Parents keep being hot and cold with me, think I will have to cut contact

[GenuineBrunetteRoots]

When I was a child, my parents frequently had phases of not speaking to me for some tiny, or imagined, misendeavour. It might be something such as me not putting my shoes back in the right place, or, as happened a few times, imagining that I'd pulled a face when they were speaking to me. I'd usually get a hard smack, and then be sulked at for several weeks. I think my mum probably has some kind of undiagnosed mental health issues (I am thinking possible bi polar), and my father has severe anger management issues. They are very easily offended and really make mountains out of molehills.

Even now in my adulthood, they are still doing the same, and it is getting to the stage where they aren't actually bringing much into my life, my DH's life or my childrens' lives, apart from making us walk on eggshells and put up with their moods! They have phases where they refuse to talk to us, or are very off with us, and often we don't know why. Or it can be for something as simple as us not liking the same tv programme as them, or something equally ridiculous and minor. A few years ago they didn't speak to us for nearly a year as my dad bumped into DH's friend in town, and DH's friend is very sarcastic and made a joke about my dad. We weren't there at the time, and didn't even know about the joke until after they had stopped blanking us! And in any case, it was the type of joke that most normal adults would shrug off and laugh at!

My mum also gets very offended very easily. I once laughed at a photograph of myself as a child, and she went mad at me saying I was saying she was a bad mother. And again, I wasn't spoken to for months.

The latest reason, and the final straw, is they had our 3 DCs for a day a couple of weeks ago, at my parents' request. When the children had been dropped home, they said that my parents had spent the whole day telling them off and telling them that they were all naughty and scruffy (not true at all by the way, couldn't be further from the truth). My mum was fine when dropping them home, however now, presumably because of this perceived naughtiness they are not speaking to DH and I again. My mum phoned up on Saturday night, when I was out with friends, and said to DH that she wanted to take one of the children to the cinema on Sunday morning. DH said, very politely, that we had plans for Sunday as we were taking the children swimming, and this resulted in my mum slamming the phone down on him without even replying.

So I guess now we are definitely sent to coventry again. And I'm starting to think that actually I have had enough. I have never known, all my life, what kind of moods my parents will be in and I just can't cope with it any longer. Sometimes they just turn up at mine with faces like thunder and are moody, and it makes me feel anxious.

Am I doing the right thing in cutting them off? BTW they are not like this at all with my sister, only with me. But they have always said that I am an awkward, evil, difficult person.

Gosh Genuine they sound like very very hard work and don't seem to offer you much at all ..... (love, affection etc) to make up for this. I would take a backward step from them and build up some boundaries with them. I just wanted to offer you my support, i think others with more experiece will come along and give you much better advice ......

People from dysfunctional families end up playing roles; in your birth family you were scapegoat for all their ills. Your sister was and remains the golden child (itself not a role without price either but she likely does not realise the price being paid by her). Narcissistic mothers often triangulate i.e they have a scapegoat and a golden child. Your parents abjectly failed you as a child and still fail you now. Also emotionally unstable, narcissistic and toxic people like your mother always but always need a willing enabler to help them i.e your dad.

Am certain as well your children will feel happier in no longer being subjected to their grandparents dysfunction either. I guess you only allowed your parents to have any sort of relationship with your children in the first instance because you were hoping that they would behave better this time around.

So yes, you are certainly doing the right thing by cutting out such toxic people like your parents from your lives. You would not tolerate this from a friend, family are truly no different.

I would suggest you post too on the Well we took you to stately homes thread on these pages and read the resources at the start of that thread.

Thank you vuvuzela and Attila!

Atilla, you have summed things up perfectly! It's weird because my parents seem to have so many issues and they enable each other in a way. My mum enabled my dad's over zealous discipline techniques, and my dad enables my mum's moods and spiteful behaviour. I find it weird too how they both are so easy and quick to take offence. They recently had a disagreement with their neighbours over something very minor. The kind of thing that most of us would either brush off, or simply talk to the neighbours to sort out. Instead, my parents basically did loads of things out of spite to the neighbours. Nothing physical, but things like calling official bodies to report them, that kind of thing.

You are right, atilla, I definitely wouldn't take this from a friend, and I think my parents are the one thing in my life that are preventing me from being truly happy. I think if I cut them out then I may be able to draw a line under everything that has happened in the past.

I wouldn't do anything as consciously deliberate as cutting them out. Just find other things to do and other people to be with. In parent/child relationships finality can be tough to deal with, even when it's warranted - which it seems to be from what you describe. Telling yourself you've kept the door open maintains the moral high-ground whist, at the same time, not obliging you to actually get in touch ever. Subtle difference but possibly easier to live with.

My stepfather was like that. I've not thought about him for a long, long time, but I felt the anger welling up again, reading your post. Who the fuck does that to a kid??? He did it less as I became an adult, because the root causes were (I suspect) his chronic insecurity - and a 12 year old is easy to intimidate. Still, the effect was the same. Questioning myself. What did I say? What did I do? Utter confusion and bewilderment. Don't think for a minute they won't do the same to your kids.

Funny about the neighbour thing. We never, ever had neighbours we got along with. Due to him, mainly.

Thanks Cogito and Bragmatic.

Cogito, I know what you mean. It would probably be far easier to do things that way.

Bragmatic, it's awful isn't it? I too used to wonder what on earth I had done wrong. It would really baffle me, and then I'd ask my parents and their reply would be things like "You nasty little thing, you KNOW exactly what you have done wrong". But I didn't!