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.

@MargoLivebetter thank you, you are right. Counselling to work through all the pain, resentment, unmet expectations, confusion, identity issues, would be really helpful. In the meantime I will get hold of a couple of books as a starting point. And really start to think about how I choose to manage the relationship going forward.

I am going to leave the thread now for my own protection!

You spent about half the post talking about yours and their financial situation. Why add irrelevant information? It’s clearly important to you.

your post reads like a victim

One of the issues with Toxic families is " failure to launch"
They do not provide their children adequate preparation to enable a successful independant adult life .
The adult DC remain helpless and lack personal responsibility
They always always feel resentment and want the DP to keep bailing them out financially
The best thing you can do @jennifergarnier is draw a line in the sand
They are not going to rescue you and its time to move on
Look up the Karpman Drama Triangle

I’m so sorry you’ve got this - do whatever you need to to protect yourself. You’re right - some people shouldn’t have kids.

Weirdly I’ve been thinking a lot about my own parents now I have to sort everything out for my elderly mum. I resent it for many reasons. I used to think my parents were ‘a bit tight’ (among other things) but now I think it’s worse, both in terms of money and other things.

They seemed to have a pathological avoidance of spending anything on their kids - on my 13th birthday they told me ‘no more pocket money’ and I had to get a job as I could legally work (this was a while ago…) so I did and I’ve worked since. I never had a penny off them afterwards. It sounds Dickensian, but when I left home at 18, my only pair of shoes had a big hole in and let water on, so I asked them for money to buy a new pair. My dad accused me of ‘moaning’ and refused, so I ended up putting the corner of a carrier bag over my sock till I could save up! It’s ridiculous. If I went home to visit I wasn’t allowed to eat their food so on more than one occasion ordered a pizza and paid for it

i had my ear pierced and my dad blamed (for a long time - till he either forgot or got bored) his debilitating stroke on the fact I’d had my ear pierced. Who does that to a young adult?! There’s a whole ton of other things they did. I’m seeking counselling now as it feels like a penny has dropped that it all wasn’t ‘quirky’ or ‘a bit different’.