Do your parents still tell you they love you? / tell your adult children you love them?

[Maximoose]

My family are very close, and very open and loving. We always say love you, when we hang up the phone or when we leave each other etc.

I was talking to my husband about it last night and he can’t recall the last time his parents said they loved him. He said maybe when he was a very young child. They’re perfectly pleasant people, my PiL, but my god they’re formal. Speaking to them is like being in a job interview. My husband also can’t ever recall being cuddled by them either.

Aibu to find this really sad? I know my family are probably quite extreme in the other direction (we can be quite in each other’s business, because everyone just cares so bloody much!) but I can’t imagine never hugging my children, even when they’re old and wrinkly.

My parents have never said it ,I absolutely know they do love me though, in their actions and support and we are close,
Maybe it's a generation thing with them they are both 80 ,but actions speak louder than words in my own experience and I have never felt unloved by them
Incidentally I tell my own children and dh I love them all the time.

I was never told I was loved by my parents though I’m sure they did. Got hugs though, and always hug, cuddle, kiss (a peck) and tell my adult kids I love them. Because I do, so so much and want to make sure they know it. As for being in their business, no chance. All boys, and they wouldn’t allow it.

I was also never told by my parents, but I know they do.

Like pp my parents never said it. But I know 100% they love me. They are great parents. It's made me go the opposite way though and I tell everyone I love them all the time 🤣

my family is the same as yours. we’re all very close and tell each other we love each other at the end of every phone call and when leaving each other. also lots of cuddles and kisses between parents/grandparents/children. it’s rubbed off on my kids because they tell me and their dad and their siblings and grandparents that they love us about a hundred times a day! my boyfriend however was raised alone by a horribly abusive dad after his mum died when he was five and he’d never been told he was loved until he met me, which broke my heart. fifteen years of being a part of my family has changed that though and he’s as open with his i love yous as the rest of us now.

Oddly enough, it’s become more commonplace with my parents as I’ve got older 🤷🏻‍♀️
I always remember my mum telling us she loved us as she put us to bed as kids. But since I’ve become an adult, it’s definitely thrown around more in casual conversation - maybe because we don’t live in each other’s pockets anymore so we have more time to miss each other?

I put yabu only because you said they're pleasant people. If they're happy with their family dynamics then that's ok.
Also I had to say I love you to my mother every time I left the house, it was fake, it was just a mantra, she was a horrible person who really felt no love for me

On the other hand I tell my kids I love them often and we are quite a huggy bunch but it's not demanded every time we speak/leave the house.

How does your dh feel about it? I'd judge by his happiness with his parents.

My parents are separated and I'm very very close to my mum, we say it on every phone call at goodbye and in text, mostly if one of us has said something silly. Both my father and step mum tell me they love me at every opportunity, I didn't see them for most of my childhood/early adulthood for varieties reasons (mostly due to my horrible step father) so they are making up for lost time I guess. I've always been part of a very affectionate, lovey, cuddly, huggie family. Always kiss and hug hello and goodbye.

My husbands family are the total opposite and I think I've probably hugged my in laws 3 times since the mid 00's. They never say they love their adult children but they do to the grandchildren. They probably said it on our wedding day in a card. They are however very lovely, helpful and kind and they clearly do love their children (including my husband) very much.

I can't remember the last time either of my parents said it to me and I don't feel comfortable saying it to them now. In fact it feels very difficult to show emotion or express my opinions to my mother. My mum wasn't very nice to me as a child. She doesn't show any affection now but always wants to know where I am and what I'm doing. I can't bring myself to hug her, in fact it makes my skin crawl. I hate feeling this way. My own eldest child is only 14 but I will always tell him I love him and I give him cuddles and a back rub and stuff, so I don't think my mum has had a negative effect on showing affection to my own kids.

I don't say it to my DPs (very late 80s) and they don't say it to me but they absolutely show me that they love me ... none of us are tactile, cuddly people ... I don't want to hug them and assume they don't want to hug me . But we have a great relationship and I have had the most wonderful, supportive upbringing. The are very formal - perhaps like the OP's ILs - but that suits me.

No, but they never did. It wasn't the fashion when I was growing up. Anyway, after 8 or 9 ish they definitely didn't.

Yes, very often.

My dh says his parents never cuddled him or told him they loved him but they do to their grandkids.

My parents never said they loved me. My mums dead now but my dad wouldnt even know how to approach it!

i tell my teenagers and will continue to.

Me and DM tell each other constantly. Even more now she's got terminal stage four cancer.

DH's Mum is incredibly loving and tactile but his Dad has never hugged him. When we leave their house, he shakes my husbands hand. I find it so sad.

Could be generational then! My in laws are in their 70’s and my parents are only just in their 50’s. But then, my grandparents are very affectionate and they are the same age.

Always both ways round.

My family is like your dh's - we all get on, no issues but never hug my mum unless she is going on holiday.
My dh thinks l am strange cos l am not a hugger but it is how l was brought up so doesn't come naturally to me at all!

My father lives in New York but he tells me every time we speak or communicate, which is a few times a week plus we try and meet up every 6/8 weeks or so. I've never had a good relationship with my mother, quick to scold and too free with the back of her hand. I haven't seen or spoken to her in ten years. She lives in Nice, far enough away to be comfortable.

And yes, I give my kids, 19,16, and 14, a hug and tell them I love them all the time.

i am coming up for 70. I always said it to my mum when we said goodbye and she said it back

Yes, I tell my parents every time I see them
that I love them (more than once a week). I tell my son multiple times a day and he says the same to me

30s, speak to my Mum on the phone every other day and always end with I love yous.
We hug when we meet and say goodbye, and sometimes just because!

My Dad is a bit more stoic, He doesn’t say ‘I love you’ much but he shows it in other ways.

My parents were huggy type. My children 41 39, and 21 still get hugs . When they were at university or working abroad we always said love you, miss you. OH family not demonstrative but I hugged them. OH is is more demonstrative maybe because the children are

My parents are very affectionate and we say it all of the time. DH's parents were similar.

I'm 40s, parents 70s - we always tell each other we love each other. I also tell my closest friends too. Because I do.

The strange thing is though that he’s way more affectionate and generous with the I love you’s than I am!

He has a strange relationship with his parents. It’s not that he doesn’t feel loved, it he definitely feels like a disappointment to them and I feel like they could do a lot more to not make him feel that way.