Difficult parent relationships

[Anonymous]

Yeah....look, it sounds to me like your personality didn't mesh with your family of origin, and you were kind of an asshole to deal with. A pretty typical teenage asshole, but an asshole nonetheless. Time to move on, hon. Of course you were exhausting to deal with. I'm exhausted reading your post. Your description of your mom's volunteer work....you sound kind of like a taker, frankly. Like you wanted to take and take and take and take from your mom, who by your own assessment is an introvert, and then got pissed when she did something meaningful for herself.

Try some therapy.

[Anonymous]

Huh. I don't understand all the nastiness toward OP.

OP, I am not like you at all (I am very quiet) but I also had a strained relationship with my parents. I felt guilty about it, too. When I finally got therapy for other issues we spent some time discussing my parents and my therapist told me it sounded like they weren't capable of more of a relationship and I was right to be self-protective. That surprised me, since I sort of thought therapists always would want you to work out stuff like that. A couple years later I was talking to my brother about it, and his therapist said the same thing. We actually laughed a long time during that conversation. There was also drinking.

Anyway, given the random nastiness I don't think you are going to get much useful feedback here. If it really bothers you, seek out a professional opinion.

Also, my dad died not that long ago. My mom has health problems. I have a lot of sadness about what our relationship was/is like, but no regrets because it wasn't up to me to change. Sometimes you win the family lottery, sometimes you don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Huh. I don't understand all the nastiness toward OP.

OP, I am not like you at all (I am very quiet) but I also had a strained relationship with my parents. I felt guilty about it, too. When I finally got therapy for other issues we spent some time discussing my parents and my therapist told me it sounded like they weren't capable of more of a relationship and I was right to be self-protective. That surprised me, since I sort of thought therapists always would want you to work out stuff like that. A couple years later I was talking to my brother about it, and his therapist said the same thing. We actually laughed a long time during that conversation. There was also drinking.

Anyway, given the random nastiness I don't think you are going to get much useful feedback here. If it really bothers you, seek out a professional opinion.

Also, my dad died not that long ago. My mom has health problems. I have a lot of sadness about what our relationship was/is like, but no regrets because it wasn't up to me to change. Sometimes you win the family lottery, sometimes you don't.

It's okay. I posted to vent while buzzed and I get that people only know what was in a post. I am actually not in the least bit dramatic or immature and haven't discussed these feelings with anyone in my family. I wasn't an easy child / teen for sure and my parents were far from perfect, albeit well intended. There was a lot more in my childhood / adolescence that happened that isn't detailed here.

I did talk to a professional once about you and similar to your therapist, I was told to just have the safest, healthiest relationship that made sense to me. That I wasn't responsible for my mother's happiness (or lack thereof) with the relationship. Both my parents grew up in complicated families with their own issues and they didn't have healthy emotional relationships with their own parents giving them limited skills to form them with their own children. They had commonalities with my siblings that they bonded over that I didn't have.

I think the forming of adult relationships with our imperfect parents is interesting. Compared to many, I had a great childhood and family but the lack of connection and feeling of being different, not fitting in as part of the family has complicated our adult relationship. Superficially we have a great relationship, she just wants something more and I don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah....look, it sounds to me like your personality didn't mesh with your family of origin, and you were kind of an asshole to deal with. A pretty typical teenage asshole, but an asshole nonetheless. Time to move on, hon. Of course you were exhausting to deal with. I'm exhausted reading your post. Your description of your mom's volunteer work....you sound kind of like a taker, frankly. Like you wanted to take and take and take and take from your mom, who by your own assessment is an introvert, and then got pissed when she did something meaningful for herself.

Try some therapy.

I wasn't a taker at all. That was part of my mother's issue. She wanted me to need her and I didn't. She wanted me to take and I didn't want to take anything from her.

It wasn't just volunteer work, although it started out that way. It consumed her life and became problematic on many levels. She went cold turkey about ten years ago and hasn't really been an issue since.

[Anonymous]

I can empathize. I do best when I have really clear boundaries with my mother. She wants more, despite not being capable of providing the emotional support I needed as a kid/adult. I feel badly about not meeting her needs since I am now a parent myself, and I know she did the best she could despite not having the emotional capacity to parent me like I needed. I try to keep boundaries clear and be as warm and loving as I can without ever leaving my safe/secure/not-close-to-her-zone, if that makes sense. But I really don't give my mother all that she asks for...so I empathize with your situation. Also, all of the PPs who are judging you so harshly for your teen behavior -- who was the child and who was the parent? OP needed to grow up and did. Her mom wasn't able to parent her without judgment (labeling her "difficult" etc). Some of that baggage persists to this day. That's unfortunate but maybe water under the bridge. OP, I went to therapy with my mom when I was in my 40s. It was a mistake because my mom is not capable of emotionally processing what she would need to in order to make any changes (forgot stuff we'd worked through from one session to the next) but I am glad I gave it a shot. You might want to as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah....look, it sounds to me like your personality didn't mesh with your family of origin, and you were kind of an asshole to deal with. A pretty typical teenage asshole, but an asshole nonetheless. Time to move on, hon. Of course you were exhausting to deal with. I'm exhausted reading your post. Your description of your mom's volunteer work....you sound kind of like a taker, frankly. Like you wanted to take and take and take and take from your mom, who by your own assessment is an introvert, and then got pissed when she did something meaningful for herself.

Try some therapy.

I wasn't a taker at all. That was part of my mother's issue. She wanted me to need her and I didn't. She wanted me to take and I didn't want to take anything from her.

It wasn't just volunteer work, although it started out that way. It consumed her life and became problematic on many levels. She went cold turkey about ten years ago and hasn't really been an issue since.

Then just cut her off. Seriously what do you want? You seem
Incapable of viewing your mom as a person outside of being a mother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah....look, it sounds to me like your personality didn't mesh with your family of origin, and you were kind of an asshole to deal with. A pretty typical teenage asshole, but an asshole nonetheless. Time to move on, hon. Of course you were exhausting to deal with. I'm exhausted reading your post. Your description of your mom's volunteer work....you sound kind of like a taker, frankly. Like you wanted to take and take and take and take from your mom, who by your own assessment is an introvert, and then got pissed when she did something meaningful for herself.

Try some therapy.

I wasn't a taker at all. That was part of my mother's issue. She wanted me to need her and I didn't. She wanted me to take and I didn't want to take anything from her.

It wasn't just volunteer work, although it started out that way. It consumed her life and became problematic on many levels. She went cold turkey about ten years ago and hasn't really been an issue since.

Then just cut her off. Seriously what do you want? You seem
Incapable of viewing your mom as a person outside of being a mother.

I'm not that black and white and I have no reason to cut her off.

I can definitely see her outside of her being a mother but my relationship with her is daughter-mother as that is what we are.

[Anonymous]

Listen OP. People like you are the ones who cry the hardest at the funeral. Always. The fact that you are on here asking about this signals that you have not really dealt with your feelings about all of this. Your mom is/was not perfect. Neither are you. Either come to some reconciliation with her or with yourself or both. Your life will be much better once you do this.

Seek therapy to help.

[Anonymous]

And stop drinking . . . that's not the answer.

[Anonymous]

Maybe you like the power you hold in the relationship. Maybe it's some subconscious payback for you feeling pushed away as a kid/teen.

[Anonymous]

OP, do you have kids? I can say that I struggled very hard with my relationship with my mom. I was an honors student, many APs, highest service awards, etc. I was the neighborhood babysitter, everyone adored me... BUT I liked to go out to parties and I smoked pot on occasion. It drove my mother crazy. I said a lot of bad things to my mom. I regret them deeply.

Since then I have apologized to my mom profusely and we have tried to move forward together.

[Anonymous]

OP, I'm just going to pile on and say you do seem exhausting and are overthinking.

The truth is you'll probably never have the relationship with your parents that you seem to want. Nothing can change the past, and they are who they are, and you are who you are.

I think in advance of asking them to enter therapy with you, you do some hard core therapy work on yourself. You seem to want something from them that you can't even articulate. So maybe the therapy for yourself can help you recognize that you are just maybe still a big part of the problem. If you can reframe the way you think about this with the help of a trained professional, maybe you can reach the peace you seek.

[Anonymous]

Do you have children? I'd be interested in your feelings about your Mother after 14+ years of raising children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, do you have kids? I can say that I struggled very hard with my relationship with my mom. I was an honors student, many APs, highest service awards, etc. I was the neighborhood babysitter, everyone adored me... BUT I liked to go out to parties and I smoked pot on occasion. It drove my mother crazy. I said a lot of bad things to my mom. I regret them deeply.

Since then I have apologized to my mom profusely and we have tried to move forward together.

I'm the PP, I didn't finish this thought and then someone below me did. Having children opened my eyes to how neither of us were at fault in regards to our problems. When you love someone deeply, you are blinded by emotions and can make mistakes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, do you have kids? I can say that I struggled very hard with my relationship with my mom. I was an honors student, many APs, highest service awards, etc. I was the neighborhood babysitter, everyone adored me... BUT I liked to go out to parties and I smoked pot on occasion. It drove my mother crazy. I said a lot of bad things to my mom. I regret them deeply.

Since then I have apologized to my mom profusely and we have tried to move forward together.

I'm the PP, I didn't finish this thought and then someone below me did. Having children opened my eyes to how neither of us were at fault in regards to our problems. When you love someone deeply, you are blinded by emotions and can make mistakes.

Not the OP or the person you are responding to but having kids opened my eyes to just how horrible my childhood was and how much more my mother was at fault than I used to believe. It totally changed our relationship.