My parents are very old fashioned, so much so that when I lived with a guy they didn't speak to me (beacuse they were ashamed that I wasn't married) even though I tried to maintain contact with them. For them living with someone, having ababy outside marriage, divorce are shameful. They also seem to be getting more entrenched in their views as they get older. I know I'm old enough to live my own life (30s) but I just don't understand why they expect me to conform to everything that they believe in. I live on my own but am in a relationship. I'm scared about their reaction if I live with this guy (we've talked about it). I do love them and care about them and they came round after my previous relationship broke up, so now there is a lot of contact (I see them almost every day).When I tell people they are amazed and say they can't understand why my parents are so rigid.My parents say it was the way they were brought up and just get angry if I broach the subject of living with someone.They caused me a lot of hurt before and because I don't want my relationship with them to break up Ihave tried desperately to forgive them for us to make a fresh start. But it's so hard when they're so unbending. My father said "If you don't like us don't visit us". I'm sure he didn't mean this but why are they behaving like this to their own flesh and blood ? It's not just living with someone - if I did anything else which didn't conform to their rules it would be the same.
RE: Why are they so difficult ?
i completly understand where you are coming from.i'm going out with somebody who's parents are exactly like yours.sometimes i think they dont like me at all and that im not good enough for their son. but i think the reality of it is that they are just stuck in their ways and is vvvvv.unlikely that they are going to change now.it's very hard to be torn between people you love but at the end of the day you have to look after no.1.i know this sounds awful but if your parents died in the morning you would be left on your own or would always be thinking of their wishes and never move in with any1 unless married that is.you should try and talk to them again and tell them how you understand there ways and can respect that but they have to realise that you live in the 21st century and you dont want to commit to someone with marrage unless you are 100% confident that it will last forever and you can only do that by living with someone and seeing them behind closed doors kinda thing.
RE: Why are they so difficult ?
Hi BlueBellBelle,
It all comes down to that dreaded word "Control".
Whilst you do what your parents want you to do then they are in control of their lives. I say "their" lives, because they see that you are an integral part of their lives, and if you are not doing what they consider to be the right thing, then they feel they are losing control. So when you do go off and do something they don't agree with, they either have to live with this feeling of lost control or their only other option is to shut you out of their life, isolating what they see as a problem and restoring control to the remainder of things.
The problem doesn't lie with yourself, but with your parents. You're not the one who has a problem with living with someone without marriage, or having a child with someone you love without marriage etc. that is purely problems that are theirs.
Everybody has to have some amount of control in their lives and different people have different ways of maintaining that control. I think the book "The Celestine Prophecy" defines a good framework for looking at people and how these controls are combined and passed down from parents to children. It's not the best written book in the world, and some people find it tricky to get into, but it covers some important aspects of life that make you think. The four main "control drama's" as the book calls them are: Agressor, Interrogator, Aloof and Poor Me (I think I've got those right, it's a while since I've read it). Everyone has an amount of all four of these, but will tend to be more prodominent in just one of them.
The point of all this is that you can't change the type of person someone is, only those people can change themselves. The only thing you can do is to give those people an awareness of what their control drama is. Just as an example, if someone is taking an agressive tone towards you (their way of trying to be in control), rather than entering your own control drama i.e. being agressive back, causing conflict or shying away as a Poor Me, giving them their control, if you can calmy ask them something like why they are being so Angry it can make them aware of what they doing and ask themself that question and realise they don't really have any reason for being angry with you.
Just remember, you are in control of your own life and others have to respect that, parents or not.
Love and Reiki Hugs
RE: Why are they so difficult ?
I had the same with my ex-inlaws - we had to do things their way and my exhusband would never stick up for them.
Now they won't speak to me at all because I did the unspeakable and
said that the marriage wasn't making me happy - I was better off out of
it. They have foud a replacement for me in their new daughterinlaw.
It is a difficult situation where parents want to control you in this
way. You're going to feel some unhappiness whether you conform or not.
But they can't live your life for you and see things as you see them.
You are in control of your life and your parents will be the ones to
lose out - in my case, my exinlaws now see their grandchildren about
once a year because they have cut me out of their life.
LR
RE: Why are they so difficult ?
BlueBelle,
My father-in-law refused to allow my husband and I to share a bedroom before we were married. It really is the way these oldies were brought up.
You will have to sit down with your family and tell them that you are old enough to do as you please. If they get the 'hump' then that's down to them. My own view, is that I think these old folks have a point - there is no shame in society any longer, and it's allowed unruly and disrespectful behaviour to flourish. I was a teenage mum at a time when it was still frowned upon.Society's attitudewas one of the best contraceptive aids I could think of.
Patsy.
RE: Why are they so difficult ?
I do sympathise with you and feel that you should do whatever makes "you" happy because it's "your " life. You'll always love your parents but you also love your partner and if you wish to live together, then that's what you should do........If it makes you happy, hopefully your parents may come round to the idea eventually.
RE: Why are they so difficult ?
I do sympathise with you as you evidently still want to keep on good terms with your parents although you would like to live with this guy.
I have a daughter of 30 who lived with her now husband before wedlock, but then I have been married twice and lived with my present husband before I married him, so I could hardly come over all pious with her. Having said that I didn't want to anyway.
What's important to me is that I keep on good relations with my children. It's their lives and at their age and yours they are entitled to live it how they choose.
What might be a good idea is to make trips to your parents with your boyfriend before he moves in so they can get to know him and hopefully like him. Perhaps if he is willing, he could make an extra effort to be nice to them and sort of win them over. It will be harder for them to condemn your plans if they think he is a nice person who loves you and is going to make you happy.
RE: Why are they so difficult ?
Thank you for all your replies. It’s really sad to hear that people interefering in other people’s lives causes so much misery. I’m a live and let live person so find this hard to take.
My father is much less "rigid" than my mother on this issue as she is absolutely entrenched in her beliefs - even though they cause her daughter a lot of pain. I have heard a saying "It is better to be kind than to be right " and I think this is true.
Songstress - I know what you mean and I agree with what you say but I don’t really consider that I’m immoral (like my parents do) - I don’t sleep around, steal or have ever been unfaithful or anything like that. I think my parents look on the past as a "golden age" where people never behaved "badly". My cousin is a historian and has done a lot of research into social changes in the Victorian era. Although this time is considered very moral and upright - in fact prostitution (male/female) was rife, many Victorian middle class genteel girls had babies out of wedlock (which ended up in workhouses) and/or had to get married, Even looking at the past closer to home - a third of brides getting married in the 1930s and 1940s "had" to get married.
To be honest my mother is "narrow" in what she considers immoral. She thinks if you are married you somehow belong to a "club" and are totally moral. Personally I don’t think it’s immoral to live with someone if you love them and care about them, yet I know friends and colleagues who have been "duped" into marriage and had their lives wrecked by someone lying to them by telling them that they love them and want to marry them. When I was with my ex partner I loved him, was never unfaithful and cared about him and behaved better than some married people. Some of my colleagues and others I know have married just to have children, because they didn’t want to be alone, to have money and prestige, to be Mrs "So and so" and not because they loved or cared about the person they were marrying. The worst one that affected me was a friend of mine who married a girl from a communist country. It all went very well until her papers came through to live and work permanently in America. He came home one day from work to find the flat had been stripped of it’s contents (all of which he’d bought as she had no money) including family heirlooms. When he contacted the bank all the money ( all his as she didn’t have any moeny either) had been withdrawn. She had left hime virtually penniless and he didn’t even know where she was. Many years later (after paying for private detectives as he wanted a divorce - you have to wait years if you can’t find someone to divorce them) he found her living in America. The upshot is that she caused him to virtually have a nervous breakdown after he realised he had been duped and that his marriage had been a sham. Now that’s immoral.