Do you have a good relationship with your parents?

No. My siblings must take on the roles of marriage counselor and therapist to both our parents. We have to fix their problems.
Don’t get me wrong, I love them. But I don’t think solving their problems is supposed to be their children’s job.

Yes, now I do after a lot of therapy work and strife.

Nope. It was a dysfunctional and abusive situation and I’m glad to be out.

Sadly no.

My father is dead four years now. We had a pretty good relationship when he was alive, but it was often undermined by my mother.

My mother is off to parts unknown and I haven’t seen her in almost four years. She has an untreated narcissistic personality disorder which made her almost impossible to deal with since I was around fourteen. My father devoted his whole life to her which ultimately cost him his autonomy and relationships with other people. His choice, I know – but still frustrating.

For the most part, yes.

Not really. My mom has always been a bit childish, unreasonable, and generally difficult, so I’ve never really gotten along with her. My dad’s a bit more reasonable, but communication isn’t his strong point. It’s hard to talk to him, or listen to him.
In the last 18 months or so, I’ve spent a lot of time on my own, growing and changing completely independently from my parents. I grew in my faith and learned what’s really important to me. They weren’t with me, so they don’t really know what I’m like any more. They know my old self. It’s hard to show them my new self. This has hampered my relationship with them more than anything else.

Yes. I never felt that close growing up, but about the time I matured enough to have a steady job, marriage, and children, there was a lot of mutual respect and my parents recognition I wasn’t a child. When my dad passed away 6 years ago, I had no unfinished business with him. My mom is still around at age 89, although she is slowing down a lot. We get along pretty well.

One of yes.

My mom died four years ago and we had a complicated relationship. I love her fiercely but I’m also really mad at her. Her death ended any kind of chance she had to apologize for some of the crap she put us through as kids. I know realistically that she never would apologize but, while she was alive, there was a chance. Zero chance now.

My dad has a severe form of Asperger’s/Autism. I haven’t spoken to him in years. Not out of malice but out of understanding that he’s not interested in having any kind of relationship with me or my kids. He lives in his own world.

Yes, I do. Of course they have their ups and downs, but every relationship has.

I had a great relationship with my father. I grew up busting my ass right next to him. He knew how to work hard, but he also liked to play hard. I can still picture him in the window of the barn, grinning from ear to ear after he squirted me with water when I wasn’t expecting it at all. He was a great Dad. My mother was okay too. She wasn’t as strong as he was, but she has a good heart.

Lord no. It has more downs than ups at the moment.
I still get shit for having a Muslim girlfriend, they’re still concerned she may be a homicidal maniac because she has mental health issues – I won’t say exactly what my thoughts are….but you’d think at my age of 35 they’d let a guy live a little and let him live and learn. Pisses me off.

No not really. When my mother stopped drinking at age 55, and was diagnosed bi-polar, we were able to forge a new relationship and now we’re pretty close.

Yes. My mother and I speak relatively often. She’s someone that I can vent to and she’ll be responsible and helpful. She genuinely cares about the people in my life outside our family, including my friends that would probably be looked at as “weird” by other people in our area. We definitely do not share the same opinion on a number of things (particularly abortion), but she is not pushy and respects our differences. She is a strong-willed person and I have always looked up to her.

My father is a more reserved person. While my mom is always my mom, my dad tends to hide himself a bit more from others. We don’t talk as often, but I have never doubted how passionately he loves his three children. He is a self-sacrificing person and I appreciate everything he has done to keep our family together and push us to achieve our goals.

Now, if this question were, do you get along with your significant other’s parents?, my response would be absolutely not.

@muppetish I feel ya on the in-laws. My mother-in-law came over yesterday to visit and since we hadn’t seen her in a month or so I was looking forward to hearing news updates about the family, etc…and she griped about things, was nasty and slightly rude the entire time. We finished up that lovely tea time with her chewing my husband out over a shovel he’d borrowed 2 weeks ago that wasn’t even hers. Geesh.

No. My father disowned me about four months ago (per email). He claimed that I was no longer the son he once knew and that, now I was 21 and married, he considered himself done as a parent and therefore he would no longer support me financially. My mother agreed with her husband, saying that she felt that I didn’t need parents anymore. I haven’t heard from them since.

Thanks to years of working and saving, I can do without their support. Emotionally it’s hard though.

@KNOWITALL So sorry to hear about your situation. You might enjoy this scene from Psycho 2

@Kardamom haha, I don’t think I ever saw that movie!

So when she keeps asking us to go to the casino’s with her (free rooms & free food) she can’t understand why we hesitate, what should I say or do? We can’t tell that she’s a moody beast, we do love her. So far it’s been excuses, but I’m running out.

@KNOWITALL It’s a very funny movie. It stars Anthony Perkins as the same character from the original Pyscho movie. You should watch the original one first, then watch Psycho 2, because it’s basically a spoof of the first movie, and a great homage to many of the other Hitchcock movies (you will have fun spotting the references).

My brother’s MIL sounds similar to yours. She used to really bug the crap out of me, but I changed the way I reacted to her and it’s really made a big difference. I have to mentally tune out her negativity, but I get all right up with her and and sweet and useful and helpful to her to the Nth degree and she totally loves me. I just know that I will kiss her butt while we’re together, and know that it’s only for a limited time. It was a strange adjustment, but it has helped me not to feel so angry at her, even though she hasn’t changed. I changed the way I perceived her and how I reacted towards her. I shower her with love and attention and I never set myself up to get into an argument with her.

I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but that was the only way I could stand to be around her. To treat her as someone that I really like and miss and enjoy being around.

Dad’s dead now, we didn’t have a good relationship. Mom’s alive and lives with me. For the most part, we fight less than we used to because I learned how to just walk away from her insanity.

Before they died I had a decent relationship. Now, of course, it’s all in my head. And for sure, sometimes we have some serious talks.

We are cordial. Even friendly. But they don’t know the first thing about me, and haven’t since I was sixteen. So, in the sense of a good relationship meaning you know someone well—no. But in the sense of a good relationship meaning we get along—sure.

Although, I don’t trust them with my kids. They’ve never said anything about not getting to be alone with them, so I have no idea if they even noticed. But they raised me never to talk about anything personal, so my guess is that if they do notice, they would never say anything, no matter how much it bothered them. Sometimes they seem so weird to me.