to think we should let go of the anger and the hatred

[yunito]

Have namechanged as this post contains some personal stuff and I suspect there are at least 2 people I know in real life on here and sorry in advance for the length of this OP.

My brother is 22 and he has not spoken to our parents for four years. As a family both my mum and dad were addicted to sailing, basically every weekend from March to November were spent pursuing this hobby (away from home either on the south coast or in north wales) and in the intervening months we would go on a holiday to warmer climates to go sailing. Mine his and out other sisters opinions on this were forcefully ignored and we were always told to be bloody grateful we weren?t starving like other children in the world. We all and my brother in particular were very shy and lacking in confidence and we never stood up to them until the age of 16 (I appreciate as eldest I should of perhaps said something on behalf of the other two as I was an adult long before they were). Although I thoroughly disagree with them for doing this and there is no way I would do it to my children I still have a reasonable relationship with them.

My brother however absolutely hates them and says that they robbed him of his childhood for their own ends and that he will never forgive them for doing this to him (my sister also holds his views but she has a cordial if infrequent relationship with them). My mum has been very ill in the last 3 months or so and has had to have a couple of operations, the second was an emergency one without which she would have died. I went to see her the day of this operation and before she went in she told me that if she didn?t make it all she wanted me to do was tell my brother that she was sorry for everything.

I?ve been thinking about this for a while and I really want him to reconcile with them, they both acknowledge their mistakes and would go back and change the past if they could. They do sporadically try to write/email him but they never receive any response. I just feel that the past cannot be changed and that the current situation is doing no good to anyone, for example he spends Christmas alone as I go round to theirs and my sister goes to her boyfriends. DP however thinks that I?m overstepping the mark even for a sibling and that his feelings are his feelings and he?s entitled to hold them no matter what anyone else thinks.

Sorry OP, but I have read the entire thread and unless you have forgotten to tell us something I am failing to see why your brother is so angry.

Did your parents leave you and your siblings alone to go to competitions?

Did they bully your brother for not enjoying/ being good at their chosen sport?

Did they miss things that were important to you e.g. concerts, award ceremonies etc because they were away sailing?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then they may have been emotionally neglecting him.

But if the answer is no, I don't think they were being neglectful and your brother just has a bit of a chip on his shoulder.

Yunito - shocking that because your parents involved your brother in a 'middle class' pursuit, it is seen as somehow OK to have neglected him in all this

your parents involved your brother in a 'middle class' pursuit

Yes, they involved him. They didn't exclude him, make him sit and watch whilst they sailed, or leave him at home. They included him. That's why I'm having difficulty finding emotional neglect in this situation.

They are also sorry for what they did! Has anyone actually read that part?
The brother needs to move on from this - narc / toxic parents do not apologise and have empathy for their past "abuse".

I think the brother needs to move forward from this and try to build some kind of relationship here. It's not healthy.

Sometimes it's just not possible for someone to know how to go about re-establishing a relationship with a family member after so long though.

Can't be bothered to argue Frogspoon to be honest - you either get it or you don't.

I think that posters are getting far too wrapped up in the sailing aspect of all this.

A friend of mine had the same thing but with caravanning, every weekend from Friday to late Sunday (and every holiday) they would hitch up the "van" and go off somewhere "exciting".

Various nights where spent packing the and restocking the van.
Neither her or her brother were allowed any sort of social life outside of school because life surrounded their parents hobby.

Even when school friends parents said they could stay over for a weekend the parents wouldn't give up "family time".

As far as I know neither my friend or her brother speak to their parents or even visit them as they are either out in the "van" or expected to sit through hours of what their parents did in the "van".

I do actually think there's a need for a lot of people to get over their whinyarsery. There is a difference between deliberate abuse and parents doing what they think is right at the time - whatever the parents do, some people will still grow up as self-obsessed whinyarses (I remember an ex-boyfriend of mine who, after dating me, took up with an unbelievably therapy-addled twat of a woman who encouraged him to 'confront' his mother about the fact she never breastfed him.) Some people will whine that their parents put their own interests first, some people will whine that their parents got too involved in the child's interests, or let the children do whatever they liked, were too strict, not strict enough... If the OP's brother couldn't even cheer up enough to make friends and have fun during the on-shore, social side of the sailing holidays, for instance, maybe he is a born whinyarse.

Frogspoon, the parents isolated as well as excluded him, from the things he felt were important at the time, and still does now when he looks back.

The crappy things you do when you're younger, even just sitting around bored/kicking your heels with mates, are really important long term.

As someone said earlier, he's not a boy, he's a 22 YO man, ie old enough to make up his own mind about who he does/doesn't want contact with. Just like the rest of us.

Most parents do thing they like with their children at some point, I'd find it hard to believe the parents didn't know they were taking it to the selfish extreme.

(Atavistic, it was the fact she didn't even feel the need to pretend she was concerned enough to comfort you, I would want to take away whatever pain I could for DD1. Heartbreaking for the 14 YO you. Yeah, D- for her 'Could have done something/anything better')

SGB

As far as I can see the OP's DP isn't whining he has decided that he doesn't want to see his parents and on OP asking why has told her.

He seems quite happy with his decision. Its the OP and the parents that are happy.

that are not happy

Whinyarse??

'Cheer up mate, it had nothing to do with your parents at all. It was your own fault all along. There, doesn't that make you feel better to know the didn't do it deliberately? '

Do you treat your own DC to that very special brand of unsympathetic minimising of their feelings?

It's really shitty/distressing/frightening to be on the receiving end of it when you're a child, powerless and unhappy with something.

OP, I agree with your DH. Although you may also want to suggest to your brother that he sees a counsellor, not in order to help him have a relationship with your parents, but for himself.

I am so sorry for him and Atavistic and other emotionally abused and neglected children from mc homes, who not only have to deal with the abuse, but have it minimised by ignorant inverse snobs.

frogspoon
Did the OP's parents ignore the fact it made him feel sick every single bleeding time even though they were having a great time? YES
Did the OP's parents persistently ignored the fact he hated it (ie. disregard his feelings entirely for YEARS)? YES

I'd say that is physical abuse as well as emotional neglect. And no, I am not a whingeyarse type. My parents are great. But I do understand motion sickness and I really hate going on boats. I also understand how things can affect you on a long term basis, especially as a child. I was bullied for a few years, and those few years felt like forever for me. I can't imagine how this child felt for so, so many years.

I find it difficult to believe people on this thread who think it is ok. EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND. We are not talking sometimes, a few times a year, the odd holiday. We all make sacrifices for the family, but one person should not have to sacrifice that much for anyone else.

When parents are selfish that often extends into a thousand small choices. It often means the child is unheard. Their thoughts and feelings ignored, railroaded. The parents selfishness was apparent enough to the poster for her to feel guilty about not saying something to protect her younger siblings when she moved out. The parents selfishness was bad enough for the op to never want to repeat mistakes with her own kids.

OP - I don't think you should get involved. You could ask your brother if he wanted to know about mum and what she is thinking / saying. The world is full of families where siblings don't understand why another sibling is angry etc. your brother is entitled to work through his feelings at his own pace. I'm sure he is aware of your mother being ill? So I'm guessing he is working through how he feels about them in light of that.

I'm not sure you can always just let go of anger? Sometimes it can be talked out- sometimes it has to burn out.

Completely agree.

Do we really think that the OP's parents were lovely/supportive/unselfish in every way except insisting that their DC do somehting they loath and made them feel ill each and every single weekend?

Is that likely?

To a degree, there is no point trying to argue this out logically. You can't necessarily rationalise people out of strong feelings, as some posters seem to be trying to do on this thread. So other kids had it worse, undoubtedly. Is the brother simply supposed not to feel his anger and hurt any more when told that?

His feelings may well be disproportionate or irrational, but they are his feelings and a more thoughtful response than 'Get over it, middle class whiny-arse' is needed.

Solidgold is solid gold!!!you say it as it is! This poor sick woman is looking back with regret , facing her own demons and yet there is no grace from her family to say that some of it at least was good.

How sharper than a serpent,s tooth it is to have a thankless child!

I'm sorry, I'm trying to be sympathetic, but all I can think is 'OMG, they made them go sailing ?! Better call the NSPCC!!' I'm just not getting this, at all.

All of these aspects are interesting but are not really the point.

The brother is allowed to feel how he feels. The OP may not like it but tbh it is none of her business.

To say 'I am over it and think we should forgive and put it behind us' is quite arrogant really.
You can't tell others how to feel, even if you think they are wrong.

My sister was convinced she had a "crap childhood". She went on and on and on, and then on some more, including with great vitriol to my dying mother, about how her childhood had been miserable and awful. She had these endless gripes, such as how my mother was a really bad cook and didn't do "bistro" food, but traditional meat & two veg and 70s stuff, and how my parents never went to restaurants but took picnics everywhere.

My other sister and I, however, were because we loved our childhoods.

My point is, that some people are looking for angst. Dh's brother has been in therapy for years because of the pil. Now, the pil were pretty annoying by all accounts (similar to OP in that they always did what they wanted and dressed it up as being "for the family") but for a 56-year-old man to still be dwelling on this? Geddoverit.

I know I'm flogging a dead horse. But I'll flog it some more ... Doesn't matter if you're 26, 56, or 86, you are what your childhood made you. No doubt most of you have memories of running around the garden with your friends, being looked after when you felt ill, growing up alongside the other children in your class: being in secret groups and having a laugh at the Saturday pictures, running to your parents for praise and for comfort.

I didn't have that. Neither did OP and her siblings. Children like us grow into insecure adults, huge gaps in our social skills and an ingrained feeling that we don't count. You can't go back and have another childhood - the only way to repair yourself is therapy.

Lainie, god knows what was going on with your sister - but each sibling has a different childhood. Maybe she was scapegoated, and just fixed on superficial complaints instead of looking under the surface? Or maybe she's a bit of a loon, I don't know - but anybody who's that unhappy probably deserves a bit of sympathy.

For the record, everybody thought I was being horrible to my mum by raising her inadequacies as a mother - she certainly did! But we have a different, and far closer, relationship now. My father, thank goodness, died young.

each sibling has a different childhood

Oh gosh yes. Not even siblings necessarily know how it was for the others, or why.