Fed up with being my family's emotional sounding board

[Goatcoat]

I just need a bit of a pity party.

I think I've become the therapist / emotional dumping ground of the family. It's like I'm there to check-in on everyone else yet no one checks in on me/us. I never, and I mean never, ask for help, I never complain or moan to them, yet I always listen to their woes, or ask how they are or ask for updates on their latest thing/event.

We got back from holiday recently and parent didn't once ask how it was when we got back, yet told me all about their news.

We've just discovered one of our DC has some life-long (though thankfully not life-threatening) health issues. My sibling and I had been chatting over the weekend and I mentioned this appointment was coming up. Thinking that maybe they did care, I then updated them after the appointment and they basically shrugged it off, told me it's not the end of the world (which it isn't, but it is a delicate forever condition which is very unfortunate for anyone to have to deal with it so DH and I are naturally upset for our DC and now trying to navigate a teen through this) and proceeded to tell me about a thing in their life.

I've had a horrid time at work over the last few years and on the odd occasion I've mentioned it I get a kind of "oh dear" response and then no one ever brings it up again. Yet I am supposed to keep up with the guy over the road's mum's illness or the latest weird and wonderful situation my sibling has got themselves into.

It just feels take take take. I live abroad so it is an effort to keep relationships going, and I am conscious that we are not in their day to day lives, but more and more it feels unbalanced and like the purpose of my calls or texts are simply to see/hear how they are and to give them the opportunity to offload, and get very little or nothing back.

Anyway, just needed to rant. I'm hormonal and sad about DC's health issue and just crave that sense of "family" you know?

It’s because you’re a coper. Stop being so available to them, call them out on the one way traffic.

A coper! Not heard of that before but it fits!

Thing is I’m so used to not leaning on others that I don’t even know how it would look if I tried to lean on them.

I thought that I could lean on my sibling this week, but their dismissiveness just proved otherwise. I even hesitated as I was telling them and thought “no I’ll give it a go”.

I’m not calling them out. Either they’re naturally inclined to be supportive or they’re not. I will not attempt to shape their behaviour, that’s on them.

Mostly I accept it and make myself available on my terms, just could’ve done with a bit more this week and it stings to reminder I won’t get it.

@Offherrockingchair right, you're the family coper, the sensible, practical person who gets on with life so they feel you're a nice dumping ground for their problems. They don't react as you'd hope to your problems Op because if they acknowledge your difficulties they may have to stop dumping theirs on you. It's a pain but they don't see you as needing help or sympathy

I’m sorry about your DC’s diagnosis. I think you need to take some responsibility for the dynamic, though. If you literally never ask for help and spend all your time being a shoulder to cry on, never talking about your own concerns, you’ve trained people in how to treat you.

My family is all very individualistic actually. Made worse and more complicated over the years by divorces/bereavements. I grew up having my feelings dismissed. My narcissistic mother was centre-stage and her feelings were up there over and above everyone else's. I've been let down a lot. Not on big things because I've never expected support on big things to be honest, but on many small things. Therapy taught me that somewhere along the way I learnt to be over-independent because of all that. I struggle to recognise my own needs and be true to myself.

I don't believe the dynamics will change now - people are too old, habits are too engrained, physical distance is too far, and quite honestly I don't have the emotional energy to try to shift things, especially when it would come with the risk of being let down - again.

It's quite hard to hear that some of this is my responsibility actually. I take that on board though, relationships are the result of the dynamics from all parties involved in them at the end of the day.

Oh, I hear you, OP. I’m still dealing with incredibly bad psychological habits learned from my own childhood in my 50s. I likewise struggle to recognise my own needs. It’s much easier for me not to ask for help, because it shows my vulnerabilities, and historically, no one has helped. (Particularly horrible instance of CSA which my parents knew about but didn’t act to stop was key here.)

I just also realise that we ‘train’ people to treat us in a particular way. I grew up being the ‘good’ girl, who was never any bother, and as my parents aren’t going to change now, in their eighties, I don’t really have any other mode of being with them.

💐