Have you successfully reduced time with emotionally abusive parents?

[VerlynWebbe]

I am curious about how you felt when you started changing the way you behaved towards them, and how you feel now?

I know there are a number of people on Mumsnet who have come to terms (or are in the process) with the fact that their parents aren’t able to love/respect them. I spent many years feeling bewildered as to why my father would not look at me and see a strong, thoughtful, moderately successful, hard-working and happy person. He would pick out character flaws (sometimes things I was worried about, but he didn’t know that) and focus on them, or invent scenarios where I was an awful person. Over the years, I have been useless, interfering, had my head in the clouds, been a fantasist, been lazy (as a sahm for a while…), useless again.

Something happened a few years ago with family, where I realised he doesn’t like any of us, actually, and he will never be different. At first, I was mortified that I hadn’t ever considered that he didn’t actually like me, when it was bleedin’ obvious. He said terrible things! I would go back over past things he’d said and done, and berate myself for not having seen it. I’d imagine how good things could have been for me if I had spotted this in my teens. And then I realised I did, in fact, consider it in my teens, I just didn’t believe it could be possible. I lied to myself for years.

Now I’ve come out the other side (I think?) and I feel quite calm about him. We aren’t estranged, but I don’t make too much effort to contact him, and he’s never used this against me, so I guess it’s fine. He rarely messages or calls me, and we see each other about once a year. I’m more adept at spotting his patterns of behaviour, and my responses to them, and I find it easy to manage.

But there’s still a sadness, isn’t there? And I know in my heart it’s not because of who I am inside, I know it’s him (he treats so many people this way) but I am still gutted when I remember things he said when I was a little girl. Is there ever an end point where you just feel fine?

@cerisepanther73 I'm ok not having therapy at the moment. I feel like I understand the situation as far as I need to, I am a happy person in myself, self-esteem is good, I obviously have trigger points but I can handle them (usually), my husband is aware and is a big support. (He has seen a couple of things unfold, my dad behaving very coldly, so that helps.) My children are old enough to just shrug and say 'grandad is a bit of an arse, isn't he?' and they realise he's not going to suddenly take an interest in them. It's as good an outcome as I can expect, I think!

Chanced upon this thread while having one of my periodic bouts of deep sadness and enervation about my parents.

I’m embracing us all in a hug, because I suspect the absence of hugs and love and joy and pride characterised all of our childhoods.

I feel such a sense of loss, shame, grief, anger about it all. I am a shadow of the woman I could have been.

It is what it is. They are damaged people who damaged me, but the children in my life know only love from me, and that’s how I am healing.

Have you told her to get out once she starts? You don’t have to tolerate her coming round, your home is your safe space. Please kick her out the second she starts the abuse, whether she’s capable or your stepfather is of driving, tough, call a taxi, be firm, don’t keep letting her invalidate you like this, it’s disgusting of her.

I think you're on your way there, but it sounds like you'd like the comfort of feeling like you're not alone in this. At the end of the day, you're sort of completing a grief period, so it's understandable. Sometimes the only way is to maintain a distance.

My Dad does things for me. He's dutiful, would not withhold financial help if I really needed it, and at times I think he feels quite neutral, but I think if he were honest with himself, he'd admit that he's never liked me, not even when I was a child. It comes comes out in nasty comments because that's what he feels under the surface and either finds it difficult to control it, or doesn't want to. He enjoys bullying me and pushing me around on an emotional level because he genuinely enjoys it (often evidenced by the smirk and delight on his face), and I think he harbours deep resentment at the fact that I was born, for some reason. I used to think it was parenting, but now I realise he's used parenting as an opportunity to put me down and be domineering.

@NarrowGate 😥

My upbringing was so much better than most horrific stories I hear, but my parents are large part of why I didn't want to have children when I was younger (and I've ended up childless and alone anyway due to me leaving an unhealthy relationship). It's why when I was much younger, I had no rose tinted glasses as to what family life could actually be like. When other young women glowed at the possibility of starting a family in the future, I was either not bothered or negative about the whole thing. My mum clearly made her feelings known and didn't hold back as to how much of a disappointment and freak I was.

Hugs are the best. I don't expect anything from my parents but I get lots at home and from friends (and give lots too) - I hope that's the same for you.

Sometimes I feel I could have been much more with the right family, a more normal version. In recent years I've sort of embraced a kind of acceptance though that just living out a very modest and happy life is more than enough.

Being around similar people, making sure I am happy enough and they are happy enough and we get to enjoy our time alive: I find that calming. It's not quite nihilism and not quite stoicism, I don't know what it is. So you making sure you love and the children around you are loved: that's a massive victory, actually.

I just deny it . Or use selective memory. Can't remember. I did this to my mother once when she tried to embarrass me in front of people at a party. I just denied it and told her to slow down her drinking and walked off . She was absolutely furious.

Hahahaha he did that to me for years! There was something the last time we met, actually, that I genuinely didn't remember (and I know I am right) - he kept at it and kept at it, trying to make me admit my mistake. So yes it does annoy him! Love that story of your mother...must have felt great.

"Recollections may vary" with an 🙄, and laugh!

Most effective.