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.

[Imaginosity]

I understand OP.

My parents weren't majorly abusive - we had a largely happy childhood - but I can't relate to people who are really close to their parents and tell them everything. My parents are just not people that I enjoy spending time with. I make the effort to visit them etc - but it's out of a sense if duty rather than love. I'm always happy to go home and have the visit over and done with.

When I meet my mum she drones on and on about the boring lives of people she briefly encountered at work. I just feel the life being sucked out of me.
Oh Barbara called in to the shop today, you know that lady I told you about who buys loads of newspapers? Well, can you believe it but her grandson is now living with her, I mean, her house is quite small it must be awful all of them on top of each other.. I think she's about 60 now at least..they live up near the garage in one of those red-bricked houses. Her husband is a plumber I think ,... And on and on. When she finishes about Barbara it switches to somehow else.

She also tried to find out as much information about me and my in-laws - which will be thrown back at me sometime in the future in some mad way if she feels annoyed at me. I've learnt to protect myself my only giving vague answers to any questions she asks.

She also drinks too much - every night from about 9 she drinks enough that she'd be slurring her words and a little unsteady on her feet - and very emotional and argumentative. I avoid meeting her or replying to any texts after around 8 or 9. If she sends a text at that time it's often passive-aggressive sounding.

My dad is a bit grumpy. He's also a bit domineering and thinks he knows everything. He's not used to people disagreeing with him. He also talks at people.

I know no one is perfect and maybe my kids won't be mad about me when they grow up. I hope they do.

[WeeHelena]

I know that my mum must love me and she wasn't abusive but I didn't grow up feeling cherished and I don't have any happy memories as such of growing up.
Pretty dire upbringing tbh..

I love my mum probably in the bond kind of way but not in an outward emotion,I don't feel it. We get on great we see each other 4/5 times a year.

I think I feel that way as I disconnected and became independent at 15 and lived many years before getting back in touch.

[igglepiggleisanarsehole]

I'm sorry you're feeling this way OP.
I'm not a fan of my parents as people to be honest - growing up in violence and constant arguing, yeah they're not people I'd choose to be friends with. I'm on good terms with them and there is some love there, I just don't like them very much. See them more for DS sake than my own, as they wind their shit in a bit when he's around.

[stopfuckingshoutingatme]

Op -Yanbu

Any love lost is because they probably fucked you up - my dad died two weeks ago and I realise that I was so so lucky to have had him for 42 years

Don't be tongues on yourself and if this thread Fucks your head up there are better ones to get help X

[SecretSquirrelsSecretFriend]

Your post reminded me of a friend I had at school. Her Mum did things like that.

I remember staying overnight at hers and waking up hearing her Mum banging about the kitchen putting stuff away I presume and talk loudly, possibly shouting about what she was doing. From (hazy) memory she kept repeating "I'll just put the fucking dishes away, I'll just put the cloth back, I'll just do this that and the next thing". I found it unsettling and remembering it makes me realise how unhinged she came across and possibly was.

I spent a lot of time in that house and it was behaviour that repeated itself. Reading your post I imagine my old school friend could have written it.

It must be confusing, it goes against everything that is inbuilt in us to say that we do not love our parents.

I don't know why you've been given a hard time. I don't think you sound immature, I think you sound like you've had a realisation and are trying to work through the sources of how you have come to feel like this.

[thisagain]

You obviously have your reasons and I'm sure you're right if you say they behaved strangely. I love/d my parents (my mother died 20 years ago) and bother were/are fantastic parents, but everyone isn't that lucky. I have 2 friends with mothers who are absolutely self obsessed and who are constantly upsetting my friends with their really odd, controlling and selfish behaviour and then saying that my friends are in the wrong. Some people do make it hard to love them. When you are a child, you would not really know such behaviour is different to other people in quite the same way as you would when you are an adult

[lovebeingonthetrain]

I did love my dad, but he wasn't particularly interested in me.

My mum did love me but disliked me and didn't enjoy being a parent.

[stopfuckingshoutingatme]

Well there you are . Honestly realising this stuff as painful as it is - it does help as awareness is curative X

[thisagain]

And incidentally, one friend's mum has just died and she says that she feels that she is not exactly grieving for her mum, but now she knows that she can never have that "normal" loving relationship that she was always trying to have and it is this that she is grieving for. You definitely aren't alone. I actually know quite a few people in a similar boat.

[stopfuckingshoutingatme]

So many people have that - they grieve for the relationship they should have had - and didn't.

You can't fucking win really ! X

[lorelei9here]

OP "Do any of you who are giving me a hard time think I had normal non abusive parents who I just decided I couldn't be arsed loving one day?"

Actually if it had been this I'd be sympathetic! I'm in the boat you describe there! Well, sort of. It all came to a head about ten days ago.

Your folks don't sound good OP, and it's not love when you're their child and don't know any better.

in general I dont think anyone should feel obligated to love a parent. Parents choose to have children not the other way round. Inflicting life on me is not something I'm grateful for.

I think mine were okay, a bit dense about some things when they raised us, better when I was in my 20s say. But now I've changed a lot, I struggle because I have nothing in common with them, no shared interests etc.

Also I am no longer prepared to tolerate dads temper and the three hour round trip to see them irritates me in itself, then I get there and there's not much to say. I don't mind helping with things and they have been ill a lot but I fear I've shot myself in the foot helping out and now it's an expectation. I have noticed a lot of people don't seem to care much when they lose their olds. In my case I'm scared of mum going first but I'm starting to wonder if I will miss them when they're gone.

I don't think they are bad people but it would have been nice to have more in common I think. And I think the people we are very close, there's an intuitive connection which I don't feel with my folks any more.

[Sallystyle]

I love my mum dearly, she is my best friend and mum all rolled into one.

I stopped loving my dad when I was a teen... well I think I stopped loving him. It's tough because I feel like I love him sometimes but there is nothing to love. He is a sociopath, abusive and has no interest in me whatsoever. I could write a book on the evil stuff he did to us. However, when I see him at a funeral or something and he talks to me I enjoy his company and I want to cry because I want my daddy.

But it isn't him I want is it? It's the fake version of him or the idea of a dad. So no, I don't really love him, but I have strong powerful feelings when I see him, which happens to be around once every five years or so thank god. I get messed up for days after.

It's a confusing mess of feelings. I think I will be partly devastated when he dies but also partly relieved because there will be no fresh hurt. The fresh hurt comes from knowing that he is by all accounts a decent father to his newer children now he is old and can no longer move onto another family and I get to hear through the grapevine about that.


OP

The example you shared of the raincoat sounds pretty scary to me as well.

[CherryPicking]

I love mine but I can't be around them after the way they've treated me. It's a strange kind of bereavement when you know they're still alive but there's no way back. It's fucking tough, actually.

[BonnieF]

I would never say that I didn't love my mum. She's the only mother I've got, after all.

We are not, however, particularly close and we never have been. We are just very different people with very different personalities, outlooks, priorities and views. She is emotional and volatile ; I am reserved and analytical. She votes UKIP and reads the Mail ; I vote Green and read the Guardian. She worries constantly about what friends and neighbours think ; I couldn't give a toss. If we were not close relatives we would have little in common and would not be friends.

We see one another every few months and speak irregularly on the phone. We get on reasonably well in small doses, but if we went on holiday together we would fall out before we even got on the plane.

[BeauGlacons]

Ah OP. My mother had to get married, never wanted a child, I ruined her life, she couldn't go through with the back street abortion and when abortion was legalised was extremely enthusiastic. When I was about 22/23 because we had a close relationship told all about when she sat in the abortionists. By the time I was 21 she was on marriage three. My friends all thought she was marvellous - so much fun. She was such a party girl, so glamorous, so popular, so marvellous, the best at school essays, the most talented dancer, etc, etc. I was so in awe.

I was never hungry, never hit (except occasionally and the one occasion she lost it and laid into me), I had the best of everything, not a deprived childhood in any shape or form.

But, I was plain and boring and dim and a klutz. I wasn't allowed to wear or have pink (not even my NHS glasses) because pink was for pretty girls. Y feet were wrong, my hair was wrong, my teeth were wrong, my personality was wrong.

I never understood how awful it was until my days old baby was in my arms and the love was so strong it hurt. I knew I could never do anything to hurt his feelings and that my being existed to love, nurture Nd encourage him. I cried for days because I knew I that moment I had never been loved. I didn't stop loving her (I might have now and it hurts) but I stopped liking her and a little bit of my childhood died.

I know now she is a narcissis. I know now she frustrated and made a lot of people unhappy but I was for most of my first two to three decades regards as the "odd" one. Two husbands gave up on her, so many arguments with friends and neighbours. Some of her friends with whom she no longer has a relationship still send me Xmas and birthday cards, sometimes with kind words. 40 years ago they laughed and said I was a funny girl. I think they know which one is "odd" now.

I am 56 and still wish I had ever pleased her and it saddens me. I look at my DC and hope we have something more precious that will endure.

I am sorry op, it is hard. I wish things were different but I understood a long time ago that only the future can ne changed. The past is often to be mourned but always to be learned from.

[imip]

I understand op. I did grow up in a violent household, my dad was an alcoholic. I thought he'd kill us all one day, and I had reoccurring nightmares of this. As an adult, up til about 3 years ago, I had a reoccurring dream that I was driving away from my parents but the car that I was driving was a manual and I was in the back seat and couldn't change the gears to drive.

My mum just became neglectful. I guess she was depressed, it was all pretty fucked up. I used to be my mum's greatest advocate, but once I had kids, I realised that she was complicit and by that point I needed to focus on my mental health and slowly disassociated myself from them (I live abroad, it's been easy).

I'm very concerned that my dcs will hate me when I'm older as well

[MarthaCuntyMcCuntFace]

I think you can realise they are dickheads but still love them. Unless they were abusive.

[CherryPicking]

Reasons I could justify not loving my mother:

She never defends me. She never trusts my word against anyone else's, regardless of how well she knows them or what they've done.

She allowed a family member to abuse me and still maintains a 'good' relationship with him.

She hit my dcs and blamed them\ me.

She's nosy, but doesn't really care who I am.

Reasons I could stop loving my dad:

He enables the above.

[StickTheDMWhereTheSunDontShine]

It's normal for your relationship with your parents to change when you grow up. It's more odd when the dynamic doesn't change.

And it's perfectly understandable that you would fall out of love with them if their treatment of you was less than kind and nurturing.

[WanderingNotLost]

I love my Mum, that much hasn't changed since I've grown up. The difference now is that she needs me more than I need her

[dreamerlemur]

Yes, I think this is happening to me OP. You've heard of the 'feel good ' factor, I get the 'feel bad' factor when I visit my mother twice a year. Cold parenting and my brothers are favoured. Once I became a parent it became much more apparent. I have a confident DD and my confidence has always been in short supply but not hard to see why when I look at the lack of positive comments in my direction. Since having my DD, a couple of older women (60's or 70's) in shops / cafes have said to my DD' Oh what a beautiful child well I can see where she get's it from' and then smile at me. This moves me to tears everytime because strangers are saying nice things about my appearance something my own mother cannot even muster. My daughter even started telling my mother about the above incident and she just looked blankly at me , nothing to say.

[sandy30]

YANBU. I feel completely detached from my Dad. He was and still is emotionally abusive. I don't wish him harm and would help him if he was in dire straits, but I imagine I'll just feel relief when he dies.

[lorelei9here]

Martha "I think you can realise they are dickheads but still love them."

I can't figure out why anyone would love a dickhead though. It's pretty off putting

Love isn't always rational but after about 25 it certainly has been for me.

[TwatbadgingCuntfuckery]

Yes. My mother, step father, father I have never met and my grandparents.

my step-father I never really loved. He was an abusive alcoholic. The physical abuse was nothing compared to the emotional abuse that ruined my self worth and left me with severe anxiety for years. The day I realised he was a pathetic little boy and I now had power over him was a revelation. He was so eager for me to accept his apology. He said he can't rest until I forgive him. i'll never forgive him.

My mother I believed loved me but as I grew older i knew she did very little to protect me from the years of abuse from my step-father. She was to blame for the abuse too and had many many opportunities to leave but chose not to.

She was also complicit in NOT getting in touch with my father. I remember her saying to a DWP worker (they did home visits back them) that she never wanted contact with my father or for me to see him. She only gave me his full name a year or so ago. I'm in my 30's

My father, never met him and I think he is an arse for doing bugger all to be a part of my life too. I have had a good 10yrs since turning 18 so he has few excuses.

My grandparents for doing bugger all to help me then and now, as I have grown older and more independent my grandmother has decided I no longer love her. I have my own hectic family and can't spend weeks at a time with her like I did in my teens and early twenties. I have kids that need me more. She has a husband. I do not. Her attitude, the negative comments about myself, my weight, my home has made me really dislike her.

[Gide]

Imaginosity From 9pm? Lucky you, mine starts about 4, earlier if people come round. She was in the pub when I had an accident and needed to go to A&E: I was 12, home alone. It's hard to love someone with food smeared all over her face, dropping full plates on the floor and unable to speak due to the booze. When there's no drink, I have 10 seconds to answer any question before she interrupts to tell me an anecdote about the time my brother did similar. It's very wearing.

Dad is, I think, on the spectrum, he just doesn't understand how to demonstrate affection, I've never heard him say 'I love you'.

Were it not for the rest of the family who are loving, fabulous, the way I wish my parents were, then I'd make the break, I think. I simply don't care about them. It's sad, mum would be delighted if I were to live next door rather than so far away. Mothers' day cards are hard, I search for a nice neutral one!