of nurturing. And if we didn't see our mother nurture herself, chances are we didn't see her nurture us either. Let's say that we grew up not feeling very safe. We're going to really want to curate an environment of safety and may not know how to do that. That's where guidance really helps. Depending on the degree of mother hunger, that guidance could Come from friends, family, even religious institutions. But more extreme forms of mother hunger, Namely third degree mother hunger, which is a category that I came up with that explains what happens to the attachment system when a daughter has a mother who was abusive, who was actually frightening. So the object of attachment that we desperately need and want is also terrifying. So we learn to bond in fear.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Is that what we do in relationships on the line?

[Kelly McDaniel]

And then that's what we do in relationships. We will attract partners that other people might look at and say, oh, that's a bad idea. That person's kind of scary. But we don't see it because we grew up bonding to somebody who was untrustworthy. Our love attachment system thrives on that, knows how to deal with it. That feels like love. And it can take a long time and many broken relationships before a woman may pause and say, I'm the common denominator here. Something in me is hurting and needs attention. And that's when professional help really helps to identify what was lost. Identify that when you attach to someone who was dangerous, it really hijacked your attachment system and you're going to need to take a break from relationships.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Is that the only way really to do it at that point? Because I think people jump from relationship to relationship to fill that.

[Kelly McDaniel]

To fill the void. Exactly, exactly. Because we can't stand.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Is that a toxic. Is that toxic love? Is that really what that is? Or what do you define that as just unhealthy relationships?

[Kelly McDaniel]

Well, I've called it different things. When I see a pattern, A woman who's struggling to break the cycle of one relationship after another, and they're starting to get progressively more dangerous, let's say, or more risky, or her value system is getting compromised more and more. That's when it starts to look like an addiction where we do something. And if you think about falling in love, that dopamine high, the temporary insanity. Right. It's pretty euphoric.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Sure.

[Kelly McDaniel]

We feel really.

[Tamsen Fadal]

You want it to last forever?

[Kelly McDaniel]

We want it to last forever. And there's a real reason this is biologically so strong. But we can get really attached to those dopamine hormones when we have mother hunger because we're hungry, we're starving.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Sure.

[Kelly McDaniel]

And that feels like what we need. So it's easy to get trapped in a cycle of falling in love without staying in love.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Got it. Got it. So you're still chasing. You're chasing the high.

[Kelly McDaniel]

That's right.

[Tamsen Fadal]

You're constantly chasing the high.

[Kelly McDaniel]

That's right.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Advice you would give to your younger Self. As we wrap up right now, there's a lot of young women that listen. And, you know, I think that younger women are learning a lot from social media for it's good and it's bad about how to take care of themselves and learning how to nurture a little bit. But do you have any advice for young women that might be listening to this and struggling with mother hunger?

[Kelly McDaniel]

I think there's a difference between healthy self care and nurturing and indulgence.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Sure.

[Kelly McDaniel]

Right. That I think a lot of what we see on social media might err on indulgence and not necessarily teach what the body needs to heal. A lack of nurturing. We are touch driven creatures. We need touch as much almost as we need food to thrive. And a lot of women learn to get that touch need met by being sexually desirable.

[DSW Ad Voice]

Sure.

[Kelly McDaniel]

So we may have to unlearn some unhealthy ways we've gone about getting nurturing because it ends up not being very nurturing. Right. We may objectify ourselves. We may put ourselves in harm's way because we're so hungry. So we're gonna have to find healthy ways for touch so that we're not craving that.

[Tamsen Fadal]

You're so lovely.

[Kelly McDaniel]

Well, you are too. And I'm just wondering how you're doing with this conversation.

[Sponsored Segment Host]

Oh, I'm good.

[Tamsen Fadal]

I'm good.

Yeah. I mean, I've had a lot of therapy.

[Kelly McDaniel]

Me too. 30 years actually.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Kelly, where can we find you?

[Kelly McDaniel]

I'm on instagram @kelly mcdaniel therapy. And you can go to my website also kellymcdanieltherapy.com where you'll find out if I'm doing any speaking or sending out a newsletter.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Kelly, thank you so much. It was good having you.

[Kelly McDaniel]

Really such a pleasure to be here. And thank you so much for your powerful work on menopause.

[Tamsen Fadal]

If something in this conversation hit home, you are not alone. Love addiction, emotional eating, toxic relationships. They're not personal failures. They're survival responses to unmet needs. The good news, you can rewrite your story at any age if this conversation moved you like it did me, please leave a five star review and share

this episode with a friend.

You can subscribe to my YouTube channel for more honest conversations every week. And thanks so much for being with us. I'll see you next time on the Tamsen Show.

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