How can I accept emotionally distant parents and finally move on

[jennifergarnier]

How do I move on? All my life I have wished and willed my parents to change, to be more emotionally available, to help financially. But they will not. All the while believing us to be a close family, when the entire thing is one big act and a colossal dysfunctional mess. At 45 years old I have had enough of the pretence, the pandering, the faux acceptance, the charade and ridiculousness of it all.

I am disabled, my husband's job is at risk, our house is falling down around our ears and needs urgent work, I lay awake at night fretting about our retirement, and about the wellbeing of our young adult dc. We have not been on holiday for 5 years.

They go on lavish holidays for 3 months of the year, they have had no mortgage for 25 years, they have thousands in ISAs, final salary pensions. My sister is still renting at nearly age 50 with a family to support.

I question why they ever had children if they were never going to be there for us. I recall my mother once saying that once children were 18, they were on their own. Neither myself or my sister would dream of abandoning our children from 18 onwards! My mother in particular is so mean, so stingy. Why have I allowed the wool to be pulled over my eyes for so long? I am so so angry and upset.

I need to work up the courage to finally cut them off but a lifetime of being gaslit (surely they're not that bad! they are lovely people!) and people pleasing tendencies has meant I keep hanging on, praying and hoping they will become different characters.

As children they did the bare minimum that is expected of parents. As adults they just leave us to get on with it. And then when they've been out for dinner or are preparing for another holiday or renovating their garden, we are expected to coo and appease and show interest. My father did not even know what my career was before I became disabled. It is frankly ridiculous when it is all written down. How can they be so uncaring?

I am done with being sad, I need to find a way to come to terms with all this. Can anyone help me please.

Go into a corner, have a big screaming session, then turn round, walk away and say ENOUGH!
Just ignore them as much as you can from now on. They don't sound like the type of people who will be hurt much by it anyway, and you will be relieved to have nothing much to do with them.

Have you considered therapy? It might be helpful to reach a place of acceptance that this is who they are, they won't change and how you can manage your relationship with them or withdraw from it altogether.

Some people just shouldn't be parents but it's pointless hoping they will change when they won't. It's ok to feel sad that you didn't get the parents you deserve.

Im so sorry you are going through this. Ive worked & continue to work through similar. It is painful, its so hard. Both of my parents (separated since I was 3) are the same - i now have no contact with either & find thats the only way I can get closer to inner peace. Ive yearned for parents to care about me, show interest, celebrate with me & my family - but they never have & never will. I'm trying to let go of bitternes & accept who they are. Its a process for sure. Ive had therapy which helped but ultimately it's accepting who they are & if you feel youd be better without them in your life, let them go.

You talk about how much money they have but it is actually their money. They are entitled to spend and enjoy it as they see fit and will hopefully have enough to pay for their care as they get older.

Wow if I was your parent I wouldn't want anything to do with you..All about money and it's there money to do with as they please

Whist it's their money it's really odd that they would see their children suffer and do nothing to help.

Is it possible to grey rock them rather than cut them off entirely?

Therapy might help but I doubt you can afford it.

Trying to look from another perspective, maybe they wonder why you made the choices you made, and why you didn’t listen to their advice on what those choices should be. Maybe they don’t feel wealthy at all, but they want enough kept back to enjoy their retirement, and doesn’t sound like they can expect care to be forthcoming from their children, who have their own issues to deal with, so they need to have enough left to pay for it?

You say emotionally unavailable but it feels like for the most part, you mean financially unavailable.

Same here, I feel rejected by my mother, as if I have no value to her; the sadness has nearly broken me. Now at 52 I realise it’s not me, it’s her, she just doesn’t have it in her. So now I have detached and will just let her go.

I refuse to sit round a table again on Mother’s Day with her and feel stupid.

I am sorry OP. But you sound like you need help, and counselling.

It is not your parent's fault that your house is in bad shape, or your H's job is in trouble, or that your sister is renting at the age of 50.
Your parents can't be expected to be supporting you all into your 40s and 50s.
At some point - you all need to stop being victims and take responsivity for your own lives.

I am guessing your parents are in their 70s. So they worked long and hard to secure their pensions - and have full right to enjoy what life they have left.
You sound strangely entitled to their money. And you also equate their financial support of your life with parental love.

There is nothing in your message to say that you, or your young adult child are struggling. You mention you fret and you worry - but this is about your feelings and anxiety. And this is why I say - start with a counsellor.

I hear you OP. I wonder if the posters accusing you of only caring about money genuinely think it’s normal to watch your adult child struggle while you live a life of luxury and insist on being oblivious to their difficulties? They may well have “worked hard” for their money but they also lived through a time when it was possible to find a job and get on the housing ladder MUCH more easily than it is now (I work far longer and harder than my parents ever did and have a fraction of what they enjoyed - and this is the case for almost all my friends of the same generation). Have you and your sister ever sat down to ask for more support from them (not necessarily financial, but emotional)?

100% agree with this.
Any of my friends (40’s) who I would call financially comfortable have all had hand outs at some point from parents to help them!
it is far more difficult now than ever to have a decent quality of life and my husband and I also work far harder than both our parents ever did and we are better educated and have better jobs!

I grey rock. The only reason I am not NC is because my sister never would and I don't want to leave her with sole care of my mother. In our case, I have never asked my parents for financial help and turned myself inside out to be financially independent from them from the age of 17, but that's because I never wanted them to feel they had any right to be judging my life choices. My mother does not understand my life at all -- not least because she grew up in a different time, and in different wealth circumstances. She has had a golden spoon her entire life but cannot see that. I work really really hard to build that wall between us and not to care what she thinks. I do not seek her approval.

You talk about their unwillingess to offer financial help, but I suspect that is only a proxy for emotional support. You are not going to get it from them. Stop trying to buy shoes in a fish and chip shop, and the sooner you accept that and let it all go, the better you will feel.

You sound like your life is really tough and you have a lot on your plate: don't add resentment about your parenting to your mental load. Set yourself free -- the only person that resentment is damaging is you.

Money and "emotional distance" are two very different things! It's perfectly acceptable, after years of financial sacrifice to bring up children, to expect those children to fend for themselves as adults - that's how it works in every generation.
So-called emotional distance is also fairly standard, particularly for an older generation. There seems to be a modern trend to live in each other's pockets, and an expectation that parents will drop everything to cosset grown up kids.... but as adults we should be fending for ourselves. Emotional support, more typically, comes from partners or friends, surely? One day the parents won't be there - we have to learn to do without them.
I think the answer is to stop focusing on your parents, and start thinking about how you can improve your own life - it will make you less resentful.

I’m sure they’ll step up when they need care . Suddenly you’ll be the focus of attention and they’ll expect you to forget all the years of hurt and probably deny anything was wrong . I leave my own mother to it . She has only ever put herself first and knows no other way . She knows I won’t be a carer and has never financially prepared for her old age so god knows how she’ll manage .

Maybe it’s not a case of cutting them off but simply matching their energy? It sounds as though you have a lot of unspoken expectations of what the relationship should look like but it’s not something they’re aware of nor are they needs they’re willing to meet. If you ‘drop the rope’ in terms of your expectations of them and then just match the level of energy, you might find a way to cope with this better.

You can pick your friends OP but not your family.

As a Yorkshire person I knew once said - "don't expect owt where there's nowt".

You're putting your bucket down a dry well, OP, and then getting upset when it comes up empty. They won't ever live up to your unspoken expectations, so you need to deal with that.

Counselling may help.

If it's any consolation to you, all I ever wanted was a loving mother, but I never had one. I had to learn to love myself.

Sorry OP x

I wonder if you could try to start separating, in your own mind, the two issues of their emotional unavailability and their unwillingness to offer financial help?

It feels their choice not to provide money for your family aggravates old wounds for you, because it has the capacity, in your adulthood, to symbolise the lack of emotional support you experienced in your childhood.

If you had received a nurturing childhood, you may have felt frustrated by the lack of financial support in adulthood, but you would probably have been able to acknowledge the acceptability of their choice. People can spend their own money as they wish.

By treating the lack of money in the present as just the latest iteration of your parents' lack of nurturing in the past, you are dragging yourself daily into a repeat of your childhood experience -- as if you were still that needy and powerless child, dependant on the care of people who seemed not to want to give it.

You won't get past the child's pain by ruminating on it as if it were still a present-day situation.

I’m sorry OP, it’s tough. You will get a lot of grief on here from many of the older generation who don’t seem to accept how much harder it is these days to acquire a good standard of living. If you can’t rely on family for a bit of help when you need it, who can you rely on?

I have a far better education than either of my parents, and did the right things - good job etc. but still I will struggle to have the lifestyle and retirement they have enjoyed. Things are different these days.

You need to put in place boundaries now, before they start to rely on you more as they get older. Be less available.

They have the money to buy in care if/ when they need it. Do not get drawn into doing more and more for them. They have made their choices and you make yours.

You need to stop expecting them to become different people, they have sadly shown they are unable or unwilling to give you more emotional or financial help. It’s sad but that’s the reality.

Sounds awful OP. I think parents should absolutely help their children out financially if they can. My grandparents/parents have done and I will absolutely transfer wealth onto my children. I think there's a balance between encouraging your child's independence (essential of course) and then helping them with significant things like getting onto the property ladder and having a n emergency fund for them. My parents are happy, frugal and wealthy and don't feel the need to spend money to bring joy. The joy is seeing their kids thrive. Why have kids otherwise?! I wouldnt cut them off, Id explain your feelings and see if they can at the very least change their behaviour and understand you better, not necessarily give you the money. I wouldnt request that as doesnt sound like they'd take too kindly to it.

You're not alone, @jennifergarnier . You won't get much sympathy because you've mentioned the m word but people who get it, get it. It's the money but not the money. Fwiw my mother is mean when it comes to me and my children, but gives money to my siblings like it's going out of fashion. On the odd occasion when I mention this to other people they often don't get that it's just one symptom of the underlying rot. I couldn't go to her if I had a problem or needed help because she makes everything about her. The end result is that I don't tell her anything. We've got barely any relationship. I feel very alone. I was also estranged from my father, who was abusive, for decades before he died. It's hard. The problem we've got is that some people don't realise they didn't actually want to be parents until after they have children. So they slog through the next 18 years because they have to, doing the bare minimum, and then wash their hands of their children. But children are biologically programmed to need and expect parenting. We are wired to want our parents to parent and want us and it's very difficult when they don't.

Therapy helps but I know it's expensive.

I've actually found Google Gemini v good for answering questions about it and suggesting coping strategies.

@MySunnyBrickBalonz The problem we've got is that some people don't realise they didn't actually want to be parents until after they have children.

This ^

I think a lot of parents believe their life with kids is going to be like an episode of "The Waltons", and then get resentful when it isn't 🙄

Thank you all for the advice and sharing of your own experiences, it is really appreciated. I should have known better than to use the m word on mumsnet!

@MyThreeWords you have articulated my experience and thoughts so perfectly, thank you for understanding.

I have said this so many times to my husband, that money would not have been so much of an issue if the emotional support and interest was there. But to have neither is deeply upsetting. After all, children should be cherished no? Of course yes independence is key and expected, but I know for one that I would gain so much joy from helping out my child and seeing them thrive and enjoy life. I was and am feeling desperate at my situation and knowing that they could ease the burden but actively choose not to is a bitter pill to swallow.

I have been reading up more on grey rock, and agree that counselling is needed, but unaffordable. But in the meantime have been asking chatgtp for help.

I absolutely need to break the cycle of looping thoughts and rumination, it is only hurting me more. I will talk to my sister about possibly trying to talk to them but I wonder if it is pointless really.

To the pp that have mentioned inheritance, there is no guarantee of that! And to the pp that questioned whether they were unhappy with the choices I have made following their advice, what advice? They have never guided me in any way shape or form.