Getting over the fact that your parent-child relationship will never be more?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your parents don’t sound terrible to me, OP, and you chose to move far away from them so some of the emotional detachment that you feel is squarely on you.

Firstly, moving away from parents geographically does not indicate a desire to be emotionally disconnected.

Secondly, OP is not saying her parents are terrible. She is expressing sadness and disappointment that they are not motivated to or capable of growing with her in terms of their relationship. Which is a loss.

Hope this clarifies things for you PP.

Doesn’t clarify things for me at all. It’s very difficult to forge a meaningful relationship with ANYONE you only see once or twice a year, and it’s especially hard for grandparents, parents and kids. You reap what you sew.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your parents don’t sound terrible to me, OP, and you chose to move far away from them so some of the emotional detachment that you feel is squarely on you.

Firstly, moving away from parents geographically does not indicate a desire to be emotionally disconnected.

Secondly, OP is not saying her parents are terrible. She is expressing sadness and disappointment that they are not motivated to or capable of growing with her in terms of their relationship. Which is a loss.

Hope this clarifies things for you PP.

Doesn’t clarify things for me at all. It’s very difficult to forge a meaningful relationship with ANYONE you only see once or twice a year, and it’s especially hard for grandparents, parents and kids. You reap what you sew.

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Go away. I’m not the OP, but 100% understand where she is coming from.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your parents don’t sound terrible to me, OP, and you chose to move far away from them so some of the emotional detachment that you feel is squarely on you.

Firstly, moving away from parents geographically does not indicate a desire to be emotionally disconnected.

Secondly, OP is not saying her parents are terrible. She is expressing sadness and disappointment that they are not motivated to or capable of growing with her in terms of their relationship. Which is a loss.

Hope this clarifies things for you PP.

Doesn’t clarify things for me at all. It’s very difficult to forge a meaningful relationship with ANYONE you only see once or twice a year, and it’s especially hard for grandparents, parents and kids. You reap what you sew.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your parents don’t sound terrible to me, OP, and you chose to move far away from them so some of the emotional detachment that you feel is squarely on you.

OP here. I haven't said they are terrible; please don't put words in my mouth.

As for being far away, I'll break it down into a few components:
1. We moved for job opportunities, not to get away from them.
2. Even when we lived closer (5-7 hours, instead of 10-12 hours) and I came home more often, they rarely asked to come visit me in return. They visit my brother (who lives further from them than I do) much more often, so it's not that they don't want to travel. They have always been closer to him, so I'm not surprised by the discrepancy in visits, nor am I really complaining about the favoritism, just using it to illustrate their willingness to travel overall.
3. After I moved, they moved. The distance from me is only an hour further (went from a 10 hour drive to an 11 hour drive), but their new location is 2 hours from a major airport, instead of in a metro area, so quick trips by plane are not really possible, making visiting more often harder. They were considering retiring to a community closer to an airport to make it easier for my family and my brother's family to visit them, but decided against it. That's their prerogative and I want them to live where they will be happy, but it means they thought about prioritizing easier visits and decided against it.
4. They have never initiated a visit. I'm always the one to ask them to come or to go on vacation with us or suggesting that we come to them. I'm also the one initiating phone calls and video chats 95% of the time.

Again, they are not terrible people or terrible parents. They're just not capable of building a deep emotional relationship or discussing difficult feelings or subjects.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your parents don’t sound terrible to me, OP, and you chose to move far away from them so some of the emotional detachment that you feel is squarely on you.

Firstly, moving away from parents geographically does not indicate a desire to be emotionally disconnected.

Secondly, OP is not saying her parents are terrible. She is expressing sadness and disappointment that they are not motivated to or capable of growing with her in terms of their relationship. Which is a loss.

Hope this clarifies things for you PP.

OP here. Thank you so much. You put it better (and much more succinctly) than I did.

[Anonymous]

People are what they are and it’s very difficult to get them to change. At some point it’s best to give up and accept it and deal with it. The best thing you can do is make sure that you don’t follow their behavior with your children. My ILs live nearby and they are very distant. My parents live a plane ride away and they are very close with my children. My dad does weekly FaceTime book readings with my kids and I chat with my mom every couple of days. We encourage my ILs to be more engaged but it hasn’t helped.

[Anonymous]

I found Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents very helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I found Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents very helpful.

Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP once I accepted my parents for who they are, and not who I wanted them to be, I was able to have more peace. It also improved our relationship over time. Fighting with reality is exhausting and not productive.

^this 100%. Trying to get someone - or in this case someones - to change is exhausting. It better to know what you don't like and find ways that you aren't replicating that in your own space. Find the people around you that fill you with what you need. Limit you time with your parents. And before you know it - not to be be morbid - they will be dead and it will be a non-issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm 35 and, while my parents have always been loving and caring parents, neither one of them knew how to create an emotionally supportive home. The range of emotions they were/are comfortable with is: happy, angry, or sad for five minutes at a time (this only applied to my mom and only when my dad wasn't home). It often made me feel like I was crazy for feeling emotional in other ways (upset, depressed, anxious), because my parents didn't seem to feel that way.

I see them treat my daughter (their granddaughter) with the same dismissive language about her own emotions. She was upset about one of her toys breaking recently and my dad said, "Don't be sad; I want you to be happy all the time." I had to pull her aside and validate her feelings. Another time, my dad wrote all over a picture she'd drawn (he thought it was scrap paper, despite watching her draw it earlier in the day) and she got really upset about it. He never apologized and just said, "I thought it was scrap paper. Here I'll get you another piece of paper" without any acknowledgement that he'd been wrong and hurt her feelings. It's so much easier for me to see it happening to my daughter than I could see it when it was happening to me.

TLDR: Lately, I've realized that my relationship with my parents is never going to mature into that of a parent with their adult child, partially because they don't have the emotional range to share with me that way and partially because they will always treat me like I'm still a kid (they do this to my younger brother too, but he's at least on their emotional wavelength and it doesn't seem to bother him as much, though it drives his wife nuts). I find myself struggling all of the sudden with the fact that our relationship is just always going to be surface-level and emotionally draining for me, even though they love me. I had always held out hope that I would eventually mature into a person they could treat as an "adult child" - maybe when I moved out on my own after college, or got my first job, or got married, or had a more established career, or had kids myself. But no, none of those milestones has made a difference. They are who they are and they're not going to change. Has anyone gone through this? Does anyone have advice for letting go of the dream of a better/deeper relationship?

I could have written this, OP. I minimize time with my parents. I don’t give them much access to my kids. I’m sorry. It sucks. We get to do better with our kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your parents don’t sound terrible to me, OP, and you chose to move far away from them so some of the emotional detachment that you feel is squarely on you.

Firstly, moving away from parents geographically does not indicate a desire to be emotionally disconnected.

Secondly, OP is not saying her parents are terrible. She is expressing sadness and disappointment that they are not motivated to or capable of growing with her in terms of their relationship. Which is a loss.

Hope this clarifies things for you PP.

Doesn’t clarify things for me at all. It’s very difficult to forge a meaningful relationship with ANYONE you only see once or twice a year, and it’s especially hard for grandparents, parents and kids. You reap what you sew.

You sound very emotionally immature yourself. I’m sure you’ve done a number on your kids! Let’s hope they get the therapy they need to leave you in the rearview mirror both geographically and emotionally.

[Anonymous]

I think that there was just this (long) mourning period and now I feel fine about things. When I was 25 I learned that my mom had been diagnosed with severe bipolar disorder and mild schizophrenia. I realized that all my hopes at having the kind of parent-child relationship I wanted (and deserved) was fruitless. Acceptance was hard, but looking back, it was such a relief. I'm now 40, and actually I love my mom more now that my expectations for her and our relationship are reasonable.

Hang in there! It's like with kids, it does get better, but not as quickly as we would like.

[Anonymous]

I’m like your parents. My parents were only comfortable with happiness, and maybe sadness in small doses. Anger was absolutely forbidden and as a result, I cannot feel anger (I stuff it down), and it scares me when people express it. I would probably react the same way as your parents.

If it makes you feel at all better, I love my children more than life itself and I never want them to be unhappy, which might be how your parents feel, even if that’s not healthy.

[Anonymous]

You sound REALLY whiny OP. And to the PP who limits grandparent time bc of this - WTF? Not everyone in life is going to validate one’s feelings all the time. It’s okay if there are one or two of the “buck up, it’s going to be okay” type as long as mom and dad are emotionally supportive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You sound REALLY whiny OP. And to the PP who limits grandparent time bc of this - WTF? Not everyone in life is going to validate one’s feelings all the time. It’s okay if there are one or two of the “buck up, it’s going to be okay” type as long as mom and dad are emotionally supportive.

How do you define "emotional support?" What do you see as the difference between "buck up" and dismissive?