What damaged your relationship with your parents?

[Greatergreen]

My mum used to have a group of friends and they often slagged off their children. One mother would start it (her own children are NC as adults) then the others would join in. Nasty stories, assuming the worst in our intentions, etc. it was a break of trust and a horrible feeling.

Awful

what is your relationship like with your mum?

And all in front of the children?

the ability to brush things "under the carpet" and not deal with them at times.

My mother telling me repeatedly that she wished she'd never had me and that I ruined her life has destroyed any relationship I want as an adult with her. Got my own children now and will never understand how she could say those things to me.

Not great @Justwaits as trust was really broken. Tried to discuss, but just says it never happened/so and so was great/think of everything we did for you…

more overheard. This was the 80s.

So sorry @MissSkate unfathonable and unforgivable . Hope you are in a good place now.

My DM is very critical of me and I clearly irritate my father. I find them both hard work and see as little as possible of them.

When she said she wished I was dead.
When she didn't come to see me when I was very seriously ill.

Stuff like that. She's dead now, thankfully.

I was raped and had to have an abortion as a result. My mum said ‘at least you know you can get pregnant’.

@rosesandkisses omg that's horrible!!

I had a disabled sibling that took up most of my mum's energy and I even understood as a child that it was no one's fault. However, it did make me have attachment issues. I think it was mostly the way she idolised her sons and was pretty nasty to her daughters. She had a lot of internalised misogyny. I think my Dad didn't really want children and was irritated by us, as a PP noted about her dad. He also thought a great deal more of his sons than his daughters.

I'm sorry OP for you having to deal with that, their behaviour sounds really wrong. I hope everything is better for you now.

Mine would be that my dad passed away before I got to have that much of a meaningful relationship. I kind of feel sorrow for missing an adolescent/adult relationship with him.

With my mum I think it was just that I was undiagnosed ADHD as it didn't really even exist back then.

When we were bereaved we clashed quite a bit. It went from three of us to two overnight.
And she couldn't understand why I didn't behave how she did as a kid or want/care about the same things.

We got over it though. We are incredibly close at this point.

Being someone that loved the daughter she wanted /thought she deserved, rather than the one she had. Lots of toxic shit, neglect and even abuse stemmed from it. Lots of little and big things , rather than one specific event/moment.

When I told my mum i was getting divorced due to physical violence her words.... where's the bruises?? I never saw bruises on you. That was pretty much the nail in the coffin for our relationship. Despite her own sister being physically abused in the past before she left her husband

DM has anorexia since before all of us were born and frankly it has ruined a lot of things.

When I had cancer she was utterly selfish but I could see she thought she was being kind (or is so blinded by her ED that she doesn’t realise that her désires are not everyone’s needs) and it has been hard to have a relationship with her since then besides small talk.

She’s also hugely and loudly judgemental and négative about almost everything which is draining. Because of her ED every moment is fraught especially going out anywhere or being with people not from the immédiate family.

yep - never spoke to the witch again

My mum 100% would have said similar
or said ‘all men are bastards anyway’

Sadly not. Had many lots of counselling but I'm still royally screwed up. Still it's taught how not to parent my own children.

I found their snobbery to be very difficult to take. And embarrassing. I was only allowed invite friends from certain addresses to my house. I even had to fake sickness from school to get out of a group science project because one of my team mates lived in a council estate. I was considered difficult and rebellious because I would chat to whoever. I was moved to a 'better' school and befriended a lovely quiet girl. We would phone each other a lot, we lived a bit apart, back in 90s where there was just one house phone and we didnt have an answering service. My parents did some investigating and when they discovered her Dad worked in a factory they would not pass on any messages or lie to her that I was out when I was in. Sometimes I'm dumbfounded when I think back on it.

Being sent away to boarding school.
Alcohol
And other intergenerational dysfunction...

My mum let an abusive man live with us for years. Can’t get my head around it as before and after she’s been a lovely attentive mum. But those years he lived in our family home were very damaging.

My mother's anxiety, which ramped up as she got older and felt controlling.

It meant I increasingly found myself censoring everything I told her about my life, as she would get ridiculously anxious about minor health issues or the idea of me going anywhere by myself after dark, even in safe areas as a middle-aged woman!** Letting anything even mildly alarming slip out (eg planning to go to the theatre and walk home alone) would lead to multiple phone calls checking up on me. Or admitting to feeling a bit tired or having a cough would lead to repeated questioning for weeks afterwards.

I am very glad that I was not diagnosed with cancer until after she had died; I would have had to conceal the fact I was going through treatment in order to avoid spending all my emotional energy on reassuring her.

Being sent to boarding school age 8

Same as @ClassicStripe only once she eventually kicked him out, for cheating rather than child abuse, she remained a terrible person. I miss the mother I remember from my very early childhood. This awful woman decided to go NC with me years and years ago, and scurried away when we bumped into each other in public.

My f's desire for control. His racism, bigotry, sexism. The contempt with which he treated dm. His ability to start a fight in an empty room. He was an old and very difficult man.

Aged 4 I was ashamed of him. By 6 we were waging a guerilla war.

He was resentful that we, his dds, had opportunities that he had not. We were 'only girls' and didn't deserve them. I left at the first opportunity. Never went back. Huge relief - for everyone I imagine.