A word of advice - sometimes parents can reform, and relationships can get a lot better.
Other times, they can’t.
I get along in stellar fashion with my mother. We used to have religious tension – really, the issues were hers, but it made for some very wrenching situations. When my parents figured out that I wasn’t a Christian anymore, my mother cried. She asked me to reconsider, because she wanted “to spend eternity with me”. (That is, I was apparently going straight to Hell.)
However, when my parents finally divorced (thank goodness), my mom finally got out of that conservative Christian mindset. Why? One of her pastors decided to preach openly and often that divorce was sinful, and because she was shunned – in fact, still is – by a number of people at her church. She also must have done some hard thinking about morality and peoples’ lives and lifestyles. I think she got a taste of what it feels like to no longer be considered one of the ‘flock’ by holier-than-thou arrogant types. We still don’t agree on matters of faith, but she doesn’t try to push it on me anymore, and she’s seen that not being Christian doesn’t make me an immoral or evil person – jsut as being a (self-professed, at least) Christian doesn’t make you good, or kind.
Adults can sometimes grow up too, later in life. My mom was raised in a rural farm and went to school in a small town, and married my father too young. He was a controlling, manipulative person and I know now, in hindsight, that a lot – in fact, virtually all – of the problems we had between us when I was a teenager were because of him. We’ve put those things behind us.
However, sometimes parents don’t ever change. My father was very big on the “you’ll understand it when you’re older” logic, but as an adult, it doesn’t make any more sense. He’s gotten even worse during the whole divorce, making everything bitter, and now one of my sisters and I won’t see him at all anymore. (One sister still does see him occasionally but is very dismissive of the relationship.) He wouldn’t stop trying to manipulate and control our lives. He would use harsh criticism, mockery, patronizing tones, or would roil into a rage at the drop of a hat. We tried reasoning with him, tried discussing the problems, even family therapy – nothing worked. We’d try to bring up an incident from our childhood that really hurt us, and he’d just say “Well, I don’t remember THAT!” and refuse to discuss it at all. When we’d try to talk about his behavior, he’d just get defensive and angry and try to make a fight out of it.
It just wasn’t worth seeing him. It got to the point where we couldn’t talk about anything. I couldn’t talk about anything from my life. Work was always an issue because he never thought my job was good enough, and would be politely condescending about it, or try to make “suggestions” about what I should do, then get mad when I didn’t just go and do them. (Suggestions like “you should go to law school”, when I’ve never had any interest in being a lawyer; I was in Mock Trial once, and that somehow got him started. I even hated being a lawyer in Mock Trial and switched to a witness!) We couldn’t talk about my interests, because he disapproves of pretty much all of them, because they take up time and effort that could be used at work. (My dad is a workaholic.) I can’t talk about the family goings-on much because we can never mention Mom without him acting weird. He won’t talk about work much because he was effectively demoted and it embarasses him.
Meals were problematic because I’m a vegetarian, and he doesn’t approve. I’m also overweight, so he tries to tell me what to order at restaurants (which I find extremely embarassing and it upsets me); when we go over for dinner, he’ll have a nice meal, but everything but the plain lettuce salad will have meat in it so that I can only eat salad with no dressing. Of course, he would universally offer me meat jokingly (“Are you SURE you don’t want a hamburger? Ha ha ha!”). I’m not a humorless vegetarian, but combined with all the other things, it really made me angry after about the billionth time.
Unfortunately, he is the wealthy member of the family. When I went to college, my parents were still together at first, so I was dependent on him for money during the later years unless I wanted to transfer out to a less expensive school. He kept pulling back funds every time, especially for things that he knew Mom would pay for. He’d roll back how much he’d pay me, so I’d get a job to pay for rent and books; I’d have to keep it secret, because when he’d get wind of it, he’d hold back even more money because “now I can afford it”, so I’d be working, but still not have enough. He’d promise to pay for something, then change his mind at the last minute when it came time to write the check. He was constantly late. I don’t want to bitch too much about money because I know a lot of parents can’t afford to help, but it was just that I know he could easily afford everything, and I had gone to an expensive out-of-state school (that he encouraged me to go to!) based on what he said he was willing to pay, but then he would keep changing his mind all of the time because he wanted my mom to have to pay, because he’s angry at Mom. (I tried not to go to Mom for these expenses because her income is a lot more limited – about 1/10 of what he makes.)
He does this to all of us, unfortunately. Seeing what I was going through, my younger sister was afraid of what would happen in college for her; he said “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything” then to rescind it when she’s signed up and committed.
I’m sure I frustrated him because all of the controlling, manipulative bullshit got him nowhere with me. I’d get mad or upset, but I’d never change. I’m still a left-leaning vegetarian heathen who disagrees with him on every subject, and he doesn’t handle it very well, even though I make it a point never to bring up politics or religion with him. Fortunately he knows very little about my life. I prefer to keep it that way.
Parents are like anybody else. Just because they say that they’re acting in your best interest doesn’t mean that they are. Sometimes they’re not even good people.
