So, I had this revelation......

I'm having to deal with my parents a lot more than I have had to since I was a child. I really really want to stress that my parents are good decent people. However, they were absolutely horrible parents. Neither were fit for the job.

Mom is a narcissist. If you've ever had to deal with one you'll know that they are completely incapable of acknowledging that people do not view the world the same as they do. It's not like they have to be right all the time. They just don't see their viewpoint as anything but the truth. It's like they were blue sunglasses and assume that everyone else sees a blue world.

Dad was just a mess. Self absorbed and obsessive. He doesn't have a mean bone in his body, though. He's just unable to function outside of his obsessive mind.

There wasn't any closeness in our family. Mom and Dad just weren't that sort of people. They took care of our basic needs quite well. Food, clothing, etc. And taught us manners and such. But no emotional bonding at all. As kids we were let out to do as we please as long as we were home at a certain time. I can remember exactly 1 vacation we took as a family. They never got me involved in any activities like little league or whatever.

As a teenager I started becoming resentful. Back then I had no idea why. I just stopped liking my parents. I moved out when I was 17.

All my adult life I maintained contact with both parents but there was never any closeness at all.

I've had a string of short relationships all my adult life. When I was in my 40s I started telling myself that I really wanted a long term relationship. I met someone and fell in love but it started coming apart after 2 years. I'm still not sure why. We went to couples therapy and really tried but it just didn't work out. I continued seeing that same therapist and she started in on my family relationships. I wasn't buying into "mommy issues" at all but in the interest of trying to figure out why I can't maintain a relationship I stuck with it. Looking back I don't think she was the best therapist or that I was ready to do the work I needed to do.

One interesting thing was that I was more upset that I couldn't make a relationship work than losing that woman. Seems wrong.

I met someone else about 5 years ago and I really really tried to make this one work. We had issues as well. Her complaint was that I lacked intimacy. Something I've heard before. We went to therapy as well. It worked out better than the last time I think. The therapist was top notch (and top priced). But we ultimately didn't make it work. But the reasons it didn't work were different I think. I actually broke it off. I was dealing with other things - I hated my job and I just wasn't happy in general. I continued seeing this therapist.

Therapy is a funny thing. You have to trust who you are seeing. In my case, not only did I trust her, I admired her. Very very intelligent. I argued with her about a lot of things but I stuck with it because I knew she wasn't bsing me. We talked a lot about everything and parental issues quite often came up. I continued to poo-poo this line of thinking but she was relentless in trying to explain it to me in a way I could understand.

This is my version which won't do it justice. Your adult psyche is really created as a child. Like it or not. In my case, I lack intimacy because it was never learned as a child. I wasn't exposed to it so I'm unable to understand exactly what it means at a core level. Intellectually I think I understand but I'm really lost when translating that to a real relationship. Once again, I can't do this justice.

I continued to delve into my relationship with my parents as I saw how important it is. It became really interesting to me. I've outwardly resented my mother most of my life but never my father. In my mind, her narcissism was purposeful and it pissed me off that she refused to change. However, my mind viewed my dad as having an illness that he had no control over.

Both therapists encouraged me to view my mother as I do my Dad. Once again, intellectually I can do this but emotionally it has been a struggle.

So, fast forward to now. Like I said, the last 30 or so years my contact with my parents has been minimal. Birthdays, holidays, special occasions, etc. But now it is on a daily basis. I'm on the phone with both constantly. In fact, I've become the parent. So it has dredged up a lot of stuff.

My Dad slowly degraded mentally through the years. It's not like he walks around repeating phrases or anything. He can function on some level. But for the most part he's incapable of making good life decisions so we are having to make them for him. And, he's uber difficult to deal with. He has to have it his way and only his way or he throws a temper tantrum. He goes out of his way to make himself miserable. Literally every day some "emergency" happens that has to be dealt with. He's been in rehab for a couple of weeks and so far he's said someone has hit him, stolen money from him, and yesterday took his wedding ring off of his finger while he was asleep. He has a history of this sort of thing. He convinces himself that something bad happened and then calls everyone in a frenzy to fix it.

Mom has stuck with him this whole time. Married for life I guess. But it has taken a toll on her physically. She's pretty old and has health problems herself. So I have gotten more involved. In fact, my sister and I have agreed that I'll just deal with Dad and convinced mom to stay out of it. During this time I've come to appreciate my mother so much more. I doubt if I'll ever be able to resolve some of my issues with her. We tried once. I went to therapy (see a theme here?) once with her in an attempt to help our relationship. She talked the entire time about herself and her problems. This just made me even more resentful and I never tried again. I accepted that it would be impossible to ever have a good resolution to our issues. But I've come to appreciate her more now that I've seen some of the sacrifices she's made for Dad.

It has been just the opposite for Dad. I never resented him when I was young but I find myself doing it now. Not for who he is or was, really. I resent him because he never once made any attempt to better himself. He never acknowledged that he had any issues and if you won't acknowledge them you sure won't work on them. It continues to bother me because he's spiraled so much now and I feel like if he had attacked his problems early on it might not be this way. He really just gave up on himself and the entire family has paid dearly for it.

So, this whole tome here was to get to this revelation I had. I was particularly resenting my Dad the other day. I went for a long run and was just thinking about it. And I realized that both parents were also children at some time. I mean, duh - I know this, but I thought about it on another level.

My mother also left her home when she was very young. She grew up in a very rural area and she just up and moved to New York. Pretty drastic move for someone back then. My mother's mother died when I was a teenager. I remember many times my mother indicating that her and her mother had a lot of issues and she felt bad that she was unable to resolve them. I think she wasn't at all close with her father either.

My Dad was an only child. Both of his parents were musicians and socialites. They hobnobbed with the beautiful people. They were nice enough but I believe they too were not great parents. They sent Dad to the right schools and such, but I think he was sort of that prototypical child of rich parents. They did all the right things for him monetarily but didn't give him what a child really needs.

So, my revelation is that my parents were incapable of being parents because of their parents. Sins of the father I guess. It mirrors my intimacy issues. How could they have ever given me the things I needed if they never received them? It really puts them in a different light for me. I don't think I'll ever come to a satisfying resolution with either of them emotionally but I do have some empathy and I think I'm pretty OK with it all.