I’ve seen mothers do it willingly, and others do it unwillingly (perhaps best stated as unknowingly). And of the ones who did it willingly, I’d break those into two categories: the mothers who did it willingly but not knowing the child had a need for a relationship with the father, and the mothers who did it knowing full well the child has a strong relationship with the father and was even emulating the good things from the father.
Agree with you.
When the early programming from the mother is hatred toward the father, that imprint is generally stronger and overrides any other good relationship.
I was working with a young man about 17 years old who had an addiction problem and was having great difficulty formulating a healthy sense of self. Immediately I noticed that the mother hated the son when she was pregnant with this young man.
The father was in the next room, so I went over and asked why his wife didn’t want to be pregnant with this boy. He explained that she was planning on divorcing him when she became pregnant, and decided to stay a few more years before filing for divorce.
Thus she hated the child in her womb that caused her to stay in the marriage. That alone created a severe dependency relationship in the child, searching for validation that was never enough.
The root cause of addiction is always that someone else is holding that child’s will. This is true even when they are adults. The question I often ask a person with an addiction is “Whose voice do you hear in your head that tells you when you should or shouldn’t do something?”