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.

I don’t think my parents ever told me they loved me, certainly no cuddles as a kid.

i tell adult Dd I love her most days.

My mum shows love through her actions. Every time my dad sends a text it’s ‘love you’s xxx’ at the end of each message and at the end of every phonecall.

I wasn't brought up in an especially huggy family. I can remember snuggling up on the sofa with my parents before around 7 or 8 but not after that.

My children are still young but I do make a bit effort to have lots of cuddles and I love yous so that it always feels natural between us. I have a great relationship with my parents and I know they love me but it would feel weird to start hugging them now. We only ever do it in a jokey way.

Mine didn't but I know they loved me very much. However the last thing my mum was able to say to me, DH &DD was "I love you all very much". It still makes me cry every time I think of it some years on.

My mother said it, usually with a "but", eg "but I can't forgive what you've done," or "I'm so ashamed that I've raised a liar" etc etc ad nauseam. That woman doesn't know the meaning of love and I felt dirty every time I had to say it to her.

My father has said it maybe five times in my life, he's autistic and had a traumatic childhood, and he's 82 so it just isn't natural to him to splurge out his feelings. I know he absolutely adores me though and would do anything for me. I say it to him, usually at the end of a phone call so he doesn't have to deal with the embarrassment of replying

I tell my adult children I love them, and I tell them why, and am generally quite mushy. They seem resigned to it fine with it, and one is more demonstrative than the other (both very loving, just different personalities).

My parents didn't when I was growing up, but we do say it every time we're together nowadays- think it's since we nearly lost my mum a few years ago.

With my kids, we say it often- enough for it not to sound weird

I think there is a huge difference in not feeling loved and not being told ,my parents were always affectionate my mum more so ,whilst they never actually said the words they have always been caring parents and have always been supportive even now
My Grandma was the same she never said I love you but she showed it in a other ways ,one of her sons was a barrister who had a brain aneurysm and collapsed in court, she waited up all night in the hospital to make sure he was OK, she was inn her 80,s and then fed him jelly and custard when he couldn't manage anything else ,that's love.

I'll never finish a phone call to my parents without telling them I love them.

My mum doesn’t. My dh’s mum does. But I have a much closer relationship with my mum than my dh does with his. So it’s meaningless

Always, on both sides. My 81 year old dad texts me "I love you!" every day that we don't talk on the phone.

My husband and I have a rule that we never leave the house without saying I love you, and my now adult children do the same. When I get off the phone with my kids, we always end the call with I love yous. If that's the last time I ever see/speak them, that's the last thing I want them to hear from me.

My family don't say it much, occasionally so not never but not often. DH's family say it all the time and are much more huggy than mine. Weirdly though my family is the more emotionally open, we talk about everything and I feel like we show our love rather than saying 'I love you'. DH's family seem to keep things on a very surface level, things are regularly brushed under the carpet and no one talks about anything awkward or uncomfortable. Both families are equally loving I would say, just different ways of showing it.

Mine say it all the time - in their 70s - end of phone call, text messages, when we say bye in person. Always have.

I always say I love you to my parents when saying bye to them in person/on the phone and they'll say it back but that's the only time they'll say it and they never say it first. But I know they love me they don't need to say it they show it and that's the most important thing.

With my own kids my eldest gets annoyed at how often I tell him I love him and I'm sure it'll be the same when both of them are older I'll tell them all the time 😂

I am not told and they don't love me. I always tell mine and I do love them

I was half brought up in a huggy/I love you family (not by own but they pseudo adopted me) and the other half...quite the opposite. I definitely hugged and told DC when they were smaller that they were loved a lot but when they reached the teen years it definitely went down. Now young adult, and living at home, I hug them maybe once every 1-2 weeks and tell them I love them ever 3-4? Definitely not all the time and I think it should be more.

DH can't remember ever being told that he was loved and it is a kind of forced hug at Christmas type level of affection. DH struggles to show affection with hugs not only with DC but also with me - just doesn't come naturally at all.

I don’t think my mum has ever said it. I tell my DS about 50 times a day. My aunties say it all the time but never my mum.

Always say I love you to my parents and they always say it to me. After every phonecall and often in texts or when we see each other.

I voted YABU because regularly saying it is more of a modern thing and doesn't mean previous generations didn't feel it but perhaps expressed it in other, more pragmatic ways.

It's normal in our family to say "love you" every time you speak, parents, in laws, children, friends too.

But in some families it's not normal.

Each finds the other very weird.

It's always been this way.

I wasn't brought up in a huggy house (thank fuck) but my dm tells me she loves me when we say bye either in person or on the phone.