Anyone else genuinely dislike your parents as an adult?

Who are YOU to judge? trust fund elitist

Major issues with my mom, but can tolerate my dad.

My mom is the typical narcissist, everything is about her. When I talk to her on the phone, 80% is her droning on about herself, her work, her "friends", whatever. Perpetual victim, nothing is ever her fault. Was emotionally abusive when I was smaller. Has to bring up politics in everything and has burned countless friendships over it. Hates immigrants and welfare yet she immigrated illegally and got amnesty under Reagan. Glued to Fox News all day.

Since having kids I've come to detest her even more. I once sternly told my younger kid to "push in his chair after leaving the table" and my mom snapped that I shouldn't treat "her grandkid" so harshly. This is the same woman that would routinely call me a f*g and scream at me for hours over accidentally breaking dropping a glass of water.

My dad was okay, but mostly gone working when I was smaller. Provided for us financially very well, but mostly absent. Really wish he could've put a lid on my mom's behavior back in the day.

I stopped communicating with my parents in 2009, when I was 43 years old, married with two kids. My mom was a constant nag, a constant killjoy, and I was a constant disappointment to her, and my dad silently enabled this behavior. I repeatedly told her to stop.

My last phone with them ended with me hanging up the phone mid-sentence. They sent a follow-up email, and my response ended with "drop f*cking dead and go to hell." I told them that this will be the last communication I will ever have with them.

A few months after that, my mother-in-law died, and my mom must have seen the obituary. She left a cry-baby voice message, apologizing, blah, blah, blah. I did not respond. I have been incomunicado since my 2009 FU. I have no idea if they're alive or dead. And I don't care. Life is too short to associate with toxic people, family or not. Good riddance to rubbish.

How do you guys deal with the anger on a daily basis? My parents were complete narcissists growing up and now it's hard to deal with it.

SayWut? wrote:

How do you guys deal with the anger on a daily basis? My parents were complete narcissists growing up and now it's hard to deal with it.

Once I completely removed my parents from my life, there's been no anger on my part, just blissful relief. They are out of sight and out of mind. On the rare occasions when I think about them (like this thread), it's a feeling of just not caring. It was one of the best decisions of my life.

If your parents are a problem, show them that there are consequences.

No.

I would say I don't dislike my parents, however growing up with them was not easy for me. My parents divorced when I was 5, I am 39 years old now. I lived with my dad from age 8 to 14 and he was an investment banker. My mom hated him with a passion would constantly tell me I looked like and reminded her of him and she hated it. I have one biological sister who is 2 years older than me. She was adopted by my mothers next husband who passed at age 49 from a prescription drug issue that he kept pretty well hidden he was not to fond of me either. Living with my father was not easy large house, however he mistook my ADHD for retardation and seemed to think I needed to be in special education classes which is a whole story in itself. I had to fight hard and request the proper placements tests in order to be removed from these type of classes. I moved back in with my mother at 14 after my dad went to rehab from what I would diagnose as "Wolf of Wall Street syndrome", easily put he partied himself to damn near broke. Moving back in with my mother was brutal I got to watch my other siblings get cars for there 16th birthday and get overall spoiled while I got pretty much minimal. I didn't get a drivers license until I was 27 years old. I ran fast and used this as a way to get away later on. As a freshman I ran 4:34 for a 1600m and 9:48 for the 3200m, I ran 4:24 as a sophomore for the 1600m and 9:19 for the 3200m. I was forced to work a fast food job and my mother fought with me over missing work for my track meets which she thought was a waste of time. I did earn a decent scholarship and went to college then graduated. I also went to graduate school and got a masters. I got married at 24 both my parents thought I was stupid and criticized my decision to marry young. However, my wife came from a similar background where she too had an emotionally abusive upbringing which is why I think our marriage has worked so well. We are almost 14 years married and have 2 children and beautiful home and a beautiful life. I think sometimes a rough childhood can make you fight hard for a good overall life. I don't hate my mom she passed away at 55 years old and apologized for the mistakes she made raising me I told her her I loved her before she passed and that the mistakes she made have helped shaped me to the man I am today. My dad is 62 years old and we talk daily he gets offensive over my childhood but I know it is because he doesn't know how to correctly apologize for it.

My kids don't like me, so what?

She saw them a lot. Dad never did. Sorry for the confusion.

You typed - y'all - right? If you haven't lived through these sort of toxic enviromemts, you can never understand. The scars do not go away, but one learns to live with them, hopefully. Some don't. But I do agree, for some it's good to get help.

Hey, at least your Dad isn’t Chris Watts. It could always be worse!

Unfortunately, there is no test that must be passed, to ensure someone is a good, well adjusted person, before they have children.

Also, we don’t get to pick our parents. We get what we get. Some do much better or worse in this roll of the dice, than others. It’s something uniquely human. And there is no perfect rule book on how to handle it all.

The only thing we can do is try to make the best of what hand we were dealt. Then, with our own kids, try to do the good things our parents did, better, and avoid repeating the mistakes. If we do that, we can’t ensure perfection in parenting. But at least there’s the hope things will get a little bit better with each generation.

Congratulations to those who have gained insight into their trauma and will break the generational cycle. A word to the wise from the wise: Do what it takes to forgive your parents and understand them even if they don't deserve it. Never should you hate a parents because it can be the same as hating a part of yourself and the more you hold onto bitterness towards a parent, the more likely you are to become like them.

A lot of cry baby victims in this thread. My dad yelled at me wah 😭

A lot of these women sound like my wife. I have also been a failure to my kids by enabling her. My kids are pretty much failures and I am sure that I can foot much of the blame. This thread has been a reminder of how bad a parent I have been for not shielding them from her nagging and negativity.

I read this article too when it came out the author always acts like he knows it all, has researched better than others, is smarter than others etc.

He's not. The article in turn relies on major assumptions that are incorrect in their own right.

Freud was right about this; your parents, siblings, family, schools etc. Are.responaible for conditioning you in early life.

You get to be responsible ((if you are able to be smart enough) to figure out that conditioning, and get good therapy, reeducation, healing, and personal growth.

I'm convinced, because it is so obvious, that Trump supporters are children from dysfunctional beginnings, who like to blame others for their misery. Own the libs, call them names, tell lies in order to spread their hate...

And that is what the research shows. Little kids, 2 year olds, toddlers, are not racists or hate filled Republican types until they lead racial hatred from their families. Etc...

Mr. I - i see where you are coming from. My suggestion to you is don't call her at all. Let her call you.

I learned that you really know how f$%*@ up your family is when someone needs full time care.

I've learned a lot about my parents relationship since my mother started getting dementia. In the early phases, she denied anything was wrong and would not allow my dad to help her with anything and constantly yelled at him. Over the course of decline and through my older siblings, i figured out that my dad, who retired early because he was bitter at his job, was very controlling of my mother who was the sole earner at that time. He did not support any career moves and when we were kids, he criticized her for buying us kids stuff. So, my mother all of this resentment built up against my dad which she proceeded to take out on him over the past 4-5 years.

So I really don't like either of them. My mother was all about what everyone else thought of her when we were growing up, and my dad was a controlling sexist ass. They are both old and not in good health so i am cordial and non emotional when i go over and take care of them. But I can't say i like them. The goal now for me is to not say something to my dad that i regret the rest of my life.

Lesson learned here too is to make sure you deal with issues with your spouse. When your brain goes, you don't have the ability to hold it in anymore.

That’s not necessarily true.

My mother definitely did have some issues in her home.

My dad’s parents were about as perfect as they come. And his parents’ parents were also pretty great. Yet in my dad’s case it didn’t pass over into his relationships with his children. His brother, my uncle, also had issues with his child, although I’m not sure he was the one to blame there.

My father didn’t beat us or do drugs. He was always very profitably employed and he and my mother are still together. But out of the three children, two of us have been very conflicted in our adult relationships with them. Both my brother and I have stopped speaking to them for many years at a time and both of us have mentioned “abuse.” I can’t speak for my brother’s experience but mine was of pretty heavy emotional abuse from both of them, more strongly from my mother. The physical abuse was rare but not totally absent.

The third child was born after a gap of 5 years. He’s in lockstep with my parents and shares their reactionary political beliefs and their Christian religious beliefs. He thinks they were GREAT parents. Maybe to him, they were.

I now realize that although my father came from this healthy family background, he was more influenced by my mother over time and chose to take the easy way out by mirroring her destructive parenting style. I’ve also observed that the military changes some men for the worst. Some men stop questioning, become hung up on obedience and loyalty to an extreme extent and allow the belligerent side of their personality greater play in their relationships. Both my Dad and younger brother were in the military and they share certain traits. I love my younger brother but he drives me nuts and we fight like wolverines if we’re together for very long.it wasn’t like that for us at all until he went into the Army.

As a child, I identified much more strongly with my Dad than with my mother. He was the reader who filled our house with books. He was the one who loved classical music and took an active interest in the world around him. All this he got from his parents and the way he was raised. However my desire to be like him and align myself with him was not exactly embraced. As the girl was supposed to be like my mother. My dad very much did and does want the attention of his sons.

I have adjusted by identifying with my father’s family instead. This is a bit weird because they are all dead. I was lucky enough to know my grandparents and uncle pretty well. I have boxes of letters from them and 100s of pictures. It’s more than enough to reconstruct their lives in my mind, at least the general picture. I also live close to their graves and can visit them.

Anyways my point— other than getting all this off my chest — is that parents aren’t always influenced by their parents to either be better or worse at the parenting job. Sometimes they make their own choices. In my dad’s case, it was easier to be worse to us than his parents were to him.

I’ve asked my dad again and again about his parents, expecting that one time or another he’ll remember something bad about them. No, he had wonderful parents. So why didn’t that happen for us?

And with three kids, my parents have one grandchild. He has challenges and will certainly never have children of his own.

My mother is also against immigration. Put it this way: she claims not to be a racist, but how many different reasons can you give for not wanting various people to enter the country before it starts to look like racism? It’s their religion or their culture or their this or that. The cherry on the s cake for me was when she wrote this post saying how the Afghan refugees were all going to vote Democrat and that we (her crazy reactionary Republican “friends”) should be very worried about how they were going to change “our America.” She proudly sent this post to me, knowing that I do not share her views. I tried hard to say nothing but eventually lost control and out and out told her she was a racist.

The weird part is that her parents were both immigrants. But I suppose THAT was OK since they were white skinned immigrants from Europe, right????