How do I handle this? Feeling really cross with both DPs

[Toomanypastries]

Hi,

I actually don't know where to start, but to cut a long story short, I feel really upset and let down with my DPs, but for different reasons.

My dad has always been physically there, but emotionally distant. I know he loves me, but shows no interest in me at all. Has always been very awkward around me and talks to strangers easier than he does to me. I really struggled through my teens and he really was awful during that time. Left it all to my mum and would just yell at me and would often call me a "little shit". When I say I struggled, I don't mean I was a trouble maker, I mean I had severe social anxiety and depression and sometimes couldn't leave the house. It was very dark time and I still struggle today. There was also a physical incident which I have been getting a lot of flash backs to recently and I have a lot of anger about it, understably.

My mum always showed a lot of love and still does, but is becoming more and more self absorbed, rude and defensive. This was always her personality, but I think as she's aged, it's just becoming amplified.

I lost it with her over the weekend, as her rudeness was on another level, but she couldn't see she had done anything wrong. I am surprised at how angry I still am. I thought maybe things would have blown over, but this last episode was just a step too far and I'm struggling to move past it.

Another big issue is that they both drink a lot and encouraged me to drink from a young age. My mum now just lies and says that's not the case, that I was a difficult teen and that I insisted they bought me drink! How could I insist...as a child?! I think I believed that for a long time, but now I have a teen dd, who they also encourage to drink (!), I realise what a load of rubbish that was. On holiday I'd be drunk on margaritas and shots at 14 and they just laughed.

I now drink too much and whereas I know I have to take responsibility for that as an adult, I do feel quite a bit of resentment when I think how normalised it was and just how much I was encouraged.

We see each other a lot and most of the time I can bite my tongue, bury my feeling and bad memories, but I can't seem to do that so well these days.

I don't know what to do, if anything. I love them both a lot, but something has to change doesn't it? I am very mindful that they're now in their 70's, but that can't excuse everything.

I know that feeling loved by both parents is a privilege and not everyone had/has that, but is that really all that matters? Do I just suck it up and accept they'll never change - my mum will always be rude and difficult and my dad won't ever be interested in me?

I don't really know what I'm expecting out of this. I suppose writing it down is quite cathartic, but I suppose it would be nice to get some advice.

Thanks for reading.

You need to get into counselling. You need to explore these feelings with someone who can properly support you through it and help you process. Anger is often the surface level emotion we feel when we begin to process these difficult times in our lives and what lies beneath that anger is often more difficult feelings of loss and sadness. If you can get in counselling and work through those difficult feelings, you’ll be in a much better position to then approach your parents if you feel you still need to. Ask yourself, what do you expect to achieve by confronting them? What would you realistically gain from doing that? Would it be more productive for you to work through your own feelings about your childhood and come to a better place within yourself, regardless of whether you decide to confront your parents or not? You’ve clearly had a very difficult time and you need support but given what you’ve said, I don’t think you’ll be able to get that from your parents at this time. So, put in place the support you need with someone who is best placed to provide the best possible help.

Therapy with someone good, seeing less of your parents, and making more time in your life for other people and other influences. Your parents aren't going to change, and expressing your anger at them isn't going to change anything in the relationship. Therapy will give you a place to explore it and express it, and focus on yourself, and coming to terms with and mitigating the impact of your parenting.

Thanks @TipsyJoker and @EggnogAnd

I actually have had quite a bit of therapy over the years and my relationship with my dad specifically came up quite a bit. I'm not sure I've ever really allowed myself to properly process those feelings though. Maybe I have a block. Maybe I had bad therapists.

I think I felt like I should just be grateful that he was there. So many of my friends didn't have their dads in their lives and I think I assumed his lack of interest and awkwardness around me was my fault. Maybe subconsciously I still do a bit.

It would be difficult to distance myself from them now. They moved last year to be closer to us and we are all they have really. My mum especially, would be mortified if I started seeing them less.

Maybe the fact they have moved nearer is making the unprocessed pain and trauma worse. Maybe your therapy has given you a little bit of permission to have insight.

Maybe this new anger is your life and your body and your mind shouting louder to alert you to danger. They don't treat you well, never have done, and you need to be safe.

Take care of yourself- your real self, not the self that's masking and pleasing them.

To earn the right to be in your life, people need to treat you the way you want to be treated. It doesn't matter who they are. No exceptions. Period.

They need to learn as a dog or a child would, that if their behaviour is unacceptable, there are repercussions to that. They don't have a free pass to abuse you or talk to you like shit because they're your parents. if your mum is upset because you're seeing her less, encourage her to revisit why that's the case and why it's a situation of her own making.

Secondly, you are living your childhood again through their treatment of your daughter. She does not deserve this. Defend her at all costs and never leave her alone in situations with them, especially if alcohol could be involved.

My mum especially, would be mortified if I started seeing them less.

She has absolutely no right to be anything of the sort. Actually I doubt that she would be mortified at all, she would be absolutely furious. She has absolutely no right to demand anything of you at all, or force you to do anything you don't want to do.

You are still angry over what happened at the weekend. Hold on to that totally justifiable anger and use it to galvanise you into action. Both your parents were (and still are) abusive, and you are an adult who can say enough is enough. You do not have to do what they want any more.

Realistically, they are in their 70s and they are not going to change now. You can change your own behaviour and instil some boundaries (see them less often, not accept certain behaviours) but, as you have found, they are unlikely to understand the issues. It's too late.

I sympathise, my mother was uninterested and neglectful. She's now got severe dementia and our relationship was never resolved because she refused to take any responsibility. When I was in my 40s I moved a long distance away which solved a lot of the problems!

Slightly different take from me. They're not going to change BUT you are in a window before they become decisively more frail and expect to be able to rely on you a lot, and before, I presume, dementia kicks in and there is just no hope of a meaningful conversation about earlier points in your life. So I would urge you to think carefully, possibly with the help of a counsellor, about what you might calmly want to say to them, and what boundaries you might want to set, while you are still able to do it and have them understand - even if they deny things you've said and push back, which I think is likely. There might be some respite and comfort for you in being able to say that you forgive them their shitty treatment of you (not up for discussion or debate, it was shitty, you're not asking their permission to call it that) and you will be there for them but you will also have limits on that for your own sake. No running yourself ragged, and no independent access to your daughter given how they were with you.

Don't be a pushover. Lots of older people expect to have things the way they want them, just because, when with anyone else we'd say 'just not possible' but here the parent-related guilt weighs on us. You can say no and you can limit the time you spend with them or doing things for them, and that's better done now, than 3 or 5 years on when they'll have told social services that you do all their care anyway and everyone will expect you just to be at their beck and call. Draw a line. Put yourself first - they did! and your child first, which they didn't.