Does anyone not really like their parents?

[notamummysgirl]

I've namechanged because I feel a bit guilty.

I don't think I like my mum very much. She is totally self absorbed.
She thinks everyone is bullying her, and against her if they don't admire her and praise her.

She doesn't come to visit when DS (4) is up as she "can't talk with him around", can't hear herself think.
When she says talk, that's exactly what she means, her "blah balh me me me blah" while I nod along.

She moved us around constantly as kids, wherever her man at hte time wanted to be. left me with her friends horrible old husband who made me rub my hands over his bits. (I was 10)

I have a brother a yr younger than me who she does everything for- wouldn't move him in his GCSE year (having moved me in mine) paid for his driving lessons and insurance despite him being 25 with a full time job, just generally fawns over him. Then I have to listen to how unappreciated she is when he doesn't kiss her feet.

I got a job recently, having been looking for quite a long time. She decides they'll come over to 'celebrate'
The whole eving she read the paper, talked about herself, about how hard everything is for her and updated her fb status, while I made them endless cups of tea.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't want the whole conversation to revolve around me but a celebration it wasn't.

I know this sounds like a load of rambling but it's building up into huge resentment and I feel like I don't want to see her anymore.

Does anyone else dislike their mum or dad?
Waht do I do?

[lowercase]

Give her a wide berth.

Phase her out.

Ignore!

[MittzyBittzyTeenyWeeny]

My Dad.

He is a manipulative, controlling, emotionally abusive man and if it weren't for my Mum I would sever contact.
But she is in a very difficult place and needs my support so I sustain my relationship with him to make her life easier and be there as and when she needs me.

I have gone through hurt and anger to being in a place now where I just don't feel anything emotional for him.

Were you are concerned I would also suggest phasing her out. You need people in your life who energise and nurture you. And it is so liberating when you don't have to spend too much time thinking over the unhappiness they have caused.

Take care x

[notamummysgirl]

Thanks lowercase.
She was going to come over later. I've text to say I'm tired and having an early night.
Was feeling v guilty, but she text back to say how tired she was, and I feel less so now!

[notamummysgirl]

Sorry Xposted Mittzy.

Thankyou.

Sorry you have a hard time with your dad.
So wearing isn't it?

[nemofucker]

You are not alone.



My mother is a nasty, spiteful, selfish woman completely lacking in empathy or indeed most human feelings (unless it's feeling sorry for herself, how underappreciated she is and how she is always right and everyone else is wrong etc)

I told her to fuck off 5 years ago. Lots of ishoos, including total denial of my (repeated) abuse at the hands of a neighbours son, and my mother's husband. And I found out this year she lied to me about who my dad is ffs. Hate her. It eats me up and I don't want to but I do.

I won't say it's been easy without any family effectively but it was a bloody good start on my road to recovery

[lint]

I don't really like my parents.

Theres nothing wrong with them but they are self-absorbed and when I look back they didn't think about me at all when I was young. My own children are always my first concern when I am making decisions about houses, jobs etc. but they moved around the country so that I attended 7 schools and never felt settled anywhere.

Even now that they are retired they always put themselves first at times like Xmas, etc. In fact the last few years they have been to my sisters and never once thought about us on Xmas day. I would never treat my children differently and they always treated my young sister as 'special' because she came along late and as they had more money by then, she got a pony, a car, etc and I never got anything.

So I don't really like them, but like you notamummysgirl, it is hard not to feel guilty because we're all supposed to like, if not love, our parents.
But sometimes its too hard to and we just have to try to get on with life without them.

[GORGEOUSX]

I don't like my mother, but I do love her. Don't want to waste emotions on listing what I don't like about her; she's certainly not nasty or evil - I just don't like her, don't have any sort of bond with her and don't enjoy being with her at all.

Having said that I do force myself to visit her and try and be nice and loving and supportive towards her (she's a widow) but, honestly, only because she is my mother and I would feel guilty if I upset her.

[HecateQueenOfWitches]

If my parents were not my parents, I would not choose them as friends. I don't like their politics and I don't like their dramatics and I think they are very childish.

[MittzyBittzyTeenyWeeny]

Yes it is notamummysgirl.

For me, counselling has been a very valuable process and learning to disengage emotionally has 'set me free' from being destroyed by his negativity and destructive personality.

I was taught to have a sort of bubble. as you can't change them, you learn to change your reactions and stop taking on board their behaviour.

There hasn't been any great confrontations or fall out, I just gently let his power over me emotionally slip away.

My sadness towards my Mum's situation is great though. In my heart of hearts, and I find this terrible and hard to say, but I wish he would pass away. And give her her remaining life to pick up the pieces and have some quality of life for her remaining years. That sounds vile of me but he has diminished a beautiful gentle woman,

It takes a long time nota, but distancing yourself is a first step. If you have any self doubt, ask yourself if how she treats you is how you would treat your DC's, because you deserve the mum that you are to your own DC's.

[DrRichandNimble]

my parents are vile.

They are embarassing and "chav"

They are ignorant beyond belief and my mother particularly is emotionally stunted.

Sadly though, they are my parents and i still react to their beck and call.

[TooManyPufflesInMyIgloo]

Me too. I'm in the process of trying to decide if I want to continue having a relationship with my parents. Actually they don't want to see me anyway, but they want to see my children. Not because they love my children - they've never shown any sign of that - but because it makes them feel like good grandparents (I think - been racking my brains to work out why they want to visit us, since they don't appear to enjoy the children's company at all). My children aren't bothered about seeing them - dd said she'd like to see their dog again, and that was it.

They met all my physical needs when young (mostly), never did anything that left any bruises (mostly), they just ignored me a lot of the time, criticised me a lot, and occasionally noticed me and used me when they fancied playing happy families for a bit - with me doing exactly as I was told, of course. It's very hard to pin anything down and say 'they were awful parents' or "they were abusive", particularly as I find it hard to see which of my childhood experiences weren't normal. But then I have dh, whose family are lovely. He listens to me talk about my childhood with his jaw hanging open.

Anyhow. Today I met my friend who's just had a baby, and she was talking about how lovely it is to have her mum staying, generally looking after them while my friend looks after her baby. I was so jealous, came away and had a cry. I want a mum too!

I have tried saying some of this to my parents - they are angry that I have dared to criticise them. They've ranted and tried to bully me into returning to the status quo. They've tried to pretend nothing happened. They've called dh's parents and tried a sob story (lovely ILs said they valued us too much to go behind our backs). All is silent at the moment, it's lovely.

Nothing wrong with not loving your mum. Some mum's are not loveable. Actually, some mum's are not worth the name of Mum.

But a gradual distancing is probably less stressful than a confrontation!

[quiddity]

My father was a 19th-century patriarch and excused his own emotional neglect of his children on the ground that raising them was their mother's job.
My mother is totally self-absorbed and the queen of denial. She must have her own way at any price.
When I was anorexic at 16 the only thing she said about it was "What are you trying to do to me?"
I can hardly bear to be in the same room as her.
I have spent years and years feeling guilty about being such a bad daughter to someone that other people imagine is a sweet little old lady.
I wish I were brave and strong enough to cut all contact.

[mamatomany]

I've stopped answering the phone to mine, the woman who told me not to bring my problems to her door wants to discuss her so called problems once a week, I love caller ID

[notamummysgirl]

Sad that it's so common.

This sounds weird, but it's strange when you finally realise isn't it?!
They don't look like Cruella, or cartoon villains, so it's hard to tell if it's 'right' or not (don't know if that makes sense)

[GORGEOUSX]

I have found the older my mother gets, the more needy she is; she needs a lot of attention and one way of getting it is to have every single medical niggle checked out, so I'm constantly having to ferry her to appointments and 'sit and hold her hand'.

The good thing about not liking my mother is that I make an extra effort with my DDs because I would hate for them to grow up disliking me.

[bigarsemandy]

I severed all ties with my parents 11 years ago. I'd left home at 16 because we couldn't get on and they were physically abusive to me. I was probably a difficult and unhappy teen, but the constant thrashings didn't help.

After that I used to visit them regularly, but infrequently, and do my best to have some sort of relationship with them.

When my DD was born my XP and I were living abroad. They didn't visit for eight months, weren't remotely interested in seeing her, (we were only in France and they have plenty of money for travel). They finally visited and brought a plastic rattle and a Primark baby dress as a gift for her. They stayed for 2 weeks and never once took her out for a walk or anything because they were too busy throwing booze down their throats.

Back in the UK after leaving XP I was homeless and ended up in a hostel with a then 2 year old DD. My parents had a four bed house, but seemed perfectly happy to see me living like this and even said it was 'a shame' I'd left my XP as he 'seemed so nice'. If they'd bothered to ask I might have told them why I'd left (DV).

That was a really low point in my life; I was seriously depressed, finding it difficult to cope and living on benefits and all they did was whine that I didn't traipse over to see them on the bus. I just put the phone down on them mid-whine one day and that was that. They never attempted to contact me again and I've never tried to contact them either.

They're elderly now and my brother tells me they're frail and poorly (probably part of this is due to heavy drinking), but I still don't feel the need to get in touch.

They've told all our relatives that they're disinheriting me and DD to 'teach us a lesson', which I think just about sums them up as people.

[BeenBeta]

lint - I could have written every word of your post.

Mitzzy - yes forming a bubble has been very helpful for me but my DW gets upset about how my parents are with me, DW and now our DSs.

They have never ever been to our house in 25 years. We go to their house once a year and they pretty much ignore us all the time we are there.

I feel we should honour our parents but after 47 years my resolve and desire to do so is wearing thin.

[Shodan]

I don't like my mother.

She constantly tells us what a wonderful mother she was, but she wasn't. At any given time at least one of her six children will have cut contact completely and yet, when she's told the reasons why, she will deny everything and undermine her children's emotions.

She has behaved appallingly to all of us and yet shouts about how great she was/is as a mother.

She also did a lot to damage our relationships with our father (they divorced 30 years ago and she still goes on about it) while he has always maintained a dignified silence and been supportive and loving to us- even when we cut him off, due to pressure from our mother.

Now I am training myself not to 'jump' when she calls wanting something. It is hard, but necessary.

[Niecie]

You aren't alone, notamummysgirl - my father sounds very much like your Mother - it is all about him!

In fact, Mittzybittzy, are you me?!

I have the same sort of father and a mother who is as miserable as sin because of him. I can't cut him off because she is still living with him and I get on great with my mother.

I wish she had left him years ago but it wasn't the done thing and now it is too late as the old bugger has Alzheimer's Disease and she can't leave him!

It is a horrible thing to say but I understand completely the sentiment behind the wish that he would just die (he wants it too, so he say). As it is, whilst the AD isn't too bad and he can be left for a while, I take my mum out as often as I can. I dread the possibility that she might die first and I will be left to sort him out - unlikely as she is fit and 10 yrs younger than him but still not impossible.

He is a selfish, bullying mysoginist who makes everybody miserable, particularly if you happen to be female, tells everybody else what a wonderful family he has and then can't find one single nice thing to say to any of us to our faces. The AD has just made all his bad traits worse and worse than that, he can't remember that he insulted you and pulled your life to pieces five minutes ago just repeats himself for the duration of your visit until you can't stand it any more.

I too have put him in a bubble and I don't tell him anything about my life at all. I have just got an MSc and he doesn't know. I have a little fledging business and he doesn't know. I give him no ammunition if I can help it - if he asks I just say I haven't been doing anything. If I could cut him off I would.

OP - if it would make you happier and your life easier to cut off your mother, do it. You owe her nothing. It doesn't sound like she was a good mother to you and you have to protect yourself and your own DC from her. Don't feel guilty, don't even bother confronting her, just stop returning her calls or being in when she visits. She won't get why you need to do it so why cause yourself grief by trying to explain? She will never take responsibility for her behaviour.

[TooManyPufflesInMyIgloo]

Think how you'd feel if your children, once they'd grown up and left home, appeared not to want to spend much time with you.

You'd do something about it, wouldn't you? Try to make sure that you were good company, invite them to do things they'd enjoy. You'd think about your behaviour when you were with them, and if you realised you'd been going on about yourself too much, you'd apologise and make sure it didn't carry on. You'd try to be an emotional and practical support to your child. And if they still didn't want to be with you, you'd talk to them and listen to what they said and try to resolve it.

My parents know I don't want to be with them. Their response was to buy my children lots of stuff. When they realised we couldn't be bought, their second response was to get angry - how dare we not "bother" to visit them. And that was it. They are not prepared to put any effort at all into the relationship. This goes a long way to releasing me from the guilt when I don't put any effort in either.

Three years ago after some staggeringly self-absorbed behaviour from them when I was having a major crisis, I made the decision to make them bottom priority. I stopped answering the phone to them, and only visited when it was very very very convenient. They didn't appear to notice and it made life much nicer. OP, this may be an option for you?

You don't owe your mum anything you know. When your children are grown up, will you expect them to visit you because they owe you, or because they love you and you love them and you enjoy being together, and you are continuing a loving relationship started in childhood? Do you feel that they owe you for giving them life, or was that a free gift?

[GORGEOUSX]

ToomanypufflesinmyIgloo I agree that one doesn't 'owe' anything to one's parents, but I do feel that it's a tie that should never be severed by either side. (Excepting physical or sexual abuse).

I don't know why - it just seems very wrong; I would never sever ties with my DC, no matter what they did, and I feel the same about my mother - not that the old bag has done anything monstrous.

[MittzyBittzyTeenyWeeny]

Blimey Niecie, my Mum suspects over the last year that my Dad is developing Dementia and has said she feels more like a carer.

Beta, I sort of understand your wife 'mourning' what you, she and your DC's don't have with your parents and I think I did. But in the end it becomes painful baggage. It's like having a rucksack full of stuff and deciding what you want to carry around with you. My past is my past and a part of me, and sometimes I cry for the little/young girl that ached for her Dad to approve, be proud and be stable, but as an adult, I have finally taken him out of the rucksack.

You are so right Puffins, I would be horrified if my DC;'s didn't want to be with me and question my own behaviour, but to my Dad that would confirm to him that I was at fault for seeing bad in him.
He can be very cruel, but if I express any feelings, he is devastated that I think that of him and it is my nature that is too blame.

My ExMil was the same to the point that my DC's now won't see her and she says they are horrible children.

These people refuse to accept responsibility for their own actions and behaviour and lump it onto someone else instead.

Teaching yourself not to take it from them is hard.

It is sad and hard though because we need our parents to fulfill a certain, loose role, and when they don't I found it shook me a lot. And kept on hoping for a long time that he would be the Dad he showed glimpses of from time to time.

[maltesers]

Good points TooManyPuffles. . .
Sorry your mother is such a Twat Notamummysgirl, NEmoFucker and all you other females who have awful mothers.
My Mother too is a spiteful, bad tempered, selfish, angry, aggressiv bitch , who is now going senile and when my Dad dies (82 yrs with heart failure) I will have to take the burden of her care/welfare. She is Jekyll/Hyde and you never know which way she is going to react.
Uncaring, unmotherly and totally self absorbed. She physically attacked me over Xmas when Dad was ill. . .She is mad !
Just makes you realise you have to try with all your might to be good to your children, be there for them, and show them how much you care.
Its so true . . "be nice to your kids, . . .Because, they chose your Rest Homes" !!!!!!

[maltesers]

If it wasnt for my Dad, I would be a real messed /fucked up human being !!

[lint]

Beenbeta it makes me feel so much better knowing someone else has experienced the same sort of events as me.

Toomanypuffles - I felt too that 'I wanted a mum' at times of stress. I'd feel so jealous about other women who had supportive mothers. At one point I even thought my parents were ignoring me on purpose so that when they died I would be more independent - I know now that they were just uncaring, despite the fact that I did everything I could to earn their love because I wanted that so much. Now I've given up; I decided about 7-8 years ago that they would never change and they really didn't care about me. Things have been better since because by avoiding them they don't get the opportunity to hurt me so much.

The guilt about not wanting to be with them never really goes away but OP this is a way of avoiding pain and resentment.