Patterns of Learned Behavior: Problems with Parents and Siblings

I am wondering if anyone out there comes from a more dysfunctional family unit than I do? Lately, I’m bothered by it more than ever before. I want to hear from anyone who can tell me something to make sense of how I arrived where I am.
My parents are 70, married 50 years. I have an older brother 50 and a younger sister 42.
I left home at 17, put myself through college, then moved out of state and away from the family circle, a long time ago. My siblings stayed behind inside the circle.
I’ve never known my parents to have any friends.
Dad was a child beater and a wife beater on a weekly basis, and he cheated in his marriage for the first 30 years up until he was 50 years old. My mother found out about all the affairs. Growing up was about physical abuse and trespass.
Today, both parents exist together in a state of mutual mental abuse. They continue to abuse their children mentally.
My dad at 70 is always expressing that he wishes someone would beat his adult children up.
You could never ask dad a question because he always told everyone what he thought they wanted to hear. Today, I will not ask my dad a question because he is a known lier and I won’t give him the opportunity to embarrass himself.
Growing up, both parents, rapidly evolved into a pattern of hating everyone around them and blaming all their misfortunes on everyone else. They have the belief that they are the only ones that had to work for what they have and that everyone else got theirs because of either inheritance or because they cheated someone else out.
Over time, both parents started hating their parents and their siblings and today the generation ago is estranged.
Both parents have no regrets or apologies for how they lived their life and they will tell you that they were the victims; strangely.
Mom’s coping mechanism is to make excuses for everything bad that my dad and siblings do and somehow she always manages to turn the situation around to be the victim.
Dad’s coping mechanism is to be the finger pointer and ascribe blame to everyone else around him. He is perfect and never does anything wrong to people.
Ironically, now my siblings have evolved into this dominant pattern of hating everyone and blaming everyone. If you listen to them, they each have suffered so much setback in life than anyone in the history of the world. They are not talking to each other and have stopped communicating with me also. They neither one have any friends. They view me as having a picture perfect life and I’ve become their enemy for some unknown reason.
Their coping mechanism is isolation from everyone (the world) around them.
Similarly to my dad, I will not ask my brother a question because all he does is lie to me. My sister only speaks in half truths which is another form of keeping something covered up.
All four of them are void of any effective communication skill sets.
For the last 24 years, I have tried to forgive the trespasses and abuse and focus on moving everyone forward and finding a better way of existing together. I’ve done so by showing them an example in me. I have, without being asked, offered my parents and siblings thousands whenever I learned of a setback and I provided my time and services to all of them so that they would not have to hire it out. I used to call them all once a week to keep communication and relations moving positively. I have arranged 4 family vacations and paid for everyones hotel, air and rental fees. I used to travel back home to see them every other month. I was everyone’s psychologist when they were down in the valleys. I sent my parents gifts in the mail all through the year to make them feel worthy. I bought my sister an entire porcelain service for 10 from Russia and had it imported; just because she didn’t have a formal dining service.
Today, I’m a terrible brother and son. They resent all that I’ve been able to do and offer them. They criticize everything I provide them free of charge. I give them three thousand dollars and they complain that I was stingy because I should have given them five. To listen to them, all the family vacations were horrible and I did everything the cheapest way possible. They refuse to go anywhere with me in the future but none of them will step to the plate to arrange the next family vacation.
I have not gone home for any holiday in two years because I don’t know these people any longer and it’s become uncomfortable for me to be around them. I suppose in light of all the mental abuse I receive whenever I initiate an interaction that my coping mechanism is to insulate myself from them and their reign of terror.
Growing up I was taught that you have to accept people for what they are and what you can not change in them but I don’t find this a healthy teaching based on my observations of my immediate family circle and mostly because of my experience observing people across a wide spectrum since I’ve lived out of state. My philosophy is that if people are not willing to change then you have to change the way in which you interact with them.
A part of me wishes I could find an adoptive family to be my parents and siblings.

ddfk - My family wasn't physically abusive, but my father was emotionally and mentally abusive to me and my mom. He blamed us for most of the things that went wrong in his life. He cheated on mom the whole time they were married. They divorced when I was 15. Now, the weird part is that I worshipped my dad and hated my mom until I grew up and started to see the truth.

Long story shortened - Mom got cancer and died about 15 years ago, but thankfully we made our peace and got to enjoy a few years of really getting to know each other before she died. I'm grateful for that.

Dad, on the other hand, remarried and continued his emotional abuse (he blames me because if mom hadn't gotten pregnant, he wouldn't have married her and given up all his dreams). I put up with it for 20 years - 20 years of traveling for 20 hours in the car to visit him, only to be ignored because he was more interested in his step kids. 20 years of being told that nothing I ever did was good enough. 20 years of being made to feel guilty.

So....last year, I wrote him a long letter explaining how I felt. I had tried several times to talk to him about things, but he wouldn't discuss it. "The past is the past." so, I wrote the letter instead. In response I got a very nasty letter from my step-mom who claimed that my dad never read the letter because she didn't feel he could take what I had to say. (Dad has cancer from 40 years of drinking and smoking) My step-mom only knows what Dad has told her, so she really doesn't have a clue about our relationship. Anyway, I'm leaving so much out, but the end result is that I haven't spoken to him in a year. I moved. I changed my phone number. It gets lonely sometimes. I don't have any family left, except the family I married into.

My therapist told me 20 years ago that I had three choices: 1) accept what dad was willing to give and don't let him hurt me, 2) walk away, or 3) continue to be hurt. It took a very long time to walk away, but I couldn't continue to accept his hurtful behavior and I couldn't just ignore it.

My only real regret? My grandmother (if she were alive) would be sad that I couldn't be a big enough person to ignore his crap. He's old and sick. Part of me wishes I could be more generous and loving to him because he did raise me and I know that in his twisted way, he loves me. However, it just wasn't worth the constant emotional turmoil and pain any more.

Soooo...there are lots of us out here with crappy families. I'm sorry that you are part of our club, but you aren't alone. Sending you a hug and a wish for peace.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I really appreciate it. From what you wrote, I can expect that you certainly left a whole lot out. I believe my decision of how to handle is the same as you reasoned chose.

You mentioned that you wrote the letter; something I've thought of doing also. I refrain from doing for several reasons. I guess because i feel silly at my age and being a man; the thought of how petty I'll be viewed should they get cancer next month and have a stroke etc....

Although, I don't visit and participate in the family circle anymore, I do email my mom once monthly and only talk about the positive things going on in my life. I don't focus of their end, my brother or sister, or talk about all their abuse and trespass. I'm lucky to get back a reply on one in five. I don't do it for a reply though, only to save them from painting themselves into a corner and becoming yet another road block to change. If I didn't articulate that clearly, I suppose I recognize that once people establish a hard baseline in a relationship, it's hard for some to then come away from it because they may feel embarrassed or they may have to admit they were wrong. I leave the door slightly open but I can't be the one to walk through it anymore because all I'll be doing is enabling the pattern.

Don't you just love the behaviors and relating patterns that parents pass down? I came from an emotionally, and physically abusive home, so I know how it changes a person. How did your upbringing change you?

I stay in touch with my family, but if I sense that a situation or conversation is going to go south I will excuse myself. My mom has very poor boundaries and will share everything under the sun with me, even after I tell her TMI. I sense your pain about having to grieve the loss of never really having your family there for you. It's great that you are able to see all the ineffective behavior and not respond in kind.

Do you have a family? wife, and kids?

No, no children, not married. About patterns, my older brother has never been married and no children. I often wonder if our homelife growing up has something to do with. For me, I had such a negative view of how two people live together and function with children that i suppose I wouldn't go there unless I had a guarantee that it would never be like being at home. Who knows for sure though.

Re conversations that go South, I'm even beyond that because my parents and more recently my siblings take everything you say and turn it into a negative. My monthly emails to my mom glide only on the surface now and only focus on external factual in my life. For example, I'm going to Vermont next week or I did great on my electric bill this month...I can't talk about any person because they all try to create drama where no drama lies or was intended.

Good grief, what a nightmare. How about if I adopt you??? I'm a widow, no kids at home, my parents are both deceased - they didn't even know I was alive when I lived at home. The type of abuse I got was being totally ignored. All the years I lived at home, I NEVER had a curfew. They PUSHED me into getting married. Well, I LET them push me. They were alcoholics & fought all the time, physically & orally. I could never figure out why they stayed together. Misery loves company I goess.

So if you want an adoptive mom, here I am. LOL Hugs, Lee

Hi ddfk,

It sounds like a good idea that you got away from them. These patterns of abuse or lying get passed on and it sounds like your siblings share some of the patterns. It is very difficult to want to be close to your family (who wouldn't want to be?) but to be forever hurt and put down by them. You said in the end of your post that you wished to adopt a family... well IMhO that is what you should try to do... I had a very wise therapist say to me once that when we are children we must look to our parents for help, survival or acceptance. But, once we are adults we can look elsewhere. We are grown and can choose those (friends of all ages) who will support us and give us stregth, love and appreciation. But I do know it is difficult to move away from finding these things in your family (I struggle with that too). I just always imagine that things might go differently. But I am forever set up... they never really do. I would stop providing for them. Instead, maybe seek out others who do appreciate you for who you are and donate your time, money or energy to those will really appreciate it, like a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter. In essence, adopt others into your new family...
Sending supportive thoughts your way.

E

Accepting others as they are does not preclude putting a lot of distance between you & them.

Be proud of yourself because you have done your bit for them !!!

I've known siblings to suffer (over three generations) when a family member has disabilities but either of them hasn't adapted to that successfully.

OMG I so feel for you how awful, makes me wonder what I have put on to my children by staying too long with my Husband!! he is a sociopath, inflicted so much on us all, I am very sure that its so damaging & I wonder how many damaged children carry on the same pattern..thinking about you & hope you find someone to adopt you !!Bless you XX

Okay, I hope this reply is submitted accurately and successfully. This is my first time and day of registering so bare with me I am adjusting to navigating within this site.

In response to what I have read of your post, and yes I read it all, I hear that you are trying to have the family of your dreams, a normal family by your own definition and you appear to be trying to make it right or received their approval. Your family is who they are, dysgunctional, just like mine. One thing I learned is that I will never gain their approval. Often when you evolve and your familia klan does not they resent you. Often the evolver experience feelings of guilt. At the end of the day the only person we are responsible for is ourselves and it's a good thing, because isn't that job difficult enough?

Yes, my family is just as---if not more than, dysfunctional as yours. My father too is a cheater, even to this day in his early 80's. My mother is domineering and hateful of her own children. I come from 12 siblings and I am the 7th child. I bare the burden of having my mothers name, because I was born on her birthday, but she hates me worse than any of the others. I have been estranged from them for more years than I can count. It is sad, but it is for the best. Dysfunctions run from: Severe sexual molestation, severe physical beatings, horrible mental abuse and a family of crabs that will do the unthinkable such as try to take your children away. Siblings who hadn't completed a high school education yet went to the police department and filed erroneous police reports claiming to have a psychology degree or degrees in social services and that is what qualify them to say that you are crazy, a schizophrenic etcetera. Hoping that the law enforcers would come and take my children and destroy me so that I would go crazy. Thankfully law enforcement are trained to investigate both sides of a story and see through inconsistencies. A family that would do anything to shut your mouth forever about all those deep, dark, shameful family secrets...Oh yes did I mention having babies within the family?

DDFK, so you see, it isn't just you. Many of us wish we didn't come from people who can't understand why we aren't just like them. I pray this helped