Parent/child relationships affecting them in adulthood?!

[tina3747]

My parents were crap at their job!

I've just been reading on another thread about girls saying how they have emotional issues ect and are now following AP as they don't want their kids to suffer the same fate. Particularly Dragonflys response so I'd like to hear her views.
My parents were so cold they were Baltic, I can't remember ever having a kiss or cuddle from my mum or dad ever. I recall loving sleeping out at my friends house because her mum would tuck us in and kiss us goodnight, I still a fond memory of her doing it and the feeling it gave me at the time so it must have had an impact on me. Even when my dad died, I was the first person at the house and awkwardly tried to give her a hug and she pushed my arm away! I'm so cold towards my husband sometimes Im embarrassing. I can't physically volunteer a hug or kiss, it's so alien to me!
I'm one the youngest of 5, fook knows why they had so many kids because neither were paternal/ maternal! Fortunately for me , because of the gap between me and my next sister my parents were financially comfortable by the time the mistake came along (me!) and i never suffered hand me downs ect like my siblings did. Quite the opposite in fact, which is why I think my adult problems where money is concerned stem from my dad! My head thinks gift buying means you love them more, how fucked is that! I spend every bit of spare cash on my husband at christmas and I finally think he's realised this is how I show my love for him! He got 2 pairs of trainers, 2 t shirts, photos of the kids, books, CDs, jumper, jeans, and an I pad. I spent almost a £1000, and my cocked up head thinks I must love him so much because I spent all that money on him. I'm bizarre!!!!

My dad used to say he doesn't do hugs only money, I used to joke with him and say can I have a cuddle or £5.... I was never short of cash!!
I can kiss and cuddle my kids no problem thank god. I do get erked if theyre in my space though especially the eldest, i hate people standing close to me or touching me.One of my sisters has made a terrible parent, she was unfortunately disliked by my mum because she was my dads favourite. The things I've heard since about her childhood makes me cringe, she's 12 yrs older so I didn't see much.
I will add that my parents hated each other, I've no idea why they stayed together or had so many kids but arguments swearing ect were a daily occurrence. My mum never cried at his funeral ( was surprised at the single tear she had as I spent more time looking at her to see if she cried or not).
When we were all together at the house after he'd died, my mum said "I can't believe he's just died, I've jut bought him that bottle of whiskey as well"....
I come from such bizarre parents, I wonder how I turned out fairly normal.

 

[kit10grl]

Not exaclty the same but similar from my parents. They were never touchy feely ever. It think my mum regrets it tho she would never say so.

The moment where i think she realised she missed something was about ten years ago. Sadly my sister and BIL's first child died just after birth. We went to the hospital and my mum never hugged my sister (neither did i but we had never hugged in our lives at that point). My BIL's parents walked in and hugged my sister. Then the following week at the funeral all of my BIL's family hugged my sister, and my mum still couldnt.

Since then she has gone out of her way to try and hug us, she only really manages on special occassions or when she is drunk and it always feels awkward and thats after ten years of trying to fix it.

I was 25 the FIRST time my mum EVER told me she was proud of me, and she didnt tell me she wrote it in a card for my graduation.

When my parents split they fought for custody over me only. I am my dads favourite apparently. So from my point of view i was the one casuing all the arguements ( i was six to be fair) I can only imagine how it felt for my brother and sister that they werent being fought over they were 12 and 15 so would have been well aware of it. We were never close growing up and i feel they resented me a little for being the centre of attention at this point.

Also I have a memory from when i was about 8 (2 years after my parents split) of my dad telling me how I was the best 'mistake' he ever made. He only wanted two kids. Nice huh. (and im supposed to be the favourite) They say generally girls go for men who are like there dad and i would agree with this, apart from my DH most of the men in my life have been violent, cheating good for nothing assholes who think controlling a woman equals love, my dad in a nutshell.

Yet up until two years ago i still had it ingrianed into me to keep setting myself up to get his approval, i did awesome in school, was everything he ever wanted, and set myself up for dissapointment over and over again. Two years ago when he refused to come to my wedding as i had asked him to be polite to my mum during the (very small - 20 people so really noticeable) day event, i finally realsied he wasnt worth the hassle, I mean really who has to be ASKED to be polite to the mother of the bride at a wedding? it was enlightening to be rid of him.

My stepdad raised me more than my actual dad but we never got along and so as a teenager i never got 'dads' i never got on with my friends dads, or my boyfriends dads, i just never saw the point in them. When i was particularly young if i did something wrong he would always tell my i was bad, I fought with my stepdad to the point of pushing him to hit me during one particularly bad fght cos i knew if he hit me my mum would kick him out, how messed up is that? I couldnt bring myself to refer to him as anything but 'him' until i was about 20, If his friends phoned the house and asked to speak to my dad i would say he doesnt live here anymore and hang up on them. I made his life very hard. Finally at the age of 31 I can call him dad or stepdad, but never to his face, only if im talking about him to someone else, he almost cried when i picked the tartan of his dads army unit as the tartan for the kilts at my wedding.

It defined for me almost automatically that I would AP, my son will be tired of hearing how much i love him, how clever he is, how proud i am of him, because i never want him to experience the extreme anxiety i always feel about never being good enough, or never feeling like i belong places or have a right to be anywhere. Even here most of the time i post thinking nobody really cares what i have to say, itll either get ignored, or someone will tell me im wrong/being stupid etc. If i post something and get no replies i always think see everyone thinks your a waste of space not worth replying too. And i fully beleive that stems from my parents lack of acknowledgement for anything i did that was good growing up. My older sister is the same, she isnt into 'all that new age hippy stuff' like me lol but the basics of how she parents are AP she just didnt set out to do it or call it that.

 

[tina3747]

Not exaclty the same but similar from my parents. They were never touchy feely ever. It think my mum regrets it tho she would never say so.

The moment where i think she realised she missed something was about ten years ago. Sadly my sister and BIL's first child died just after birth. We went to the hospital and my mum never hugged my sister (neither did i but we had never hugged in our lives at that point). My BIL's parents walked in and hugged my sister. Then the following week at the funeral all of my BIL's family hugged my sister, and my mum still couldnt.

Since then she has gone out of her way to try and hug us, she only really manages on special occassions or when she is drunk and it always feels awkward and thats after ten years of trying to fix it.

I was 25 the FIRST time my mum EVER told me she was proud of me, and she didnt tell me she wrote it in a card for my graduation.

When my parents split they fought for custody over me only. I am my dads favourite apparently. So from my point of view i was the one casuing all the arguements ( i was six to be fair) I can only imagine how it felt for my brother and sister that they werent being fought over they were 12 and 15 so would have been well aware of it. We were never close growing up and i feel they resented me a little for being the centre of attention at this point.

Also I have a memory from when i was about 8 (2 years after my parents split) of my dad telling me how I was the best 'mistake' he ever made. He only wanted two kids. Nice huh. (and im supposed to be the favourite) They say generally girls go for men who are like there dad and i would agree with this, apart from my DH most of the men in my life have been violent, cheating good for nothing assholes who think controlling a woman equals love, my dad in a nutshell.

Yet up until two years ago i still had it ingrianed into me to keep setting myself up to get his approval, i did awesome in school, was everything he ever wanted, and set myself up for dissapointment over and over again. Two years ago when he refused to come to my wedding as i had asked him to be polite to my mum during the (very small - 20 people so really noticeable) day event, i finally realsied he wasnt worth the hassle, I mean really who has to be ASKED to be polite to the mother of the bride at a wedding? it was enlightening to be rid of him.

My stepdad raised me more than my actual dad but we never got along and so as a teenager i never got 'dads' i never got on with my friends dads, or my boyfriends dads, i just never saw the point in them. When i was particularly young if i did something wrong he would always tell my i was bad, I fought with my stepdad to the point of pushing him to hit me during one particularly bad fght cos i knew if he hit me my mum would kick him out, how messed up is that? I couldnt bring myself to refer to him as anything but 'him' until i was about 20, If his friends phoned the house and asked to speak to my dad i would say he doesnt live here anymore and hang up on them. I made his life very hard. Finally at the age of 31 I can call him dad or stepdad, but never to his face, only if im talking about him to someone else, he almost cried when i picked the tartan of his dads army unit as the tartan for the kilts at my wedding.

It defined for me almost automatically that I would AP, my son will be tired of hearing how much i love him, how clever he is, how proud i am of him, because i never want him to experience the extreme anxiety i always feel about never being good enough, or never feeling like i belong places or have a right to be anywhere. Even here most of the time i post thinking nobody really cares what i have to say, itll either get ignored, or someone will tell me im wrong/being stupid etc. If i post something and get no replies i always think see everyone thinks your a waste of space not worth replying too. And i fully beleive that stems from my parents lack of acknowledgement for anything i did that was good growing up. My older sister is the same, she isnt into 'all that new age hippy stuff' like me lol but the basics of how she parents are AP she just didnt set out to do it or call it that.

What an interesting story. Makes you winder why people have children when they don't feel amounts of love for thier kids. I wonder how my grandparents bought up my parents and if that affected them so that the circle keeps going till someone breaks it.
I was most certainly the favourite in our house. I knew it and played on it. BUT that favouritism always came with money and not love which I know is wrong bit never felt it at the time.
I can say all but one of the 5 of us make fairly good parents. The sister I was speaking about I hated her at one point for how she bought her kids up. Her 2 girls consider themselves closer to me than her but since finding out in drubs and drabs how she got treated by my mum I can see why she's so fucked up. One story by my eldest sister that was my mum used to lock her in the cupboard under the stairs for being 'bad' . It didn't even need to be anything bad I think it was just an excuse to abuse her. She never did it to any one else though, just because she was my dads favourite. She was the only one of his kids crying at his funeral. All of us hated him for one reason or another, my brother and eldest sister had not been spoken to by my dad for years one because my sis smacked her daughter for jumping on the sofa ( ironic because he would hit her as a child!) and my brother because he took my dads dog and had it put down. The dog had in inoperable brain tumour that basically made him a vegetable at the end. My dad believed he should die naturally but my brother after speaking to the vet took him without consent as the vet said he must be in constant pain because he'd yelp even in his sleep. I'd say my dad loved his dogs more than us for sure!