Could you forgive this of your parents?

[Blubbermonkey]

I’ve never had a good relationship with my parents, especially my mum. I think she might have mental health issues but I’m not sure what. I’m also trying to see this from their point of view to understand where they’re coming from but struggling with too much hurt to move forward.

For as long as I can remember my mum has gone through phases of being really nasty to me. For a long time everything will be fine but then out of the blue she’ll come up with something incredibly hurtful/ spiteful or manipulate a situation in such a way that I’m left looking like the bad one. This came to a head a couple of years ago when she said something that crossed a line for me. Since then I’ve been very low contact but I’m still struggling with the fall out over what was said. We tried to sort things out recently but both my parents refuse to accept any responsibility for their actions over the years and blame me for being too sensitive. They’ve also told me they don’t like me, feel no connection to me and accept no responsibility for the situation we’re in.

They’re not getting any younger and despite all this I do care about them. However I’m finding it really difficult to move on from the things they’ve said. We’ll never have a good relationship now but I’d like us to be amicable. How can I get over this and get to a point where I can feel at peace with what’s happened? So as not to drip feed, I have a sister who they do not behave like this with.

bumping for you

They’ve also told me they don’t like me, feel no connection to me and accept no responsibility for the situation we’re in.

I think on hearing that I would be walking away permanently.

You can't force them to be reasonable and to be honest your mother sounds horrible.

You have done all you can. I think continuing to engage with them is only going to hurt you further. I'm sorry you are hurting

I also think you should look up a book called 'Will I ever be good enough?'

My mother had four children. There was a pecking order of favouritism with myself being the one she did not care about. No matter what I did,
no matter how good a daughter I was, notihng was ever going to make her love me,no matter how much I tried.
When she extended her dislike of me to my children and favoured my sister's children quite openly telling people even that they were her 'best grandchildren' ; I cut her off for ever on the premise that she could do it to me but she was not going to be able to do the same to them, and never regretted it.

I would distance myself to zero contact I think. You sound like you have tried to work with it as best as you can with no joy, life is too short to not be good enough. You are good enough please don't forget that 💐

They’ve also told me they don’t like me, feel no connection to me

I’m not really sure there’s any way back from that, tbh. I’d focus on the relationship with your sister (assuming that is ok)

It’s not your fault your parents are like this and you did not make them that way. You will need to ultimately grieve for the relationship you should have had rather than the one you actually got. People from dysfunctional families end up playing roles and your sister here seems more favoured, she is the golden child. You are the scapegoat here and as such your own family unit is scapegoated as well. Challenging their own warped perceptions of you will not change them, they are not built that way and their response is actually typical of such toxic parents. Your dad seems as warped as your mother is and they enable each other. These people need to be avoided. Toxic people like they really never apologise nor accept any responsibility for their actions as you have seen.

I would suggest you read and post on the current may 2020 Well we took you to Stately Homes thread on these Relationships pages and also read Toxic Parents written by Susan Forward.

Let any and all hope go of your parents becoming better people because they will not. Being like they are suits their own narrative and narcissistic nature.

You can and should free yourself of any and all obligation you feel to them. You do not owe them anything, let alone a relationship here and abusive people as well never have amicable relationships.

Your goals are unrealistic. They can only lead to pain and disappointment. You need to change them.

They’re not getting any younger and despite all this I do care about them.
Humans are programmed to crave parental approval even when it is actually damaging. It is natural for you to feel like you care.

However I’m finding it really difficult to move on from the things they’ve said.
These are not things people move on from. Not at all. Especially as the pattern repeats with them. Moving on in this case means pretending reality of them is not reality I think.

We’ll never have a good relationship now but I’d like us to be amicable.
Back to craving real nice parents. Not gonna happen.

How can I get over this and get to a point where I can feel at peace with what’s happened?
By accepting they are what they are. They are bad parents to you. It is damaging for you to spend time with them. By being properly NC you can heal and make peace with the snake pit that was the past. You cannot heal if you are still stepping in and out of that snake pit.

So as not to drip feed, I have a sister who they do not behave like this with.
They are utter bastards who choose to be awful to you. Don't suck up to them. Step back further.

It sounds like we have very similar parents. Two things have helped me.

One is accepting that there is no happy ending in our relationship. They just don't have what I need from them, or at least they don't have it for me. Since nothing I do or say will result in a loving relationship and feeling part of my family, it doesn't really matter what I do.

The second thing is putting distance between us. The less contact I have with them, the more I can like them. And keeping my children well away from them helps with my peace of mind. I can't undo the harm they have done to me, but I can definitely stop them from doing the same harm to my children. I think of it like an allergy- I am allergic to lanolin. This is unfortunate since I married a sheep farmer, but in order to avoid scabby rashes and blistered skin, I must avoid sheep. It isn't an emotional decision, it's just common sense. In order to avoid feeling worthless, helpless and rejected, I must avoid my parents.

I have three siblings and a half sibling. None of them are treated as badly as I am (or was). That makes their behaviour a choice. You have choices too.

You cannot change someone. You can only change your own responses to them.

Listen to what they say.
They don’t want you and the more you try to force it the more upset it will make you.

Concentrate on yourself and your sister and in time you will start to feel better if you don’t have to keep twisting yourself In knots to try and get your parents to be amicable.

Ask yourself why you want a continued relationship with them. It sounds like it might be that you actually are simply yearning for a normal parent/child relationship (understandably), and as they're your parents, they're the only people who can fit that mould. But you can't mould them to it, because they are who they are. Ask yourself: if they weren't your only options as "parent figures", would you still want a relationship with them? Or would you feel comfortable saying actually no, this doesn't work for me? Are your desires for what you will get from a continued relationship realistic? If not, you'll continue to find that the relationship hurts.

For as long as I can remember my mum has gone through phases of being really nasty to me

This is all it took for me to say no. My mum has never once been nasty to me,they. Fuck that, I wouldn't accept it from a stranger/friend, why accept it from family? Just, no!

Thanks everyone for your replies, they are all really helpful. I think part of me finds it so hard to believe that they’re actually like this, it makes me doubt whether or not I am in the wrong. It’s always me that makes the effort to keep in touch and since I’ve stopped, I haven’t heard from them at all which probably says a lot.

OP, I really feel for you. My parents (and especially my mother) were the same. She said similar things to me.

When I was a young teen, she told me she loved because she didn't have a choice but she didn't like me. I always doubted that she loved me and, when I was in my early 30s, she told my brother that she didnt love me and she never had done. She didn't want anything bad to happen to me particularly but she didn't care if it did.

I reduced contact dramatically after that and only really facilitated contact between her and my children for their sakes (I felt at the time I shouldnt deny them a relationship with their grandma).

I saw it very much as being 'dumped' by her. In retrospect, I should have ended our relationship far sooner than I did. You wouldnt stay in a relationship with a partner who said these things to you, would you?

I cut contact with her when her dislike of me extended to her becoming a safeguarding risk to my children which resulted in brief police ad LA involvement. We all agreed that NC was the best way of protecting my children and it's now been 9 years since I had any contact with her at all.

I've never regretted it.

As always with these threads we only have a tiny amount of the information needed, and from only one side, to advise the drastic courses of action often read here (no contact, cutting parents out).

Parents are human, just as we their children are. We connect better with some than others, we make terrible mistakes, sometimes we all act in a manner which is hurtful to others purposefully and sometimes without realising.

There are far too many people willing to see the flaw in others without seeing the flaw in themselves also.

Emeeno1

I'd never advise anyone to go no contact but if anyone else you had a relationship with told you they didn't like you and felt no connection to you, was nasty to you and said spiteful things and manipulated you, would you stick around?

You can't have a relationship of only one side wants it. It is breath takingly shocking to discover your own parents are people who are not going to reciprocate a desire for a relationship.
That's a body blow. I have no qualifications in this area but as an outside person with no emotional anchor to drag me one way or another the first thing I thought on reading your op was that the sooner you accept the reality you have instead of the one all your instincts tell you ought to be there (and make it so hard to close the door), the better.