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While a frank discussion about how you feel you've been treated and how you would like to be treated might be useful, I don't know that calling them out on disrespectful behavior is going to get you anywhere.
I agree. But the purpose of calling out disrespectful behavior is because it's disrespectful and wrong. Not for personal gain, per se. Relationships are not games. Or they shouldn't be, anyway. Bad, rude, abusive, unhealthy behavior is just wrong. And it is incumbent on us to attempt to correct it when we see it. It is a teaching issue. Too bad the girls' families didn't call them out/teach them better when they were kids. But the parents weren't taught right from wrong either.
The decreased desire to see grown kids is understandable.
They are grown and on their own, mission accomplished.
Who wants to be treated like an old shoe anyway?
that is what it boils down to, really, that is the crux of the matter.
I was very aware of this even when the kids were tiny and all through their growing up, that in many ways it is a "one way" sense of devotion and adoration and immense joy, from parent to kid, but not the other way around, the job of the kids is to really well break free of the parent and go forth in life and do their own thing. When they have their own kids if that happens, then hopefully the flow of devotion and love for the child goes that direction. In many ways, children are a joy for their parents, however parents in many ways are not a joy for their children.
i remember when i was little girl overhearing "heated words" between my parents around "if they want to see us then they can come see us i'm not making any trips to see them" and then later, when my mom was older she flat out came out and said "that was wrong, it was wrong to never go see them" because of course by then she was the one not being visited because that was the pattern that had been established.
i saw my grandparents once when i was about 5, and then not again until i was in college and started seeing my grandmother on my own.
people can be very controlling and very cruel for their own selfish ends. young people (at least i did when i was a teenager and young adult) want to get a sense of who they are and where they come from. i remember in middle school (we divorced when the kids were very young, so had been divorced probably 8 years by that time) i saw a project they had done at their dad's house on "family tree" assignment for school. now for kids at that age it really only did not go back any farther than grandparents, but it was a neat project for the kids to do. I was not on the family tree at all, not me, not my brother (their uncle) not my parents (their grandparents). I asked how come your mother is not on there, how come you did not put me on your family tree, and they said "dad wouldn't let us."
so if that is the reality they grew up with in their father's house, then it could very well be a pattern that continues. i am not making excuses for them and i agree their behavior now as adults is not acceptable. but going back to a post someone made earlier about what model was given to respect their mother growing up, i think that does play a part.
I asked how come your mother is not on there, how come you did not put me on your family tree, and they said "dad wouldn't let us."
so if that is the reality they grew up with in their father's house, then it could very well be a pattern that continues. i am not making excuses for them and i agree their behavior now as adults is not acceptable. but going back to a post someone made earlier about what model was given to respect their mother growing up, i think that does play a part.
There is obviously MUCH more to this story that we don't and cannot know, besides the incredibly crippling effect of overbearing foreign in-laws, that influences your sons' attitude toward their relationship with you.
There are two sides to every story, and then the truth is usually in the middle. Only you know the prevailing circumstances that led your life to the place where it is today. All you can do is be completely honest with yourself about your role in it and your motivations, and then order your steps according to what is right. I urge you to do that when interacting with your adult children.
There is obviously MUCH more to this story that we don't and cannot know, besides the incredibly crippling effect of overbearing foreign in-laws, that influences your sons' attitude toward their relationship with you.
There are two sides to every story, and then the truth is usually in the middle. Only you know the prevailing circumstances that led your life to the place where it is today. All you can do is be completely honest with yourself about your role in it and your motivations, and then order your steps according to what is right. I urge you to do that when interacting with your adult children.
that is what it boils down to, really, that is the crux of the matter.
I was very aware of this even when the kids were tiny and all through their growing up, that in many ways it is a "one way" sense of devotion and adoration and immense joy, from parent to kid, but not the other way around, the job of the kids is to really well break free of the parent and go forth in life and do their own thing. When they have their own kids if that happens, then hopefully the flow of devotion and love for the child goes that direction. In many ways, children are a joy for their parents, however parents in many ways are not a joy for their children.
i remember when i was little girl overhearing "heated words" between my parents around "if they want to see us then they can come see us i'm not making any trips to see them" and then later, when my mom was older she flat out came out and said "that was wrong, it was wrong to never go see them" because of course by then she was the one not being visited because that was the pattern that had been established.
i saw my grandparents once when i was about 5, and then not again until i was in college and started seeing my grandmother on my own.
people can be very controlling and very cruel for their own selfish ends. young people (at least i did when i was a teenager and young adult) want to get a sense of who they are and where they come from. i remember in middle school (we divorced when the kids were very young, so had been divorced probably 8 years by that time) i saw a project they had done at their dad's house on "family tree" assignment for school. now for kids at that age it really only did not go back any farther than grandparents, but it was a neat project for the kids to do. I was not on the family tree at all, not me, not my brother (their uncle) not my parents (their grandparents). I asked how come your mother is not on there, how come you did not put me on your family tree, and they said "dad wouldn't let us."
so if that is the reality they grew up with in their father's house, then it could very well be a pattern that continues. i am not making excuses for them and i agree their behavior now as adults is not acceptable. but going back to a post someone made earlier about what model was given to respect their mother growing up, i think that does play a part.
It does.
I hope you explained to your sons then that regardless, you were still their mother, they still had an uncle and grandparents on their family tree.
It sounds like your boys are being abused, too. There is so much to the abuse cycle but once you're aware of it, you can try to move things in a healthier direction.
i agree with this.
i am the one in the family, the only one in the family, on either side of the family, who has taken the steps of going into therapy and tried to break the cycle of abuse. And I have made great strides in doing so. When I was a young woman with three small children (age 4, 4, and 6) and our marriage of 13 years continued to have problems, which had been present for well pretty much the entire 13 years, which were getting worse and worse i developed alarming physical symptoms. when i went to the doctor he flat out said "this is related to stress you need to deal with whatever stress you have in your life because that is causing this and will only get worse."
i had left the marriage once before, before we had kids, and returned "determined to make it work" which of course did not work. by now we had 3 very young kids and i did not want to get a divorce. So i started going to therapy, which was absolutely what was needed. I was so happy and so excited because to me it was a way for us to work on our marriage together and address some of the problems that were going from bad to worse. It felt like the sun coming out after a decade of gloom. Well, he went once and then refused to continue. he said if there were problems i needed to fix them it had nothing to do with him he was fine with how things were. so that was the impasse we were at, i kept going to therapy, my physical symptoms got worse (in an alarming manner) and the decision i was faced with was stay in an abusive marriage or leave the marriage.
i left the marriage. i continued in therapy for many many years during and after the divorce, and i feel that it saved my life (as soon as i made the decision to divorce, the physical symptoms got better, and then disappeared completely). i came from an abusive family, i married into an abusive family (age 19 when we got engaged, he was older age 27, talk about red flags from the get go). I am the only one on either side of the family TO THIS DAY that has ever gone to therapy or done any kind of recovery work.
So this is a good reminder winter, thank you, it is about breaking the cycle of abuse, and i know that (as I was told at the time, and is absolutely true) the greatest gift we can give our kids is to get into therapy and live a life of recovery.
in some ways it feels like they are walking right back into it, but i've done what i can and they have their own path to travel in that regard.
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 08-26-2018 at 12:03 PM..
I agree. But the purpose of calling out disrespectful behavior is because it's disrespectful and wrong. Not for personal gain, per se. Relationships are not games. Or they shouldn't be, anyway. Bad, rude, abusive, unhealthy behavior is just wrong. And it is incumbent on us to attempt to correct it when we see it. It is a teaching issue. Too bad the girls' families didn't call them out/teach them better when they were kids. But the parents weren't taught right from wrong either.
it's interesting, when i was in the throes of therapy before during and after the divorce, and in recovery for many many manyyears after, i remember asking a therapist, about my own in-laws, who were one of the reason our marriage fell apart, overbearing intrusive who during the divorce told my young children "pretend that your mother is dead, just pretend she is dead" how can someone be so cruel and hateful? I am the mother of their grandchildren! How can they at any level act this way? How can they hate me so much?
and the therapist said something which i have never forgotten, she said, they were fine with you when the relationship was an unhealthy one, they supported you entirely in an unhealthy relationship. they could not however support you in a healthy relationship. and they can never support you in a healthy relationship.
when healthy behavior shows up in an unhealthy family system the s**t hits the fan.
if there are "big" life lessons that are with us during our life for us to learn, then for me the biggest and most important has been (and it apparently continues to still be so) to learn healthy behaviors, break the cycle of abuse, learn how to take care of myself in healthy ways, and interact with others with respect and dignity.
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