I've had an argument with my mother - how can I make up with her?

If your heart is sinking at the thought of Mother’s Day because you don’t get on with your mother, try to take some comfort in knowing you’re not alone.

In a recent study by Relate, Marriage Care and Relationships Scotland, 22 per cent of people said they didn't have a good relationship with their mother. And if you are like that fifth of people, Mother’s Day can feel lonely and upsetting. Often people who don’t get on with their mums feel like they’re going against societal norms. The expectation is that you should love and accept your mother as she is and be the dutiful child. However, the reality is that some parents can’t or sometimes simply don’t put their children’s needs before their own.

For some people with a truly toxic relationship with their mother it might be emotionally healthier for them to create a safe distance. That’s an incredibly difficult decision to make, so if I work with people who feel they should do that, we explore all the angles and implications of the issue to make sure that when and if they decide to take action, the decision is thoroughly thought through rather than an emotional reaction.

If you feel that your relationship with your mother upsets you and there are things you’d like to make her aware of, then this Sunday probably isn’t the best time to try it. It’s a day fraught with emotion and, as with Christmas, birthdays and weddings, everything is much more intense. So I’d suggest you just try to get through the day as best you can. Perhaps sit in the car before going in with gift, take some deep breaths and promise yourself you won’t bite bacl when your mother says something that usually infuriates you. Family games, as we counsellors call them, can’t work if one of you won’t play ball. If she’s always critical and you’re defensive, refuse to play the game.

Instead, think about what you can reasonably do to acknowledge Mother’s Day without it causing you too much stress and strain. Then if you do want to repair the relationship, there are some steps you can take after Sunday.

Firstly you need to take responsibility for yourself. You have to face the reality of how your mother is and not how you may wish she’d be. Being real about your parents is part of growing up. If you have children of your own, learning from your parent’s past mistakes can help you to be a better parent yourself. If you can acknowledge and understand how your mother and father figures parented and how it impacted on you, it can help you to avoid repeating history. What’s great about focusing on this is that it puts you in a position to make a choice of how you want to be, and that’s really positive.

We all owe it to ourselves to try to achieve the utmost emotional health we can. So if your relationship with your mother is 70 percent OK but there are niggles, you might feel confident enough to sit down and talk it through with her.

Explain gently and honestly how you feel, but without being accusatory or blaming. Say something like: “I find our relationship difficult at times - shall we chat this through, see if we can improve it for both of us?” That is much more likely to work than barging in and having a go at her.

It’s worth trying to improve your relationship with your mother if you possibly can. But if it still doesn’t work out, at least you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that you tried.

Some children feel that they’re in some way set up to fail by their mothers – there’s absolutely nothing they can ever do to please her. If that’s you, think about seeing a counsellor to get some help dealing with this, as it’s very hard to face alone. If the relationship is so toxic that it’s damaging you into adulthood, you may need permission to break off contact with your mother entirely. Again, a counsellor is someone who can give you that "permission" and sometimes that’s all that people need.

For those who feel their relationship isn’t beyond repair, try to remember that there are usually reasons behind why people act in the way they do. Perhaps your mother’s relationship with her own parents wasn’t all that it could’ve been. Maybe your mum didn’t achieve everything she hoped to in life and that’s why she pushed you so hard at school. Trying to understand what causes her to act in the way she does can help to create greater empathy and tolerance. If she wants to make up for lost time or rebuild your relationship then see if you can find it in your heart to forgive her.

It’s also worth considering if there’s anything you would or could have done differently. Perhaps you’ve said or done things to her in the past that you feel bad about. Making the first step and apologising can be hard, particularly when you feel that she’s also in the wrong, but the potential rewards are enormous.

Don’t expect everything to be mended overnight, but in time it’s possible to get things back on track and for Mother’s Day to conjure up more positive emotions in the future.

Christine Northam is an experienced counsellor working with individuals and couples coping with relationship difficulties. To find out more about Relate’s services, visit the website.