How to get over parents who are not really parents to you?

My folks were 20 and 17 when I was born, then they split when I was 8, after which they disappeared (one didn’t want to talk to us to spite the other, and the other had to get a job).

So my parents were never around, but there’s no “getting over” or “moving on from” your parents, because you’re always stuck with them. You have to accept them as people who weren’t Ward and June Cleaver.

Uh, I don’t have more than that. Maybe you could kill my parents, and I could kill yours, and no one would suspect a thing because we’re strangers on a train.

The biggest hurdle you will have is in accepting that they will never be parents in the way you feel that they should be.

This means you have to stop yourself form expecting them to behave as you wish for them to behave. As an example do not assume that when you decide to marry they will be involved. If you are in the hospital do not assume they will visit.

Set your expectations to rock bottom so that you do not live a life reminded of their limitations.

Then surround yourself with those you can depend on.

Thats a tough one. You are biologically inclined to want to stick with your parents. You might just have to come to grips with what your relationship will be. Or hope they change in the future. Time changes everything.

Wow. That’s a difficult thing to live with. I can’t imagine knowing the right thing to say to such a thing. I can tell you that my own experience with my dad has been less than optimal but I really don’t want to go into all of that, other than to say that I returned the favor when I was sixteen and turned my back on him. Now it’s just like he’s somebody that I know, not my dad. Dog has a good idea. Keep expectations low. Be careful in the future with whom you form relationships. At some point, you could have a family of your own. In the meantime, I hope you can form other relationships that can satisfy that need for you.

I know that it is a tough topic, but at the same time: It’s reality.

May I ask how old you are?

I do not care to make age a factor. I have a question. I am looking for answers. Thanks.

I am sorry – I know the pain of wanting your parents to care about you.

Sometimes your family is not the family of your nativity, but created by choice. Not everyone is cut out to parent, and sometimes children have to realize that for whatever reason, their parents are not cut out to nurture another human being.

You need to come to terms with what support they can be counted on for, and what support you have or can count on from other family members. Do you have grandparents, or aunts/uncles who form a support structure? Do you have close friends whose parents can be counted on for advice and guidance?

Sometimes you family consists of friends and their families, and not people you’re related to by blood.

@fancyfeast I’m right there with you. My mother has made up lies to get me fired from jobs. I think she was bothered by my strive to be independent. My mother has told me that she’d “send me to my fathers, but he doesn’t want me either.” My father beat me with a belt buckle several times and recently called me a “c*nt whore.” Most recently, my mother attempt suicide, claiming I was the reason for her slashing her wrist. While she was in a mental institute, my stepfather came onto me. I proceeded to take my mother’s car and drive to a friend’s house. My stepfather, a narcissistic psychopath, noted bankrobber, and manipulator convinced my mother that I “stole her car” because I didn’t want to see her when she got out of rehab. She believed him and had me arrested, not hearing the real story for weeks. I was then placed in foster care and moved home after breaking my collar bone. I am blamed daily for “betraying” my mother and “wanting my stepfather to screw me.”

Point being, I’ve been there. I still am. I’ve always felt responsible for my mother, an action which none of my peers understand. However, you have to set boundaries and establish happiness in YOUR life. You have to realize certain facts: a) you can’t change people, b) you cannot save people, c) when you’re not benefitting from a relationship, you need to leave it.
To an extend, I’ve always felt that parents begin to envy their children if their children prove to be smarter/faster/more beautiful/more compassionate than themselves. Almost the same way an artist might feel towards his famous and widely recognized masterpiece, while the views barely glance over his name.

I am sorry you are so unhappy, but I really need to know if you are over 25 or not.
Age does play a big role here, and is a significant factor.

I am co-signing 100% to @Macaulay‘s 2nd and 3rd paragraphs. I reached the same conclusion through different circumstances and I only wish it had taken me less time to figure it out. I would have not lost a number of years to self-sabotage due to guilt over not being able to “save” those blood relations.

You have to keep thinking of your own happiness and life in the same repetitive manner that you’ve though about how much you wanted your parents to love you. And without you realizing it, you’re doing that all the time. It’s not working and it’s not going to work. You can’t wait for them to change; life is too short, so you’ve got to consciously think a new thought about how you are worthy despite their neglect and take one step at a time toward treating yourself the way you should have been treated up until now.

It totally sucks sometimes, and I have moments where I just don’t feel like being my own parent. But if you’re anywhere over 15 or 16, it’s what you must do for your own survival. I wish you luck and peace.

I agree with the age thing. We go through stages and levels of understanding in our lives. I felt different about my parents at 16 than I did at 25 than I do now at 41. If you aren’t over them now, you will be eventually. With some good therapy and some time out on your own, you’ll become your own person, regardless of the parents you were given at birth. You may even come to forgive them.

@filmfann why 25, specifically?

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Just a point where you’re not suffering from teenage me-ism, and probably gave the rents a good chance to treat you like an adult.

@filmfann and @fancyfeast Age does play a role in things. I have a neice who till this day claims that her parents don’t take care of her and don’t love her. While she lived with my brother, he did everything to make her happy. Her mother is a different story, but she just saw that other kids had things my brother could not afford. And sometimes he wouldn’t spend money on taking her to the doctor because she would always claim to be sick but would have the energy to sneak out with her friends and too many times he would take her to the doctor to spend 100 dollars of money he really didn’t have to throw away, just to hear the doctors say she was fine. He even lost his job twice because of crap she would pull. And she still claimed he didn’t love her.
Now if you are underaged fancyfeast and you parents are absolutely neglectful, without a doubt, than I would talk to a school counselor. In which case it will be difficult to let go.
If you are a full grown adult who is just too lazy to seek employment and think it is your right to be coddled than its time you wake up and move on. Then they aren’t terrible parents, you are just too greedy.