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!

A question for everyone - how many of your parents go to church / follow a religion / give to charity etc?

I ask because my experience is that the absolute number 1 priority for these parents is how the world sees them. Being able to wear the ‘good Christian (any faith) badge’ allows my mum to justify her dreadful behaviour often.

My mum doesn't, though we do. She's almost performatively anti church though. We invited her to our DCs' confirmation service and got a two word reply "no thanks".

God this hit so hard. I was always called 'selfish' and uncaring when I think actually I was too much the opposite- a very anxious child, who was too eager to please and continually worried about my mother. My parents were totally wrapped up in each other and had no time for me. My father found me intensely annoying and some sort of 'competition' for my mother's attention. He also sulked. A LOT, He would spend entire weekends in bed becuase he couldn't cope with family life- ie me.
When he was ill, it was just me and my mother. But once he got 'better' I was left on the outside again. Unsurprisingly I ended up in a lot of 'triangulated' abusive relationships with men who found me intensely annoying...

I got to page three of the book and has an anxiety attack , it was just too accurate. Sadly my parents both died very young so I feel like i have been left with a lot of complicated feelings, I miss them so much, especially my mother.

That’s really interesting. My sister thinks that our mum is either autistic or has ADHD and undiagnosed and unsupported, but I’m not 100% convinced. She’s also not yet 60 (like a PP, I feel completely awful but this fills me with dread - I could have another 30 years of dealing with this), so while neurodiversities were unlikely to have been picked up when she was very young, there’s been much more information and support about them in more recent years.

Sorry, that was a long sentence!

My mum isn’t religious but does the ‘pillar of the community’ thing via being a primary school chair of governors.

My mum is also not religious but very much likes to be seen to be doing the right thing, joining committees, charity, endless Facebook posts about good causes and issues. She can contradict herself with the things she says/ supports but if you pull her up on it she gets very defensive or it turns into "poor me, I'm not very clever but I try my best". I am also fairly sure she's autistic and there's a definite element of (mostly covert) narcissism - whilst telling us all that she's not very clever (which is nonsense, but a big hang-up because she dropped out of university), she is also absolutely sure that she knows best about everything and is constantly giving unsolicited advice.

Wow, what a selfish woman. She couldn’t even attend for her grandchild? Bonkers.

We really are not the problem here - it’s our parents.

Mine also knows best and cannot cope with not knowing something - she’ll bluff or lie or if you say ‘actually it’s XYZ’, she’ll say ‘yes that’s what I said’, when she didn’t at all. It’s really disorientating.

Once she ‘raced’ me to Google what ‘sputnik’ meant when my dad asked me because I was studying a Russian module at uni. She couldn’t bear not to be the one to know or to find out. I think it’s a symptom of very low self esteem. I’ve tried really hard over the years to get comfortable with not knowing stuff and saying so, or saying ‘let’s find out’, ‘let me check that and get back to you’ etc with students. (DH and I are both teachers of sorts and despite being a school chair of governors, my mum is very anti-teacher - they’re all thick and lazy, too many holidays and too many unions)

Mine is the same, absolutely useless. Since my dad passed away we see more and more of this behaviour. We just didn’t realise how bad she was, dad used to call her a drama queen, we thought he was being cruel, he wasn’t, we now see what he put up with for years 🤦‍♀️

Wow, my mother does the same, sulks instead of sorting shit out, really bloody annoying. She was knitting the other week and had the head on about something her neighbour had said, sparks were flying off the needles, so childish 🤷‍♀️

Similar. Mines very involved in a sporting club where she gets loads of praise and accolades.

it’s my daughter (her only grandchild) sixteenth birthday today. Because I’ve not facilitated us meeting up she’s not brought her card and present round despite on Christmas Day when we had her round for lunch saying I’ll see you before your birthday. I messaged her on Friday to say did she want to meet us for lunch next weekend to celebrate , she did thanks and will give the child her present then. Yep because when you are 16 you really want your present six days after your birthday. She lives five minutes away and drives. Previously I’d have gone to hers and got it but since seeing the light a few years ago sod that. Obviously child will see it as being not good enough for grandma to make an effort. Grandad who is nearly 90 brought his present round Christmas Day to make sure she had it. Small things in the scheme of things but the self centredness still astounds me.

I've been listening to that audio book - I tend to find myself thinking "oh she's not that bad" and in my childhood I felt like it was my dad who was hard work - but there were also times when I couldn't understand why my mum was being the way she was. I remember going for a walk with family friends and my mum got cross because I was holding the other mum's hand. I must have been about 8.

@TorroFerney my mum tried to persuade us that it was fine to have our Christmas presents late because it was cheaper. On the one hand I think it makes logical sense but it doesn't make emotional sense. I guess that's what's lacking.

Yrs, she doesn’t “get” presents at all. The giving of them I mean. She once had a four pack of beer to give my fil for his birthday and was just going to give it to him in a restaurant, no wrapping or gift bag.

I think I read somewhere that "bad gift givers" is actually a trait of this type of person. As in, they know they have to give a gift, but they don't engage any more thought than that.

My mother was an expert in this field. She used to give gifts that were ostensibly quite nice, but just totally unsuitable for the recipient. I swear she just decided a budget and bought the first thing she saw that cost that much.

Can I join please?

I have a very emotionally immature mother. My sister, who has Downs’ Syndrome still lives with her. I want her to get out and live alone. My sister is in her 40s and has had some huge changes the past few months - OCD like behaviour and will not sleep at night.
My mother has been finding all this very hard apparently. But not hard enough to seek medical advice. Long story short, I managed to get a social worker assigned to my sister’s case and made some GP appointments for her. My mother came to my house and broke down in front of my 8yo DS saying she wishes she was dead or she wishes my sister was. My mother has always been like this. She’s not worried for my sister, she just wants us to be worried for her but then doesn’t lift a finger to do anything for my sister. I called social services AGAIN and told them what my mother had said to me. I told them I don’t think she means it, but she is really struggling and they need to get her some help ASAP. Told my mother I had done this and she has been telling everyone that I maliciously reported her to SS and still isn’t speaking to me.

I feel validated too when i read everyones experiences. My dad is an enabler too, and I feel sometimes quite sad about this. I did a year of psychotherapy, because I was not being able to cope with my mother. The phychotherapist was brilliant, he did say something you just mention. He said it doesn't matter what the diagnose/ label is, but what matters is that it is unacceptable, end off. The main thing is to learn how to set your boundaries and stick to them. I am able now able to cope and not to feel the anger i felt before. My children are now teens and realised how she really is- which is a HUGE relief for me. I was very concerned when they were small, she would do the secret photos, bring them to another room and tell them things and ask them not to tell me. I was always on edge. Anyway I feel for you, just to say you are not alone 💜

Ps: editing to add I used to really wonder why she is the way she is. I learned during the therapy that only people who are profoundly damaged behave like this, people who have no awareness of themselves, but also as you said, therr is no excuse. My mother would never look for help. And my dad stays and justifies not matter what. Sorry for the essay!

I'm sorry you had this experience too. My dad was an alcoholic and I spent a lot of time worrying about and empathising with my mother, who (I can see now) recruited me to her 'side', which was all about how my dad was a feckless loser who was too selfish to provide properly for his family. I get that it must have been horribly hard for her, but my dad struggled with depression and had no therapy (it wasn't anything like as widespread in the 80s). And he had lovely qualities - he was sensitive and funny and loving. So I've carried a lot of this into adulthood - being the mediator in difficult relationships, trying to keep the peace above all else, seeing the good in people and ignoring red flags, and a history of trying to 'save' difficult people from themselves. Exhausting!

'Selfish' is such a terrible word to use about a kid. I see now that it was just applied to me when I actually insisted on getting or doing something that I needed. And my inner critic still loves to pull this one out. Working on understanding that it is okay for me to have needs.

I'm sorry for the loss of your parents so young. I hope you can find ways to work through the complex feeling that are left.

Thank you, sending love and strength to you too (and everyone on this thread!) 💜

I’ve always wondered why mum is like she is. She had a difficult relationship with her own mum and her sister, and it’s something I’ve never got to the bottom of. Her dad was an alcoholic (although not while I knew him), and I do wonder what kind of home she had when she was growing up. My granny said to me once that my mum wasn’t wired like everyone else, which on one level I can agree with, but also feels unfair because behaviour like my mum’s also may (probably?) stem from massive trauma in her childhood.

But like you say, there’s no reflection or desire to get well on my mum’s part, and I do think of her now as unwell - she just isn’t able to relate to people or behave in a polite or empathetic way at all. My dad has always said she doesn’t ‘do’ feelings, but we all had to do hers all right.

She’s also called me ‘cold and unfeeling’ when I wouldn’t match her wailing/OTT response - she seemed to want to make me cry, and when I was younger, I did cry a lot when she gave me silent treatment or yelled or screamed at me or left me on my own etc etc. But when I got older and stopped responding to HER terrible behaviour by crying and begging etc, and called her out for it, she decided that that was what was abnormal about the situation, not her behaviour in the first place.

Snap. My dad was painted as the bad guy. she used to say to me people think your dads so brilliant, they’ve no idea. I also had the amazing “ you know I’d kill my self if it wasn’t for you” at a very young age. Nope I didn’t know that mother. It would probably be classed as parental alienation now I think although they were still together.

as a result I used to feel so very sorry for my mum and just do everything I could to make her life easier. Had a bit of a road to Damascus moment a few years ago and stopped, with the result that we don’t really have that much to do with each other as I was doing all the running and putting all the effort in, I’m not now so things have fizzled out. But I am so angry that my fawning people pleading, anxious attachment, getting into dangerous situations with men is because of my upbringing and their emotional
immaturity and terrible relationship.

I am so angry that my fawning people pleading, anxious attachment, getting into dangerous situations with men is because of my upbringing and their emotional
immaturity and terrible relationship.

@TorroFerney this is exactly where I am too. I feel so much anger that they did so much damage and will never apologise or take accountability or really genuinely try to make amends - I’m just expected to keep putting up with it all and pretending we’re a happy family. It’s utter bollocks and is really hurting right now. So sorry it’s similar for you too.

I’m so sorry you went through all that you did, that’s awful.

I do really understand how complex your feelings must have been when you lost your parents when you were young. I lost my F when relatively young (I was 28). I actually grieved for him, partially because of guilt at how I’d felt when he was alive. I’d repressed the memories of his abuse, as had my DSis, all I’d known was that I couldn’t bear him to be tactile in any way.

My F and my DM were very wrapped up in each other, like yours, although I can see now that actually he was emotionally abusive and controlling of her. He was paranoid (not helped by his Parkinson’s medication), actually constantly accusing her of cheating on him.

Mine did the photo thing too it was so strange , she has had no photos of me or wanted to spend any time alone with me for about the last 25 years but it’s like she is fulfilling her grandma fantasy but I don’t exist in it. As soon as my back was turned she would take photos of my children with my dad as her willing enabler , mostly I never got to see the pics but I think if she considered I was behaving myself ( i. e let her do what she wanted ) then occasionally she would get my dad to email me a copy . I gave her a lovely photo frame with pics of them in for Xmas she took all my photos out and replaced them with hers . Such strange behaviour she doesn’t even have any photos of my wedding and said no when we gave her then to choose her copies

When I was pregnant with my first child my mother said something along the lines of "Make the most of them when they are young, when they get to about 9 or 10 and have minds of their own they are much less interesting". I had a bit of an "Aha" moment, because my mother basically lost interest in me about 9 or 10 - I'd often wondered what I'd done, but clearly she was not interested in someone who might have a different point of view or want to do other than give her uncomplicated non-stop love.

She lost interest in my children when they got to the same age as well. I wish I'd not felt that being a "good daughter" meant that she should spend time with them.

wow can I join please.
I started this book yesterday and so many light bulbs are going off in my head.
My father died 8 yrs ago and this has led to a seismic shift in family dynamics.
It has completely thrown me into chaos as my relationship.with my sister ( always complex) has tanked and my extended family has evaporated.
I dont know why I couldn't see it before but my parents have never met my emotional needs at all. It was all stiff upper lip and dont show us up in front of the neighbours.
I became a grandmother a few years ago and it has thrown into focus the absolute lack of practical or emotional support I have received as an adult and indeed throughout childhood.
It is so hurtful to suddenly see this and to.realise that he lack of belonging I have always felt is down to.the lack of emotional connection with my parents.
But also I feel liberated to realise that perhaps I am not a screw up after all .