My parents... don't... care?!

[itsallabitmuchx]

I am an only child (28f) and moved out of my parents' tiny house about 6 months ago (I was completing a PHD for 3 years and had 0 money for rent so I lived with them for the duration of this time - paid rent with them but a little amount compared to market value rent).

Sine then, I literally haven't heard off them. At all. Any communication is instigated by me (I will call them) - they ask no questions beyond 'how's work?' and no follow up questions or responses when I reply, just a generic 'oh.. there we are then'. I only moved 20 minutes away and they haven't once come to see me where I am. They haven't even seen the house I have been living in and have no desire to. I've invited them for dinner / takeaway night here 4 times, and they've always declined. I've brought this up with my mum who's only response is 'wow.. you're so needy.. you're an adult... why do you want your parents?'.

Basically it seems they have completed washed their hands with me as in they feel I am old enough that they no longer need to care about me nor be involved in my life. They literally haven't a clue what I do with my time, who is in my life, what my likes dislikes are etc and hopes for the future.

This really gets to me. I have times where I feel I have accepted who they are (very hands off, pretty limited with their viewpoints etc and very stuck in their depressing ways - sit and watch mind numbing TV all day and night - you get me?). Then I suddenly get really upset and angry at it. Went to a BBQ on weekend where girl similar age talking baout how her mum has bene helping her find wedding venues etc and theyre all excited for her (as they should be)... these things are relaisisations I will never have that because my parents are just... shit. It makes me feel very lonely and isolated also (being an only child doesn't help with this either).

AIBU?!

A disappointed and rejected daughter :(

I’m so sorry your parents are crap. It sounds like you need to let go of the unrealistic expectations you have. I’d explore counselling. You’ve achieved so much(despite them) you should be really proud of yourself. Focus on the good relationships you have in your life and try to let this one go. It’s like grief. It sounds so hard but you will be happier. They’re not going to be the parents you want 😢

Um. This is how forums work

We deal with what's in front of us

It’s really sad how many people have so little sympathy for op. I lived with my parents for longer than this and it didn’t make them drop me when I’d moved out! They told me they missed me!

Ageist and misogynistic.

OP you could try some self-help books. Like this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Adult-Children-Emotionally-Immature-Parents/dp/1626251703/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=ZCHH3KJ04EIO&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.XR8TJ2P9ticsGv9fmsPov0iLpGg7UETLm1WCn00hs2aKCbZq9cysbX7v0hKUpUwg5Ewq5TeJyykn_oxOLrqUZVmlF6WoBcGW3sBzJAEPKCZ1vxH7b82BYKCdjdH8O8KaMi-dZWxJKev3HTl4xqn42ikkk7-YdwHrCYioYJ8pKgtdI1k1GwhVS-b1X-TEmN4MlFjyM3usTTu_JrkSt8ZKRw.aGfipkPWpampSeIALeWz4n3YgdA4DVbJQr-sq0Hush8&dib_tag=se&keywords=adult+children+of+emotionally+immature+parents&qid=1754392790&sprefix=emptionally+jnmature+pare%2Caps%2C134&sr=8-1

some of the parents on this thread might benefit from a read too.

Surely there is a middle ground there somewhere. You can be thankful your parents aren’t interfering but still be sad they are totally disinterested?

I'm nice enough to call out someone dissing their parents.

That's a fucking horrible thing to say

What relationship do you have with your own parents/children

There are really not, or certainly not in a way that would impede understanding or comprehension. A few typos but understandable with autocorrect or similar, I do the same on screen as a lawyer and author and cringe when I read back my errors. Plus, it's a post on social media asking for help, not her thesis. If you want to post about typos please go to Pedants Corner.

This is so sad and I relate re parents who aren't interested. It's exhausting to be the one doing all the running. I've lived in my house for 10 years and I can count on one hand how many times my mum has been here, and only ever when she could come with a sibling. It's hurtful to keep trying and being stonewalled. Some parents are like this unfortunately.

It sounds like your mum has her own resentments too, not towards you but towards life.

OP you've had some good replies here. Some are just crap. Like yours @NoTouch "they did their best" - how would you know? It certainly doesn't sound it to me! It sounds like her mum in particular is lazy, insular, emotionally cold and feels threatened by her daughter's achievements and aspirations. To view and treat your child, your only child, as a burden to the extent that it is completely obvious to the child is terrible.

And replies saying that their parents were the same and it is normal for that generation...a generation contains lots of different people (I would have thought this was obvious!) and some of them are not good people. I would be gutted to have this experience of parents OP even though my experience was bad in different ways, this just sounds heartbreakingly lonely and full of rejection. I'm so sorry.

You have achieved a great thing now, you've moved out independently and got a PhD, so now the world is your oyster. It probably doesn't feel like it yet and some talking therapy might be helpful with this. Congratulations on your academic achievements and on your new home. I hope you come to realise that it's them, not you.

Just because people are parents doesn't make them nice or good people. OP you sound lovely, parents sound useless. They aren't giving you what you need because either they can't, or they aren't interested or they are bemused by you. It's hard but you won't change them and although it's a cliche, all you can change is your response. Some counselling may help, so to may thinking of f**k you in your head.

I think people of a certain generation sometimes had children because it was what you did, rather than because they thought about other options. That sounds like your parents.

OP, I am really sorry you feel unloved by your parents.
Your mum sounds as if she could be suffering from depression, and maybe always has been, it must have been a lonely childhood for you.
Seeing your friends with their mums, and having such different experiences to you, must hurt.

Sadly, you can't change who people are. I had a lovely mum, sadly passed, who loved me unconditionally, and a father, who walked out when I was 5 years old, and never once came back to visit.

I suppose it's the luck of the draw, to have two uncaring parents is doubly hard for you. They probably do care, just not in the way you would like them too.

Try to get on with your own life, which sounds good, concentrate on your friends, your job, and most importantly, yourself. x

Possibly she feels you have rejected her, by choosing a life so different from hers she cannot connect with it - you want something she was never going to be able to provide

I agree with this. I don't think your parentas are "shit", as you say, at all. Unless there’s more ti what you've written.
They are probably enjoying their house to themselves now, and you need to live your own life!

YANBU to feel rejected OP, however, you may need counselling to deal with your feelings of rejection because it doesn't sound like your parents (your 'D'M in particular) will ever change. One day, when they're elderly and in need of support and come to you for it, you can enjoy the schadenfreude of being able to say "Oh Mum, you're so needy!" - and then walk away.

It's nice to see that the majority of posters are being supportive and understanding of OP.
I can only assume the few nasty people at the start of this tread are either oblivious to the reality of having uninterested parents or they are the uninterested parents themselves.

Its interesting a couple of people have mentioned not having clothes bought. This was a big issue in my childhood, I remember my sister and I once had to sit my mum down as teenagers to say you are literally buying us no clothes at all, no knickers, bras, school shoes etc. Her response was that we have pocket money, we got £2 a week and a lot of that I had to use to but tampons because she wouldn't buy them either.
She once bought us 2 new dresses to share and I remember to this day how exciting and unusual that was, it makes me very sad these days to realise how shit it was and how I didn't have a clue it wasn't the norm :(

Maybe you could attempt to get to know your Aunties? They might be able to help you understand the lack of relationship between your family members.

So you lived off them to better your own life and that they FINALLY have space back you still co-depend on them to fill your relationship voids. That factually is 'needy' and comparing yourself to others will make you miserable.

Your parents not having 4 takeaways with you (so you have expected it almost once per month in the short time you have been gone, in the 20 years since I left home I have never once expected us to get together for takeaways) is nothing to do with a mother helping organize a wedding, not remotely comparable scenarios.

You got a place of your own... great first step (very late in life but better than never). Now get a partner, friends, a pets, a life... anything just stop expecting your parents to fulfill it all. They have been carrying you well into adulthood (while you look down on everything about them and resent them) now they need and DESERVE their own space and life back.

Growing up means moving on, good relationships won't form when your clingy, expectant, jealous and demanding (especially if your also frankly quite shitty to them, just look at how you talk. Do you think they don't know you think your better than them? yet they still carried you through your self betterment which you wouldn't have managed without their sacrifices).

OP sounds like my sister, and my mum's take on my sister would have been something like this.

'We bonded easily with our other children but Milly was always different — difficult to connect with, quiet and needy. She rarely joined in with her siblings and didn't make friends easily. She came back to live with us after university and stayed for several years, which were hard going. We tried to talk to her and work out if she was depressed or needed professional help, but she didn't want to talk about it with us. We tiptoed around her, trying to encourage her to make an independent life for herself. It was something of a relief when she met Ryan, got married and left to make her own home. When they split up she assumed it would be okay to move back in with us but we had to say no, which she has interpreted as us not loving her. It's not that we don't love her. We do. But she is difficult to be around. Touchy, judgmental, angry with us and unable to tolerate different points of view. We tried over the years to help her, but nothing we could say or do was ever right. It's been a source of great sadness for many years.'

My sister was diagnosed with autism a couple of years after my parents died. It explained a lot, but it hasn't made it any easier to get along with her.

Sadly some mothers are just not that maternal and it sounds like your mum is one of them. Probably why you are an only child. Your parents also sound like self absorbed introverts. Even with limited education a man should have easily been able to support a wife and 1 child back then. Try not to take it personally, you have done nothing wrong. Just be grateful for the help they have given you and get on with your own life.
Ironically other only children have the opposite problem with their parents, with them not being able to let go.

As you have only moved 20 minutes away, it's possible that they don't want to get in the way of you developing a new social life separate from them.

You've been living with them a long time and busy with PhD so they may just want to give you space to just.... be you.

My parents love me, and we have a great relationship. But when I went to uni, they went abroad for the whole first term. Partly because they wanted to do that now they were finally no longer bound to school holidays, but also so that I would fully throw myself into my new life. My mum also said she wouldnt be emailing me unnecessarily (no WhatsApp in those days!) As she didn't want me to feel I had to reply. She knew we'd have plenty of time to catch up later.

The relationship I have with her now is much more equal. Some space and time apart meant we could re-establish our relationship with me as an adult. Whether it is intentional from your parents or not, perhaps that is the best way to look at it?

This. Its such good advice.

They are not going to change now. You've made an effort and they are not responding. Take a step back to avoid further disappointment. Stay in contact but let them come to you.

They don't sound like they are that interested in the world outside their own environment.

You can't compare them to other people's parents as frankly you only hear the good stuff.. look at all the inlaws threads on here.

They supported you thus far which has helped you get to where you are now, which was a good thing, and now you have the tools to forge your own life. Yes it is hurtful that they don't seem that interested... but look forwards to find people that are.. You are so young and have everything before you.

Independence can be lonely at first, but try to stop looking back and regretting what you cannot change and find a positive way forwards.

This is how my mum felt. She couldn't relate to me because she felt I was more intelligent than her. Which wasn't true at all, I had more opportunity to pursue education and liked reading, and she felt that put me on another level. I had to work quite hard to get her past that, didn't really achieve it until well into my 30s.