Reply to Is it normal not to love your elderly parent who is not abusive or mean?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I remember reading somewhere that kids want to love their parents. They do bad things, and kids still hold on to the hope.

I don't think it's normal to not want to love your parents. My guess is that you believe that too, otherwise you wouldn't be asking here.

You might get curious about it. Why are you withholding? Are you afraid to say I love you to him for some reason? I think pp's may be on to something when they say you're afraid of being the same. Also, it's curious that you say your conversations are uninteresting, but it takes two people to have an uninteresting conversation. What about asking him to tell you about the past.

Therapy might help if you journal/try new tactics/sit with the feelings and no progress. [/quote]

He’s already told me about the past, we can’t talk about it every week. 
He also tried to tell me how he was bullied as a child and his parents didn’t protect him, but I think it’s inappropriate to tell this to one’s daughter and I don’t want to hear it. [/quote]

You are wrong. It’s not at all inappropriate to tell this to one’s daughter. [/quote]

It's completely inappropriate, adult children are not your therapists and we don't want to be burdened with your unresolved issues! There's nothing we can do about them! I understand OP. My mom is like this. These are weak people, emotionally immature, who have relied on someone else to make decisions for them their whole lives. Yes, they cling. Yes, they're selfish and don't care about others, including grandchildren. They're afraid to miss out on resources and be abandoned to figure things out for themselves! They'd gladly move in with you not be be responsible for themselves and use your resources. There's not much of an advice other than you'll end up doing for him as much as you're willing to, because he'll always expect more. This is why you have resentment. [/quote]

I wonder about this, as one with a parent who rarely talked about personal matters ever but started to drop little crumbs like op's dad's bullying thing around age 80. I got the sense that my parent was feeling a need to be seen.

I think it's certainly true that a parent should not expect a child to be a therapist. And when kids are young it would be good to share personal stories in general but not ever to trauma dump. Once the child is grown, though, doesn't the relationship shift at least a little and the parent can maybe talk more about some hard times? Not in a way of making excuses, not in a guilt- inducing way, but in a way of sharing their experiences?[/quote]

No. A parent is a parent and there's no "sharing experiences" about bullying and how their parent didn't protect them. It's a sob story, "poor me" story. Sharing experiences is about facts, not emotional trauma dumping. Things like these and sexual experiences are not something to be shared with adult children. For this one has to have friends or seek out a therapist. Nobody wants to see their parent as a weak, cowardly, needy person and this is not something that should be dumped on adult children to deal with. [/quote]

Yes, this is how I feel! I don’t want to see him as weak and humiliated.
It wasn’t his fault he was bullied but I felt like he was telling me about it because he was trying to parentify me? 
Btw he was also trying to tell me about some woman who was romantically interested in him (it was all very PG) but I shut it down. 
-OP [/quote]

You seem to be the immature one because you want to be a child forever.   When you are an adult, “parentification” in the usual sense doesn’t apply.  We all may become the parents to our parents as they become old and infirm. But that’s a natural course of life.  [/quote]

I am not saying you’re wrong.
I’ve actually enjoyed supporting him and helping him move and helping him settle in, but now he’s settled in.. idk I want to stop? 
Maybe it’s bad, but that’s how I feel. He needs to “grow up” a little. [/quote]

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