Wish I had different parents

I've not identified with a thread this much ever.

Please know that much of what you see on social media is rubbish. Of course people have good relationships with their parents, but not everyone, and not all the people who are saying they do. Read Mumsnet for support instead - over the past few years it has given me so much information and clarity on my mother and her behaviour. I've learnt coping techniques - grey rock, information diet etc - but mostly that it's not just me. It has undone a lot of the gaslighting as I have read about other people's experiences. As I've got older I've changed so much, now that I'm not her minion (I'm 47!), but it's still confusing and upsetting. I try very hard to be a different sort of parent to my daughter, but worry a lot that things will change as she gets older (that I will be more like my mum and ruin our relationship). I have also learnt to spot other people who are just like my mother and to avoid them, although repeating patterns has caused me problems in the past. I'm so sorry things are horrible for you right now, but I hope you're managing to enjoy your children and know that you have amazing insight to be a great mum yourself.

What I have found over the years is that social media is a load of fake bull that bears little or no semblance to everyday reality. In addition all families have their challenges and difficulties. There is nobody I would wish to swap places with.

I do think extremely rich families have it the luckiest though.

I can't, really..at least not right now. I've just started maternity leave and will be off work for the next 12 months. I do like my job and I know there's nothing closer to work that I could afford. It still would be in the same area.
So the idea is to think a little more long term. I'd like to move back to the coast, perhaps Denmark or Ireland. If I really wanted to push it, possibly Spain or Canada. I do have to think of the two little people as well, though. Also, if DH and I have shared custody, he can prevent me from moving abroad. I could stay in the country and just move within but I'm not sure I want to stay.

"If you could"?

You can. You can sell up and move and let them "fit" all they like, and ignore them. Not saying you should if YOU have reasons not to. But you could. You're giving these two WAY too much power.

That must have been so hurtful, I'm so sorry.

Yeh, I'm getting a bit harder of heart too.

But initially, when my mum tried to bring me back to heel, one of the first accusations levelled at me was ''you're cold hearted''. So it took me a long time to get to a place where I could feel relaxed (not even the right word) about her seeing my so called cold heartedness.

I would like to think that most of my friends know that the problem is my mother, but I've realised recently that I have a friendship with a woman, a good person and certainly her view of herself is that she's a good person. Where our approach to a decision has differed, her belief is that her choice was the sensible one and mine was dulally. Or where I think something that's happening is a big problem and she thinks it's no big deal, her absolute certainty is that Im wrong and she's right. I really dive deep on things when I look into them, when they matter. So something about her CERTAINTY that she is Sensible/Right/Kinder is really triggering me, there's a dynamic in that friendship that is like me and my mother. I don't know if that happened by chance or if I offered up that dynamic to somebody.

My other friends get it though.

Yes I too wish I had better parents. I remember being very young and wishing I had accidentally been swapped at birth and one day my real parents would find me. I held onto this fantasy for years. I’m in my 40’s now so all hope is lost!

my parents are very cold and unloving my needs and wants were never important. There are so many horrific things they have done and said. One of them was when as a 22 year old I finally confided in my family my cousin had sexually abused me from when I was about 7 till I was 9/10. I told my sister only as her daughter was starting to spend time in that house and I wanted to protect her. I still remember my mum calling me screaming and telling ne to call my aunty as my cousin is upset and my aunty is upset, not once did my mum ask me if it was true what my sister told them or if I’m okay. She told ne to call them and say I’m sorry that I lied!

she then told extended family that I’m spoilt and I make up lies for attention. Most believed her but a few rang me and told ne my behaviour makes total sense now and they’re sorry for not protecting me.

when I do occasionally call my mum she always mentions my poor cousin and aunty are all alone now and some relatives no longer talk to them because of me.

@Airworld I understand. When my mother dies, my lack of upset will confirm to relatives that I'm ''cold-hearted'' (cold-hearted was what was always said to me when I didn't instantly do what she wanted, or ''think of the kids, think of Dad'')

Weird how the way I have to show my love in the family is to abandon myself. My Dad doesn't talk to me either, because I ''hurt mum'' Over the years I've had him saved in my phone as ''The Victim's Foot Soldier'' or ''He just works here''.

But when my mother dies, I will have worked through the grief and my composure will come across COLD HEARTED (just like her mother said she was)

I'm low contact with both my parents but you wouldn't know that if you saw my narcissistic father's Facebook page. He is constantly posting things depicting himself as an amazing father and his friends comment about how lucky my sister and I are to have such a great dad. It's all absolute bullshit and makes me so angry. He abandoned us as children and only uses us to stroke his ego and provide some company now he's old and lonely. I've had to put strong boundaries in place.

It really hits home when I read from posters who are grieving the loss of their mum or dad. I have an envy for their suffering. I felt nothing when my parents died, they were both dreadful.

I drew a line under them when I was in my late 20’s and realised it was never going to get any better.

I try not to give them any headspace, but I’m 70 now and through every stage of being a mother and grandmother I’ve compared my behaviours to theirs. It’s still hard to believe how cold and evil they were.

An abusive childhood is the opposite of a head start in life; it never goes away completely.

My dad was a violent bully and I shed no tears when he died. My mum is selfish, mean, unkind and lacking in any kind of self awareness. She always plays the victim. I’m very LC with her.

I’m of an age where friends mums are passing away and I see how devastated they are, but it’s not something I can relate to. It saddens me that these wonderful mothers who will be so missed are dying when mine lives on and on! As absolutely awful as it sounds, I will only feel relief when she dies as the charade will finally be over.

I'm NC because my mother ghosted me, that's painful. It's a bit different when it's not your choice but i was the one begging and pleading with her to listen to me. I was the one who kept banging myself against a locked door until ........... I understood that her bottom line is that nothing needed to change, there is one perspective; hers, and my expectation that she hear me out is AGGRESSIVE, how DARE I? she's furious with me. My perspective is ''detached from reality''.

So, we're NC I guess. I didn't want that and she would claim she didn't want it either. But she has NO MOTIVATION to fix things. She doesn't miss me.

So, NC doesn't always ease the pain or the rumination. Or maybe it does if it's your decision ? Sometimes I think if I'd had the strength to just accept that she is a toddler and say ''hello weathers nice, lunch is nice, you're nice, everything''s nice, ok bye now', see you next month that would be nice' then it'd have eaten in to my head space less.

I’m NC with my DM for being emotionally abusive and my DF is NC with me due to his manipulative DW. Neither of them were suitable to have DC, nor wanted them.

My DM is terminally ill and while I have mixed feelings they are mostly that I grieve for the DM that I wish I had. The hardest part is my friends’ and relatives responses - they cannot understand why I wouldn’t be devastated that she is dying or not jumping on the next plane to see her.

I’ve learnt never to speak of her and I’ve never told them the history because what would be the point (plus I’m a private person)? People just don’t want to understand why because it’s the last taboo to turn your back on a dying parent. It makes me feel terribly alone and when I was turned down for NHS Talking Therapies it was the last straw for feeling like I don’t matter.

For years I glossed over how unpleasant my parents were.
They disliked me as a teenager and in my 20s, I thought having kids would be a fresh start but it wasn't. So I put them on an information diet and the biggest thing is I'm honest to colleagues & friends.
Because I'm generally quite nice, most people understand it's a parent problem rather than me.
My dad died a year ago, I honestly haven't no sadness or regrets, and if anything am getting a bit harder of heart!

Yes I feel the same. So envious of people with lovely mums who are now lovely supportive grandmas. My mother is an alcoholic who is incapable of empathy or seeing anything from any perspective other than her own. I wish I had the confidence to go NC but sadly I don’t currently.

I don't think my parents were emotionally capable of being parents. Still aren't. I'm sorry you're struggling.

@Summerbreeze456 ugh I feel SO angry on your behalf. Your mum doesn't see you as an adult or an equal. Like mine, actively dislikes me.

I would stop giving her ammunition... Put her on a severe diet of any information about you and your family. Yourself and your children are your priority, and she is not even trying to be nice or supportive, so honestly I would reduce how much she's allowed to be in your life. You are allowed to do that,in fact, putting yourself and family first is the best thing to do..
Because how DARE she come and spoil your first precious days with your baby?! You'll never get those days back, and she's shitting on it all so badly that you've been forced to seek help online. Tell her to fuck off, lock the door, block her on your phone. She doesn't automatically have any right to make your life actively worse. Ignore her tantrums, remove yourself from her circus, protect your peace, and your healing (from birth and from her awful bullying!).

And then, when you feel stronger, put in more real measures to protect yourself. Move, if you truly want to. It's literally none of her business, in the real world ( not her controlling work of make believe,)Never see her, if that helps you feel better. We wouldn't tolerate all this from a friend or colleague, so our parents should be held up to the same level of basic respect, and she's falling very very far short of that.

I hope you find strength! Seeing mine trying to do all the shit things to my own kids helped me break the cycle. It's YOUR life, I hope it gets better.

Thanks. I'm trying to get everything sorted but currently just focusing on being home alone with two kids. We're doing OK, considering.

My parents live about 30 minutes from us. It's one reason why I consider just moving away and getting a fresh start somewhere else. My parents would have an absolute fit, though. My mum thinks this is the best house ever and I will certainly have my children inherit it. That was never the plan...just hers. I'd happily pack my stuff, sell the house and move today if I could. (I like my job, though, and would miss my friends and colleagues.)

That’s awful and far too common.
When my bil’s df died I found out that the df had a dd from a first marriage and bil and family were worried she may claim something in the will.
I was shocked that their first thought wasn’t how to let the dd know that her (d)f had died.

That's a bitter pill to swallow. I'm sorry. Men can be extremely good at doing this, it seems, moving on and forgetting their firstborn.

Yes I am sad that when I think about my parents all I remember is how shit they were. I sometimes feel upset and envious when others speak lovingly of their parents but there is nothing to be done.

Yeh, I've always had to play the part my mother wrote for me, reflect back her view of herself, but the very first time I asked to be heard, she shut me down, played the martyr, was the victim of my request to be considered, smeared me to extended family, excluded me, drafted in other family members to exclude me too.
Then gaslighted me deny it all.
The only version of events that can exist is that - I hurt her. She is the perfect victim. My dad backs her up.

I was so angry for about 4 years and then I met my dad on his own, and it was like explaining a complicated maths problem to him he sort of understood, for a moment, but the bottom line for him is that mum cannot be hurt. Now om just so sad. It's worse.

I'm sure some extended family members think that if I said "sorry" for being a raging ungrateful brat that my parents would try to forgive me.

For a long time I longed to get through to them. Then I realised, their ego is what they love unconditionally.

I have to stay away. I feel eroded and erased and I'm trying to draw myself back in.

It is hard I agree, I sit between two women at work who both have good relationships with their mothers.