Those of you who have difficult or truly lacking relationships with a parent or parents, what is the reason?

19 comments

1. I saw my mom 1 weekend a year most of the time I was growing up. I’m not angry, I just don’t miss her and don’t want to pretend she was a good mom.

2. The most immediate answer is that both are dead at this point. But beyond that, the issue was that they had a love/hate relationship with each other and used me as ammo against each other, and there was a sense that I was never good enough, especially once I started burning out in high school and then dropped out of college. At some point nonstop criticism became mostly disinterested silence as they were both absorbed with their own struggles and lives. My dad was always gone for work when I was a kid and by the time I was an adult he found another woman and was living with a new family elsewhere.

   So yeah, I never really got the whole family thing. They didn’t understand me, I didn’t understand them, they were disappointed in me, I was disappointed in them.

3. My father was part of the national guard troops sent to Iraq and stayed there for the first part of my childhood, and was in prison for the second part.

   My mom was busy working to support 5 other kids in the same house and taking care of my uncle who was suffering from kidney failure. Luckily I was the 2nd youngest sibling so I had some time to spend with her once my siblings started to move out and our uncle passed.

4. My parents separated when I was 6, and my sister and I grew up with our mom. Dad said he would come visit us, but never did. When we eventually moved back to town years later, all he really had to say about it was “my bad”

5. They both either hate me or think of me as a disappointment

   Its okay I hate me too, I am a disappointment

6. Father died several years ago.

   When I was growing up my mother was physically around but never invested. I had to constantly hear about how she would rather go to work than be at home. Or how the times I was sick were so inconvenient to her. She found obvious and subtle ways to make me feel like my existence was such an immense burden that I still carry that feeling today. I temporarily moved back in with her because my older sibling got married and moved out after having kids. Father died. I moved back so she doesn’t feel the loneliness that she instilled in me as a child. Looking back on all our arguments it’s very likely that she has some combo borderline and narcissistic personality disorders. And now we cohabitate the same space with miles and miles in between us

7. Both of my parents were emotionally neglected and subsequently we don’t have a close relationship. It’s all very superficial and either they don’t want more than that or they don’t know how. I’m tired of making attempts that go no where.

8. Long story:

   I grew up in a very shitty family. My father was an alcoholic. All he would do is stay in the kitchen and drink. No aggression or anything. He had just given up. He was adorable as a person but would never ever even attempt to do something with either me or my brother. If I go to him, he’d tell me funny stories and stuff and keep drinking.

   My mother would try to spend as much time as she could out of the house. She would go to some parties and come late at night after our bedtime. We didn’t really have bedtime. Because nobody put any rules or anything. She’d just come home late.

   Then my older brother started doing drugs. At age 14 he was already doing heroine. I was 10. During all my teenage years my home was a wreck. It was crimes, poverty. Bad or no parenting.

   My mother was trying to save my brother by saving his ass from any shit he’d do which was even worse parenting. He’d steal, beat people, even stab people and she’d go take loans to hire lawyers to save her precious child.

   Now she’s 74 and he’s 40. They still live together. He’s still on methadone. He refuses to work anything. And they’re literally blackmailing me to give then money with the constant threats and psychological pressure. When I don’t give then money they don’t have food, their electricity is cut off, etc.

   Needless to say our relationship is a mess. I tried to help then in different ways through the years. All failed and just sucked me dry.

   My marriage went to pieces (at the beginning of my relationship I made very clear to my so that I need to live in a different country than my family, but she refused to move because she wouldn’t live away from hers… what an irony). So I started visiting a therapist. And the therapist told me I’ve been supporting their shitty way of life by giving them money all this time… She was right of course. But I was naive and stupid.

   Anyhow – now I’ve almost severed my communication with my mom and bro. And it only made me feel worse. I do miss them. But they heavily abused me. And the even darker thing is.. once you get a bit into psychology, you start seeing all these personal and social patterns that are often quite ugly. In reality my mom treats me just as she did my father. And I did to an extent take his stance on this.

   Woah.. didn’t expect to go into this drama…

   So kids, if you don’t want to end up like me – follow your gut feelings. Had I done that, I’d be now drinking my margarita on some a beach in the Canary islands not giving a single fuck. Have balls and cut generational trauma by living your dreams.

9. I mean would you have a good relationship with a father who beat you whenever he felt like it, and only stopped when you turned 13 because you got too big for him to beat? Even if that wasn’t the case he is completely and utterly braindead, it’s insufferable how stupid and annoying he is.

10. My mom is an abusive narcissist that made my life so difficult growing up I barely had a childhood, the sheer amount of nonsense I had to go through on a day to day basis was staggering. My dad was a coward who not only knew what she was doing was wrong but co-signed to it anyway so he didn’t have to have her craziness directed at him, and he would often take out his marriage frustrations on me because he was stuck dealing with her and because he didn’t want another outlet for his anger. No contact with my mom and my dad died a few months after reconciling with me, and honestly my life is better now than it ever has been.

11. I don’t have a relationship with my mum at all. Mainly because she’s dead.

12. My mom disapproves of my profession, and I haven’t even told her that I am going to do the part she disapproves the most.

13. That’s personal.

    I’d have to explain my family history in a very lonnnnng post, but frankly it’s Nunya bid’ness.

    Suffice it to say that the further away from my family I am, the more I love them.

14. The reason is mostly due to reflection on how I grew up. It was a dysfunctional household, where my older sibling and I suffered physical and emotional abuse. Things looked fine on paper–we had enough money for food, clothes, and transportation. But our parents only cared about grades and school pressure and what we’d down when we were adults.

    They didn’t acknowledge the mental strain we were under, or even acknowledge their *own* mental issues or internal workings which we both inherited. Our parents view us as a pure copy of themselves, and not as individuals. We are meant to be available at a moment’s notice.

15. I turned my dad into the police for possession of child porn so that kind of put a dent in our relationship

16. Bio father abandoned me, step father beat me, mother didnt want to believe me, childhood fucked up. I don’t see any way of repairing this, I will always be cold towards them.

17. They were neglectful abusers and now they’re abusive liars.

18. I come from an abusive household. My parents have switched from abuse to neglect with the younger ones, youngest being in high-school now. I’m honestly not always 100% sure why I still talk to them sometimes, but it’s definitely not as much as they want. Usually just holidays and birthdays. My relationship with them is extremely strained because of how I grew up.

19. My left leaning values vs their far right, religious and republican ones. My mom is especially bad as she believes every conspiracy theory she hears and is constantly patted on the back by her facebook echo chamber.