Children of Perfect Parents

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents have been happily married for 50 + years. I totally get where you are coming from OP. The hard part for me is that they are joined at the hip. I have no memories of doing anything with just my dad or just my mom. It was always the two of them. Plus if you confided in one, they always told the other. So I learned that I could not have an independent relationship with them. When people talk about being friends with their mom, I assume they are able to do things with just her. I can't and never have. If I call, they always run and get the other parent as well. I don't really talk to them alone on the phone either.

At this point, I don't expect it will change, unless one dies and the other lives long enough to develop a new way of relating to me. Of course, I am pretty sure they will die one after the other. I cannot imagine them living without the other.

My friends think it's great that they are so in love, and it is. But there is a cost.

Codependence at its best/worst. Ignore the negative posters, this is unhealthy and you are right to try to distance yourself from it and to want a one-on-one relationship with each of them and not just interact with "parents" as a unit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think there's value in openly recognizing flaws and loving people despite them. It sounds like that's missing from the equation for OP. Also sounds like OP never got the sense that she was #1, or at least tied for #1 or a viable candidate. OP, are they really perfect or is that just how they see each other?

This makes sense. My parents openly adore each other, but they never act like the other is perfect. I had a model of how to have a loving relationship while accepting that your partner has flaws. I never felt like I was being compared to her and found wanting, or that I was not also loved and valued.

Is it a problem on the same scale as abusive or neglectful parents? No, of course not, but I can see how parents can be so into each other that their children feel left out, and how that can damage the parent-child relationship.

The thing is that it IS neglectful, because it does not see the child as a full person, does not make space for the child in the family, and prevents the child from having an authentic relationship with his/her parents.

I am another child of an abusive home, so the codependence is just the icing on the cake. But it's still damaging, as is all family dysfunction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP,

You're peeved b/c your parents loved each other and praised each other? Wow, tough life.

00:15, you peeved b/c you didn't get enough one-on-one time with each of your parents? Wow, get a life.

PP, my parents were every child's nightmare. Brutal violence, extreme emotional abuse, etc. I suspect my childhood would meet your standards for horror. I think OP is justified in feeling upset about her parents, and 00:15, too. Not that it matters what I, or anyone else, think. Suffering is suffering.

Oh, please. One poster thinks the death of one parent will finally score her some one-on-one time.

Suffering isn't suffering when you bring it on yourself.

Your language highlights the whole problem: children should not be driven to these sorts of fantasies to "score" one-on-one time. One-on-one time is a given in a healthy family dynamic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wondering if anyone on here is the child of "perfect parents" - parents who absolutely worship each other and constantly tell their children how perfect their mother or father is.

Compared to some of the tales of family dysfunction you read about here, it sounds like a petty grievance, but it's the situation in my family and it's kind of messed up my sibling and me. Basically, it's this feeling of never measuring up to your mom or your dad, not wanting to talk to them because the conversations and implicit comparisons leave you depressed as shit, and then getting guilt-tripped for being neglectful children.

Spouse's family is not like this; they just go about their business without so much saccharine.

My best friend had parents like that, who never ever argued and always talked in very annoying saccharine manner. It just sounded so fake. Neither of them was nowhere close to perfect, but they were very codependent. For perspective, maybe try to think how other see them.

[Anonymous]

I think it is important for children to know that their parents are not perfect. OP, did your parents ever apologize to you for doing something wrong?