Can You Love and Respect Your Parents and Not Have A Close Relationship With Them?

Fyrefox said:
While they had a number of admirable qualities, my parents were racists and homophobes, and I struggled throughout their lives to reconcile their belief systems with a sense of responsibility and love towards them, in the end compartmentalizing those feelings. My mother was also a malignant narcissist frequently abusive towards her husband and children, and I had to maintain a certain amount of distance from her once independent to avoid her toxic attempts to run and control my life.
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Yeah, racists. Mine were also racists, especially my mom; her favorite word was the "N" word. Interesting how she complained frequently about anti-Semitism while she harbored the same stupidity about Blacks & Hispanics. And (as a controller) she tried very hard to convince her kids to be racists, too. Our brother was her favorite because he soaked up her ignorance.
 

I never thought about it until I joined SF and read posts about showing affection or not in families. But I really don't recall my family ever saying "I love you" to any of us...it was just assumed that we all did by our actions. We always felt loved.

However, when I married and had children that all changed for us...between me, my husband, and my children. Not a day went by that we weren't showing our love. Maybe it was our new found faith and fellowship with members, maybe it was Jennifer who was given a gift at birth of peacemaker. Maybe it was my openly loving husband with me. That was certainly an example for the children...though brief...as they were 1,2,4, and 6 when he died suddenly on the tennis court.
 
Lara said:
I never thought about it until I joined SF and read posts about showing affection or not in families. But I really don't recall my family ever saying "I love you" to any of us...it was just assumed that we all did by our actions.

However, when I married and had children that all changed for us...between me, my husband, and my children. Not a day went by that we weren't showing our love. Maybe it was our new found faith and fellowship with members, maybe it was Jennifer who was given a gift at birth of peacemaker. Maybe it was my openly loving husband with me. That was certainly an example for the children...though brief as they were 1,2,4, and 6 when he died suddenly on the tennis court.
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Oh Lara, how devastating his loss must have been to your family. I cannot even imagine how my life would have changed if my husband died when our children were toddlers. :cry:
 

mike4lorie said:
When my Mom passed, also lost my brother, sister and Dad... they have NO use for me, the brother told me, as much as he's concerned, I am dead... probably how the other 2 feel too...
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Sometimes our relatives make us wonder where they really came from (biologically). My brother seems to have no conscience. I frequently made my father LOL by asking him for DNA proof that my brother & I were related. He also laughed hysterically whenever I'd ask him, "What the hell were you & mom thinking? Was the drug store out of condoms that night?"

When our parents died, my brother (a thief his whole life with felony convictions for fraud) decided he wanted everything in the will & ALL the property in the trust, so he found an unscrupulous attorney who knew he had a hateful fool for a client & encouraged him to fight my sister & I in court to run up his $400.00/hr fees - a fight he knew he had no chance of winning. Everything had to be put in probate. My brother ended up having to sell the house our parents bought him to buy my sister & I out of the properties we all owned together & to pay his attorney fees. I could have made him pay MY attorney fees, but I felt sorry for him because he's so stupid, so I paid them ($105,000.00).
During the 7-year battle, he threatened to kill me & my sister. I told him "Any time you feel like trying....you know how it will end - the world will be a better place without you in it." Then I filed a restraining order against him - not to protect me physically; to protect me legally in the event I would be forced to defend myself.
 
Well we were all adopted, and he kept saying over and over, Mom and Dad should have never adopted us because they never had enough money, since found his real Mother and having the time of his life... We were not even home from the funeral when he was calling and telling me he can quit his job now since the inheritance is coming, after when he told me that I was dead to him... Lorie took the phone and explained he better be careful, cuz dead men can't write checks... that shut him up for a bit... Been years now since I have heard from any of them... Last time I head from my old man is when I broke my leg in 5 spots, and had 7 surgeries in a month, giving me sh1t for not calling him to tell him something he already knew... Sorry losing it now... gotta walk away from this, cuz I can go on and on... My Mom wanted her ashes sprinkled at her church, no name, just sprinkled. The day we were supposed to do it, he called the cops and reported us...
 
My folks were OK parents. I have good memories of them, mostly. They were pretty self-absorbed, pretty self-centered, but I was into my own life, too, from a fairly early age. They divorced when I was eight, but I made sure that I saw my dad, as often as I wanted. No major issues. I miss them both. I miss my sister, too.
 
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StarSong said:
I completely agree with this, PL.

I developed a much better relationship with my mother as an adult than I had as a child. We became quite close from my mid-20s until she died a few years ago.
Like some others here, I mostly feared my father and eventually estranged myself from him for my own mental health.
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🤗
 


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