How do you feel when you're with your parents these days? Are you often uncomfortable with them? Do you find yourself becoming angry or tense, or feeling guilty over specific incidents with them? Or even when just thinking about these incidents?
Do all these reactions seem familiar to you, as if they have been going on for a long time? Do you feel as if you're a child again with Mom and Dad? If you have answered "Yes" to any of these questions, maybe you are locked into some unhealthy behavior patterns with your parents no matter how old you are now or how much you consider yourself to be an adult. Maybe you and your parents are involved in what Dr. Howard Halpern calls "an old song and dance" which dates back to your childhood and perhaps even beyond to your parents' relationships with their parents.
Maybe you have not fully emancipated yourself from your parents and so are still controlled by them as much as you would hate to admit this. The truth of the matter is, though, that few people ever do break completely free of the influence of their parents.
Parents (Simon & Schuster), Dr. Halpern describes some typical but unhealthy parent-child interactions which may last a lifetime; and suggest ways they can be modified or eliminated altogether.
The first step in changing any behavior pattern, especially if it is unconscious, semi-automatic or of long-standing, is to become aware of it. You can't change something if you don't know exactly what it is that needs changing. If you are uncomfortable with your parents, it is probably because two or three inner children - yours and theirs - are relating to each other, and not mature adults. Your parents may not really want you to grow up and leave them. By making you feel guilty, threatening the withdrawal of their love, becoming angry or doing too many things for you that you can do yourself, they may be trying to bind you to them for fear they will be alone and unloved if you leave them.
It is not the adult part of your patents that is trying to do this, however, but the insecure, frightened inner child in each. And it is that inner child whom you must understand but ignore, and the healthy adult part of them to which you must respond, if you are going to make a lasting change in your relationship with your parents.
In effect, you must quit relating in outdated ways to your parents and respond to them instead in an adult-to-adult fashion.
I realize that what Dr. Halpern advises may be easier said than done. Most advice given by mental health professionals usually is.
But consider this: you cannot fulfill your parents' needs. Although they brought you into the world, raised and nurtured you, you don't really owe them anything except your love and appreciation. That would make for an unfair, unhealthy role reversal: children meeting the needs of parents rather than parents meeting the needs of children.
If you feel you must repay your parents, do so by raising your own children as well as you can,but without making any excessive demands upon them to meet your needs and expectations.
Consider this also: you're an adult now, even though there may be an inner child within you crying out for nurturance, and don't need your parents to the same degree that you did when you were younger. Not that you should discard them as having outlived their usefulness. That would be ungrateful. But you should be aware that you have sources of support now - family, friends and job – other than your parents.
Your parents' first reaction to your new tactic may be to increase their by saying, in effect, to your parents, "Mom and Dad, I love you but I want to relate to you as an adult now, not as a child. We can have a much more comfortable and secure relationship this way."
Most parents will respond to this approach, although a few won't. In that event, you may have to keep your contacts with your parents as brief, infrequent and superficial as possible.
It's always better in the long run, according to Dr. Halpern, to maintain a relationship with your parents than to break all ties with them.
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