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[quote=Anonymous]My parents are kind of messed up. My dad is very selfish and abusive (mostly verbally, to mainly my mother but also to us kids when we were younger). My mother lacks self-esteem, and her world revolves around my dad. She was also a bit mean to us when we were kids. Neither parent is affectionate, and neither seems capable of forming healthy relationships (e.g., neither has any real friends). My parents never call. This is because my dad only cares about himself, and my mom only cares about my dad, so their energies are taken up (by my dad).

We rarely visit them, and when we do it's uncomfortable for me because watching my parents interact brings back bad childhood memories and I don't like being around them. It makes me uneasy and uncomfortable. They are nice to my children, but after the initial novelty has worn off (i.e., within half a day of arriving for the visit), my dad is back to caring about only himself, and my mom is back to caring about only my dad.  Despite this, they often lament that we don't visit enough. They want the cute photos of them and their grandkids, to be able to show around and give the impression that they have this great relationship and that they are great grandparents; but the truth is that they don't really want to spend a whole lot of time with them. After a few hours, they're done. It's as if they like the picture-perfect idea of grandkids, but not the reality. Recently, my mother called me to complain that we hardly ever visit, but that we visit DH's family all the time (kind of true). She wanted to know why.

If you were me, would you lay it all out for my mom? (i.e., tell her that the truth is that they were shitty parents, that i don't feel comfortable around them, that they don't even spend a lot of time with the grandkids when we do visit, etc...of course, i'd try to phrase it all nicer than this). The few times before that we have touched on these topics, my mom seems surprised that I think that they were not good parents. I think it's because the dysfunction seems normal to her because it's how they are, and all she knows. She was asking me what would need to happen to improve relationships within our family. The reality is that my parents would have to make changes of which I don't think they're capable. 
I know I rambled here - I'm sorry about that. The main question is: when someone is asking you what needs to happen to improve relations, and you know that the answer is change of which the parties involved aren't capable, how do you handle it?[/quote]

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