What was your parents relationship like? What are your memories of their relationship from before you were 12?
In a word, volatile.
I don’t remember too many happy memories of my parents. I don’t remember happy anniversaries or excitement over each other’s Christmas presents. I don’t remember them cheering each other on during team sports or bowling.
The reason I don’t remember witnessing their anniversary was one of two reasons:
1. My birthday is only three days before their anniversary. I was rarely allowed to have a birthday dinner that focused on me, my mom would always make sure everyone knew it was her wedding anniversary as well. But that was their anniversary celebration- the same day as my birthday dinner. This was often just so we could get 2 free desserts.
2. IF they did have a big anniversary celebration, I was usually babysat for a weekend while they had a weekend getaway. I’m not saying parents aren’t allowed celebrations away from their kids, but because I never saw them celebrating together I never learned what a healthy celebration looked like.
Christmas presents were a joke because my mom would take my dad shopping and watch as he bought what she told him to buy and it was always the same shit every year. And every year we’d have to listen to her fake “oh goodness! How did you know?” While she opened expensive makeup and perfume and he opened up a new tie or book or something equally terrible.
The only sport I recall them participating in was bowling and it was always so individualistic that my mom was always tearing my dad down if she was beating him, or guilt tripping him and calling him “lucky” if he was beating her. There was no cheering for each other when they got a high score, just a sneer and “I bet you can’t beat me again”.
As I answered earlier, though, I remember it being extremely volatile.
My mom would often go shopping and then she and my dad would have huge fights because they were nearing bankruptcy and my dad was never happy that my mom spent so much money without a care in the world. Often times, my mom would spend so much money they couldn’t pay their mortgage, so my dad was always forced to pick up seconds jobs- delivering pizza, moonlighting somewhere, working an overnight shift for the differential pay, etc. I wish I could say this was just a childhood thing, but even as late as my late 20s my mom still made my dad get a second job at one point. I remember he was trying to do day labor on his days off but he always got there too late so was never chosen. He was thinking about applying at McDonald’s but I suggested he work the door at the mall checking id’s to make sure kids had a guardian. Much easier work and paid more than McDonald’s. He did that for probably 2-3 years to help get my mom out of debt.
What did my mom die during this time?
Went and played Bunko with the neighborhood ladies.
It’s always pissed me off that my mom acts like a fucking princess getting everything she wants but then makes my dad get second jobs for her lifestyle spending.
I’ve never felt like my dad had a backbone. I always felt like he was worried that another marriage would fail so he would do everything he could to make sure he wasn’t a failure again, even though time and again my mom would never consider him.
Volatile also describes the fights they would have. At least once a year my parents would have screaming matches that would last all night, and I always feared they would get divorced. I would cry myself to sleep on those nights and just pray that I wasn’t sent to an orphanage.
I wonder if that’s part of why I’m afraid of relationships- not only have I been mentally abused by my last 2 relationships, but I didn’t see a healthy model of relationships growing up.
I wish I could say my parents are better now, but my mom has grown more narcissistic and she has influenced my dad to become narcissistic himself. He used to be her Flying Monkey, but now he’s just as bad as she is.
And the last time I spoke to them was 18 months ago.
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