A personal matter
OffHeGoes29
Posts: 1,240
The one thing I like about this board is the fact that I can get unbiased opinions from strangers who don't know me. Its a great way to get insight on something you don't feel comfortable talking with friends or family. So here it goes.....
My parents divorced when I was 10, and me and my brother ended up living with my father. He wasn't happy about raising two kids on his own and was always bitter and negative about the whole thing, he worked long hours so me and my brother spent a lot of time alone. My mom left us, remarried and moved half way across the country, while only getting to see here for a couple weeks a year. Ever since she left she talked about being apart of our lives and now its 17 years later with that same talk.
I'm now 27 and have moved passed a lot of what happen but a part of me still feels pretty empty. I'm noticing a dependency and its ruined a lot of my relationships because of it. I think its a desire to find someone to fill the void of not having parents there after the age of 10. I've moved on in a lot of ways, but there is still a part of me thats still angry at my parents for being so selfish and disregarding me and my brother. I know the only way to get over it is by building my relationship with them again, but I really have no idea how. I need to figure it out because I don't think its going to go away on its own, and my parents are still to this day too busy to take a part of the their children's life. I want to get through this so I can have a family of my own and not repeat the same mistakes.
So thats it, any experience you may have had or advice would be appreciated. I know this is a heavy subject, but there are a lot of good people on here with sound advice.....or if anything...another way of looking at things.
Thanks
My parents divorced when I was 10, and me and my brother ended up living with my father. He wasn't happy about raising two kids on his own and was always bitter and negative about the whole thing, he worked long hours so me and my brother spent a lot of time alone. My mom left us, remarried and moved half way across the country, while only getting to see here for a couple weeks a year. Ever since she left she talked about being apart of our lives and now its 17 years later with that same talk.
I'm now 27 and have moved passed a lot of what happen but a part of me still feels pretty empty. I'm noticing a dependency and its ruined a lot of my relationships because of it. I think its a desire to find someone to fill the void of not having parents there after the age of 10. I've moved on in a lot of ways, but there is still a part of me thats still angry at my parents for being so selfish and disregarding me and my brother. I know the only way to get over it is by building my relationship with them again, but I really have no idea how. I need to figure it out because I don't think its going to go away on its own, and my parents are still to this day too busy to take a part of the their children's life. I want to get through this so I can have a family of my own and not repeat the same mistakes.
So thats it, any experience you may have had or advice would be appreciated. I know this is a heavy subject, but there are a lot of good people on here with sound advice.....or if anything...another way of looking at things.
Thanks
BRING BACK THE WHALE
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Shelving Boxes
For years
I wasted my sanity
Rehearsing different methods
Of telling a memory
How much I hated
And how
I needed him to pay
Never thought of this person
As someone
Who loved a Norwegian Elkhound
Drank coffee
Collected comic books
Or breathed in and out
I only remembered the fear
So consumed
With blaming a cartoon villain
I refused to recognize
The revenge was killing me
Until one day
I found a plastic box
Full of marbles
The same container
That once held his ashes
And I realized
You can only bleed for so long
Before death has its way
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it could probably help you out a LOT for figuring out your true needs, wants, life desires.
i wish you the best.
if you want a relationship with your parents, reach out. that's it. the first step is the hardest. however, also keep in mind that what you want, and what they may individually want, may not be the same thing, sadly. and that is their loss, not yours.
Let's just breathe...
I am myself like you somehow
My good wishes to you and I hope you find personal happiness...
This was amazing
but I am sorry you had to live through that to write this...
The hardest part is making that move to build on what I had with my parents. Sometimes I really feel like I'm the only one out of my family thats dealt with it head on, everyone else seems to be afraid of the conversation.
Sometimes people change after they are married, irrevocably damaging the relationship. I am sorta going through that right now. Being around the other person can even drive people to the brink of insanity or beyond, and they have to get out of the relationship just to stay alive. Literally.
That being said, I couldn't imagine leaving my child. I would be willing to suffer through a poor relationship and put on a happy face in front of my son until he was 20 or older and then be selfish and focus on myself. My wife, OTOH, I don't know. She might not be willing to do that.
The only thing you could do to ammeliorate the pain is to start your own happy and healthy family. I warn you though.... it isn't easy.
my folks divorved just before i turned 10. afterwards, i can remember my dad picking me up half a dozen times in the first year or two. after that, nada. he paid his child support, but never called, never sent a birthday card, didn't do much of anything even tho we only lived a few miles apart the entire time.
after high school i started dropping in when i was home from college. one of those years i stopped by for christmas. the gift was socks, pencils and a 12 pack of coke. the kicker is, they (dad and stepmom) cut a 24 pack of coke in half and gave my brother the other half. so the next year i went to walmart and bought the cheapest thing i could find. a tin of popcorn for 3 or 4 bucks.
so he died just over a year ago. don't really have that empty feeling like you should when a parent dies.
then on top of all that, when i got a copy of his will, i found out that everything was left to my stepmom (fine) unless she died first, in which case, it was all left to her two kids. :roll: i did get a decent insurance payout that finished off student loans. so that was nice. but still, to name her kids just irked me. i've not talked to my step mom since the grave side service.
my mom's side was a little differnt, we were a lot closer and i do miss her.
so that point is, if they didn't want to be part of your life when you were a kid, don't sweat it now.
Sorry to hear that, thats some heavy stuff to got through. I just look at it differently, I know I will repeat the same shit if I don't get over it, and it lies with my relationship with my parents. Maybe my parents and your parents did the best they could with what they knew or currently know. They both had fucked up childhoods, so I can't expect big things from them.
i'm over it. no need to cry over sour milk for your entire life. get over it, and move on.
I think although our situations are different you may have some similar issues because of abandonment.
I have never went to counseling although my siblings have spent time there with mixed results.
I believe in open communication and trying to find closure within families but when doing so remember your parents were just people with their own baggage who made mistakes like everyone does. So go into this with understanding and forgiveness. The one who gains the most from that will be you even if you don't get the relationship you are hoping for with your parents. I also hope you find that one love that one person who helps you heal and helps you trust as I did.
Yeah, in situations like this you have to lower your expectations or you will always feel let down.
Do you think finding one person can do it? I sometimes feel like I've asked for too much from people I dated after the fact, almost like I may have rushed them or ask them for comitments that they weren't really ready for.
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I don't know about that
I liked your poem. The way I read it, it said what I was going to suggest to offhegoes. You can't place your hope for happiness in the hands of people who are ill equipped to respond to your call for "building a relationship". You may have to just let your parents go.
Finding a great therapist could work much better
Good luck. Lots of pain in this thread. It amazes me how much suffering can come from fucked up families. Makes being a parent myself such a humbling experience.
I think parents get the chance to be in your life and build a good relationship when you are young and need them. If they blow it, that's their problem. Don't make it YOUR problem to try to repair the relationship.
I believe they will merely continue to hurt you in one way or another. They had years to do it right. They didn't care enough to do it right.
My opinion is: CUT YOUR LOSES and move on without 'em.
I know that sounds harsh, but I stand by my opinion. :geek:
I am a romantic I believe in love - love being rebuilt with your parents because that is good for your heart. Aside from your parents it is good for your heart to understand and forgive.
Mum left dad when I was 9, my brother and I were left with him, she came back after about a year, stayed 6 months or so then left again. Dad remarried a few years later, step-mother didn't like/understand kids, ended up moving to live with mum, had only seen her sporadically over the previous few years due to distance. Didn't see dad for maybe 11 years or so, he remarried again so had contact irregularly for about 2 years, haven't seen him for maybe 10 years (not since a funeral).
Bascially I had a lot of issues with both my parents and it has taken a lot of turmoil and heartache to unravel them. My dad I have given up on, his wife is only a year old than me and my half-brother is a year older than my son. We exchange christmas cards, and that's about it. Because my brother and I lived with him for a few years before he remarried and after my mum left I had quite a strong emotional attachment to him. Unfortunately from the age of 15 until probably 10 years ago that attachment led me to hope for/expect things from him, I don't mean materially, emotionally. For a long time I hoped he'd want to be part of my life, that the time that we'd had when it was just him, my brother and me would have been somehow as special to him as it was for me. Unfortunately, any expectations that I had for him were never met, so basically I gave up expecting anything and I feel much better about him now.
Same with my mum, I had a lot of issues with feeling abandoned etc and to be honest it took until probably 5 years ago for all that to be resolved within me. It involved a lot of talking, shouting and tears. But the difference between my mum and my dad was that my dad never would talk about the past so we could never move on. My mum was more open to building a realationship based on honesty, so I could talk to her and ask her about 'sticky' subjects. It did take a long time but I can now accept that she's just as human as I am, and she did make mistakes as much as I'll probably make mistakes in my parenting. Also again, I gave up having expectations. We therefore have a pretty good relationship. Not perfect, but what relationship is?
Oh, another thing, don't try and make them like you. I spent a lot of time trying to prove I was a good child and worthy of affection, it just made things harder for me and probably for her too.
Also counselling helps, it's good to have someone outside the situation to bounce things off/tell your innermost thoughts to.
Anyway, rambled on enough.
Good luck with it all
I wanted to highlight this part. You really don't need to "get over it" by building that relationship with them again. I think part of you feeling better about it is realizing it happened, knowing you can't change them and doing what you need to do to make you happy.
I mean...it sounds like you want the relationship, but it also sounds like they are "too busy" to do their part. It can't all be on you to fix things. And if they don't want to put effort into it or can't contribute to the relationship, you can't take the blame for the failure of the relationship and you almost have to write it up as a loss at some point. I don't mean that in a bad way, just that you might have to accept them for how they are and do your own thing. Just because they are your parents doesn't necessarily mean you need to have them be a huge part of your life.
My dad was a miserable alcoholic and after their divorce, my mom worked so much that she wasn't around much. As an adult now, I realized that I a) didn't/don't need him in my life and b) understood her limitations. Wrote him off and worked on fixing myself so I wouldn't be fucked up because of it. You mentioned doing some counseling, I think that would really help. I know it helped me get to a point were I realized just because they gave birth to you doesn't mean they're your family.
Thank you
I don't mean to get cheezy here, but its like the kid on the inside is scared, alone, and sad still. He gets that way even more so when I'm in a relationship, making irrational moves and needy towards who I date and those feelings come back to when I was 10 and when my mom took off. I don't mean to sound like I have a split personality, but more of a metaphore.
I think you should go to therapy, which i think you said you did...and insight is all well and good but it doesn't do any good unless you learn tools to help you deal with the things you think you do wrong, or against yourself or relationships. It's one thing to understand that you're doing it, and what you're doing, it's another to know how to actually change it or try to do it differently.
And as hard as it is to accept....you can't rely on any member of the family to help you with this. As much as they love you, you have to do it yourself. No words from them will change it.
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