Forget it, you can't change your parents

Have you ever changed someone else?

I have thought about changing my parents.

My mother is a housewife, passive, complaining, prone to hysteria, and a typical refrigerator mother. My father is a chauvinist, commanding, lazy, and does not know how to care for women. In the family, He has the highest status and doesn't know how to respect women's ideas. They often had conflicts, and I heard them arguing from the time I was a child until I went to college. I was diagnosed with moderate depression during college. It turned out that my family of origin had caused trauma to me.

My mother is not a woman in the traditional sense. She is gentle and considerate. She will take good care of her children and husband, and she will understand, tolerate and accept each other. In fact, my mother has a bad temper, is lazy, and puts more emphasis on interests than family ties. Once her interests are touched, she will disown her relatives and fight against them. The long-term housework left her breathless and accumulated depression. She was negative, complaining, and would scold my father for being "worthless." No matter how unpalatable the food she cooks, the whole family will eat it, and she doesn't allow anyone to question her skills, thinking that she is the head of the family. She will complain when the food we cook is not to her liking, thinking that she has the greatest contribution to the family and that the family can only function if she is in it. Without her, we will starve to death.

Once I cooked a dish that was not to her liking. She was blamed for cooking too little and not enough food. Scold me because I was the one who caused things to turn around and ended up unsatisfactory.

She continued to complain like this for decades, and I rarely saw her smile happily because she was satisfied with anything we did. Since I was a child, I have lived with the guilt of not being happy even if my mother is not happy. I once thought about escaping from this home, but a few years later I was defeated by reality. I had to go home to live with my parents because I was unable to support myself. I saw all the shortcomings of my parents. I also thought about ignoring it, but I couldn't tolerate it.

I became like my mother, criticizing other people’s actions and words.

Even though we have been together for many years, I still cannot accept my mother’s living habits.

I wish I could have a good mother, as affectionate as a friend and as warm as a sister. Those happy feelings at least let me know that living is something worth looking forward to. But this is not the case. I once persuaded my father to let him change her, "Only you can change my mother. If you try to give her more understanding and love, maybe she can become better." Her father once talked to her in gentle words and was moved. to her. My father gave up Ling and changed. Perhaps this was the fate that my mother should have in her life. There were times when my father was angry. Every time we quarreled, he would laugh at my mother, "Look. That's the kind of person she is, uneducated." "She is just a short-sighted woman." Later, when I heard my father complain that everything he had done today was It was my mother who caused it. At that moment, I discovered that the two closest people would influence each other.

My father complained that my mother was a housewife and had not had her main job for a long time, which put excessive pressure on the head of his family. My father complained that if my mother could change something, the family would not be in trouble. If the mother did not like to settle old scores, she would not touch the father's bottom line, and her father's gambling habit would not occur in the future. My father didn't come home until midnight every day. He resented his mother and seemed to be crazy. He pointed at the man's nose and scolded her for being "worthless". Such a father wants to escape. He will go out to play mahjong after dinner. Even if he loses his assets, it will not shake him at all. He would rather drag his broken body than go home early to see the woman who dislikes him. .

My mother complained that my father was too lazy and would not share the housework. She complained that her father was always impulsive and reckless in doing things, never liked to discuss with others, complained that her father looked too ugly, complained that her father never gave her pocket money, and other trivial things. And even though my own life is already very difficult, I still want to help some poor families with dignity. She couldn't understand the various behaviors her father did to save face.

I often try to communicate with my mother, and try to teach her to "be merciful and forgiving", hoping that my mother can bring joy to the family. After all, women are the feng shui of the family. I hope she won’t spread the family scandal everywhere and expose my father’s scandal to the public. I hope she is hard-working, kind, gentle and considerate. Only such changes can reduce the father's behavior of going out to play mahjong.

I once persuaded my father to make some changes and understand my mother more, and I feel sorry for her.

I also tried to persuade him to go home early and change his habit of playing mahjong and gambling. But nothing works. I am extremely disappointed with my father's behavior.

The biggest failure in marriage is trying to change both parties.

Find a way for yourself, and in many cases it is better not to care about it.

My family is very well-behaved. Like most children, we graduate, get married, buy a house, and have children step by step. My father hoped that I could work within the system and would even try to find a stable job for me through connections. My mother was always thinking about finding an honest man to marry. After graduation, my father used his connections to find me a stable job. I resigned after working for more than a year. This angered my father, and he blamed me behind my back for a long time. My father couldn't understand it, and my mother couldn't let it go. They always promoted me, an ignorant child, behind my back. Their "good for me" made me extremely frightened. Later, he had many conflicts with his parents.

In fact, what they don’t know is that the quarrels between my parents in the past caused harm to me and made me a withdrawn person with a low self-esteem. I still remember clearly the verbal violence in the past, "You can't do anything well, you have no future." There are also some ugly words, "Are you a pig brain? You can't teach me anything?" When I grew up, I told my mother that those words were very important to me. I caused harm, but my mother looked blank and didn't know, but she said, "I hold grudges too much." My father said that most parents are like this, how they educate their children, how they educate them, and every family cannot There are quarrels to avoid. If the child is so severe that he has psychological trauma, how can I explain those who have been more devastated than me, and who are more physically and mentally serious?

I also talked with my friends about the influence of my original family on me. But my friend just responded, "When you grow up, you don't need to get the love and approval of your parents." And the sentence "In fact, parents are the ones who really love their children."

Later, I finally understood. , depression, or the severe trauma caused to me by my family of origin, I chose not to talk about it, and everything would be just "hypocrisy" in the eyes of others. The only one who can save is yourself, and only by yourself can you survive.

"Parental verbal violence may affect a person's life." What I see today is the impact of my mother's verbal violence on me. I have difficulty socializing and my marriage is broken. I often repeat my mother's words Words and actions, she treated me roughly, and then I used rough language to treat her, even my lover.

I never thought that my mother’s verbal violence would deeply hurt me, and I tried to forgive her. Forgiveness and love are always difficult.

Tsai Kangyong talked about his point of view in a psychological interview: "Then don't forgive, but "forget it."

I finally understand that in the past, I wanted to reform my parents. The idea was very unreasonable. I wanted my father to change my mother, but I ignored that I was also trying to change them. I couldn't stand some of my parents' behaviors, which actually denied my parents' status in my heart. I always thought that as a parent, I should. It's like that, not like this. Basically, it sets standards for parents. Just as my father found a job within the system "for my own good", he was actually setting standards for me, expecting his daughter to graduate from college. This process only makes sense if you want to take the exam.

Cai Kangyong said: "The so-called "I am doing it for your own good" means that I know what it means to be good to you. I know better than you what is good for you, and you still have to listen to me tell you what to do. "The starting point of parents' saying "I am doing this for your own good" is "fundamentally because they don't know that people can't change others, and they think that as long as they give something, it is noble. "

Behind my father's "do it for my own good" lies his desire to change my heart. Whether it is my father's behavior or my mother's words, "I hit you for your own good." "Essentially, I just want to change the children to live the way they expect.

I also explained to my father that I don't want to work in the system because I have my own ideas, and I hope he can respect my ideas. Instead of treating me as a child, he has paved the way and I just follow his instructions. In his view, it means that the child will take fewer detours and reduce frustrations. In my view, I am not a "parent." "I am not a continuation of their lives." I had a strong desire to convince my father, but in the end I still didn't have the courage. He has already decided that I am an unfilial son who will become independent when he grows up and start disobeying his parents. He thinks he understands me, which makes me very sad.

I used harsh words to hurt my parents instead of choosing to stay calm and communicate with my heart. "This is a problematic family." "I don't want to stay in this family anymore."

I refused to communicate with my parents. My father did not cultivate my self-confidence since I was a child and never cared about me. psychology and thoughts. I became like my mother, ranting, hysterical. I think my parents don’t understand me and forcing me to live according to their wishes will suffocate me.

I once strongly blamed my parents for failing to fulfill their parental responsibilities. They gave birth to me but failed to do their best to raise their children and failed to give me complete love. My parents and I have always been separated by a river, which is difficult to cross.

Cai Kangyong said: "So you have to find a roundabout way to build the boundary between the two parties step by step. That is a project." The process of establishing boundaries is gradual, not Suddenly an iron door was pulled down. ”

In the past, I was determined to leave this home and stay away from my parents, but I found that no matter how far I went, there would always be one person who affected my nerves. I still chose to live with my parents, which means I can't escape, I am destined to repair this kind of parent-child relationship.

Perhaps as teacher Cai Kangyong said: "When you think clearly about why you want to maintain this relationship and what you want to get, you can do it." Know why you are communicating with the other person. ”

What I want is just a simple and pleasant way of getting along. What I am greedy for is just wanting my parents’ favor.

Is this something that all families make? Wrong?

It’s not forgiveness, but “forget it”

In life, those who have been hurt by their parents will always hear this advice:

< p> “There are no bad parents in the world. "

"You have to understand how difficult it is for your parents. They also want to raise you. "

"The past belongs to the past, you have to learn to get out of it. "

At the end of Cai Kangyong's interview, he was asked a question, "If your parents' verbal violence has caused deep harm to you, can you not forgive your parents? "I heard an unexpected answer. Teacher Cai Kangyong said gently, "You don't have to forgive me. ”

This sentence made me cry. This society always teaches people how to achieve success, but no one has ever taught us how to experience failure. This society always teaches us to learn to forgive others, but it never teaches us how to forgive others. No one has taught us to forgive ourselves.

Teacher Cai Kangyong said that he is very cautious in using common words such as “forgiveness, tolerance, and letting go.” "Because most of the time, we are just tired and forget it." So my suggestion is not to forgive, but to forget it. "

"It's not my parents or the painful past that I should let go, but myself who lives in those painful memories. "

"The extent to which your parents' verbal violence can hurt you actually depends on how much you want to be hurt. ”

“The past is not that important, and looking back to the family of origin is not that important. Solving the current needs is fundamental. "This is the gentlest and easiest solution I have heard. Many people are unwilling to admit that the harm they have suffered actually depends on how much they want to be harmed. For example, I never want to admit the source of my harm. For myself. I kept looking back at my family of origin to find the real culprit who hurt me. In fact, I never thought about getting rid of myself.

"Regard my parents as human beings. "This is the first time I heard the most beautiful words. Too many people always attribute their unhappiness to the harm caused by their family of origin, parents not educating their children and other reasons. As children, believe in the words and deeds of your parents as gods. , a perfect person with no shortcomings, or how parents should be.

I really realized that in the past, I never regarded my parents as "people", and whenever my parents always exposed their shortcomings. , I'm disgusted.

"They may be poorly raised, they may be very aggressive, they are just human beings. Today they will be hungry, impatient, competitive, and greedy. They are human beings.

So can you put them back in their place as human beings, that is, stop thinking about how you, as a parent, can speak like this. He was just a person, an uneducated person, who said a lot of hurtful things.

"

When I put my father down on the altar, I suddenly felt relieved. Most parents are just mortals. "They are not educated enough to say such things. "When I thought this way, I didn't forgive them, but I forgave myself who was in sorrow in the past. I finally understood that as my parents get older, they also long to be treated equally, to understand, and to have someone. Point out their mistakes.

And I chose "Forget it, parents are uneducated people after all. "As a boat that I cross by myself. I am the one who really controls the direction on the boat. My parents can't be parents, and they are not the best parents. I can't change them. All I can do is accept the original They look like that, but I'm sure I'm no longer deeply affected by them.

"If you are stuck in a relationship that makes you miserable and no one tells you to forgive, you don't have to forgive those who have hurt you. people. All we can do is take good care of ourselves now so that we and our next generation will not repeat these injuries. After all, it is too difficult to change others."

I will never change my parents again, including establishing close relationships with people in the future. I will no longer try to change the other person, because one person can never change another person. Alone!

(Thanks to Yixin for providing Cai Kangyong's article on the harm of the original family - this article refers to "Cai Kangyong on the harm of the original family: Forget it, don't think you can change your parents -