Struggling with parents

[LaPerduta]

I'm not sure exactly what I'm hoping for from posting this - maybe just to share experiences.

I have, ostensibly, a good relationship with both my parents; I talk to them often and spend quite a lot of time with them (generally in chunks as they live quite a distance away). They are generally supportive and interested in my life, without being interfering.

However I feel very emotionally disconnected from them at present. I am finding them annoying and hypocritical, and I bear resentment for things that happened to me as a child and young adult.

It would be unfair and inaccurate to paint them as abusive, so I don't mean to give that impression, but I can look back and see many times when my needs were ignored in all sorts of small ways, and my current anger stems from the fact that I suspect the low self-esteem I suffer from is directly connected to this.

In addition they are becoming elderly and increasingly reliant for help with certain things. I am finding it hard to be as patient as I should be, which then makes me feel guilty!

It's probably relevant that I am long-term single and childless and my (two) siblings are both married with children.

I probably need to see a therapist...

I think it’s quite normal to increasingly get annoyed when they’re more demanding with needing help as they get older. It took me years to really think about certain events/the way I was brought up and how wrong it was. Pretty normal to be resentful, particularly when you hear about other people’s idyllic childhoods.

Have some therapy, by all means, if you want it, but I think you’re in a very common situation. I’ve reduced contact with my mum. She drives me nuts. I’m very fortunate that she has extended family nearby (I’m hours away) but I’m already dreading the obligatory visit next week.

I'm coming out the other side of a very similar situation. I have worked through a huge amount of resentment that has really affected my life over the last few months with a counsellor. She has helped me understand why I feel my needs weren't met and how to address it in my life now.
While it's pretty common to feel this way at some points in life, that doesn't make it hurt any less, so I would recommend counselling to work through it, reframe it and then work on building a more positive relationship with your parents within your own comfortable boundaries.
Good luck with it, it has taken lots of years and 'penny drop' moments for me, it's been hard work but it feels like a bloody huge relief to be coming out the other side.

Yeap, you probably do need a therapist and sooner rather than later. Do you really think your parents were some kinds of gods, capable of being perfect, so guilty of every imperfection in their parenting? Do you not realise that one of them probably lacked self esteem and passed that on to you?

But yes, it is very convenient, not that they might become more needy, to realise that after all they don't deserve any help. If you were my daughter, I wouldn't want your help

I meant lots of tears

@Coyoacan I think your post is really inappropriate. The OP is struggling and asking for advice. She does not need a lecture or to be made to feel bad about what she is experiencing.

OP, speak to a counsellor if you are struggling and they will help you define your boundaries better and explore the resentment you are feeling.

I tend to agree with this and posts of its I'll tbh. I am increasingly seeing posts like the OP on MN and as the population ages there will be more and more of them.

Nobody is perfect. I can think back to loads of times my needs weren't met as a child too. But my parents love me and they tried their best. I have two children under 5 and I adore them and I try my best. But I'm only human and I bet when they are adults they will look back and similarly remember times when they didn't feel their needs were met. I hope they will be able to give me grace and understanding the way I am giving my parents the same. My mother has stage 3 cancer. She wasn't a perfect mother, she still isn't, but who is? I see lots of people who post these types of OPs comment that other people wouldn't understand because they have the much coveted 'idyllic childhood' and that kind of thing. I don't believe anyone has an 'idyllic' childhood. All families have their own conflicts, their own issues, their own stressors, it's inevitable as families are made up of people and people are imperfect. Just some people clearly have more insight, kindness and grace than others when it comes to seeing people's behaviour in context and appreciating that someone doesn't have to be perfect to be worthy of your kindness and respect. And I wonder how you will feel when your own children, if you have them, start to talk about you in the same way you talk about your parents. You may feel you are so much better and different than your parents, but I bet they felt that way compared to their own parents, and yet here you all are.

I shouldn't have to add a disclaimer to say I'm clearly not talking about families where there is abuse, but I will, because otherwise a flurry of people will then quote me and start talking about abusive parents. Which is clearly not what I'm talking about. My DH is NC with his own mother as she was abusive, so I'm not saying relationships can or always should be maintained. However not many relationships fall into that category, let's be honest.

Thank you, that is so very kind and helpful. 🙄Of course I don't think they are gods, nor do I expect them to be, or have been, perfect.

This is not AIBU, and I tried hard to give a balanced account without writing an essay. I'm feeling quite down about this and I really don't need your misplaced vitriol which I suspect is projection.

I do help my parents a lot, and don't begrudge it. I am just hurting and pissed off with some of the very dismissive treatment I experienced at a formative time, which for some reason I seem to be reliving at the moment.

Thank you - that is helpful to read.

Sorry, that was meant for @PuffinMcStuffin.

Do see a therapist. I did. You might get angrier before you heal, but that's ok. Your anger won't be accepted by your family but you can go ahead and feel angry anyway. Don't expect them to get it though.

xx

Ps, I read recently that if you have to choose between feeling guilty for helping less or resentful for helping more, always choose ''guilty''.

So on a practical level, pull back.

Have a look at the Hoffman Institute. It might help you with some insight

@SecondhandTable - I don't expect them to be perfect. But continuously deciding to make your child feel less important than you is going to have an effect.

Also, I don't have children, as I said in my OP.

@SecondhandTable this shows such a deficit in understanding. There is a huge difference between accepting that your parents aren't perfect (because nobody is), and continuing to play your part in a dysfunctional family, allowing yourself to be eroded so that your parents can regulate their own low self -esteems or repressed emotions. I think this is what prompts adult children to move away from the relationship.

If you haven't felt the weight of a parents' projections then you're lucky. My parents have told me I'm paranoid for 35 years. When I tried to correct them I was told I was sensitive. When I took a stand I was called angry. When I didn't accept their silent treatment of me I was called entitled. When they decided the silent treatment of me was over and they were merely stonewalling me, summonsing me back to play the part of daughter while making it clear that there would be no discussion, then I was detached from reality, I was insane.

My parents identify with being perfect lovely people. They want me to respect their right to erode me with endless projections. Unless I accept that I am paranoid sensitive angry detached from reality insane and entitled, then they will give me the silent treatment. But they are ''lovely'' and everybody knows they are ''lovely'' and all of the relatives have been told how awful I am, and my brother is angry with me for hurting mum (and dad).

So, please understand that you don't understand why people need to move away from these types of dynamics.

If there was any small chink in my family's dynamic for receiving feedback, then I wouldn't have needed to give up.

A therapist will validate you which is what you need right now.

I know that I shouldn't need my parents to validate me at 52, but I'm not going to square up to be IN validated for another 10 years.

I'm with you OP. My parents were nice but deeply neglectful and nobody saw it I am still angry and resentful in many ways. 18 months of therapy didn't help. In fact talk therapy simply reinforced the trauma emotional neglect. What did and does help is writing things down, exercise, good nutrition, talking to friends, proper time out, and drawing boundaries with my parents. I also found somatic work useful, reading Peter Levine and Bessal van der Kolk's work.

@SeaToSki - thanks, I'll take a look.

Definitely second Van Der Kolk, (and I found Alison Bechdel's books about her parents interesting too, though a different type of work).

I found that reflecting on what my parents' formative experiences had been helped me understand, accept, and work round how they were "now". It didn't change them. I did change how I interacted with them - I had a think about what worked best (or what was least worst!) and steered things that way.

With practice, it gets easier - you develop ways of expressing things in a civil, tactful but firm way (MN is good for suggestions for that sort of thing).

Another thing is I noticed that my male colleagues were, in general, a lot more pragmatic and less guilty, and would quite openly say things like,
"We're going to see Mum for lunch and then 'take Josh back for his team practice', because if we're there for more than 2 hours she starts winding up my wife", and nobody ever gave them grief for it. So it made me a lot more relaxed about applying that level of, shall we call it 'compassionate pragmatism with boundaries' in my own life.

If it's sauce for the gander, it's sauce for the goose...;)

@DrDetriment which Levine books would you recommend to start with?

Do you feel that both your parents and siblings will expect you to be the one to step up and help them more, simply because you are single?

If so, then I can quite understand feeling resentful about that assumption.

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessal van der Kolk and Healing Trauma by Peter Levine. The latter has really useful grounding exercises to release emotions trapped in the body.

Not exactly, although my brother is a lazy arse who thinks he can basically delegate his life to other people. It's more that they don't get to be grandparents when they're with me and I don't have a partner to be a "buffer", so I think the parent-child dynamic is more likely to replay itself. If I get frustrated about something it seems to be viewed as "misbehaving" and therefore totally unjustified. My dad can also be short-tempered, but doesn't see his hypocrisy when he gets annoyed at me occasionally snapping.

Perhaps it would be helpful to imagine how their needs were met by their own parents. Which given how children were often treated back in the day, is probably not at all. Can't imagine my Nan even for an instant thinking that children had needs other than being housed and fed. And when you are done with that, maybe think about the times you have failed to meet the needs of your own children on many many occasions if you are honest with yourself just like the rest of us. Then if you believe they probably did their best, get on with doing your best

Can't imagine my Nan even for an instant thinking that children had needs other than being housed and fed

This. My dad grew up in a community where kids were brought up in benign neglect. That was his role model for being a parent, there was no way he could have parented any other way. He did the best he could.

Yes, there's some sense in that.

However I've said twice now (including in the OP) that I don't have children and that's actually quite painful, so can people please stop talking about how I treat my own children FFS.