Reply to How to break the patterns/forge healthy family dynamics

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "How to break the patterns/forge healthy family dynamics"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Hi- this is kind of complicated and Id love to collect some helpful advice from you all. I grew up with parents who had troubled childhoods and I only saw grandparents on holidays/events, they werent a part of my day to day life. My dads father died when he was a young child and his mom didnt get along with my mom (and she had some mental health issues I think) so she was only around when I was a baby and then I really never saw her. My mom is a very complicated person and hated her mom and only saw her out of obligation and she had a very formal relationship with her dad, so we only saw him on holidays/events, as I mentioned.

So now here I am as a parent, I have two kids and when we first had our kids, we lived 6 hours from my mom (my dad died) and 3 hours from my inlaws. So, off the bat they were not overly involved grandparents other than visits to each other as often as possible, due to distance. Weve since moved and now live 1.5 hours from my inlaws and 2 hours from my mom. I see grandparents of kids from my kids school that seem so involved and I see relationships that my friends have with their parents that seem so strong and their kids have these string relationships with their grandparents too. Our kids love their grandparents and they love them so much too, but it doesnt really go beyond that. There is no day-to-day relationship, frequent visiting, babysitting, etc. I am worried that I am in some way continuing the pattern of unhealthy dynamics that I was exposed to my whole life.

My husband was basically raised by his grandparents so he had a very different experience than me in terms of the relationship with grandparents. I know theres only so much that could be done when we live in different states from them, but how can I change the patterns despite the distance and despite the fact that both of our moms have issues-- my mom is very depressive/negative (has been my whole life)  and my mother in law is a weird person with no social skills- that could be a whole other post (for example though whenever she visits my sister in law, they get into blow out fights and she gets sent home early, etc). I want to break the patterns and have my kids grow up surrounded by healthy family relationships but have quite a bit working against me. I feel like Id be failing as a mother if I continued what was shown to me by my own mom.

Thoughts?[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics