I wish I had a nice pair of loving parents.

[PeachDelany]

I'm middle-aged now but this still gets me down. My dm walked out when I was a young child and never looked back. My df went to prison and won't be released. I went into care. I estranged myself from extended family because none of them are healthy adults or they're not too bad but don't want a relationship with me. It's so sad. Just to have a coffee with a nice parent, or go on a walk, or paint a wall together would be so lovely.

And breathe...

I'm in exactly the same position OP so feel your pain. Mine are dead now but were completely lacking in parenting skills or even really wanted children. I got sent away at 11.

I hope you now have your own family although it never really fills the void

💐

My dad left at 5 never to be seen again and my mum well.... we are no contact after years of her terrible behaviour. My own kids will never ever experience what I did and I always make sure we do breakfast or coffee or something. The biggest privilege I have is them and their love I don't feel a void. 1. I can't fill what I never had and 2. I am at peace with it a d know nothing I could do would change anything. look after yourself op xx

Unfortunately, I think this is a loss that will be with us for the rest of our lives.

I found the 'fried egg' or 'growing around grief' model helped me a lot with my expectations (I thought I should be 'over it' by now) and I became at peace with this part of me that was missing and forever lost. Losing a parent as a child and the remaining parent being uncapable of parenting too is a deep loss. 💐.

As I've got older I've also come to realise that is having the kind of parents I dreamed of is fairly rare. I don't really see my hole as much different to DH's who has 'difficult/emotionally immature' parents he doesn't like now that we're well past childhood. He wishes he had nice loving parents too, as do several of my friends. It doesn't help of course but it doesn't feel so alone/being different as it did when I was younger.

I feel you OP. I was also in care. My dad died years ago and my mum was absent, incapable of parenting. Extended family have never been interested in me. It feels like a gaping hole in my soul sometimes and I get so envious of other people my age with parents. So envious of other people’s childhoods. I have to keep myself in check or it can eat me up. I’m not sure I’ll ever make peace with it entirely but I’m getting there.

❤️ to everyone on this thread.

My always difficult parents got exponentially worse with age. You have my sympathies OP. I'm not in contact any more with them.

I feel this OP. My mum was loving, but her moods were high or low and her emotions ruled our house. She stormed off to bed, took an overdose in a tantrum and accidentally killed herself after we had a small argument. That’s a massive head fuck. My dad may as well have died the same day. He went from being emotionally absent (I think as she was so emotional all the time) to just absent. Soon he was off with a new girlfriend. My sister and I got given his credit card (he’s very well off) and bought what we needed for ourselves. No other family.

There’s a house on my street (about 10 doors down) that looks just like the house I’d like my dream parents to live in. I secretly think about going there for a Sunday dinner or popping in for a cuppa and a hug.

My own DC are amazing. I adore them. I still have a big hole in my heart though that’s missing parents. I wish I’d chosen better in laws too.

I can’t miss what I never had my mother disappeared when I was eight only saw her twice then at 19 then 22 she died 10 years ago. Father was around wasn’t interested lucky if I saw him four times a year. I was dumped on an aunt who didn’t want me. He tried to make it up the last years of his life, I do feel for you wanting this.

Tell me about it...

Feeling your pain. ♥️💐💯

It leaves scars which don't heal, I'm always reading books about loving and parenting the inner child and childhood emotional neglect so I see why I am as I am (an outsider whose wary of everybody) but it doesn't stop me grieving the family and love I wished I had.

@PeachDelany that must have been truly awful. I'm so sorry you had to deal with that.
I think lots of women had undiagnosed mental health issues back in the day.

Very sorry. Me too - parents deliberately cruel and only really interested in themselves. Had a boyfriend in my late teens who had lovely parents who my parents looked down on because they didn't have much money. I still think about them and realise how lucky that boyfriend was. Needless to say, I am a much better parent than mine ever were.

I'm really sorry to hear all this. It is really strange, isn't it? My dad wasn't very involved in my life growing up (saw him a few times a year, never spent the night at his house or went out to do anything together, he'd come to my mum's for lunch for a few hours and then go home and I'd not seem him again for a few months). He died when I was 18. I am NC with my mum as she met and married a child sexual offender about 15 years ago.

In an odd way, I find it all quite normal. I've never had a loving two parent family growing up and I've spent more of my adult life than not without one/both of my parents. So it's my normal now. But there are days when it still knocks the wind out of me.

Like Christmas, I find I really struggle with dh's whole family being all over us, staying with us, showing up with gifts, coming for meals, just lingering about. They are absolutely lovely. But I find it's really too much to have them here a lot of the time, and I think it's because I can't grasp what it's really like to have family who love you and want to be in your life. Just seems very foreign.

I also look at my children and am just astonished at what a strangely different life they have to what I know. They have two very involved parents, who live together, love each other, are dedicated to them, come to school activities, etc. Some days I think I'm doing a crap job at parenting and life, but I try to remind myself that so far, I'm holding it all together better than my parents did, so that has to be something.

☕️💐

I've been N/C with my parents since I was 16. My mother was unspeakably emotionally abusive to me throughout my childhood and I required regular counselling all through my 20s to unpick it. My dad although not abusive stood by and let it happen, was clearly scared of her and put up with her affairs and subsequent birth of my sister and did nothing. I didn't even know my sister and I were half sisters until a family member slipped up when I was 24.

I don't miss them, at all. You can't miss someone who is as damaging as that.

However, I often miss the idea of having a set of parents I could rely on, who I could call on on times of stress. It was especially prevalent during my pregnancy with DD when a friend was also pregnant and I had to watch as they went out with mum and sister and did all the lovely baby stuff you do. I was ashamed to be a little jealous as I wasn't pissed off with my friend but with my situation and lack of family bonds.

It was worse yet when I had DS and he was born very premature. We nearly lost him and at one point a very officiant consultant was very offhand and said if he didn't pick up and improve they would let him go. No compassion at all and left me shell shocked and I would have given anything to have a mum to call and cry to and be comforted by. Just the action of someone saying it will be alright.
Of course I had DH and his family but I'm not particularly close to his siblings and I felt it keenly.

So yes I totally understand how you feel. I would love to say it gets easier but of course so many things and people can be replaced but a family isn't one of those things.

Yeah I hear you

I often think about how much nicer my life would have been if I had parents (or even a parent) who was actually present and gave a shit

it really clouds your world view