[jakubp]

Many people cry, shout or even try to manipulate you when you tell them their behavior (based on excessive attachment or dependency of some kind) is an issue for you. Many of the same people's loved ones realize that and are in a clinch: do I distance myself, hurting them? do I not distance myself, hurting self? It's not something you can just ask about: "I'm not as attached to you as you are to me, what do we do?"

[Wolfenstein98k]

There was no attempt to manipulate here - as the author stated, they didn't find out about the mother's crying for a long time. It was never made known.

[jakubp]

I wasn't suggesting OP's mother wanted to manipulate. I wanted to express that it's a very common situation in relationships of all kinds that there's assymetry in desired closeness and it's difficult / non obvious what to do there (i.e. no easy solution).