To realise I sort of stopped loving my parents when I grew up

[lovebeingonthetrain]

Did this happen to anyone else? I adored them as a child so it's sad really.

Forgive me if I'm wrong OP but is it possible you're 'being vague'/struggling to express yourself because coming to a realisation like this is actually very difficult?

When I first managed to admit to myself that I didn't love my parents I felt very confused, anxious and guilty.

It gets easier. I can now accept that I don't just 'not love' my parents, I dislike them. Their behaviour wasn't 'odd' it was completely unacceptable and cruel.

Your DMs behaviour does actually sound unpleasant and unnecessary, OP. When you put it like that I'm no longer surprised you feel the way you do.

Exactly Pteranodon

I think I know where you're coming from OP. A child will always love their parent even when they're shit. But becoming an adult and having you're own, well you jusr realise a lot. I don't love either parent and neither do I miss them. They were selfish, uncaring, narcisstic, abusive, piss taking, critical bastards. It took me so long to realise I felt nothing for them.

Yes it is sad. I wish I had lovely parents. But I don't x

I love my parents dearly, I will be devastated when they pass. I will say that I felt a sadness when as an adult, I realised that they were not the perfect people I had believed them to be. But i still adore them. I know that to this day they would do anything for me. I would do a n anything I could for them.

My husband has grown up to discover that his parents were both narcissistic sociopaths, we have been forced to go no contact to protect ourselves and our children, and particularly my husband's self esteem. I will say however that my husband still loves his parents.

Were your parents abusive? Have you felt this loss of love elsewhere?

I don't think it's that odd at all. When you're a child you know no better and just love unconditionally. As you get older you can sometimes see their faults more clearly. Sometimes you just accept that's the way it was and get on with it, sometimes their behaviour can be such that it just squashes that love out of you.

Not a parent but an older relative, I used to adore as a child, now I'm a grown up I can see that some of their behaviour was odd, some downright manipulative and I just don't feel the same way about them anymore.

What do you mean, mummyto?

I think I understand. I have a slightly distant relationship with my mum and it's always been that way. We do speak at least weekly and see each other at least monthly and get on just fine but that deeper emotional connection isn't really there and never has been. We wanted for nothing in the practical sense growing up but emotionally it was lacking, DM suffered with mental health problems, didn't find parenthood easy and I think that had more impact than I realised at the time. I have the greatest respect for her though and will always be there for her, and she is the same for me. Just hoping I can break the cycle with my DCs.

I'm similar to you op, spent my childhood wondering why they didn't seem to love me when I loved them so much. Eventually as an adult I recognised just how detached they were and the love just sort of slowly morphs into indifference.

What you miss/want is the "mum" you never had.

Yes. And it's very liberating. Realising you don't love them any more is such a step up from the constant low level pain inflicted by years of gas lighting. Wondering why it didn't feel like the relationship other people describe with their own mothers.. when in public she's a sweet doting old lady and friends who meet her tell you how lovely they think she is.. and it doesn't quite fit with the person who causes you so much pain.

I get it - like whoknows, I just feel a bit distant. We now talk on the phone, help each other out (she's helped me a lot with the kids while I've been ill this year) and visit but I spent so many years thinking my parents didn't like or love me as a teenager/in my 20s that I kind of closed down that avenue of thought and honestly don't know if I feel love for them.

I'm similar to you OP as far as my mother is concerned.

I never had any affection from either parent as a child. I can genuinely never remember having a hug, cuddle or kiss from them. My mum was very hot tempered to the point I think she had/has mental health issues. If mine or my brothers bedrooms were untidy she would come in and smash the place up. She was physically violent at times, emotionally distant all the time.

I kept myself to myself. Left home just after my 18th birthday and never looked back. I kept in touch for a bit but never enjoyed spending time visiting.

My parents divorced and I got a bit closer to my dad.....I had my own home by then. Then he died.

Kept in touch with my mum for a bit but she was still emotionally unstable, quite nasty at times, hurtful, narcissistic. I haven't a clue if she's dead or alive these days. Neither my brother or I have any contact.

I adored both parents when I was a child - even my absent father. I used to worry about my mother a lot, desperately tried to keep her happy, not upset her.

Now I feel nothing but contempt for the pair of them interspersed with the odd bout of hatred when look at my DC and remember what happened to me at their ages.

I think as we become adults the scales start falling from our eyes, and if we have had abusive parents we realise that it was never our fault, it was theirs.

I don't have anything to do with my mother. neither do her other children. being loved is not a right - she made it clear we meant nothing to her and now we are grown the favour is returned.

it sucks, OP and I'm sorry .

I am sad I didn't have a better mother but I'm happy that I don't love her.

Gosh this is heartbreaking.

I don't have the relationship I'd like with my DM these days but I accepted that a couple of years ago really. It still makes me sad and I often question whether it's me with the issues rather than her and I think one day I'm going to go to counselling to work through it all properly.

I used to post on the Stately Homes thread and the guys on there really know their stuff and helped me get my head around some of it. One thing I would say though is you can't unread anything. And by that I mean that some of the stuff on that post upset me so much because it made so much sense and I don't think I was prepared for it and struggled with a lot of it for a long time.

It happened the last/final time we argued: I realised that I didn't miss her this time! My heart wasn't sad because my mother and I had fallen out. No part of my wanted to go back to trying to make it work "because she's the only mother you have" (as you hear so often ) And it's not from a place of anger.. I just don't MISS her. I don't miss her in any way. I don't yearn to see her.

I don't love my parents. I had a very similar experience to WhoKnows, although I don't know for sure whether my mum had mental health issues or was plain old mean. My mum died recently and whilst it was hard at the time, and I cried and grieved, now to be honest I just feel free. Our relationship had improved as I got older and had children myself, but during my childhood she was just at times so cruel for no apparent reason. There's one memory I keep going back to, I was about 10 years old and we'd gone to a theme park for the day. Mum and I were on a fairly tame ride, I was wearing a stretchy fabric hair band and as the ride whipped round it flew off my head. Her response was to dig her nails hard into the back of my hand and snarl what till we get home. My dad wasn't nasty like her, but he didn't protect from it either. Don't wind your mum up, you know what's she's like, was his answer to it all.

The worst thing is that I see flashes of her in myself when my kids are pushing my buttons, I don't hurt them like she did me but I can hear her in me if I lose it a bit and start shouting. It terrifies me to be honest, I don't want to be like her. So I don't love her, because she was a pretty crap mother and it's affected my self esteem so much growing up. I also feel angry with her for the parenting legacy that she's left me with, although I'm working hard to break the cycle.

TimeToMuskUp, that is really lovely, the way you think of your parents. You must have had a tough start in life and I'm so glad they were there for you.

I still love my mum, and now I've had kids of my own I appreciate a great deal more what she gave up for us, though I also see how imperfect a mother she was. But I stopped loving my father, I even despise him a bit now that I understand how selfish he was. So YANBU at all.

I have this too OP. Don't understand why you've been given a hard time about it. Some parents shouldn't have been parents, and you're not obliged to love them. I hate Mother's Day and all of the 'eternal motherly love' rubbish. I see my mother regularly but she doesn't love me the way other people's mums do and I don't love her like a mother either.

Your mother sounds as though she would have been pretty frightening and bewildering to a small child.

I think it is possible for people, including parents, to exhaust your ability to love them. Not that you hate them either, just end up detached.

Interesting that you 'adored' them as a child, OP. I don't think that is the same as love, necessarily. So perhaps you just looked up to them as all-powerful God-like beings when you were small, then grew out of it.

I understand you op. As mentioned above, when you're ready, have a look at the Stately Homes thread. I'd thought it was only me. I'm NC with my mother although my sibling sees her. Sorry for you too

I get what you're saying, OP.

I think I've realised they're fallible, which is perfectly normal IMO.

They do grate more on me as I get older, which is silly as I'm far from perfect, but they're less the sort of people Id like to hang out with. (Which is how I thought of them when I was in my 20's)

Reading mn, I've realised my dad is a narcissist.
My mum I have the utmost respect for, but her negativity is draining.

Yanbu.

crumbly mothers day should have nudged me over to the "not loving" side years ago.. because I always struggled to pick a card as none of the card shop cards described her at all, quite the opposite. I still loved her then though. I didn't like her but I still craved a relationship and cared about her and loved her. I don't now