Would anyone be interested in an Emotionally Immature Parents thread?

[Thundertoast]

Sorry if this has already been done somewhere and ive missed it!
I do dip into the stately homes threads, but wonder if people would be up for a support thread for emotionally immature parents specifically, rather than narcissistic parents which is its own beast of a topic...
I know this time of year can be incredibly frustrating and bring up old wounds, so just in case anyone else is in the same boat, and wanted a rant/cry/chat, there's a mulled wine here ready for you.

Shout out to the amazing book on the topic 'Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, Or Self-Involved Parents by Lindsay Gibson)

I'll start: have the annual festive 'performance' with emotionally immature parent scheduled. Last years was a disaster that let to me for the first time in my life approaching them to go 'what the fuck was that, you cannot behave that way and expect me to want to spend time with you' (in a nutshell, sulking and nastiness all evening) which was met with tears and denial and more tears and profuse apologies and guilt laden requests for comfort, and since then any meetups have had a heavy air of 'im so very sad and small and tiptoeing around you because I just want you to be happy'
Of course, I have tiptoed around their rages and moods my entire life, and have always sucked it up to keep the peace and keep the mood light, even when they have behaved like a sullen teenager, so the fact they are now behaving like a wounded animal does not induce sympathy in me, just annoyance and frustration that they cant suck it up and think 'Although im sad, my child shouldn't have to continue to deal with my feelings about me upsetting them'

Hope that if anyone's out there and in a similar boat they can come along and commiserate!

Another signing in. What a wonderful safe haven, thank you.

@gruffaloshmuffalo do you have any other siblings, uncles etc or are you NC with everyone now then? You could move away, if you find you're getting judgement from everyone around you. I did and it's really relaxing knowing that my family have no idea who my friends, acquaintances and colleagues are and there's no chance I'll randomly bump into the most difficult family when I'm out and about. Obviously don't give them your new address if you do move, knowing they can't just show up at the door if I don't answer their messages feels great too.

At the moment I'm mostly dealing with grief over the loss of a sibling relationship. Although this person is problematic themselves and we've never been close, they're able to display basic surface manners most of the time (and I put up with their nastiness the rest of the time, for the sake of seeing niece and nephew). I don't think estrangement would have happened if it weren't for the difficult parent causing upset all round. Of course, I'm seen as the problem because I don't come running when parents snap their fingers and I insist on behaving like I'm a human being with my own life 😐 . I'm lucky, I have another sibling and we're good.

@MallardsMoorhensAndLethe
I'm one of a few siblings. On 'Team dad' there's me, and a brother who lives abroad. One sibling is in the middle, he's doing a great job at just staying neutral, but the others are on 'team mum' so are buying her BS hook, line, and sinker. Without even asking me what happened.

I've got high school children and we've just moved house, so I'm here for a bit. But I'm lucky enough to have a good set of people around me as support. Just gets heavy sometimes. We bought a new house last may (same town) and literally only 2 siblings have been here. I've made clear that it's my happy place and no one else is invited

I know the sibling grieve well, and I'm sorry you're going through it. I'm learning to be kinder to myself but my inner 8 year old is crushed it's all happening. I'm so sorry you're in this boat

Does anyone else have a golden child/narcissistic sibling? Or is there a thread for that? That's the one that seems to dominate my life now. I seem to of become a target in their campaign. I thought I had the right mix of low contact/no contact but now I'm seeing I need to pull back further again. I don't think I can be a part of the family at all. I'm already the black sheep. I can't stand feeling like I'm being pulled back into the whole circus. 😴

My DB and I alternate. Currently it's his turn. Previously she claimed she wasn't leaving him any money as he'd spend it unwisely.

Yes, it's my youngest brother and my other brother and I alternate for "worst" child. Except we are both now NC and he was worst child when he stopped contact, which means he is stuck with it forever.

I find it very interesting to observe how my parents (whilst allegedly treating us all equally) treat their 3 children. In fact, before I went NC I often found myself observing the situation as though I was not part of it (I've learnt since that this was dissociation) and it was so blatant it was almost funny.

@gruffaloshmuffalo I am also the bad guy for stopping my parents having a relationship with their beloved grandchildren. Who are both now young adults with their own phones and email addresses that my parents know. Guess how many times my parents have tried to phone or email them? Yep, none. And yet I am the one "stopping them".

Can I join you all?

Only child who had to parent my own parents from a young age. I was 12 years old when my dad bought me a desk for Christmas and it was presented to me still flat packed in the box. He has always been wilfully helpless and unable to do nearly anything practical. We had no screwdrivers to put it together and my mum just shrugged her shoulders. I had to ask a neighbour to help me assemble it about 2 months later. I think it was then I realised that my parents didn't behave the same way as my friends parents did.

Mum loved me to the best of her capabilities but she is a very negative, glass half empty jealous person with no friends. Neither of them understand the concept of give and take re friendships, they just take, which is why they ended up lonely in old age. The way my parents spoke to one another was really nasty too, although it was absolutely normal for them, like some kind of default setting.

I often wonder if they have what could be described as mild learning difficulties with emotional immaturity. Like a previous poster said I don't think I've ever had an adult conversation with either of them about anything serious or meaningful.

I was always emotionally blackmailed to do things for them and I always remember my mother would say how selfish children were that moved away. I'm sure the only reason she had me was so she would have company and someone to look after her.

My mother is now in a care home with dementia and honestly its a relief to know that someone else is responsible for her care.
My father is living independently but he also has dementia. I wash his clothes, make him dinner a couple of times a week, take him to see my mum in the care home at the weekend and attend doctors appointments with him. His entire world consists of sitting watching old tv reruns and going to the bookmakers to bet on horse racing.

My adult children have virtually nothing to do with them as their crass language and vile way of talking to each other was really upsetting for them when growing up.

I really envy people who have caring supportive parents. I feel really sad that the young me didn't have a mum or dad that was a friend or someone they could call if they needed help or advice.

Sorry about the rant

That was an interesting rant ( not a rant but interesting thoughts) mine are the same from the point I went to secondary school I brought myself up it was like I was the parent and they were the children have never had a sensible conversation with mine either. Plus they played favourites with their 3 children and it’s always been very obvious I was not the favourite . They say mean things about and fall out with other people most notably their neighbours. Moved out of one house because of a neighbour issue in the new house the new neighbours called the police about my parents behaviour , I was shocked and they just laughed. People reap what they sow x

I didn’t read it as a rant, more a well written and thoughtful description of your experience.

Oh my god…I read your comment and that is exactly what I do with my own mother…I was diagnosed with a brain tumour and whilst I was waiting to find out if it was malignant or not which as you can imagine is very scary and stressful, I kept quiet and told her nothing. I couldn’t face her making it all about herself and how worried she felt and how she’s not sleeping. Fortunately I have a fabulous husband who supported me through it till I found out it was benign. I filter everything as can’t face all the drama.

You and your young self are welcome here 💕 sorry that you had that experience growing up, that must be so hard

And welcome to everyone else who has joined and shared their stories. I hope the post christmas cool down from family 'stuff' is going okay for you all.

I'm over Christmas/New Year now. They started trying to drag me into their nonsense but I chose to ignore it completely. There's one who doesn't take part in the drama, who's messages I replied to. The rest either haven't contacted me at all or they have but tried to start something, so I've ignored them all. I've had no emotional angst from doing that, just pure peace. I've reached that point where I'm just done.

I'm sure I'll hear from some of them again at some point. They like to pretend we're all just one big happy family, for some reason. I expect to face continuing attempts, by some of them, to draw me into that charade.

I'll send the usual birthday and Christmas cards to be polite too.

They're not used to me behaving in this way. I've made a concerted effort to uphold my own boundaries this year and not be drawn into their nonsense or manipulated into lowering my own boundaries so they can get what they wanted by walking all over them. So I don't know what they think of it all or what schemes they may be plotting next.

It's so strange to think these people are middle aged and older, yet it feels like dealing with school bullies and playground level arguing. I've come to the conclusion that if they were capable of growing up they'd have done so by now.

Be interesting to see what 2026 brings.

Hey everyone. How are you all? I made the decision to update my mother last week about something quite serious concerning my child. She hasn’t even bothered to respond. I’m not sure why I updated her, I felt like she had a right to know. A total
waste of energy on my part.

In other news I am really considering having some proper therapy to help me unpick all of the stuff linked to my childhood, relationships etc etc. I feel like it’s my time to open that Pandora’s box.

how hurtful and disappointing. But there is your line in the sand if you want it to be.
I would be totally done after that .

So sorry to hear you've got a situation with your child going on at the moment, hope you are doing okay. And hope you are not on edge waiting for a possible response out of nowhere? Therapy sounds like a look idea, even if its just to say it all out loud to a neutral party, sometimes thats enough.
Doing okay here, not heard from parent for a few weeks, but its their birthday soon so will have to get in contact and then spend the 2 days prior to a birthday meetup anxious and the day after decompressing. But I feel ready for it, after a break.

I think we need to change the title to cover all family members. I am slapping myself tonight for trying to explain to my emotionally immature family, trying to get them to see that I’m doing something right and not to be drawn into their drama. Obviously it was a total waste of time. I should know this by now.

You are very welcome here 💕
Ah yes, the feeling after you get wound up about something, then get annoyed at yourself for expending any energy on it at all (especially when you know the other person likely wont give it a second thought)

Yep that’s me in a nutshell. I wish I didn’t care so much.

I've been in two minds as to whether to post anything on this thread, but I've read all the comments and have found myself nodding and agreeing to behavioural traits that are common to my parents.

I've tried typing stuff out but there is so much stuff I can remember that it would be pages and pages long...and boring.

But being a child of the 70s/80s, I've always had in the back of my mind, things like 'well, that's how they parented back then' or 'they did the best they could' or 'they didn't know better because of their own upbringing'.

But how come I've learned from their mistakes and make a conscious effort to not inflict the bad stuff onto my own DC?! I swear to god I have PTSD as a result of my childhood (not physically abusive but definitely abusive in other ways) and now my DPs are 82/79 and both in ill health, the resentment I feel towards them, whilst doing some caring elements for them both, is very hard to deal with.

I hear you, @Citrusbergamia I have such a similar experience and thought process about it all.

Citrus

There’s no justification or excuse for how you’ve been treated . Their best was not good enough. You were parented by abusive people and abuse cuts across all classes, generations and creeds. They had a choice when it came to you and they chose the same old that was likely done to them. They did not seek nor wanted to seek the necessary help.

You chose not to treat your children how you were treated so the cycle of dysfunction and abuse stopped at you. You also have two qualities they lack: empathy and insight.

You are also under no obligation to provide any of their care needs.

@AttilaTheMeerkat thank you. and @glendabrownlow

Attila your last sentence - absolutely true and I had a spot of counselling last year which made me see the light a little and I've stepped back enormously. Had a few comments from DM about not spending much time with her but I'm ignoring and the comments have now stopped. I still feel so much guilt though.

But as I read on another thread on here somewhere 'I'd rather deal with the guilt than deal with my resentment'.

The guilt is another one of the buttons they installed in you. Have a look at the website called out of the fog.

And do you think your parents have felt guilty or remorse about how they’ve treated you - no not a bit of it. Such people never apologise nor accept any responsibility for their actions.