I think my parents are getting more bitchy as they get older..

[TroubledRabbit]

I'll try not to drop feed. Speak to my mum every week, offer help practically - always refused. It's a bit frosty, my younger brother is the favourite to the point I am known as number 1daughter, my dad actually starts to say number 2 then 'amusingly' corrects.

DD (17) excitedly rang my mum (73) to talk about a University offer.

My mum, who didn't get the chance to go to uni, talked about how she'd dropped me off and then cried all the way home whilst I showed no emotion.

How it used to cost them a fortune visiting buying crates of beer and taking all my friends out for meals.

How her much loved brother had met his wife at Uni.

I remember my dad making a big fuss of leaving 12 cans of tartan bitter (which he was thanked for) but no group meals or even plus ones.

I can imagine an awkward, holding it together hug, when they left and I did phone or write (it was the 90s)

But the weirdest thing was when DD said her dad & I met at Uni and my mum said 'no, I think they met at a sports club'.
It was a Uni sports club and we were mates for a year before finally getting together around our finals.

Would you feel hurt if your parents did this? It's petty little details but I think my parents are getting more bitchy as they get older.

Have found a small grip, but every empathetic post has seen me put it down and shout yes, you understand.

My parents don't realise but they have completely shot themselves in the foot. in my 30's DH & I discussed and built an extension with extra steels to allow conversion to a generous independent space. It will not be available for them.

15 years on, my parents have become harder to enjoy spending any time with and my teens flagging their unbalanced view of the past has rather highlighted the favouritism and bitterness. My brother, Goldenballs can wipe their arses. I'm so fed up of having all the tiny details from the past twisted, I don't want it intruding on my memories and I don't want it falsifying my daughters view of my past.

There must be an parent/child equivalent of the 'she divorced me because I left dishes by the sink'

I completely empathise.
Visiting my mother over many years became harder and harder as she became increasingly bitter and nasty - I used to drag DH along, he couldn’t believe how she spoke to me. It got to the point that when Covid kicked in it was a real relief to escape the snide remarks etc.

My parents didn’t bother themselves to know me at all. So at least she’s listened to one part, even if not perfect. Mine were a lot worse. My partner’s are same. Self-absorbed.

OP wasn’t saying they should have, in her parents mind they did all of this but OP has no recollection of it happening bar a pack of beer.

And you sound like an insufferable fool that can't read!

OP never said he should pay for her friends meals, she said they shouldn;t say they did when it never happened, and she's right.

Cringe for you.

I get it. My mother constantly rewrites history, so I then have a choice between acquiescing in her version (which always casts her as a heroic figure and me as a brat) or challenging it, which sends her into a rage. It’s very tiring,

If it’s a few minor changes here and there, you’d brush it off and assume they’ve made a mistake. When they’re doing a bigger rewrite to include a negative slant on your behaviour, especially when you know it’s not true, you start to feel it’s barbed. Don’t blame you for feeling dispirited, OP, they’re being spiteful.

Memories get muddled up and sometimes completely different memories of the same events happen. My dd1 has different memories of events to me and I just think wow that is not my memory of that at all, but usually leave it there

Yes same here, Covid did help strangely to put some light on mums behaviour towards me. Very narcissistic.

Yes draining at times. I ignore the jibes now. Hard to be around it though

I think that for years DH thought I was exaggerating or misunderstanding - I certainly wasn’t.
The FOG was horrible, and when she had to go into a care home during Covid I had an overwhelming sense of relief. That makes me a horrible person in some peoples’ eyes here I suspect but after so many years it started to dawn on me just how narcissistic she actually was.

This resonates a lot with me. I would view large parts of my childhood as abusive (physical and mental) but in my Dad/Stepmums view I was just a difficult child/teenager. Looking back I feel very sorry for my teen self.

I do too, Flapjackquack, which is one reason I try not to dwell on the past.

I agree with @poefaced. You DID meet at a sports club! Perhaps your mum thinks meeting 'at uni' (in relation to her brother) referred to meeting at a lecture or something, which you didn't.
If you'd met on holiday you could say 'We met in a club' or 'we met in Spain,' both would be right!
Also you accept they did buy you beer.

So seeing as you are the one that has clearly misrepresented/over-romanticised some of your past life, (do you really think your kids spend that much time envisioning their parents' getting together, because I find that very unlikely!) perhaps they did once take you and a friend or two out for a meal at some point too and you've forgotten it. Or at the worst your parents have got confused about something that happened, what, at least 20 years ago?

I appreciate that if you've got a difficult relationship and if you're annoyed about other things you can focus on minor things, but based on these examples I can't see anything your parents have done wrong at all!

I get it and I’m not sure why this happens.

My dm was always very easy going and great company but has become harder work in the past couple of years, now late 70’s. I’ve no idea why.

I notice she is less easy going and more judgemental about me and others, especially strangers and will loudly comment about other people in earshot.

She is much less tolerant and easily annoyed and flustered. She is adamant every single thing was better in the past and worse now but that our lives are much easier now compared to theirs at that age. It’s like she wants us to suffer in the same way that she perceives that she did……it’s very frustrating and tends to make me see her less.

@latetothefisting partly it's to do with tone and the context.
So with the meal example my mum told my DD that it cost a fortune coming to see me at Uni because they'd end up buying beer and taking everyone out for meals. End of memory.

At this point they were on good money, fancy cruises and I was working two term time jobs.

Not tempered by ' it was lovely to see all your friends and treat them to a meal'.

And I have no memory of us with extra people, just the three of us eating in, at the local fish & chip shop. And my friends still mention the Tarten bitter, which I always acknowledge and pass on, just not all the extra embroidery.

I think it's the glorification of others and themselves interspersed with the negative digs at me and your right, the digs are little and open to questioning. It's been interesting hearing DD recount it but I don't want to poison her grandparent relationship by grilling her too much.

@ButEmilylovedhim - just caught up with this thread and can relate to your post completely! It was exactly like this with my late mum: I’d be trying to have a ‘right here, right now’ sort of conversation with her but every slight trigger for a memory stream would set her off unstoppably on another series of monologues (that had been repeated every time I saw her since forever) - as you say, I had to grit my teeth and try to be patient but it’s tough when someone just isn’t present for you.

I imagine you DM had eg an older more popular sister, or was not the favourite of her DPs or had a sibling who was more successful - and she is recreating the situation with you - though doesn't realise it.