Reply to parents who continue to treat you like a child even as an adult

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You are keeping them too involved. Don't invite to child's sporting events.[/quote]

I don't invite them. My mom asks me for the schedule at the beginning of the season. The issue with things like this and the medical treatment is that she specifically asks me for dates. Even if I hem and haw and put it off she'll keep asking me flat out and won't stop until she gets it.

We did have an issue a year or two ago where we had recently moved to a new neighborhood and I wanted to form relationships with the other parents since my kid was playing on a team made up of neighborhood kids and my parents would not leave me alone at games. I'd be talking with a group of people and my mom would come up and start getting involved in the conversation. I had a talk with her afterward that I wanted to form relationships with these people and she was smothering me at these games. She got all hurt and played the victim and stayed out of the fray in a very exaggerated way for the next few games she showed up to. My dad called and gave me a guilt trip about how much I hurt her. Then she forgot all about it and went back to status quo.

When I see my parents in person I try not to be by myself at any time because either my mom or my dad will literally corner me and ask me questions flat out. Even though I know this will happen I get flustered in the moment. When I try to evade answering the questions they become more insistent. Sometimes it's just easier to answer it than continue to evade and be accused of acting like a spoiled brat (something they have called me even as an adult when I don't answer the questions they want answered).

In the past 6 months my mom spent my birthday dinner accusing me of blocking her on social media because she didn't see something I posted. I tried to explain to her that algorithms don't have you see everything from everybody, but she kept going with the accusation. She then sent me articles about how people can be blocked so I could go into my settings and see if I had blocked her by accident and unblock her if so. I post literally maybe two times per year. Then after a neighbor's funeral (at their house) my dad pulled me aside and berated me for how I treat my mom and how it devastates her and I don't even have it in my heart to respond to her multiple phones calls, emails and texts a day when she only means well and is coming from a good place.

They have no sense of boundaries. I did explore this in therapy and I worked on communicating how I feel about their behavior and setting more boundaries. They reacted by being victimized and painting me as a daughter who wants to shut them out of my life. I started putting our conversations on speaker so DH could hear how they speak to me because retelling it didn't do it justice. He was shocked when he heard how they twist and spin what I say. He's better at staying less emotionally involved because they aren't his parents.  It really bothers me, though. My mom has never understood why she and I don't have a close mother daughter relationship, but whenever I give in and start involving her more she either uses the information against me or I give an inch and she takes a mile.

I don't want to regret how our interactions play out like a PP said, but at the same time I know they won't change. I have a visceral reaction to try to avoid them. It's not pleasant to be around them. I never want to be 1:1 with either of them because I know I'll be cornered.

-OP[/quote]

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