Sorry, Wrong Life

[Emme]

Moved in with Mr. Boyfriend 2 years ago and live happily. My parents were'nt thrilled and we discussed it but I thought we had moved past it. Today my younger sister calls me, in tears. She also has a live-in boyfriend and she's happy.

 

Our older sister (christian, married, perfect) just had a baby and I think our father saw this as an oppurtunity to teach us some much-needed wisdom.

He takes my little sister aside and starts asking her all these uncomfortable questions about her faith and which church she attends. Then he moves on to the out-of-wedlock situation and reminds her that that isn't something that he and mom taught us. He also mentions that her boyfriend (atheist) really could become a christian in his opinion, because he's such a good guy. Finally, when my sister starts protesting, he just asks her if it is not allowed to ask a simple question anymore.

 

She is exactly where I was 2 years ago, and nothing has changed. My father told me yesterday when we visited my sister and her baby: "Emelie, it's your turn now, the wedding fund is ready and waiting!" I'm 23! Yes, I want to get married some day, but the more pressure I get, the more I just want to forget the whole thing.

 

Everytime I think we are doing ok, thinking " I love my parents, they're so great", all these insinuations about my life pop up and they spoil it! My brother is a preacher, so he can do no wrong, my big sister is, as mentioned, married with children so she is safe.

But my sister and I seem to be annoying wrongdoers who need to be corrected!

My sister's crying and asking: "How can I feel satisfied with my life, when it is so obvious that they think I'm messing it up?" What do I tell her? She's so great, but she really wants them to approve. Iguess I do to sometimes.

 

Sorry about the rant, but this just came out of the blue and it's sort of discouraging. I look up to my parents in many ways,

but the give the impression that we are not doing good enough.

Do you know what i'm rambling about?

[Deva]

Sorry about the rant, but this just came out of the blue and it's sort of discouraging. I look up to my parents in many ways,

but the give the impression that we are not doing good enough.

Do you know what i'm rambling about?

 

Don't be sorry, ranting is what this place is for. My circumstances are different but similar in the result of "not doing good enough".

 

Parental expectations and trying to achieve parental approval is something I am very familiar with. I was very compliant as a child. I wish I could have parental approval as an adult, but the only way I can do that is go back to the Baptist fundy church and I would rather drown myself in a canal.

 

My parents have done many things for me that were above and beyond the call. They put me through college and they stood by me when I got divorced. My father always supported us financially. That is more than many parents do. HOWEVER, there is always this disapproval over the religious issue...

 

I thought I could have my cake and eat it too by joining a more liberal Christian denomination. So, I was confirmed in the Episcopal church in 1995. I wrote a complete account to them and saying how happy I was to be in this church (which was genuine at the time). Answer from them? Complete and absolute silence. Sometimes silence does speak louder than words Emme.

 

Finally in my 40s I say enough is enough - they are never going to approve-- I have to deal with it and in a certain sense I will never be free of this burden of parental disapproval until they are both dead.

[ShackledNoMore]

(christian, married, perfect) ==> Yes, that's your parents' assessment, otherwise: DOES NOT COMPUTE.

 

I know it's a natural impulse to want one's parents' approval, but when their criteria for approval is warped, a person just has to come to terms with that fact, and not allow their disapproval to spoil their lives. I'm another one in my 40's whose parent thinks I'm the scum of the earth, but if I were the sort of person she would have had me be: gullible, hypocritical, chained to the whims of dogma (both its cruelty and it's arbitrary, life sapping restrictions), and embracing blind faith over critical thought, then I would not be the sort of person I'd admire or wish to be.

[I Broke Free]

Hi emme,

 

Thank you for sharing your frustration with your parents, it something so many of us have to deal with and makes for a good topic even if our parents are not that religious. I was lucky to at least have had my father’s unwavering support throughout my life, but my mother was a different story. While my mother was not that religious, learning to deal with having a gay son held many of the same reservations your parents have for you due to your “lack of faith.” Both my parents are deceased now, and I made peace with mother before her passing.

 

Like you, my partner is going through a similar situation; though the issue is again being gay rather than faith, the emotions are the same. He is the oldest of three children. He has two younger sisters in their 30’s and both of them have lives you would expect to see on a COPS television program. Both of them have messed up their lives with hard drugs and both have children they cannot support. One of them even had her photo shown on the local news after her 10th DUI. My partner’s parents do the best they can to support their grandchildren, but the kids lives have been totally screwed up and one of them is now a father at the age of 15. Even my partner and I help out financially.

 

Now compare this to my partner. He was an honor student in high school. He did so well that he received a scholarship to Stanford University, yet is father was disappointed because he never heard of the school on any of the baseball or basketball games he watched. My partner graduated from Stanford with honors and has had a remarkably successful career for twenty years now, yet never a peep from his parents about how proud they are of him; all because he does not live up to their expectations of success. In their eyes as long he is with me and not with the daughter-in-law of their dreams, he is just a reminder that they failed three out of three times when it comes to their kids. My partner calls them twice a month (they never call here) in the hope that someday they will come to their senses and reach out to him, but it never happens. They just talk about the weather and occasionally bring up his sisters if they need an infusion of some of our cash to help out. I have visited with them only once in the last ten years and I was as welcomed as much as ants at a picnic.

 

I guess I am just ranting too. Part of me wants to shake my partner and just tell him to give up, but like you emme, he does love his parents, and where there is love, there is hope.

 

IBF

[gradstu09]

Part of being an adult is getting to interact with your parents as an adult. This goes both ways, with the grown child no longer seeking parenting, and the parent granting the child autonomy. I realize the urge to make your parents proud is strong in almost everyone, but being responsible for your own life means drawing your own boundaries. Saying, "This is not an appropriate topic for discussion. If we cannot have a discussion without mentioning this topic, I will walk away," is a good, firm statement that gives them limits and the responsibility of adhering to them if they expect to be a part of your lives. If your parents routinely cross boundaries, you will be doing a lot of enforcing until they learn. Your father is being manipulative at best and emotionally abusive at worst, and for your own sake I would not let him continue to get away with it.

[godlessgrrl]

Add me to the list of folks who never had and never will have their parents' approval.

 

Whatever excuses parents use to reject their own children, it just sucks all around, knowing that the people who brought you into this world really just don't like you for who you are, and will never really be proud of the great things you've done.

 

Your parents aren't going to change. One crucial part to learning how to be satisfied with your own life is to learn how not to need parental approval anymore. Easier said than done though - I've only been able to figure it out sort of halfway, myself. I've figured out, at least, that my folks aren't ever going to approve of me or my life no matter what I do, so I might as well do whatever the hell I really want and be whoever the hell I really am. That's very liberating, but it's also very dismaying.

 

If you've spent much of your formative years trying to earn your parents' approval, as I did, it can be tricky to unlearn that.

[gradstu09]

A book that might help you with coping strategies is Toxic Parents.

[Grandpa Harley]

I've been lucky with my parents... I've had, in all my years of interactions two major run ins... one over my brother's marriage and one over money ($60 at current exchange rates)... The Brother thing involved my playing Kruschev, almost literally banging my shoe on the table and yelling that if they didn't all make an effort and play nice I was pulling the nuclear option and walking out on the lot of them (they knew I would drop them without a backward glance, since I've always made my expectations of familial behaviour known pretty unequivocally) the other I took a straight razor of every time things had been less than good, a surgical analysis of human shortcomings collected over 20 years... reduced my mother to a sobbing wreck. However, the fact I'd had to borrow £30 for a book for my finals, and my brother had managed to avoid paying back a few thou for several decades was never mentioned again in my earshot...

 

OK, enough of my dirty laundry...I still lived in the Walton's house compared to a lot here.

 

In the end it depends how hard you're prepared to go in to get at least a peaceful life, if not an approved one... One thing my dad taught me when I was being bullied at school... go into the fight knowing you're going to get hurt... that'll happen if you fight or not.. just make sure you walk away with them hurting more than you do. It's not a bad life lesson over all. IF they're trying to hurt you, and overt manipulation is hurting, then go in to the fight like you've got nothing to lose... don't bother to defend, just go for the eyes, ears, throat solar plexus, groin or knees... using head, thumbs, knees, elbows or anything to hand you're comfortable using...

 

Harsh? Yes. Effective. In the last resort very... it depends on how badly you want to be left alone.

[Thurisaz]

Do you know what i'm rambling about?

 

Not from personal experience, fortunately... but fuck yeah, it must hurt big time if your own parents value a damn piece of paper higher than the well-being of their children.

 

And a book full of millennia-old bullcrap too, for that matter.

[Emme]

thanks so much guys, it really helps

[R. S. Martin]

Gotta learn how to be a whole person and enjoy life without them fuckers.

 

I couldn't think what's up when I got two packages from family this week. Then about Thurs. afternoon or whenever I heard my landlady playing a Good Friday tune on the piano. I checked the calendar and realized we had Easter coming up. I returned those packages. Returning and/or not responding is the only effective way I have yet found to get them to respect my boundaries at all. Asking them to leave me alone does nothing. I know they think all kinds of nasty things about me but there is nothing I can do about that. I have to live my own life.

 

Getting to this stage has been very difficult and very painful. I have no suggestions for how you and your sister should go about doing it. You may not have to take such extreme measures. Every family is different. I think you will be supported here whatever you have to do for your peace of mind. I don't think anyone here will chide you for locking out family if that is what you have to do.

 

Christians like to see themselves as the persecuted minority who have to forsake family to be true to their convictions. Ironically, these days one has to come to an exChristian site to find the friendless and famililess.

 

Oh sure, there are bitter fights and divisions within the sects but nothing quite equals the alienation and hatred they feel for those who actually leave the religion. I know because I've been through both.

 

I'm not sure what it's really about. My family disapprove when I broke with tradition and went to get a university education but they were pretty low-key with their disapproval; just didn't talk about it. Then when the community found out 14 months later suddenly my family got on my back--AND STAYED THERE.

 

That was ridiculous. If it was wrong, it was wrong--that the community knew had nothing to do with right or wrong.

 

I think what mattered was that THEIR daughter and sister made THEM look bad.

 

I'm thinking as I write, too bad folks, but if you don't want to look bad then don't be bad!

 

They'd had an entire lifetime opportunity to be nice to me and they had not taken it. They really were pretty bad; it's no wonder they looked bad.

 

I'm not saying I made no mistakes but hey! it can't all by my fault.

 

Likewise for you and your sister--the others have to put something into this, too, to make it work. If your parents want to spend that money on you and you don't want a wedding, they can always find other ways to spend it, I'm sure, such as helping you pay for a home or college education or whatever it is you want/need. Car. Fur coat--you're in Sweden, right? and will need warm winter clothing. You're going to need something expensive that they believe in.

 

Unless, of course, if they are of the warped opinion that a woman should not live a single life (if you're not married but living with a partner they can pretend you're single and spend the money on your personally as though you were single--that is why I mention clothing). If they think it's wrong for a woman to be single, they're not worth accommodating.

 

There you've got my opinion.

[Deva]

Gotta learn how to be a whole person and enjoy life without them fuckers.

 

You have got that right, could not have said it better -- great post Ruby. Also, as you say it isn't easy. I don't have nearly the problems you do with your family, but I get the silent disapproval treatment.

 

I got an Easter card. Picture of the empty tomb. I just threw it away.

 

In the independent Baptist church having an "unsaved" family member makes the christian look bad. They probably feel guilty, like they didn't do something right. They are told to "witness" and go "soul winning".

 

I also don't match the Christian ideal. Divorced. No kids.

 

Too bad that they think the only important thing in life is being a fundamentalist Christian. I can't change that. I will never have their approval. If I were a millionaire and had a PhD from an ivy league university that would make no difference whatsoever. I could never be successful enough, if fact, my whole life is an abject failure because i am "without Christ."

[Eric_PK]

Moved in with Mr. Boyfriend 2 years ago and live happily. My parents were'nt thrilled and we discussed it but I thought we had moved past it. Today my younger sister calls me, in tears. She also has a live-in boyfriend and she's happy.

 

Our older sister (christian, married, perfect) just had a baby and I think our father saw this as an oppurtunity to teach us some much-needed wisdom.

He takes my little sister aside and starts asking her all these uncomfortable questions about her faith and which church she attends. Then he moves on to the out-of-wedlock situation and reminds her that that isn't something that he and mom taught us. He also mentions that her boyfriend (atheist) really could become a christian in his opinion, because he's such a good guy. Finally, when my sister starts protesting, he just asks her if it is not allowed to ask a simple question anymore.

 

She is exactly where I was 2 years ago, and nothing has changed. My father told me yesterday when we visited my sister and her baby: "Emelie, it's your turn now, the wedding fund is ready and waiting!" I'm 23! Yes, I want to get married some day, but the more pressure I get, the more I just want to forget the whole thing.

 

Everytime I think we are doing ok, thinking " I love my parents, they're so great", all these insinuations about my life pop up and they spoil it! My brother is a preacher, so he can do no wrong, my big sister is, as mentioned, married with children so she is safe.

But my sister and I seem to be annoying wrongdoers who need to be corrected!

My sister's crying and asking: "How can I feel satisfied with my life, when it is so obvious that they think I'm messing it up?" What do I tell her? She's so great, but she really wants them to approve. Iguess I do to sometimes.

 

Sorry about the rant, but this just came out of the blue and it's sort of discouraging. I look up to my parents in many ways,

but the give the impression that we are not doing good enough.

Do you know what i'm rambling about?

 

Yes.

 

There is a point in some people's lives when you realize that you are better - at least in some ways - than your parents. When this comes, or wether this point comes all depends a lot about you and your parents.

 

My father was a Lutheran minister, so I grew up in a church. Lutherans are, as a rule, not terribly evangelical or demonstrative in their faith (unlike my wife's Southern Baptist experience), and my childhood was pretty normal. My dad was a workaholic and didn't spend much time with his family, but not knowing any better, that was what I expected from a father. And he was a minister, who was closer to god that I was.

 

Then, when I was in high school, my mom got sick for a couple months, and my dad starting having sex with one of the women from the church. Eventually, they were discovered - when I was off at college - and my parents got divorced. And my mom got disowned by nearly all her "friends" in the church.

 

At that point, my father dropped from "pretty good guy" to "not a quality individual". Which is where he stuck. That didn't prevent us from seeing him from time to time - along with his new wife - but I wasn't looking for any guidance from him any more.

 

Whether you have reached the same conclusion with parents is for you to decide.

 

You have a few choices:

 

1) Tell your parents that you and your sisters are adults now, and that they need to be treating you like adults. This means being prepared to cause some familial friction and even not show up at events if they don't treat you better.

2) Just ignore what they are saying.

 

 

Yes, they're your parents, and that's worth something. But do you really want to hang out with people who don't treat you with respect?