How have others coped with long-term rejection by a parent?

[Purpleflutterby]

Has anyone been rejected by a parent.where they just cut you off .
Had nothing more to do with you , refused to acknowledge grandchildren,and kept it up for 30 years or some other amount of time
It wasn't your choice and they refused your numerous efforts to reach out .

And are you living a normal life ,?
how did it effect you .?
Is it to be expected a person would have mental health problems from being rejected by a parent?
If you were able to move on ,not let it effect you and have no mental health problems..how did you do that ?

My parents divorced (80s - Thatchers Broken Home stigma) when I was still a child. There was bad mouthing by my DM about my DH for years on and off - the anger and bitterness from DM was explicit from his lack of financial support (he paid the minimum). DM initiated the divorce and I always thought it was you wanted an blamed her for being poor and having general stress mainly financial.

DF did visit and take us out, I didn’t much like going I was happier to go and stay at my beloved DGPs house.

Contact from DF dwindled and mid teens it me calling him when I’d fallen out with DM. Then sporadic contact from me to DF - he was always pleased to see me and was pleasant enough.

DF settled happy with a longer term partner. DM never did she ended up alone and I think quite bitter at times.

I would swing from sending cards and presents and want to visit, to not as it always ME initiating contact more recently I referred to the lack of contact from DF as the long slow silent rejection

I felt indifferent ab sometime ambivalent towards my DM who gate kept and made things difficult for many years - after all she brought us up he didn’t…..

He got ill an died this year. I have grieved for a long time little and often before his actual passing.

Over the years I have learned what I missed out on from experiences of other family seeing fathers an two parents present working together.

I can’t say how it’s affected my relationships I think my DM impacted my self esteem but that’s a whole other thread. But I can say I fought hard to save my marriage at one point which I am very proud of and protective of.

It stung terribly when I found out DF did ring others on their mobile (he was v elderly) and not me as I’d always put it down to not being tech savvy.

Why not me?
Why not my two DC?
Why did I not matter enough?

…are questions I shall never have answered.

@Slowandsilentindifferencesounds like guilt on his part. You deserved so much better 💐

Thank you - even reading those words from a stranger on MN felt quite emotional

I wonder why you would continually reach out to this person though? Does the parent that didn’t walk away not feel a sense of betrayal in you doing that since they put in all the hard work physically emotionally mentally and financially only for you to reach out to the parent who provided none of that?

My dad disowned me at 16 after a messy divorce with my mum.

I think rather than his rejection, those whole few years of using me as a weapon against eachother affected me more, and took years of working on myself to feel more confident.

It was also a general shame as it cut me off from half my family and my entire childhood culture as my dad isn’t British, but my mum is.

I am just using those mistakes my parents made to learn from with my own kids.

I've been with partner for many years - 2nd time around for both. His children are now in their 40s with 3 marriages and 2 children between them. We've always lived 200 miles apart but saw them sporadically for first 20 years - usually motivated by us me. He's seen GC twice (TWICE!) in 5 years but hasn't had any contact with any of them for 3 years. His oldest 'child' contacted me to know if his father was even still alive ('dad' had changed his phone number a while back) - I told them he was well but said I couldn't interfere, I see public updates on SM but that's all. My partner refuses to contact them, says that he can't see the point of making the effort to travel there any more and he'd had enough of always having to pay for everything. I don't understand how any parent can behave like this - they'd had the usual ups and downs (usually over money) but to do it so calmly, no falling out? To add, he's welcomed my children and GC and says he's proud of them. Very sad.
Edited to change revealing info.

@Lifestooshort71
does this not change the way you feel about this man? That he could so coldly not make an effort?

It has been an eye-opener, yes, but I respect his decision and would never go behind his back - I've no idea what history there may be that made him choose this path. Do I wish he'd change his mind? Possibly, but I think it would be too late.

Not an identical situation. However, I was subjected to parental alienation, and the alienated parent went on to close all doors.

I carried my grief like a boulder for 40 years. Day in, day out.

Then I had sistemic coaching. Which sounds wildly woo woo and so not my thing. No idea if it would have worked with another coach, because I trust my coach and I think that was a vital element in the sucess of the experiment.

She had me put down the burden that was never mine to carry. It’s been well over a year of being free from the weight of a grief that was handed to me, not created by my own hand. Perhaps part of what worked was the sense of finally having some control, a say, rather than being an unwilling participant in a battle I never chose to fight in.

Oh my goodness,thankyou for the replies and sharing your stories,a lot of this I can relate to ..
My parents had a violent marriage,and divorced when I was very little.
Both remarried getting new (step)children from their new spouse.
I didn't fit in either family ,and spent my childhood and teenage years living between both houses ,so a few years here ,a few years there , swapping families,homes ,schools,(and my name depending on which parent I lived with )
Then at 17 my dad decided he knew what was best for me and made a huge decision about my future, without consulting me ( a live in job miles away )
I knew that wasn't right for me ,so I left home ,
And that was the last time I saw him or heard from him .
I literally didn't do what he wanted...once ...once ...in my whole dam life I didn't do what he wanted .. and bam ,gone ..all his side of the family gone to ..
43 years he rejected me for ,untill he died .( recently)
I'm only recently able to talk about it and have counselling
I started this thread , hoping to hear how people live with similar situations and how not to let it effect my mental health
I really appreciate all the replies,it's helping me not feel so alone x

My freedom key necklace has just arrived 😄 @Purpleflutterby

How the hell can you be with this man @Lifestooshort71 ? Respect him? Love him?

Your mother very seriously let you down too. What kind of a relationship do you have with her @Purpleflutterby ?

@Lifestooshort71
dont you want to know though?

No. We met in our late 40s and were both used to living independently without feeling the need to share every thought. He would tell me if he wanted to and I respect that.

Oh god ..I could start a separate thread about My mother .
And even if I did ...I don't think people would believe me
Because I blocked it all out untill about a year ago ,and started having counselling..
I said things like
I'm probably remembering things wrong
It was a typical 1970s childhood
She meant well
She wasn't coping
It wasn't abuse
It wasn't neglect
Lots of excuses I made
The thing I hate the most ...really hate ..is that I never stopped loving either of them ..and that makes me feel weak and needy .
I wish I'd been the one to walk away,I wish I'd told them they were abusive, neglectful selfish parents..but I was to traumatised/ under their thumb at the time .and now is to late

@Purpleflutterby its so sad - we all want to have loving relationships with the people who created us - wanting that doesn’t make you needy it makes you normal!

I think it’s okay to be angry but also grieve for the loss of a relationship and for the little you who had to go through that.

Slightly off topic but I watched Kidnapped By My Mum on I-player this week and was stuck by the young man at the centres ability to both understand his mum and be angry at her actions. He totally recognised the damage she had caused but still had empathy.

I wish I could have reached that place

Haven't seen my dm since 2012... A short reconciliation after a decade of absence..
So no dps.. Dh doesn't see his either. Felt so sad when ds asked why he had no dgm.

"Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift" Mary Oliver.

Children are primed to love their parents and to not walk away.

Some don't leave and some do - you do the best you can.

That's very insightful of him ,to acknowledge that .sounds ,Ike an interesting programme

It’s worth watching x

I was sexually abused by a sibling and then had secondary abuse from my parents and other siblings to contend with as they tried to normalise and stabilise this reality in a way that would minimise the impact to my parents in terms of them not ever having to come to terms with that reality.

I don’t know if you ever fully get over a group of people who are meant to love you and be protective towards you doing any of that. In a really good way it redefines what you see as love. So my understanding of love doesn’t involve the level of control and unified denial of reality that the rest of my family of origin consider to be their version of love so that is a really good thing.

They are quite superior and smug, quite narcissistic in how they approach what they have done because they all back each other up and stabilise each other in their actions. That is really is not unusual at all for very dysfunctional groups of people to serve one another in that way, but thankfully many of my extended family recognise how dysfunctional they are as a group.

I think I have made peace with the fact that it is them as a group that are the problem and not me as an individual but yes it is incredibly painful and it will always hurt. I don’t have any expectation of a day coming where I would be fine with this because that would be like being fine with some other of the many human to human abuses that exist in the world.

My expectations around healing are that I live a very happy, contented life and do not carry my family’s behaviour forwards which I do. That is possible and healthy and that is my life’s work now.

@Brunchatstephanies oh gosh ,I'm so sorry to hear this
That must of been so difficult to cope with x

Only one cut me off
The other ,I watched her cut everyone else of on her side of the family ,the slightest disagreement,or anyone who challenged her .. instantly cut of .
I was so traumatised from my dad cutting me of ,that i lived in permanent fear of her doing to me ,what I saw her do to everyone else.