They fuck you up...

[ThisBeTheVersePL]

I have a fairly good relationship with my parents, but also some deep-seated resentment as certain things have become clear.

I am middle-aged, single and childless. My longest relationship lasted just over two years and my last relationship ended over twenty years ago. I have dated many men since, but can't seem to get anything to stick for longer than a few months. I also seem to attract men with strongly avoidant tendencies and link this with having a father who was physically and emotionally absent for much of my childhood.

In addition I have very low self-esteem and am prone to anxiety. I've had two breakdowns and other periods of bad mental health.

I expect people will say you can't blame your parents for everything, and I do appreciate that, but I also think that things such as self-esteem and attachment patterns which are basically set in childhood are their fault to some extent. I try hard not to repeat patterns and I've had many years of therapy in an effort to change things, but it simply hasn't worked and I now feel quite lonely and disappointed with how life has turned out.

How can I make peace with this?

(Please don't post advice on how to meet men - I have tried it all.)

I get this 100%
I’m 44, single parent and multiple failed relationships. I have everything to attract men on paper and I’m attractive and out going with lots of friends.

But I’m awful in relationships, I push them away, time after time. I don’t feel worthy or good enough…

Not sure what to do tbh as I’ve tried therapy but nothing has worked!

But yes I believe it stems from my mums awful relationships either with men! Only recently have I thought this….

The thing is, where does it get you? Blaming them. They could blame their parents and so on. At some point it’s time to work on ourselves just because passing the buck is not a solution.

I am not talking about abusive parents, just the normal kind, muddling through, being imperfect. I’m one of those now.

What I mean is…they may be responsible for some of our behaviours, of course. But once you’ve identified that, it’s an emotional cul de sac. Even if you have a moment where they accept responsibility, and apologise, it doesn’t change the here and now, we can only do that ourselves.

I was never really love properly as a child due to various reasons , divorce etc my parents were never shown love so I believe they didn’t know how to so it was learnt behaviour, I find it easy to attract men no problem , but I find myself not wanting anything serious and then pushing their boundaries, I maybe should have had therapy and I am trying to work on it, but I just be an absolute pain to be in a relationship with.

I had an awful childhood i mean awful.
But i dont blame i could but it wont get me anywhere not going to change things.
I wont let my past ruin my futuer.
Im still hear, im not in the gutter, im not dead, i done good for myself i do good things.
My past is where it should be in the past.

Have you had therapy to address your low self esteem?
And I would suggest building your own support network of friends by joining in community groups and projects, if you are able to. Sending positive energy and love.

I find therapy transformational. I would never have realised how dysfunctional, coercive and emotionally abusive my family situation was and is without it. It helps you see reality, then act accordingly. That usually just means identifying and establishing good personal boundaries and accepting most people won't change.

If you want children, that biological drive is very strong and will drive the search for a man. I feel sad that biology does this. The reality of the experience is not imo anything like we kid ourselves it is.

Therefore - I suggest you spend every moment thinking about what you love and what your needs are and do what it takes to meet them. Things you love. Music. Hobbies. Passions. Things you are probably really skilled in and don't even realise because your brain is on 'work, man, relationship, society says I must be this and that' nonsense.

If you have a strong need to nurture, can you get this somewhere that is safe and reliable? There are various options.

All I ever see is misery and difficulty with relationships and child rearing. If that biological driver was turned down ( as it does eventually) everything feels different.

Even good, loving parents make mistakes and are a product of their own upbringing. My parents loved us but they weren't perfect and they got things wrong at times - they lost my eldest sibling and for a time were barely able to function and for a good few years family life was really tough before we all started to come through the enormous fog of grief and despair. It definitely effected me but I don't blame my parents as they were barely surviving themselves.

I would explore in therapy how you feel your childhood effected you and hopefully you'll come to a place of understanding and even forgiveness.

I think it’s bollocks. I had an abusive childhood. Father was a violent alcoholic, depressed mother. I’ve been happily married 26 years. I did always feel I was responsible for my own outcomes and happiness though even as a child.

They may not mean to but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had.
And add some extra just for you.

I agree they don't "mean to", and in a way there's nothing to be gained by apportioning blame (although I certainly don't think it's bollocks that your upbringing profoundly affects some of the most fundamental parts of your psychological make-up).

I guess I'm just feeling a bit lonely and defeated. I don't expect I'll meet anyone now - my efforts have failed so very many times that I don't see that changing at this point, which is fucking depressing given that I don't want to be on my own for the next 40-odd years. When I spend time with people who have their own family, or even just a partner, it's like entering an entirely different world that I'm not allowed to be part of.

I get it OP. I'm very similar. I've only had three long term relationships. the longest lasting about 3.5 years. I grew up in a home with DV and a DM that was manipulative and overbearing. It was obvious my DM didn't love my DF, there were lots of fighting, silent treatment, and toxicity in my childhood.

And for some reason it made me feel like the "peacemaker". I have a guilty conscience, even if I haven't done anything, so my DM was able to control me because of that. She had so much influence over me that I pushed the best man I have ever met away, made him seem not important compared to my DM. After that, I only met one other person that I really loved but I put blinders on and ignored red flags because I had been looking for love for 20 years by that time. Then he cheated on me. And really it was my fault cause all the signs were there that he didn't really love me, but I held on to any scrap of him I could get. After that I basically gave up.

I met someone else who i had an off and on thing with. Didn't really like him, but he was someone to talk to and fill in the gaps when I felt lonely. Unfortunately I used him as a crutch and didn't even think of dating for over a decade. I finally blocked him as he became extremely toxic, and now I'm old and ugly and I know I will never meet anyone. And I know it's because of the trauma of my childhood. I wish I had been stronger like my sister, but I was the weak one, and it's affected my relationships (or lack of them).

Goodness, someone was saying on another thread how poor reading comprehension is and despite meaning well, some of these replies do show it.

@ThisBeTheVersePL if the years of therapy hasn't worked, and therapy sometimes doesnt, then maybe some of the excellent advice here can help a bit - friends, concentrating on the skills you are good at. I think almost everyone has a small part of themselves that wants to be cherished and loved for themselves, but it isn't to be for some people. Not everyone who grows up with roots in stony ground can flourish and that's just the truth, although therapy does help some people grow better roots into the oast.

It may not be much comfort but learning what to appreciate what we do have is a good start. Having a pet to love is something valuable. Honestly, very few thinking people get out of life without regrets. Creative work with the hands can over time be surprisingly fulfilling. No one thing is going to take the sadness away, but cŕeativity and having another living being to care for are both valuable.

Sorry I assumed you were a Philip Larkin fan, it's a poem he wrote called This Be The Verse (I know it off by heart) which begins:
They fuck you up, your mum and dad

Reading your thread title just took me right back to my A-levels.

Man hands on misery to man
It deepens like a coastal shelf
Get out as early as you can
And don't have any kids yourself

I'll leave the thread, I'm not adding anything of substance.

Oh wait I've just spotted your username !!

Nice to come across people who remember that poem @VoodooQualities !

Not cheerful tho, is it.

My therapist introduced me to it (even though I did do A-level English!).

@VoodooQualities I though of Philip Larkin straight away too :)

@Evergreen505 I agree with everything you wrote. I’ve found therapy transformational too, and the desire to date has really calmed down now I’m early 40s. Though I still haven’t solved the need for connection and company or found any friends. Leaving a dysfunctional family web is really hard.

@ThisBeTheVersePL Someone up thread said

The thing is, where does it get you? Blaming them. They could blame their parents and so on.

I believe there’s a progression of feelings through grief. Blame feels better than sadness. Anger feels better than blame. Etc. Eventually you get towards acceptance, peace, joy. It takes time. Let yourself feel what you feel. No feeling lasts forever a the more you resist, the more it persists.

You are almost certainly right OP that your attachment difficulty originated with your parents. And as Larkin says, 'man hands on misery to man.' Your parents will have got their attachment style from their parents and so on into the mists of time. No point blaming them.
The point is what you do about it now. Therapy can make a difference. Noticing how you are feeling in relationships to other people (not just romantic relationships), and the process by which your romantic relationships fade out, can also make a difference.

And building up your self esteem can really change things for the better. It's not a question of thinking you are amazing, just believing that you are a flawed human being with some wonderful qualities, like everyone else. There's nothing wrong with you and you aren't 'excluded' from happiness.

Oh the other useful thing I’ve learned in psychotherapy about blame is that it lets you sink into feeling like the victim and helps you move towards actually feeling the depth of what it was really like for you in your relationship with your parents. For someone like me, who’s constantly people-(parent-)pleased and an anxious type (which it sounds like you might be too) it’s been really productive for me to go through that phase of wallowing and feeling resentful and blaming. Anger quickly follows, and I’ve found anger is really the key turning point to being able to move forward.

And sometimes you have to do that cycle over and over to truly move forward, grieving all the pieces of yourself that got fragmented a putting them back together. It’s an upwards spiral really. Feel all the blame you like, have a rant and journal it and speak it out loud to someone very trusted. It’ll pass.

I studied English too.

Having a full understanding of your family origin and experience can help if you're still subject to behaviour from them that is very damaging. So I now acknowledge and see and accept extreme coercion, manipulative behaviour, all the horrible things people do up on the spectrum towards being narcissistic and almost sociopathic. This is my immediately family. It's a huge thing to try and accept.

Knowing this helps me self protect now. Eg keep the fuck as far away emotionally and smile and be pleasant where I have to. Also accepting their brains are not the same as mine. They are damaged etc etc.

Understanding is really important and is not about blame. Blame does happen and rage if you had no clue what you'd dealt with and then start seeing it. You get over that part.in time once you learn to set boundaries to people who can still harm you. You can learn to be alongside once you see it clearly. Or you get away and keep distance, with love in time.

Being around animals and nature is a beautiful place to feel some love you might have missed and still miss. I now adore cuddling a dog more than I'd ever want to a man. I broke through the conditioning and menopause is definitely in process to end that biological drive.

I agree, I’m happily married now but I can see that throughout my twenties and early thirties my comfort zone with men was… Making excuses for there avoidance ways and telling myself, They love me really, Thanks a lot dad!
Im 43 now and have realised only in the last year that I still pick this type with friends, understanding why helps though.

OP, do you think any of these suggestions will help? It's probably along term path, not a short stroll unfortunately.

I wish you some comfort and appreciation in your life and genuine peace at the end. Maybe a good while before the end.

It’s think it’s really unhealthy to blame your parents as an adult. It does not necessarily follow that they f**k you up - that’s the interpretation you have applied.
Everyone can take responsibility for their own lives and be a decent human being and pursue goals. It’s within our own control

I was absolutely the same as you. I was extremely successful as well and had a phd from an elite university. loads of freinds, travelled everywhere, professionally high flying. happy marriage to a wonderful man. I thought it was bollocks too and never felt I had any trauma at all. lived an amazingly full life very different from my parents especially my father. then at 44 I had a psychotic break suddenly from anxiety when I submitted my phd. lost absolutely everythign and they say the root cause was the childhood trauma that had made me so driven fro perfection and prone ot paranoia and anxiety.