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Parents

  
 
gornorft
12:13 / 12.09.03
From Harold & Maude, my favourite film...

Tell me Harold, how many of these, um, suicides have you performed?
An accurate number would be difficult to gauge.
Well just give me a rough estimate.
A rough estimate?
Mmm.
I'd say,15
15?
That's a rough estimate.
Were they all done for your mothers benefit?
NO! No. I would not say... benefit.


I have come to a time in my life that I had never actually thought about or imagined existed in my future. I have parted ways with my parents. They have managed to piss me off so badly that I am daily resisting the urge to phone them up and tell them to get fucked. The last email I got from my mother said "until such time as you can get yourself under control emotionally,please spare us the diatribe and posturing,its very tiring Mum
and Dad". That was the whole email. She's a bit crap with punctuation.

I've actually done nothing wrong. Not a thing. I spent the last 6 months in England persuing a relationship with a girl my parents have never met. She's lovely but I didn't like living in England, couldn't get work, missed my friends and family and so I came home. The girl understands. My parents were enthusiastically glad to have me back. I went up for a Sunday lunch with them two weeks after arriving back in Australia and everything was fine. I came home, about 20 minutes drive away from their house, had dinner, relaxed, watched TV, went online and checked my email. I got one from my Mother, she's the communicator between the pair of them. It said, among other things, that the girl I had spent the last 6 years having a long distance relationship with was a "sick and very cruel... manipulative... brain washing... desperate woman who will try anything to keep you in her control... a leach that just keeps sucking the life blood out of you".

Why? I can't work it out! The girl being referred to is incredibly lovely. I feel horrible about choosing another life over one with her but I have my reasons, reasons my parents have every reason to rejoice in as it meant my coming home. My parents have never met her. I sent a reply saying that "I thank you for caring about me and I know you're only doing the protective mother thing but you are wrong. How dare you insult my intelligence so". There were more emails, phone calls, things in the post, until eventually I reached my current position. They can go and get well and truly fucked! I'm, a grown man, I'm 42 for Chrissakes. I don't need this shit. When I left Australia in January they seemed like perfectly sane human beings that I was happy to list among my friends, regardless of our being related. Now they seem like lunatics who have gone senile and lost possession of their faculties.

Yes there are obviously two sides to every story and yes you're only going to hear mine here. That's as it has to be. I'm a rational human being with, I think, intelligent opinions and I am, I also think, quite perceptive and sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others. My British girlfriend did not deserve to be attacked, especially by people who have never met her. I felt that, as an adult, it was up to me to stand up for her. As a result my parents and I are no longer talking for the first time in our lives. I'm pretty sure it's not fixable, short of my Mother apologising and that's something she has NEVER done, not to anybody, even her own parents and only sister. This defines her. And when your mother tells you that "you've only been nice to us all these years so you'd get the inheritance" you know it's time to say goodbye.

Is it just me? Does this happen to everyone eventually or, at least, to a lot of people? Do parents and children get over this stuff or not? It feels too adult, even at my age, to be making decisions that stand me apart from the only family I have (apart from my sister who distanced herself from the family 20 years ago to persue a life as a drug addict). I'm not looking to be told I was right, or wrong. I did the only things I could do, being me, under the circumstances. I just don't want to feel like the only person stuff like this has happened to.
 
 
Jub
12:42 / 12.09.03
That sounds terrible. Clearly you feel very strongly about this and it seems they do too. I think it would be prudent to view this strength of emotion as a healthy (albeit misguided) concern for each other.

If you don't want to get to the route of their problem with your girl, then don't, but don't let it affect the rest of your relationship. Try to be easy with them and be the more mature person. I know sometimes it's difficult to maintain an even head whilst discussing things we care passionately about especially with those we love, but if you really care (which your post suggests), and you feel a little alienated, I recommend you let it lie, and then go and talk to them as normal.
 
 
Linus Dunce
12:59 / 12.09.03
Gosh, that's really hard. But I'm pretty sure you're not the only one facing such crap. I know someone who found out, on his mother's death, that she'd hired a very competent lawyer to effectively exclude him from her will, because he'd married the "wrong" woman. The legal details required collusion by the rest of the family and, given that they stood to gain financially, the thing stands. It leaves a very bad taste in the mouth.

Some parents, I think, can never relinquish the power they had over their child, and perhaps some parents are people who just like to have power over others. It sounds like your mother is saying, "don't come back until you agree to be passive," which leaves you in a difficult position, as you say. Not my call, but I wouldn't be in touch with them again anytime soon. Just drop them.
 
 
Unencumbered
13:01 / 12.09.03
A piece of advice which has stood me in good stead:

If, during the course of an argument, it should transpire that you are right, apologise immediately.
 
 
Ariadne
13:04 / 12.09.03
Oh dear. I agree with the power argument, and it sounds like your Mum has worked herself up into a tizz about this and just gone off the deep end.
But ... I don't know that I could say 'just drop them'. If you value the relationship then perhaps it's worth just giving it a bit of time and trying to pick things up where they were. I imagine that under it all, your Mum is just reacting to what she sees as your pain and hurt, and therefore hates the girl who 'did' this to you.
I feel for you, this would make me utterly miserable.
 
 
Jub
13:08 / 12.09.03
In fairness Mr J, I think you're being a little too harsh; firstly because even by his own admission it's a one sided story he's giving and secondly, seldom do parents treat their children thus. Therefore the best thing to do would no be to "drop them".

Even if a pair of parents were planning to cut a child from their will because of their choice of partner (which is not the case here) then that is still not cause to "drop them". It might seem unfair, and I'm not saying that people should pretend there's nothing worng, but people owe it to themselves and their family in general to try to always give their family the benefit of the doubt and just hope they do the same back one day.
 
 
gornorft
13:33 / 12.09.03
OK so what I'm getting is that I'm right to feel exactly the way I do. Isolated, hurt and guilty about being right. Bugger. I was hoping this thread would fill with people saying "Oh yeah, my parents totally pissed me off, it happens to everyone", and "Oh, you wont BELIEVE what MY parents did!" Stuff like that.

Since this IS the way it's gone, I'll rerspond by saying that yep, I do feel like dropping them. In fact, I have done. I can't say it's permanent but I am certainly letting it lie for now. It does make me utterly miserable and this is on top of everything else that's crap in my life at the moment. I really didn't need this ever, I particularly didn't need it now when I have no job, no money, I've not worked for 6 months, a landlord threatening to kick me out AND I've just had to tell the girl I love that I'm not coming back to her.

Ariadne is completely right with everything she says in her post. Spot on. My Mum IS just reacting to what she sees as my pain and hurt, and therefore hates the girl who 'did' this to me. Exactly. But that doesn't mean I can, as Ignatius_J says, "agree to be passive".

I'm stuck and I'm going to do nothing for as long as it takes until either doing nothing becomes the norm and everyone is comfortable with that or someone gets sick of it and does something that helps.

So, no takers on the "my parents are more insane than yours" side of this discussion then? Anybody?
 
 
Persephone
13:42 / 12.09.03
Oh geez, would it make you feel better? Where would I even begin? That my father had another falling out with his church & started his own church, thanks to the internet? That he has calculated the time of Christ's coming is in five years? That he told my sister on her hospital bed that she wouldn't need surgery or chemotherapy, if only she could put her belief in God? That he hasn't worked for thirty years? That he's constantly raiding the money that my mother has saved to invest in get rich quick schemes? Do you want to know about the blue-green algae? The t-shirts that change color if you blow dry them?
 
 
Ariadne
13:43 / 12.09.03
I think ... I think you're right to decide to stay away for now. For the sake of our own pride and because you're an adult who can't just buckle when your mother shouts, even when you know it's because she's hurt for you. It sounds like you've done the right things so far.

Could you talk to your Dad, see if he can help to improve the situation? Or would that cause too much strife?
 
 
gornorft
13:56 / 12.09.03
Well Persephone, at first, yes, it did make me feel better. Then it didn't. Scary behaviour is scary even when it happens to others. At least yours makes for an entertaining story I guess. Sorry, I think that might have been a selfish tack for me to take on this thread, looking back.

Funny you should say that Ariadne, about contacting my father. It was Father's Day here 2 weekends ago and I sent him a card and a letter. In the letter I said that I was sorry that this was going on, that I perceived the issue to be mainly between Mum and I and that I would like to get together with him sometime to just do the stuff we like doing together or to talk about things. I got a letter back from him saying that my letter was offensive and that they come as a package. If I have a problem with one then I have a problem with both, how dare I presume that he didn't feel the same as Mum and that everything I had said in my letter about caring about doing "our" stuff was a lie, that I would never give him a second thought. Oh, and that he would have a happy Father's Day without me as "your mother looks after me well". This was then followed by the email from my Mum about sparing them spare the diatribe and posturing.

So what did I learn? That my Father is a happy submissive. Too much information.
 
 
angel
14:09 / 12.09.03
Mu Mu, all parents are insane, that's part of the contract unfortunately. Parents drive you nuts, are able to press ALL of your sensitive buttons in one oblivious sweep, all because they love you. Kinda weird really.

But I think you are doing the right thing, because even though you say you have dropped them, I don't think you have entirely. More like you've taken a very big step back from the edge to catch your breath, nurse the wounds and work out later what to do.

My parents drive me insane. My father is Manic Depressive and it gives everything that happens in our family a frustrating edge because we are dodging around both what is going on for him and what is really big and important in the real world. Now don't get me wrong, I know that my Dad loves me very much and isn't doing anything to deliberately piss me off, but it can be maddening to say the least when he's off on one of his ultra focussed trips. And I too love my Dad, even when those close to me know that I rant and rave and gnash my teeth at him quite frequently. And it's not like he's incapable or unintelligent, just "differently focussed" at times.

The thing to remember about parents too is that they are quite possibly reacting to stuff that you don't know about, stuff that happened as they grew up, stuff that has happened throughout their lives, even very old patterns that they are not aware of. I know that for my relationship with my parents to continue surviving (as fraught and problematic as that is, especially given that I moved to England 5.5 years ago and am not ready to go back permanently yet), then I have to keep remembering what little I know about what has happened to them in their lives, how that potentially affects the way they react in any given circumstance and that basically they are good people doing the best that they can with the crappy hand that they were dealt.

But that is just how I do it. And of course the story is more complex than the picture I can paint with mere words. But a relationship with one's parents is just as complex and complicated as one with another human being. Never forget that.

I hope some of that makes sense, but I guess the message is don't give up, just give yourself some time and try where possible to get more information that could give you insight into their/her situation. Maybe your Mum or someone she loved was severely and viciously abandonded/mucked around earlier in her life and she is reacting to how she still feels about that because the situation feels similar? It may or may not be a conscious thing, or she may have other reasons, but there is usually something else going on when people (regardless of whether they are your parents or not) act in such extreme and uncharacteristic ways.

I hope some of that helps, or is vaguely useful. It's what I know from experience.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
14:09 / 12.09.03
I think that parents sacrifice a lot when they have children and that they continue to remember that forever and probably that a small part of them resents it. When their children do things that they dislike they start to behave badly because all those sacrifices spring up and they feel unappreciated. Your dad is going to side with your mum because the two of them have given up a lot of things together. Be very glad that you are in your forties and not your early twenties.

I should let this run its course. If you have the chance be gentle and kind, don't forget what they've done ever because they're just as screwed as ever other person on this planet and to repeat unencumbered's words If, during the course of an argument, it should transpire that you are right, apologise immediately.
 
 
Ariadne
14:14 / 12.09.03
Oh crikey. I'm out of my depth here, advice-wise. Except that I think it's time to step back and look after yourself first -- pretty much what you're doing, I suppose.

Good luck. You'll be okay.
 
 
Papess
14:27 / 12.09.03
Ugh..don't get me started. I can't stand the way they chew their food, but I respect?, love?,...whatever.

Justified, you are not alone.

It seems funny to me that we always hurt those closest to us. Family is just another word for purgatory, in some cases, anyway. I don't want to seem too jaded! I am sure there are families who are sane and actually mindful about the way they treat each other. But it is soooo easy to treat those who implicitly trust you (because of course, you are family), like utter crap. Well, let's face it...who else is gonna put up with that crap? Their lawyer? No. The hairstylist at the salon? No. Their doctor? No. Why again should people put up with controlling and toxic behavior from family? Beats me. I have spent years out of contact with my parents. They really didn't seem to mind. I was free to form other toxic relationships, (since that was the example I had) and spread the dis-ease to global proportions.

They are about due for another vanishing act.

I am struggling to find a cure (other than sterility for the entire human race) for the resentment and loathing families seem to generate and administer to one another.

Any suggestions? Brainstorm?

All I have come up with is self-awareness.
 
 
Persephone
14:34 / 12.09.03
But it was to make you laugh, seriously. I'm okay with my dad. Truthfully, I don't deal with him as a fully realized person; that way lies madness. Every now & then I get sad that I don't have ...I don't know, a normal dad, in my corner. But you know, I've worked around that part of my life & that's part of who I am.

I don't really like giving advice when I don't know you. But I personally think that it's fine to keep yourself away from people who are hurting you & to let yourself heal and get stronger. You don't have to drop them forever... just maybe drop them for now.
 
 
angel
15:05 / 12.09.03
I agree Persephone. It's really hard when you don't know the entire situation, but in this case it sounds like time to step back and breathe, reassess, gather info and be gentle with yourself. The only other thing is to get back in there and keep trying to slug it out and that doesn't seem to be working and in fact could be doing some real harm.

May for a lot of us here we are having to step away from family and people around us who do have an unhealthy affect on our lives (I guess toxic is a better and stronger word, just so harsh too). We all have different strategies for doing this - mine seems to have been travelling half way around the world to both reinvent and re-establish myself as an independent being before attempting some kind of re-integration. And for some of us we get the happy families, but most often it's an uneasy truce or amalgum of compromise and make do. I know I'll never have a "normal happy families" relationship with my parents and I'm working towards accepting this, but I am also luckier than some because I know there is no real malice behind their actions, just fucked-up-ness and humanity.

Mu Mu, you will know what the right thing for you to do is. It will just feel like the right thing to do, and everything else won't. That doesn't mean it is the path to happiness (sometimes like for May things just won't work out) but to do anything else is to go against who you are, and whilst you can live like that, to me that just seems like a half life and therefore not a very good life. But each to our own choices.

Good luck, and I hope you have some good supportive friends around you to help lift your spirits.
 
 
Our Lady of The Two Towers
19:11 / 12.09.03
Is there anyone else in the family that can act as a link between you and your parents? I think staying out of each others way is probably a good thing for the immediate future, but you also need to have a system in place if/when the time comes to mend bridges.

And my parents never drove me mad. It was crazy-making how normal they we- oh, hang on...
 
 
SMS
17:17 / 13.09.03
Sometimes, conflicts within the family seem fairly simple from the outside, but they really require a delicate treatment when you’re a part of them. I have always felt that you can never lose your family. Friends remain so only as long as it is convenient, but your brother will always be your brother. But I know this feeling is not always right. Families do break apart, and people stop speaking, and once you’ve stopped, it can be even more difficult to start up again. I’ve seen people who are too proud to pick up the phone for years, and then one day, they hear that a family member has died.

And it all seems so pointless, because it seems like there should be a simple way to fix it, but nobody has any idea what the way is.

Good luck, Mu Mu.
 
 
—| x |—
00:03 / 14.09.03
"'you've only been nice to us all these years so you'd get the inheritance'"

Wow. I mean...wow. That is so calculatedly brutal it sets my teeth on edge.

Now I don’t know you v. well, and I certainly don’t your parents as shit from shinola; however, this is what I see:

The diatribe that you relate your mother as saying with respect to her thoughts on your former—why are they so bent outta’ shape over this?!?!—partner appear to me to be her unconscious admittance of her actual relationship with you. And that is quite a heap of shit for her to have to deal with (let alone you!), and likely, she is largely in denial or unaware of these traits in her. It would be better at this point, if you feel I am correct, to keep this under your hat--don't throw it in Mum's face 'cause it will be like putting a case of dynamite on a bonfire.

For fuck-sakes you're 42 (the answer to life, the universe, and everything, ‘natch)!?!?!?! If you want to have sex with chickens that you raise in a coupe in your back yard, well, that’s pretty much between you and those poor chickens…

I would only hope you were appropriately sized if you catch my drift…

Anyway, this sounds ghastly and terrible, and I am not at all envious of your predicament. Although I can not directly relate, my mother and my younger (and only) brother are not currently speaking (and this is over 1 year now), which has had fallout that has created a small rift between he and I.

Families: you can’t live with them, ya’ can’t cut them up and keep them in the freezer without fear of punishment by some authority.

Sorry, you are serious here and I am cracking jokes. Really, it is only because it is things like this that make me wish I had a magic wand to wave accompanied with some short spoken phrase to make it all better—because your situation is clearly FUBAR, and will require much effort, patience, and forgiveness from all parties involved. And while it is often difficult to hold on to things (since change is the only constant), it is much more difficult to let them go.

I wish I could be a better help. All the best anyway, and hopefully sense and love will overcome stupidity and stubbornness—but life certainly ain’t no freakin’ fairy tale!
 
 
gornorft
01:49 / 14.09.03
I'm glad I started this thread now, although I couldn't look at it yesterday out of embarrasment at having done so. I'm calmer today. I had a nice afternoon yesterday discussing this and other things with my best friend, I had a lovely evening of dinner and conversation with a couple of other friends last night. I had a really big sleep-in this morning (it's 11.20am now and I am just waking up with my breakfast of coffee and a cigarette). I have a friend coming over to watch motor racing with me this afternoon over a few beers and cones and home made hamburgers. Most things are right with the world and I am not at the wrong end of a bottle of red wine and half a bottle of whisky as I was typing into this thread the night before last.

Usually when I start a topic I make some bold statement, back it up with convoluted reasoning and then abandon it to see if it sinks or swims with no further assistance from me. This time I don't feel like I can do that as it has become, I think, a really nice topic where nobody has said anything stupid or nasty, people are actually thinking about what to say and doing so caringly and intelligently. Also this time it's actually about me and that's something I'll rarely put out there to the mercy of the masses.

Thank you people for your replies. I'm glad you've explained about your post Persephone because I DID laugh but was in such a dreadfully serious and depressed mood at the time I felt guilty about doing so. Stupid of me really because I certainly manage to have a laugh with my friends about stuff like this, did so quite a bit yesterday. Most of my life my friends have eagerly prodded me for an update on my family as they are renown in my circle for being sungularly odd and the source of many strange, difficult to believe and yet, usually, somehow, funny tales. But then usually their strange actions are directed at someone or something other than me and my life. Usually I can see my parent's point of view and can agree with them on some level for their actions. They are a bit twisted and this is one of the things I have always loved about them. Until a few weeks ago I counted my parents as being among my best friends. They made me laugh, they were helpful and generous and they have pointy, but logical, opinions that I can respect. Our relationship has not been what I consider to be "normal" between parents and son, it's been much better than that.

Over the last few years, however, there has been a gradual shift. As you say Dr. ~ (c^2) > 0, "'you've only been nice to us all these years so you'd get the inheritance'" IS pretty brutal. That's the way Mum works. There have been other such comments over the last year or so. "I wouldn't trust you to look after my dog" for one, and that was her genuine response to an offer to do just that if they went on a cruise. Yet she also said "You CAN'T go to England Son, we can't spare you!" My Mum's barking! It used to be funny but as she gets older it's become simply mean and cruel, and directed at me where it never was before. But yeah, it would be like the dynamite and bonfire scenario to tackle her on anything at the moment. I've seen her explode at others before and it's not pretty.

Angel, my strategy for stepping away has also been to travel half way around the world, 4 times so far. Yes I will know the right thing to do and, for now, that is simply to do nothing. I'm VERY good at doing nothing and have usually found that this action above all others will eventually pay dividends. It even works with the taxation department and dentistry so I'm not going to argue with past successes now.
 
 
elthe deuro
22:02 / 15.09.03
Before my current partner and I got hitched, we cohabitated for about a year. Although my parents weren't thrilled about the arrangement, they eventually left me alone about it. My partner's mother, however, saw fit to send a lovely letter apologizing to me that her son was 'robbing me of my beauty' and informing us in no uncertain terms that fornicators go to hell. As you can imagine, we were thrilled.

This isn't the first problem my partner has had with his mother; over the past ten years, she's been constantly ridiculing, deriding and criticising every decision he's made. He recently decided that he needed time off, and he's stopped communicating with her. He feels bad about it, but she's been downright mean... and she persists in thinking that she's absolutely justified to hurt people, as long as she thinks that they're wrong.

I realize that parents sacrifice a great deal when they raise us. But many of us have also been permanently scarred by our parents' misbehavior. If I had a friend who were treating me the way your (or my partner's) parents are treating you, I'd dump them straight away. I realize you can't always do that with the fam, but at the very least, it sounds like you need time away. If they're not going to respect your autonomy and intelligence as a more-than-full-grown man, they can damn well fuck off. Concessions need to be made on both sides, not just on yours.

One of my favorite fictional anecdotes on this theme is an episode of 'The Golden Girls,' where Dorothy is upset with a romantic choice that her daughter's made. She goes to Sophia (her mother) and asks her what to do, and Sophia replies: "Do you remember a night in Brooklyn in 1972 when you came to see me?" Dorothy nods. "It was your first wedding anniversary, and you were crying because not only had Stan forgotten, he had come home with lipstick on his collar. I asked you what you wanted to do. Do you remember?" Dorothy nods again: "I said I'd take him back." "And I thought: 'Idiot!'" Sophia cries. "But I kept my mouth shut. You should consider doing the same... or you may not have a daughter at all."

Sage advice from a Sicilian woman. Just my 2 cents.
 
 
Thjatsi
05:43 / 16.09.03
I am struggling to find a cure (other than sterility for the entire human race) for the resentment and loathing families seem to generate and administer to one another.

You need two things:

1. Boundaries
2. Consequences

If any human oversteps your boundaries repeatedly you need to sever that relationship until the offender stops. A failure to do this is only going to encourage more abuse. Families are filled with pain because people consider them to be intrinsic to normal functioning, and are afraid to end them.

However, a willingness to sever ties isn't enough. You have to be clear about what is and isn't appropriate behavior.

Let your parents know that you're unhappy with the current situation, and apologize for assuming that they weren't together on this issue (since you most likely came across as trying to divide them). But, let them know that the girlfriend issue is off limits. If they continue to bring it up, dump your parents until they figure out the basic rules of human conduct.
 
 
Jester
07:42 / 16.09.03
You need two things:

1. Boundaries
2. Consequences

If only it was that easy... I agree with you that, of course, that's the way it should be. But, personally, I find it very difficult to go through with what I have threatened again and again, which is that I won't speak to my dad any more. For slightly different reasons, it must be admitted. I don't really post here too often, although I lurk a little , but I wanted to say that everyones' posts in this thread have been really affecting to read, and I even sent a link to it to another friend of mine who is having familial difficulties at the moment to read...
 
  
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