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.

Same, my Mum would repeatedly tell me she wished she’d never had me and that she thinks I ruined her life.

She was an alcoholic and said she drank because of me. She then disappeared 25 years ago and never spoke to any of us again. She’s alive according to an aunt.

she gradually over the years stopped speaking to us, we did try, she just didn’t want to know

I guess she’s done us a favour.

My parents forced me to have an abortion when I was 18. I moved out a few months later, and while i still talk to them its something I will never forgive them forZ

Being beaten with a wooden spoon, being slapped and told to F off. Having to clean the house and cook dinner for my brothers from the age of 11. She took her unhappy marriage out on me.

These are awful awful awful. It was only when having my own children that I realised how ghastly my own mother had become. And it certainly wasn’t a biological pattern - my paternal grandparents, incredibly English and stiff upper lip used to tell me and my siblings all the time “and we love EVERY bit of you for ever ever.” My widowed maternal grandma was just as loving. But my own mother? I have been in competition with her for my entire fifty something years on the earth. I put in a boundary and she must cross it.

Accused of fabricating my child’s (really obvious) disability “for attention.”
When I looked better after my horribly abusive Husband was jailed, “if you’d looked like that when you were together maybe he wouldn’t have been difficult”
Constant undermining and lying and second guessing. Death of a thousand cuts. She has started on my middle child, and any attempt to set a boundary is met with nuclear force, and narcissistic rage. I hope she dies soon.

My Dad being a lying selfish cheat, who conned us out of some money that his friend left me and my sibling in his will.

Even his own wife hates him, as he's had many affairs since he left my Mum for her (my mums ex best friend). She's an awful woman too though, so I've no sympathy for his wife for putting up with him. Everything is for show though with those two and keeping up appearances on the outside to others, but its all a sham. I'm so glad to be away from his toxicity it was worth losing the money.

@RaraRachaelmy parents reacted similarly to the end of my first marriage. I didn’t tell them my now exh had had an affair for a while as I was trying to process it myself. When I did they didn’t really change their opinion much. I recently found out that ten years later they still message him. My dad is dying and my mum isn’t coping so I am maintaining my relationship with them but I am finding it hard to not be very very hurt, all over again.

Lots of violence growing up from my dad.
I did feel some resentment towards mum as a teenager when I was old enough to realise but I know now that she was a victim.
My dad however, I did try to keep a relationship with him but we always struggled. The final straw for me was when I had my baby, he didn't want anything to do with him and I was so pissed off for even trying. I'll never ever speak to him again

My mum always wanted a boy. She had my sister first, then me and then my brother who’s the golden child. She got PND and agoraphobia after he was born. Send blamed me for that because if I had been a boy it would never happened and I was told she wished I’d never been born from a very young age.

My dad used to work 2 jobs and would go out one evening a week, or work nights. When he was out she’d taunt me, call me names and laugh while my siblings hit me and bullied me. I’d take it for so long, loose my temper, so she’d hit me, then tell my dad I’d been “naughty” and get into trouble.

She never praised me, nor was happy for me. My parents had a business (it’s my bother’s now) when my siblings left school they were given jobs, when I left school I had to find my own somewhere else.

I became disabled when I had my second child but they never helped me out at all. I have had multiple surgeries, they’ve never looked after my children (who are now grown so that ship has sailed) once. One time I was in hospital miles from home, near them, so my dad insisted they visit, and when he saw me in the bed immobilised, with drips and tubes everywhere he said “why didn’t you ever say you were this bad?” I’d told my mum over and over again.

All the time when I was desperate for help they were taking my sister’s children on holidays and days out here and abroad and having them for sleepovers. I asked when my kids would get a turn and was told to grow up. It came to a head when I was going into hospital for a major operation, and my mum let slip she was taking my sister’s children and my niece’s baby on another holiday 2 days later. I couldn’t do it anymore.

I send flowers for her birthday and Mother’s Day because if I don’t my dad rings me and is snippy, but I honestly don’t think he knows the full extent of what went on when he wasn’t there.

So sorry @Flashout If they start on grandkids there has to be a strong red line. Walking away can break narcissism.

Realising how rude my mother was with waitresses & waiters, like really horrible and then snootily telling me it's people like her who keep standards up.

The time she told me baby girls are ok, but baby boys are just really special (there was only me and my sister !).

The way i started to expect her to ruin any special occasion or holiday -frantically trying to sort her will out every time we were going on a plane, or inventing some other drama, or just deciding she wasn't going and then sulking on the run up to it, or the 'if all else fails' attention-grabbing 'being too ill to travel' - I literally could never just look forward to anything !
It didnt stop once we were there either - several holidays she sulked and tried to book flights home on her own. 3 days sulking in her room in the carribean once, with my poor dad having to move into our room. Then she went mad when she found out we'd gone down to the bar without her mid-sulk.

Joining a religion that didnt celebrate birthdays or xmas (nothing against that religion) but then assigning her own wedding anniversary as the 'Present Day' instead - only to want a divorce on the build up to it when id brought lovely presents. No more Present Day for Me - think I was about 11.

The time she deliberately sped over speed bumps when my broken ankle was in a temp cast before it had metal put in, and it was still unstable. Bone against bone is really painful I was literally crying.

The way she bent over backwards when my sister had a baby - literally making him his own room and having him 3/4/5 nights a week, but then refused to babysit my DD until she was at least 5, and then only if I was staying at home. There was no way she was looking after her if I was planning a night out. I had to send apologies for an all expenses paid work night out that our boss was treating us to because she refused last minute to babysit because I'd had my hair done.

The way she drives past my house to pick up strangers and take them shopping etc, yet doesn't help my with my special needs daughter.
I recently employed a PA to take DD out for a few hours a week - she went mad that I was involving strangers.

Oh my word I could go on !

@TheFairyCaravan I dont even know what to say to this. People who know KNOW. People who don't will never understand xx

Nothing in particular, I just seem to have absolutely nothing in common with them. It’s honestly hard to believe we’re related.

Being forced to go to a VI form that I hated. The disregard of my feelings was bad enough then the thing that broke my relationship with my mother was what happened not long after starting.

I'd taken a day off because I had stomach ache. It got worse. I tried to go from one room to another and I ended up on my knees.

This was around lunchtime, my dad was at work and my mum was having a nap.

When she came downstairs I asked her to call the Dr, she told me to take an aspirin and go to bed. The fact I couldn't walk I was in so much pain meant nothing to her.

I went from asking to begging. I actually thought I was going to die.

Eventually my dad came home, about 6pm and he called the Dr.

The Dr came out, took one look at me and asked where the phone was to call an ambulance.

Once the ambulance arrived she went in to 'mum mode' and got in the ambulance with me and asked them to put the blue lights on.

My gall bladder was inflamed and I stayed in hospital for a week.

She always, afterwards, would tell people how horrible it was for her when I went in to hospital.

My mother was verbally and physically abusive.

When I was sexually assaulted aged 10 (not by a family member) she didn't believe me, laughed and told me not to make up stories.

When my marriage broke up she told me that lots of girls lived on their own and I'd just have to get used to it.

I left home at 18 and never went back.

I have a similar story. I had really bad side pain which she laughed about (some bullshit about missing my friend who was on holiday) , then shortness of breath , feeling faint etc. I was poorly for a week , but half functional when I finally had a fever of 42 , went to the hospital , had chest xrays and then got admitted because my left lung was 70% covered in fluid. Then the fussing started and of course, how traumatic the whole ordeal was … for HER!!

A combination of her living with unresolved trauma due to the death of her mother when she was 15, and the first six years of her life taking place over World War 2. I think she had complex PTSD, which made her very difficult to live with.

Add to that the fact that I was an accident, and not a happy one, and we were on a hiding to nothing, really.

I loved her, and we were close in our own way, but I was pretty much unmothered, and it shows.

I’m resilient as fuck, though, so there’s that!

So sad that others have had similar.

What I forgot to say in my long post was that I was jaundiced.

Yep it was all about her.

Not getting medical attention for a child who needs it should be a crime. Actually not just a child, if someone needs medical attention who wouldn't help?

I should have asked the hospital staff to keep her out. I think they had seen her type before. They asked me a few questions, that my mother answered and then they asked her to leave the room to ask me if I was sexually active.

DM’s an alcoholic. Unsurprisingly, this wrecked my childhood. She blames my df who used to come home pissed from work (very sociable team). She’s also a narcissist. They were probably as bad as each other.

Lack of emotional support through my whole life. Lack of help/interest with grandchildren.
Not encouraging my education.
Physical punishment.
I could go on.

My father trying to play me and my brother against each other aged 6 and 7, and onwards until I learned to greyrock - he used to call my brother ‘retard’ and nudge me so I’d join in, other times I’d be the target. Silent treatment of one of us while being super nice to the other one. My mother acting like it was fine and never stopping this. There was regular mental and physical abuse but this is what still hurts the most.