Am I right to go low contact with parents

[greenel]

Name changed as this may be identifying. Apologies for the length of this.

I'm an only child, grew up in another country but moved to the UK at 22 to study and have been living here for the last 15 years. My parents still live in my home country.

Part of my reason for leaving home was to get away from my parents and I've never been able to understand why. I am close to them in that I confide in them and tell them things about my life, no secrets, but I can only cope with speaking to them once every few weeks and seeing them once a year and preferably even lesser than that. But I have very complicated feelings about them and it's only recently I have considered that maybe what I thought was a good childhood was actually a bit messed up. However, I need outside perspective to help me understand why I feel this way.

My parents were/are very doting and made huge sacrifices for my education and future. They are supportive of all I do, affectionate and loving and good, hard working people. However, we had an unusual set up in that my dad quit working when I was a baby to look after me and my mum carried on working in a job where she was out of the country for most of the month. My dad does all the housework, financial planning, organising, driving, cooking etc and did the bulk of the child rearing. My mum helps out a little bit.

From a young age, I remember that my mum had terrible mood swings. One minute she would be excessively loving and sweet (to the point of suffocation, almost like she needed validation from me), the next she'd be hurling abuse, throwing things, and her face would contort in a vicious rage. Most of it directed at my dad but I got a fair amount too. She would also cause huge scenes in public berating me or my dad, storming out, loudly yelling etc - to the point I dreaded going out with her. We always had to walk on egg shells when she was home and I would hide in my room waiting for her to leave. She was extremely anti social and distrusted and disliked absolutely everyone - but in front of people she was charm personified. However, she'd stop me seeing friends or getting close to other members of my dad's family or dating - because she'd tell me they weren't good people. As a result we all led a very isolated life. My dad is a much more social person but ended up cutting off all his family and friends to avoid arguments at home.

This has gotten worse as an adult and after she retired. I know she is deeply unhappy with her life and has always been (no idea why) but refused to do anything to change. What was just mood swings is a permanent rage filled existence and an extreme paranoia that everyone is out to get her. The result of her behaviour means I now realise that my dad turned to me for emotional support from childhood and even though I love and respect him, it makes me feel a bit weird. As an example, I used to have to share a bed with him till I was 12/13 despite having my own room (nothing untoward ever happened) but that memory makes me feel a bit ick now. After I moved away, when they'd come to visit he would get angry if I asked for how long and expect to just stay as long as he wanted - in my tiny studio flat. This would often be almost 2 months until I would have to forcibly ask him to leave. His communications with me are very OTT with emotional and flowery language, it makes me feel uncomfortable - it seems less like father/daughter and more like how I am with my DP if that makes sense. I've been suggesting they divorce for years but they're almost 70 now and neither will do it - it's not common in our country.

This came to a head this Xmas when I went home for a few weeks. My mother's behaviour was awful, she raged and abused me most of it (So loud that neighbours can hear), went on these long racist rants (including against my dad's community), was insulting about my friends, doesn't leave the house or look after her health (she's losing teeth from poor hygiene and won't do anything to sort them), she physically threatened me in an argument and then hit my dad. I think she may be mentally ill, definitely depressed. But refuses to get help and thinks all psychiatrists are a waste of space. I left the next day telling my dad I couldn't come back as it was affecting my mental health living in this environment. He cried and made me promise to come back and to just accept my mother's behaviour like he has. He said I was the only person in his life he could talk to. Since I've been home, he messages and calls in that same emotionally OTT/martyred way where I feel like I'm his wife or his mother, not his daughter.

I am considering cutting contact with my mum until she gets help. It breaks my heart because she made a lot of sacrifices to give me a good life, and at her best was an amazing, bright, beautiful woman. But am also considering going LC with my dad because our interactions make me feel uncomfortable and I don't know why. I'm questioning now whether my relationship with him is actually unhealthy, because he sees me as a replacement for my mother. or I'm being unfair. So need advice on the best way to manage this, also as they have alienated themselves from other family/friends.

Your mother has some form of personality disorder, & your father is both her enabler & victim. To cope with that, he parentified you. He has continued that process into your adulthood & has now become abusive to you himself, with his demand that you sacrifice yourself to your mother so you are available to comfort him.
www.healthline.com/health/parentification#symptoms

Have you ever taken this tangled mess to a therapist?
I strongly recommend you do so, or pick up the process again, to support you in your wish to reduce contact. Your first duty is to your own mental health, & you are entirely reasonable to protect this by going low or even no contact.

I think you may find this site very helpful, & feel a sense of recognition when you start browsing it - outofthefog.website/toolbox-intro
You might also want to search for the "But We Took You To Stately Homes" threads on this site - jampacked with adult survivors of childhood abuse, you will find your tribe, support & understanding there.

You are not alone, & you do not owe your parents any sacrifice to your own wellbeing.

The best way to deal with this isn't an objective thing. Nobody can tell you what the 'correct' response to your feelings is, because a) nobody can understand the nuances of your feelings better than you and b) there are no rules. Some people might think low contact is best. Some people might think no contact is best. Some might think that staying in touch but changing your boundaries is best. The question is, who decides which of those people is right?

You do. This is your situation. Follow your feelings. You don't even have to make a commitment to a decision. If your mum contacts you and you don't feel like talking to her, don't. If you happen to keep doing that for a year, voila! You've 'gone NC'.

Do whatever you feel, because there's nobody who can tell you you're right or wrong. There are no rules or guidelines, and if there were, your parents aren't sticking to them, so why should you? This is your life, you make the decisions, you make the rules, you decide the boundaries. If you want to 'go no contact' with someone because you don't like the way they hold their fork at dinner, then do so. If you want to stay in touch even though they're abusive, then do so.

What if anything do you know about your parents childhoods?.

None of this was right OP, none of it. Abuse is no respecter of persons, class, creed or wherever they are from.

Your parents abjectly failed you from childhood onwards and your mum and dad are in a toxic dance of a codependent relationship. Both get what they want out of this relationship they have with each other and so are unlikely to separate; its far less likely to do with the fact that divorce is not all that common in their home country. What are the divorce stats for your home nation anyway?.

It is not beyond the realms of possibility that your mother has some forms of untreated, and untreatable, personality disorder. And on top of that she is and has been abusive to you and to her husband. Like practically all abusers they are quite plausible to those in the outside world. Presenting a good self image to outsiders is also important. It is for those behind closed doors their abuse is aimed at.

Women like your mother cannot do relationships at all so rely on a willing enabler to help them, this person here is your dad. He has enabled his wife's excesses of behaviours and indeed is her enabler.

re your comment regarding your father
"He cried and made me promise to come back and to just accept my mother's behaviour like he has. He said I was the only person in his life he could talk to. Since I've been home, he messages and calls in that same emotionally OTT/martyred way where I feel like I'm his wife or his mother, not his daughter".

This is emotional manipulation from your father. And no, you do not have to follow in his footsteps at all here re his wife/your mother and its not your fault his wife's excesses of behaviours have come back to bite him hard. He had a choice and threw you, his daughter, under the bus because he is a weak bystander of a man. He chose her ultimately and still does. He is being both grossly unfair and completely inappropriate to you by making you out to be his confidant. He has crossed and or otherwise ignored any boundaries you've cared to set him.

Its not your fault your parents are the ways they are and you did not make them that way. I do not feel that sadly either of them will get the necessary help, particularly in your mother's case, because she feels its not warranted. This is who they are and they are not going to change.

You may have got all the material stuff from her but emotionally you are bereft and that is all on them. You are likely mired in fear, obligation and guilt; three buttons they installed onto you. None of what happened to you is your fault in any way. Its of no surprise to me either that both have alienated themselves from family and friends; there are good reasons why people do not want to have anything to do with either of them.

You in turn are going to have to let go of any and all hope they will change and or say sorry because that will not happen either. You will need to grieve for the relationship you should have had rather than the one you actually got.

You cannot help either of them but you can help you here.
I would urge you to find a BACP registered therapist you can work with. Interview such people carefully and at length before choosing any particular one person. Have a read too of the Out of the FOG website.

@KettrickenSmiled I have never heard the term parentification before but looking at your link, it does fit in with my childhood. Therapy is something I'm now considering because I think my relationship with them has actually given me commitment and intimacy issues in my other relationships. Also now realising that I let them both convince me to divorce my exH because what I thought then was my mum looking out for me, is just her paranoid delusions. Because she now denies she every said anything negative about him and can't understand why I divorced him. Even when I showed her the long emails she wrote denouncing my marriage, she denies writing them and my father says nothing. Thank you very much for these links.

@Watchkeys You've really given me something to think about because so much of why I stay close to them is fear of how society will judge me for cutting contact with them. I too played my part in enabling my parents and never confided in anyone how bad things were at home. So feel conscious that it looks like I'm being an ungrateful, selfish person abandoning my nice parents.

@AttilaTheMeerkat My parents both had very comfortable/well off but emotionally negligent childhoods. Interestingly they were both fairly low contact with their own parents - and I never spent much time with either set of grand parents. I know it's an excuse that they won't get divorced because of what society would say, they have peers who have divorced. They are just codependent.

Interestingly that is exactly what prompted me to question my relationship with my dad. That he didn't care that I was being physically threatened and verbally abused everyday, he wanted me to accept it, and carry on playing happy families for his sake.

Do you have any advice on how to pick the right counsellor?

Oh OP, I'm so sorry you've gone through all this. Look up Spousification of a child, (also called parentification) as I think this is what your father has done to you. You are right to go LC with him and NC with your mother, they have treated you very unfairly.

https://www.divorcemag.com/blog/effects-of-spousification-on-a-child

Re your parents, history has a nasty habit of repeating itself. Instead of seeking the necessary help (and they will never do this) they reenacted and otherwise repeated their own childhoods on you.

Ask lots of questions of the counsellor and choose carefully before deciding. You need to find someone who fits in with your approach.

I am also sorry you've gone through all this. None of this was of your doing or fault; this is all on them.

LC or NC are about protecting you. Like going into a bomb shelter. You describe a hellish relationship. Not surprised you want to keep clear.

Do you have children and do you want them to have some sort of relationship with their grandparents/family heritage? That would be my reason to maintain contact.

It does not sound like the OP has children but if she is a parent and or would like to become one I would be advising her to keep them well away from both her parents.

If a parent/relative is too toxic/difficult/abusive etc to deal with, its the SAME deal for the kids too. Children also need emotionally healthy role models; neither of OPs parents here fit that particular bill.

OP - as for picking the right counsellor, there may be some element of trial and error. You need to find someone you feel comfortable with so that you can discuss things fully with them.

I was brought up by emotionally abusive parents - it took me until my 50s to realise, although in my 40s I started seriously questioning the situation. I started therapy a few months ago.

You will see a lot of therapists advertising CBT. I have found that is OK in terms of one particular issue you are having a problem with. However for issues stemming from childhood (and indeed from your own parents' childhoods and possibly further back) I think you need to look for someone who will mainly use a psychodynamic approach. Preferably they will have some experience of dealing with childhood emotional trauma.