BackAnew

I want to preface this with the following:

1) I was not an easy kid to raise and my parents gave me an amazing childhood. Up until I was about 14-15 I couldn't have hoped or asked for better parents which is a huge contributing factor to why I feel so much guilt now.

2) My parents are salt of the earth kind hearted, good people who would give you the shirt off their back. Though a caveat to this is my mother keeps a scorecard of any nice thing she's ever done for anybody ever and readily weaponises her "kindness". It's tainted every good thing she's ever done.

Okay, to my post.

Well, here I am again, I had an account in 2008 (UserName: HealthyLimits) to try to resolve some of what was going on with my parents. I ended up disconnecting from them at the time for about 16 months so I could reset and redefine the boundaries of our dynamic.

The one thing that was clear to me after doing so was that my father would choose alcohol over me and my mother would go along for the ride no matter how unhealthy or dysfunctional. I wasn't shocked by this, I expected it but letting go of the last remaining bit of hope does cause change and my relationship with them has never been the same.

Since last posting in 2008 my parents are now in their late 60s, my mother is terminally ill and I'm not sure where she is in the stages of grieving surrounding that. She's certainly not preparing for it by forging deeper relationships and connections, if anything it's the opposite. My father is a typical dry drunk, he's mostly stopped drinking but he's never sought out help or resolved the underlying issues. I'm the only person in his life that has transparently set boundaries and they have villainized me for it.

Of course this all hurts, a lot actually but I understand it, I know this isn't about me but damn these are my parents still. In our last email exchange my mother said:

"Regarding stopping trying when it’s not enough…I certainly understand that. I have no more to give you. What is it that you still want? I’m honestly emotionally worn down and out by all these things. Are you proud about that? Your too old to behave like this.

Any good therapist would recognize that. If you were married you would have to focus on your wife and helping your kids. You would have less time to antagonize emotionally your parents. At what point does it fall under the category of emotional abuse? Please ask your therapist.

We have nothing financially to give you anymore, we have sold or given you everything we have or had. Financially it has caused us a great deal of harm.

In many ways you remind me a great deal of my dad. He never let it go, held onto things for years."

Her father was an abusive alcoholic so that comment is meant to sting or hurt me. She will continue to go on like that, she will bring up any and everything she's ever done to help and behave like the victim which is typical for her. If you attempt to press for answers or for her to back up things she's saying her responses are always some reiteration of the above with many mentions of things she's done in the past to help family.

Keep in mind, I don't care about money and my parents are poor and make extremely bad financial decisions. They certainly have always been willing to help, kind to a fault with that so I won't for a moment deny it. I sometimes wonder though if it's done by my mom so she can martyr herself later and blame that for why they are were they are. My mom has never passed a sword she didn't fall on.

It just hurts is all, it costs me sleep, it's hard to not try to defend myself even when I know she's being malicious. I've tried all I could to have a relationship with them on their terms as best I could because I wanted it, or more that I didn't want to regret not having it.

The crux of my post is this. They own the place I live in, I very much so hate the house and have wanted to move for years but haven't out of obligation, having added stability for my kids with them being close to my parents, and my own fears of regret and discomfort. It's not a great house but it's close to them and I've stuck around for when they needed me. They recently told me they're selling the place and I need to move by the first of the year which is more than kind to me. I felt this HUGE sense of relief, like a huge weight off my back. Since then, our dynamic has been a downward spiral and become very contentious.

Both of my parents are extremely avoidant and I don't know what the narrative in their head is but I assume this downward spiral is in part caused by them thinking I'm trying to work some angle or get something from them. Again, they never really tell you what they're thinking and with the lack of transparency it's a guessing game for me.

And this is where the guilt comes in because when I think about it. My parents are good people in so many ways and gave me such a good childhood but they're immature, unhealthy, and I don't like them as people. I of course didn't choose them, I of course love them, and I deeply care about them. But I think my dad is a horrible human being in so many ways and he disgusts me, I think he was an awful and selfish partner and honestly, the kind of guy I would avoid at all costs in my daily life. His jokes are crude, his behaviour is vile to me, it's so hard for me to reconcile internally the parts of him I love and was so thankful for and the parts of him that make my stomach turn.

So, here I sit with such mixed feelings, trying to pre grieve inevitable outcomes over the next few years trying to reconcile with such fond memories of my parents and childhood versus my current feelings, feeling sympathy for what they must be dealing with in life to be in their 60s and still so unhealthy. Then there's the elation at the thought of distancing myself from them without the guilt of feeling like I'm doing it for selfish reasons.

I know my father will call me one day in the next few years to tell me mother is gone or close. But I've fought so hard to find the closure I needed on my own that when that call comes I can't imagine anything but sadness at all the things they never know about me, all the sides they never saw, everything they'd ignored or lie they'd told themselves to maintain the narrative they have.

And while my issues stem from both of them my father has always thrown my mom under the bus with his addiction. He's always stayed comfortable and avoided the confrontation while she's done the heavy lifting and been the mouth piece. So while he isn't to blame for the poor relationship I have with my mother my feelings about how a man should behave and protect his children and family will always skew my thinking and leave me bias on the topic with thoughts that he's failed to do his job as the man in the house and maintain harmony.

Okay, this needed purging from my head. If you've read this all, thank you much and please feel free to not hold back, speak your mind, tell me your thoughts, that's why I posted this, if you see an issue, call BS, if my perspective is flawed on something call me out. I need it, I'm not here for validation I'm here for growth and understanding.

sage1969

BackAnew, heavy, heavy stuff. I'm sorry that your dealing with this emotional stuff.

You've said it perfectly, one parent is dry drunk and deep in addiction, the other falls on their sword and keeps count of everything. Neither parent really addressed addiction or codependency during their lifetime. And the enabling, codependent parent is not willing to let you forget that you've walked away from that way of life.

I think it's common in families where there's intergenerational addiction / codependency that some of us are able to break free and heal ourselves for our descendants, and some of our family members simply can't make that change in their lives. Because they can't break free, they may not want to or be able to understand your choices . . . not your side of the road.

Are you able to find a way to forgive your parents, to find a way to lovingly make your goodbyes with your mother? Even if she says awful things, can you find a way to make peace with her, even if she doesn't hear you? Perhaps this is something you will need to use prayer and your heart to guide you (and remember your boundaries so that you can live with your choices afterwards).

trailmix

That is really heavy and you've explained it so clearly, I can picture it.

There seems to be a struggle between wanting to detach and wanting to stay connected. I think until you make the decision on where you stand with that, you are going to be stuck right where you are. You can't have both and be comfortable with it. They won't allow it for one thing, you won't allow yourself to bend to their whims and wishes (and good on you for that) so it's a stalemate.

Realize that what they do and what they say has nothing to do with you really. You aren't going to get them to see your viewpoint, there isn't going to be a lightbulb, aha, moment here. they are entrenched in their way of thinking and their perspectives. Those will never match your perspective.

So detaching can help you. Have no expectations of them, don't expect them to react as you would like them to, keep your guard up high around them, they can't hurt you unless you let them, don't let them.

My Father (the alcoholic) was never a good Father, a good provider, always, but an absent Father (even though he was there). I detached early on. I never told him what was going on in my life, only on a need to know basis, therefore there was never any judgement or "advice".

That maintained peace for me, it might for you too. Perhaps when he is alone, you can largely leave him alone.

BackAnew

Thank you for the response, they are really tough situations. It's so strange how firmly we can grasp what's going on and intellectually understand it but that isn't enough for our hearts to mend the ways it hurts us.

As for forgiveness, I don't know that I don't forgive them, at face value I think I do actually. I'm not mad at anything from that past, I feel like I have a fair amount of resolve, understanding, ans sympathy for them surrounding it. Raising children while trying to deal with your own growth and issues isn't easy. The way it still manifests is a different story, I could stick my head in the sand but that doesn't feel healthy for me. It's the way it's never been acknowledged that bothers me, the way it's all been framed and history has been rewritten to make me the issue. And my mothers talks to my children about these things (they're young adults now) which forces me into a situation of adding more clarity or preserving the illusion which is not a place I want to be.

I know who I am, I can overcome that narrative but what healthy person wouldn't question if there's truth in what another is saying about us and allow some self doubt to creep in that maybe we don't know ourselves as well as we think.

Due to my own health issues which cause difficulty with travel I actually have a feeling this may be some of the last few months that I ever see my parents as I'm moving to the other side of the Country. I'm trying to play out all the scenarios I can in my head and come from a place of compassion. But I live 3 houses away from them now and am fully open to therapy or any conversation or question about anything ever. These issues have been a huge, defining aspect of our dynamic for the past decade and it's draining and as ****** as it sounds, and as much as my feelings may, and hopefully will change. I'm just over trying and I've come to terms with finding closure without them involved. They're falling apart physically and I selfishly want to not be around for any of it and the mental, emotional, physical toll it would have on me. Even more so given how fractured and damaged our relationship is.

To be fair, there is hurt on my end for how loyal I have been and how much I wanted to make sure they were able to live on their own and have independence as long as possible. I am bothered they don't understand this or see me and my actions and motives for what they are. I don't think anything I'm saying is rooted in hurt or anger but I'll leave room for that possiblity.

BackAnew

I know this but somehow seeing you say it made me cry, when it's just in my head, my optimism leaves so much more room for hope. Seeing you say it reminds me that any other outcome would be the exception not the rule.

Part of my conflict is how good my dad was to me as a kid, I have such insanely fond memories of us as a family. I have no actual way to even express how thankful I am for the parents I had and the childhood they gave me up until I was a young teen. As a kid, his drinking was just fun, I didn't know any better, and he was a hard working functional alcoholic, they did a great job of hiding any dysfunction from me. Looking back there were issues, mostly with my father staying out late drinking but there's such an insane level of contrast between then and when I started setting personal limits and boundaries.

PeacefulWater12

Welcome back under your new user name, Back Anew, to work through your thoughts.

trailmix

Perhaps because my parents were older when they married, my Father was probably further along in his addiction. I remember once I was going through some old mementos, cleaning and I came across a couple of father's day or birthday cards that my Sister and I had given to him, as children, all nice and love you dad blah blah. At that time, as an adult, that was so foreign to me. Yes there are pictures of outings and camping trips etc, I remember the camping (we were young like 5), seemed ok, fun even.

As time went on his alcoholism obviously progressed because there were no fun times as teenagers with him in the house, I guess I started detaching quite a few years before that, maybe when I was 10-ish.

So I can see, from where you are, that would be much more difficult, it is something that came to me naturally.

We will detach, naturally, from people who hurt us, it can be over a long period of time. Sometimes (like in your case) you have to move that detachment, consciously, along, to keep yourself safe (emotionally). That is tough!! There is no easy route. But as with many crossroads in relationships dealing with dysfunction of any sort, alcoholism etc, what other choice do you have?

Your time spent with them sounds really miserable. So, it's not so different from anyone that comes here to say, where did my husband/wife/brother/sister go and who is this that is left in their place? You can see your Dad, he looks like - your Dad, his voice is the same he walks around the same, but he's not the same. That a tough thing to accept and he's not changing.

All you can do is protect yourself to the best of your ability.

dandylion

BackAnew......you say that you are not here for any "validation". But, I say, that maybe y ou DO need some degree of validation!

I sure do get how painful your feeling are, right now----but, I don't think that they are as unusual as you might think.
Across a person's growing up---it is NORMAL to have conflicting feelings about one's parents. All kids do this to one degree or another. It, typically, begins with the onset of puberty, and comes to the surface at other times across a person's life.
At many times---we love our parents and can absolutely "Hate" any of the vile, ignorant, dysfunctional, or cruel actions that they do---either to others or to ourselves.

Try not to beat yourself up so much for being NORMAL!
You are entitled to be Normal, and to protect yourself, in this life. All persons are entitled to this and you are no exception. In fact, it is not only a right---but a responsibility. If you don't protect yourself, there is no one else who is going to do it, as their first responsibility.

Trailmix is right.....your parents are not going to change in any significant way. Please, take a burden off your shoulders and stop trying to pull a sword from the stone. Stop trying to do the impossible.

You sound like a strong person and an (overly) responsible person. You will get through this stage of life----with all of the expected ups and downs.
This grieving business is deep and gripping stuff. But, grieving is the very first stage to eventual healing. We are wired to be able to heal from pain---otherwise, our species would not even be around.

Keep shareing...and keep the Faith.

Hawkeye13

I don’t know if this is a good idea or not—others who may be wiser in this area should weigh in if not—but I was thinking about what I would do over if I had one more chance for engagement with my mom before she passed. She ended up in a nursing home due to extreme self-abuse from alcoholism and smoking—I became very estranged from her emotionally because of her treatment and taking advantage of me for many years as a codependent.

She died unexpectedly from a heart attack while I was having lunch with a co-worker, exhausted from a tough week of dealing with her silent treatment and anger, and feeling really guilty for not going over to see her that day over my lunch hour. The final punctuation of my guilt was her dying that particular time, and they called me right as the food came. Unforgettable, but somehow not unexpected really . . .

Anyway, if I could have had a final opportunity to say something to her, I would have preferred finishing with kindness and saying thank you for the good memories. Like your mother, mine was very lovely and giving at times during my childhood before the alcoholism really took hold of her mind and body.

If you don’t decide to see them in person, which is totally understandable, but still want to send your mother some sort of positive message before she passes, what about writing a letter to her that recalls some of those good things and sending her the love you still obviously have for her despite everything? It seems you could still maintain your boundary and do that—maybe make it clear you aren’t going to see them in person, but that you wanted her to know these things since you are leaving the area.

I don’t mean to suggest anything totally inappropriate for your situation, but thinking back, I wish my mom had heard those good things I remembered before she died. I did it later on—let go of my judgement, resentment, and anger towards her and spoke to her as if she was still with me.

It was very cathartic.
Forgiveness, even with uncrossable distance, heals the giver maybe more than the recipient.

dandylion

Hawkeye's suggestion strikes me as a really good and positive option.

BackAnew

Thank you all for the responses, they're nice to read and there is healing to be found in the journey of others. A realization I had yesterday was that I've always assumed my father would die first and with "him out of the way" so to speak there would be time for me to get to know my mother without his insecurities and unhealthy, dysfunctional behaviors influencing her. That for the first time in her life she would be able to have some growth and thrive a little. This was the case with her mother who died 20 years after her alcoholic father. I almost felt like it was just the way it worked or normal.

However, now that it seems like my mother will be the one to die first I'm having to reassess everything. It's hard to make healthy decisions when you feel hurt or anger because even if they're the correct and healthy decisions you still call into question your motives. Over and over and over again however, I just keep feeling like I'm fine with letting my father die in alone in a home or wherever he ends up. I keep asking myself if I really mean that, I think about good times with him and I think about his positive qualities. But then I think about how he views me and how neither of them have ever taken a moment to get to know who I am as an adult. How this relationship isn't damaged out of my unwillingness to address issues but his desire to avoid them and growth.

Neither of my parents really had any use for me as soon as I was old enough to have my own thoughts and opinions that didn't comfort to theirs. And I keep thinking to myself, "do they know how much damage they're causing between us" and I keep wanting things other than the reality of the situation to be true and yet here we are. I've always been their kid, they're always had the chance to see who I am and get to know me and if they didn't choose to take it there's nothing else I can do.

Hawkeye's suggestion is fine but I feel peace with what I've told them and done for them to show them how I feel about them. I don't think they would hear it anyway if I'm being honest. I actually had a fairly successful YouTube channel and did a video about how thankful I am for them and the childhood they gave me, it made me tear up in the video actually. But again, it's not something they asked about, watched, or took interest in. They've been together since my mom was 13 and my dad was 16, my mom has never really had friends. My dad had one friend, also an alcoholic that he would go out drinking and get hookers with. Otherwise, they're totally isolated and in their own bubble, I can't imagine them allowing any healthy person into their lives or any healthy person wanting to engage with them.

I don't know, that's all for now, I'm drained, this is draining, I would same I'm very self aware with a high level of understanding when it comes to human behavior and psychology. I'm extremely well versed in NVC, MBTI, Enneagram, Imago therapy, and the list goes on and this is brutal for me to get through. I truly can't imagine how hard this is for others in relationships since they were young, or coming from difficult homes right into dysfunctional relationships. These topics are extremely difficult to navigate and is requiring more brain processing power than I would like even with a good number of tools, resources, support system and coping skills.

If I have any thoughts or updates I'll reach out. I have to have some conversations with her soon and I'm dreading simple things being turned into huge ordeals.

velma929

A college professor once took me aside, knowing I was struggling in my relationship with my parents. He told me that occasionally parents never make the leap from looking at their children as helpless to seeing them as fully-functional adults. If they don't, their opinions have no more relevence than that of a stranger on the street. His own wife faced the same situation: though very accomplished in her field, her father had never acknowledged her success because it wasn't a conventional job.

This forum has helped me in unexpected ways. The idea of accepting people just as they are, managing my expectations of them, and staying on my own side of the street are appicable to my relationships with all people, whether alcohol is an issue or not.

When the boss is on the phone to his children (all adults) "I love you" is said at the end of every conversation. Another woman I know has a lot of siblings - so many, the family tradition was to have a talent show at Christmas. Do I still envy a tiny bit, people with warm relationships with their families? Yup.

BackAnew

Thank you, that does help and I haven't thought of it like that but it's true, my parents actually know me less than a stranger because at least a stranger is going into it bias free.

I sometimes wonder if children in dysfunctional households tell themselves they're going to create what they don't have. And so they set out to do that but don't have the tools needed as they never took the time to sort out who they were without that dysfunction defining them. Essentially running from something versus running towards something.

I certainly didn't do that but still managed to marry (been divorced 15 years) a spitting image of my mother. I saw so much suffering through an unhealthy dynamic I had this idea in my head that love hurt and the more hurt and suffering the more love. To be fair to my parents, I have a desire to fix people, that's in my nature so I don't fault my parents for my partner selection. But I also didn't know the difference between healthy and unhealthy and boundaries as well as I should have.

The difference in my marriage with our kids and my parents though is that either of my parents would have thrown me under the bus to maintain status quo in their relationship. I know where I sit in the hierarchy of things, my dad chooses alcohol over me or my mom, my mom follows him and defends anything he does no matter the cost to herself or others and I guess I'm just the child they love, support, and accept conditionally so long as I'm not upsetting the balance. My mom has always said "family first" and I think she truly means it but that only extends to money and banking future guilt and favor.

My heart kind of breaks thinking about it, my mom was 13 and 16 when they met, her father an alcoholic, his mother had just committed suicide a couple months earlier. Neither one of them ever had a chance to figure out who they were outside of each other and I can't imagine how alone they must have felt even together. I used to look up to them with such admiration, getting older sucks as now all I see is desperation and two lonely people clawing their way through life trying to avoid facing things. I don't know, I'm tired and need sleep and this has all been so much energy to process and think about.

Thank you all again, the journey of self discovery never ends and you're all giving me little moments of much needed clarity with the pieces you're adding to the puzzle.

Hawkeye13

I respect your choice, but I think you missed my point in that if you are suffering from intense guilt feelings, writing a letter to your mother before she dies may bring you some peace and comfort, if not now then down the road.

It doesn’t really matter if your parents “hear” a letter about your good experiences or not in that sense—this is for you maybe more than your mom. As an outsider to your situation, I see quite a bit of pain and an intense focus on the past—your intensity about this comes through clearly in your prose.

In my own life, and maybe yours too, having great self-awareness + knowledge about psychology and human behavior isn’t the same as peace. I am a retired academic and used logic and research all my life— not just in my field—but to try to understand the pain of my childhood and my place in the human experience / experiment. My efforts to control and explain the narrative of my family could only heal me so far.

All of the knowing in the world can’t totally un-embed the primal brain attachment of mother-child no matter how much they hurt you or why. That’s my finding so far anyway—think carefully about your emotional position before you make your final communication decision here. . .

dandylion

BackAnew.......I believe that Hawkeye's last paragraph contains an important Essential Truth.

It brings, to mind, Sinade O'Connor's story about her mother, and the, largely, abusive treatment by her mother. Her mother, apparently struggled with mental illness, herself.

Even with all of the pain and abuse....Sinade has talked about that "primal brain" and the intense yearning that she still has for her mother's approval and love.
This is woven, very much into her songs.

dandylion

BackAnew.....you might appreciate this song by Sinead O'Connor. It is one of her older and most recognized songs. It is about her mother---not about a man.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=youtub...ANAB01&PC=U531

velma929

You know, maybe some of what you experienced as an adolescent is natural. It is about that time we become rebellious and see our parents for the flawed humans they are. But the end result for all of us is the same: we have very little power to force emotional growth on another person, particularly the person who raised us.

If I put myself in your mother's shoes, I can understand 'my man, right or wrong' because without him, who is she? How would she function without him especially now? She may feel like she's being asked to admit her whole life was a mistake.

I heard a sad and poignant thing - decades ago. Women with husbands and boyfriends in prison were asked if their lives would have been different had they chosen different partners. The overwhelming answer was 'no.' Imagine that; those women thought no matter who they had partnered, their lives would be the same. Your Mom may feel that no matter who she married, this was the experience she'd have, this was the way men were, this was the way life was. If someone has that mindset - indeed, that life experience, nothing we say or do is going to change that. Just like with the alcoholic, we need to accept people as they are.

I stayed with my alcoholic husband. He wasn't abusive but life was pretty bleak and unhappy. At the time, I couldn't imagine how I'd pay for an apartment on my own.

BackAnew

"Sometimes the only variable that can be changed is in your head."

So often true when dealing with people we love who are unhealthy and part of a multigenerational cycle of dysfunctional relationships. I can see why these cycles are so painfully difficult to break.


I decided to take the past 10 days and break everything down to the fundamental basics so I could rebuild the framework and give myself an outside perspective, a wider, better view of what's really going on. Not just internally for me but the larger picture, the cycle, how we, they, I got to where we are and the root of this fundamental breakdown.

The following is my process, my progress, my conclusions, and my solutions with the information, understanding, and wisdom I have access to in 06/2022.

Below is for the closure future me will need when they're gone, for if I ever lose my way again or get knocked off course. I'm posting here and sharing with you in hopes that it helps others but these are the very private thoughts in my head I would normally keep to myself if not for the nature of this forum and the greater good of others struggling. I could have made this shorter but again, I'm only going to remember where I am in the future so this is there for me to remember the journey.


My fundamental mistake was forgetting where my life began. I wasn't born into a "world" of perspectives, views, and differing opinions as adult me remembers or interprets the word "world". I was born in my parents world, their "bubble", their home, our home, that was my entire "world". I am an only child, my parents were everything, our home and the way my parents thought and lived was 95% of my understanding of the world and how it/people worked. This was so fundamental to so many beliefs as an adult. It's so easy to forget that was the foundation all else was built on because while that gradually changed as I interacted with the actual world more many subconscious aspects didn't.


To give you a silly, small example of this, in about 1980 I was with my father, I pointed up to the sky and I asked him why the planes made those white lines (contrails). He said "that's so people know how to find the airport." Made perfect sense to me, I didn't question it as they were clearly always going to some airport. I unquestioningly thought for decades what 6 year old me thought, when people want to go to the airport they look up and follow those lines.

Fast forward two decades and I'm sitting in a Burger King with my daughter, the next generation, about the same age I was when I asked my father and she happens to ask me the very same question. Instantly I go "that's so that" and then while faced with externalizing my internal thoughts/world view the light bulb comes on that my dad was being silly when he said that and for two decades I didn't question it. I go ahhhhhhhh as I process this and explain to my daughter what they are and why. It took me over 20 years to question something so small, so simple, so easy because that's how I learned it in my "world." And even still, I almost passed that on to my daughter.


This is so fundamental and key because it's the foundation for the presuppositions you go into the world, friendships, and relationships with. Sometimes you come across something or someone, or in my case like with the plane an internal realization that helps you reconfigure the way that you're living/thinking almost instantly, in a more comprehensive and fuller way.

More often however, especially when it comes to things we may view negatively or dislike about ourselves and our history and choices. We have a traumatic response when those presuppositions of the world are called into question or shifted dramatically. It causes us to fall into the surrounding chaos and it's so hard on you that it actually causes psychophysiological damage and undermines your entire world view and sense of self. So instead we avoid it and find ways to justify why it made sense or is okay to avoid the fallout accepting the truth and reality would cause.


If however, the other person, people, the world, your internal thoughts, value system or whatever challenges those presuppositions. It helps you retool the little behaviours and microstructures that make up you. If you have the willingness to participate in the process and be open to corrective feedback from the world you can continually adjust yourself at small levels and that makes the things in the hierarchy a little higher and healthier and that makes your world view of those things a little higher and healthier and a little more complete. This allows you to do this bit by bit retooling without ever having to suffer the demolition of huge chunks of your personality or world views.

I think as part of growing up in this parent/child bubble, with the world view I did, with my parents being my world, there was never a chance for me to set boundaries early on or maintain any level of healthy in our dynamic. There was never any retooling with our parent/child relationship on those microlevels.


The difference though is I was not constrained to their bubble nor did I have anything to gain from maintaining an illusion. So I was able to adjust my world views later in life. When I encountered something that was unexpected I was able to extract the information, rebuild my worldview and rebuild myself and what I knew to be acceptable and healthy. And because I continued doing that every time I saw some anomaly or error in my thinking or the world manifested some meaning to me I never had to face falling apart or feel threatened by change because the structure that constitutes me remained viable and healthy from the bottom up.


If you don't do that those errors accumulate and when and if they finally do manifest themselves as unavoidable there's no ignoring that and everything comes crashing down and everything becomes questionable because your entire worldview is shaken. Morality then becomes the act of paying sufficient attention and reacting sufficiently so that some autonomous corrective process occurs. But in unhealthy people, this process never happens, their entire life becomes about trying to hold up this false narrative and world view they've accepted as truth.


Even though I am their only child, on a biological and evolutionary level the only reason for them to have been together. I actually became the rift in their bubble, the only thing challenging it, them, their ideas of acceptable and healthy. The only person they ever allowed into it because it was my origin. The only person strong enough to call things what they were, to set boundaries and do what was healthy, even if uncomfortable...as it often is.

Truly, the only options I left them was to accept or reject me. It's hard to not take this personally but stepping back, looking at the bigger picture, the cycle, my grandparents, the foundations for their world views. I can see they have no choice, this isn't personal or about me at all. They're incapable of facing the fact that their life is a lie they've sold themselves to maintain their facade and pushing me out, lying about who I am and my motives is easier than facing who they are and their motives.


They will literally go to any length to avoid the truth and reality, I'm just a casualty of their internal wars within themselves and their relationship. They know deep down something isn't right, something isn't okay, they know it doesn't all add up, they just refuse to look.


And here I was, upset with them for not seeing me as an adult when in fact I had that all wrong. That's never been what happened. It was me who failed to stop seeing them as the strong, healthy people who raised me, who knew everything, who I looked up to and wanted to emulate, the foundation for my view of the "world".

The flaw in my thinking was that wisdom is not measured in years but capacity. You don't just become wise with age, you have to put the effort in, you have to do the work and have the capacity to learn and grow from it. You have to make those micro adjustments along the way or you risk a total collapse when trying to shift even the smallest of perspectives. I kept wanting them to take a step in a journey of a thousand miles that they don't have the tools for. But it isn't just that, I didn't want the first step, I wanted the last and that was nearsighted of me.


Looking back on their life together, it's not the great teenage love story I thought as a child. It's an incredibly sad story not rooted in love at all but fear and desperation, avoidance and codependency, enabling and loneliness. And these are realizations for me, just like the plane and the airport that are bittersweet because while they're now in the light and I see them for what they are I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know back then.

They have paid such a huge price to maintain their illusions and avoid being the best possible people they could as a team and supporting each other to be healthy, whole humans. They have actively worked to undermine that outcome. It's all been an effort to protect their bubble, at any and all costs. They've never had deep connections or friendships with anybody. I haven't trusted them in more then 30 years. They've damaged how their grandchildren see them, they've isolated themselves and they are truly just shells of who they could have been.

But truly the biggest price was to their relationship, I can't imagine feeling so alone when you have a "partner". They're old now, they're in poor health and the major damage is in the past but the scars and mentality, the world view and perspective are still there robbing them of any time they have left.


By now, you have to be asking yourself where do I go from here? I think we've made it to the "solutions" part of this. It's shocking how long of a journey we can find ourselves on without physically moving so much as an inch.


The big unexpected for me in all of this is I always expected my father to die first. That I'd have a decade to get to know my mom without his influence and the chance to build some sort of a relationship with her. They haven't spent more than 10 days apart in the last 17,500 plus days, my mother will never know who she is outside of him, he will never know who he is outside of her. They would likely tell you it's because they enjoy each other so much but I know it's always been about the fear and control that one would see things for what they were.


So, my solution is to pretend like the story they're telling is true and not challenge or confront it. I'll let them take their illusion to the grave with them and hope the whichever lives longer doesn't have to face reality when their bubble is gone and they realize they're all alone and it was all an illusion and a story they told themselves.


My mother is dying, I think it's very unlikely she will be here in 24 months and this is the world she's leaving behind for her family. Me and my son are leaving the State January 1st and it's very unlikely we will ever see them again. I'm not coming back if one of them is dying or for a funeral. I have no interest in speaking to my father after I leave and certainly not after my mother is gone. So, I have until January 1st to make whatever memories we're going to make together. And it won't be real or true, it won't be honest, it will all be fake but I'm fine with that, they were good to me as a child and the very least we can all do for them is to pretend everything is the way they think it is. They didn't know better and I'll just have to accept that.


I'll smile, enjoy my time and memories with them, humor them, make small talk, take videos, share happy thoughts, reflect on the good things and times in the past from yearly family trips and fishing to antiquing. They were truly the best parents I could have ever hoped for the first 10-15 years of my life and I'm incredibly thankful for that. I don't think they knew what to do with a child like me which makes it even more impressive what a great childhood they gave me. After all, I am who I am because of them, they were never mean or abusive to me, just two lost kids who never got to grow up and never found their way, struggling to navigate a brutal world with limited tools.


I will add one last thing, while I should take equal issue with both of my parents as they played equal parts I don't. She's my mom, I thought I was going to marry her when I was a little kid. I have strong traditional views on how a man should treat a woman (this was clearly not passed to me from my father) so I do place more fault on him for not protecting her and more on her for not shielding me but ultimately my larger issues are with him as I see him as a coward and an incredibly selfish man who would give endlessly where it was easy but not where his family needed it most.



This is the end of my post, below is for future me:




Notes to future grieving me, you forget everything and I know if you're reading this again you're likely in this world for the first time in your life without your mother. To jog your memory, most of this was done the night that goofy kitten bit and scratched you. You're crying as you write this now because you know she tried her hardest to find a balance she never could find. She was so good at being a mom to you when you were young. Who knows what happens between writing and the next time you read this but her path couldn't have been an easy one. I'm including these quotes here because you already forgot them once so I'm expecting you to forget them again.


She posted the following on SoberRecovery in 2008:


"When my husband and I first married, he maybe drank 6 beers a week. That slowly progressed over the years. Would I love for him not to drink? Of course, but I would also love for him to, at the same time, discover the issues for why he is drinking. I don't believe just quiting drinking answers the problem, it is the why was I drinking? Numbing myself? Self medicating with beer?"

She's fully aware of the underlying concepts and knows, or knew that just stopping drinking wasn't going to make him a healthy person. She accepted it as good enough, I won't speculate beyond that.


"I try to balance this all out with he is such a nice person. He is a good man, sweet, caring and would do anything for his family...but quit drinking beer."

She understood she was his second choice and made an aware decision to accept that. She knew she was with a man that would choose drinking over his wife or child. He was okay with risking our physical and mental health to do as he pleased, this isn't a "good man", this isn't "sweet", "caring" this is somebody that is ill and needed treatment.


"His problem though has become mine, because I don't know normal. And I am scared to death to let him know. See I know he would just leave if the choice was me or alcohol-even after all these years. Would come back but all changes would be temporary."

She knows the cycle, she's become complacent to it, or maybe too scare, insecure, feels to small to make a stand and change it. Again, it could be many things, I shouldn't speculate.


"I have posted a few times, and I am (I think) starting to sort things out a little, but I still find I am very scared that I am not living the "normal" life. Do I want to find out what normal is? Maybe it isn't what I am living. Do I have the inner strength/energy to act on things if I am not living "normal". I am afraid to be alone, but yet crave alone time, and yet feel lonely even though I am married."

This is something all you can do is feel sad for, sympathize with and feel compassion for.


16 months later in January 2010 I reengaged to get a sense of whether or not she's gone to meetings as she said, if she stuck to her guns or fell back into the cycle. In one email I sent her this:

"I think we may have very different ideas of love, I learned what I thought love was from you and your relationship. This is not my idea of love, I think the worst mistake you can make with love is to take somebody else saying it as meaning what you mean when you say it. All the same, I know we're family, I don't feel like we rallied when it was most important and doubt we ever would but I know there are good intentions someplace and those are worth something. So again, I don't know, haven't thought it out past these emails which I didn't know I would even send until 3 hours ago. I would like some relationship with you both, what that is I don't really know. I'm not sure how to avoiding getting mixed up in the hot and cold aspects of your relationship, I know I want nothing to do with that anymore so I think I would rather just spend time with both of you instead of just one."

Her response was:

"Well I can truthfully say that I know that back handed part of how I say things has been in my personality. I agree that conversations need to be honest and not back handed comments. I haven't thought about the conversations either prior to your email-so I guess we are both in the same boat on these emails.

You are very right on the error part of having to figure out or read between the lines. I definitely have been attempting to work on that part of me. A constant difficult flaw, so I would encourage you in the future if you feel I am doing that to just tell me to be upfront as a cue to remind me.

Passive aggressive is the right tag for it. Very serious problem for me. Constant work so I am open for reminders anytime.

As far as my motivations, I believe it is a part of me that has been there since I was old enough to walk and my personality formed. It was my survival tactic. Its very hard to not feel defensive all the time and to not feel like I am not as good as others. Therefore I think the passive aggressive part comes out as my defense. Maybe makes me feel superior to others in some warped way. I don't know. Very hard for me to let my guard down. Always afraid I won't be accepted, liked, yada, yada. Always felt different than every body else, not quite as good."

She was being vulnerable and self aware, she clearly wasn't incapable, she actively chose a different path. This backs up everything you have been driving yourself crazy over, it isn't that she can't see it, it's that she refuses to look at what she knows is there.


"Dysfunctional yes, but workable. We all love each other very much. We have never really understood each other. Or at least I can honestly say - I never totally understood, nor appreciated many aspects of your personality. I guess I just kept seeing you as my son-not the adult son you were. That was my error."

There was a reason she's been aware of this for 12 years without correcting it. My dad always chose the drinking, my mother always chose the illusion, even if it meant lying to herself about her only child.

trailmix

Thanks for taking the time to write/post that BackAnew. That is a really interesting path of thought to read. It will be helpful to many, I'm sure.

You know, in reading this last part here, yes, you're right, she is aware of the dynamic and yes, she has gone along with it for all these years. I don't know all her upbringing/history but the things she described can be incredibly hard to overcome and probably, in many cases, impossible. Those defenses were there for a reason, it's survival and that's so tough to break through.

So is she choosing an "illusion" or is this just her, just her without 30 years of therapy, trying to break things within her that were ingrained from the beginning.

Anyway, I don't have those answers, it just made me think.