If You Had Controlling Parents

by Dan Neuharth

  Wayne Muller writes in Legacy of the Heart: The Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood, “Forgiveness, while it may bring healing, has its own timing. It should be nurtured and invited, but never pushed. Any fear and rage must be honored and allowed to be true for as long as it is present. The heart knows when it is ready to forgive” (13).

  Pressuring yourself to forgive can interfere with healing. It may be helpful to give yourself a grace period—six months, a year—with no pressure to forgive. During that time, you may attain forgiveness or you may not. But resolution comes more freely without pressure; you were pressured enough growing up. Parents or friends may become irritated with you for not being ready to forgive or for choosing not to forgive. “Let bygones be bygones,” they urge. Their comments, however well-intentioned, often reflect their own discomfort rather than your needs. Never forget, your timetable is your own. Nobody else can determine it.

  Myth #4: Forgiveness doesn’t count unless you tell the person

  you’ve forgiven.

  Reality: Forgiveness can be done silently or proclaimed verbally.

  What counts is that you hear it.

  As a child, you may have been prevented from making choices that were in your best interests. Forgiveness is just such a choice. It may or may not include continued contact: You can cut contact with your parents and still forgive them; you can remain in contact and never forgive them.

  You may want to forgive only after receiving a parental commitment that from now on your relationship will be respectful. You can hold your relationship with your parents to the same standard you hold other friendships; if it’s a two-way relationship of trust, respect, communication, and acceptance, it’s worthwhile. Otherwise, forget it.

  Myth #5: Forgiveness is done for others.

  Reality: Forgiveness is most freeing when it is done for you.

  Your goal is to find greater peace and relationships that nurture you. Forgiving or not forgiving is an act of self-interest, not something you “should” do because it’s “right.” Sometimes, not forgiving can cause pain because it leads to suppressing your love for your parents, which Bloomfield in Making Peace with Your Parents calls a core need. “By holding on to…resentments, [we] surrender control over [our] own emotional well-being to the person who hurt [us] in the first place,” Bloomfield writes (28).

  Myth #6: Forgiving is a permanent act that takes away the hurt.

  Reality: Forgiving is not all or nothing.

  Forgiving doesn’t mean you will never again feel turmoil about what was done to you. You may seesaw, feel sorry for your parents, realize their hardships and limitations, then remember the full extent of their mistreatment. It’s important to take your time, explore your feelings, and protect yourself along the way, as therapist Mike Lew suggests in Victims No Longer. Forgiving is a pardon, not an exoneration, he writes, and it isn’t all or nothing—you can forgive a little. Few people totally complete the task of forgiveness, even when they want to.

  Forgiveness is a process with its own twists and timing. It’s important to let the process unfold and have faith that it will do so. Muller’s words can be a helpful guide:

  What we are forgiving is not the act—not the violence or the neglect, the incest, the divorce or the abuse. We are forgiving the actors, the people who could not manage to honor and cherish their own children, their own spouse, or their own lives in a loving and gentle way. We are forgiving their suffering, their confusion, their unskillfulness, their desperation and their humanity (11).

  Letting Go

  Emotionally letting go can be something that is more helpful to focus on than forgiveness. Letting go means making relative peace with your feelings and memories of being hurt. Seen in this light, forgiveness is only an optional method for letting go. It helps some let go; it doesn’t help others. You can let go by forgiving; you can let go without forgiving—it’s your ball game. It’s possible simply to overlook parental abuse and remain loyal. It’s also possible to withdraw and blame. But both paths involve little conscious choice because they are reactions.

  Bear in mind that it’s of the utmost importance to honor yourself. You were forced into things as a child; don’t force yourself into an artificial timetable now. A period of limited contact with controlling parents may or may not be wise. Some people can let go only after achieving a safe distance from parents; others can let go while living with their parents. Setting good boundaries between you and your parents, of course, helps the letting-go process. It’s harder to forgive someone by whom you still feel engulfed or rejected. And as I’ve said, seeking a supportive sounding board is crucial to healthy separation.

  There is no easy way to measure when you’ve mourned enough. Give yourself enough time to explore feelings so scary they went underground. Some people know viscerally that they are not ready to forgive, just as others know when they have been identifying for too long with a “victim stance” in a way that is more constricting than healing. It can be difficult to differentiate between the discomfort that comes from grappling with forgiveness and the discomfort of being emotionally stuck for too long. Trust yourself.

  Stories of Forgiveness

  Here are some ways in which those interviewed faced the issue of forgiveness and letting go.

  “Slow and Gentle”: Evelyn

  Evelyn’s process of forgiving her Abusing father was “slow and gentle.” The forty-six-year-old nurse eventually forgave her father as well as her Childlike mother who allowed the abuse, but she is glad she allowed herself to take as long as she needed: “I feel strongly that people go too fast into forgiveness. Having enough time to feel angry was important to me. I had to blame. I had to feel like a victim.”

  Evelyn’s anger on the subject of forgiveness became a useful barometer: “As long as I still got angry when someone mentioned forgiving, I knew I wasn’t ready to forgive.” Eventually, anger faded and acceptance came in.

  By letting forgiveness happen at its own pace, Evelyn balanced her father’s bullying. By letting herself explore all aspects of forgiveness before making a choice, she balanced her Childlike mother’s emphasis on always having to be certain.

  Mother’s Request for Forgiveness: Brenda

  Her mother’s request for forgiveness made the difference for Brenda, the fifty-four-year-old homemaker who was the daughter of grimly serious Perfectionistic parents who criticized her when she laughed or was happy. Brenda’s mother went into therapy and subsequently asked her daughter for forgiveness for emotionally abusing her. “That was really important to me because I was willing to forgive her if she was at least trying,” Brenda says. “I believe we all do the best we can. Given my mother’s horrible childhood, she didn’t have much to do the best with.”

  Understanding Opened the Way: Sally

  For Sally, the thirty-five-year-old computer programmer, understanding paved the way to forgiving her Smothering father who refused to acknowledge her coming out as a lesbian: “I forgive my father because I understand him. I value a lot of what I got from him. I am a lot like him. I am subject to some of the same pitfalls and I try to take a forgiving attitude toward myself.” Over time, Sally has found herself less reactive and more compassionate toward her father. “I haven’t hated my father in a long time,” she says wistfully. “Mostly I feel sad for him. He doesn’t have the tools to be happy. He’s been waiting to die since he was fifty.”

  Sally foresees eventually taking care of her parents if they become too ill to care for themselves: “I can’t imagine saying, ‘Time to go to the nursing home. See you at the funeral.’ I’d like to think I’d find a balance between their needs and mine.”

  Will Not Forgive: Deirdre

  Deirdre, the thirty-six-year-old office manager whose Perfectionistic, Cultlike stepmother brutally controlled her, will not forgive. “My stepmom thinks she has a good relationship with me,” Deirdre says. “It’s untrue. I’ve built a big wall around me and she doesn’t get inside anymore. I don’t tel
l her anything I don’t want her to know.”

  A key resource in Deirdre’s healing has been conversations with her sister: “She and I have two-hour conversations about how angry we are with our stepmother. It’s nice to have a sister as an ally.”

  “When my stepmom dies, I think I’ll feel unchained,” Deirdre confesses. “A few years ago, I probably couldn’t have said I’d feel relief at her death. But now I can say it and I don’t have a sense of guilt.

  “I try to tell myself she is who she is. She won’t change, and the past can’t change. I can’t confront her because she denies everything. Maybe someday I’ll forgive her. But I am still angry and I cannot forgive her now.”

  Struggles with Forgiveness: Patty

  With both parents dead, Patty, the fifty-three-year-old counselor, struggles with forgiveness: “I cannot forgive my father for humiliating me sexually or threatening to burn me with a cigarette. I’d feel like a traitor to that little girl who suffered all those things if I forgave him.”

  Instead of concentrating on forgiving her Abusing, Depriving father, Patty focused on healing the pain he caused: “Forgiving my father would honor him, which I am not ready to do. Focusing on healing myself honored me.”

  Not Ready to Forgive: Rosemary

  Rosemary, the fifty-five-year-old manager whose Abusing, Using mom would punch her, then rehearse her daughter in telling outsiders that she’d walked into a door, freely states, “I am not ready to forgive. It is heart-wrenching but I enjoy denying my parents me. Why should I be there for them because they want me around? Why should I forgive and forget? I have wished my mother dead many times. That’s the saddest thing a child can say about a parent, but it’s true. I don’t miss her. I can’t say I love her. I want to, and sometimes I do say ‘I love you’ and mean it, but my other feelings are so strong.”

  Internal Parents: Magda

  Magda, the thirty-six-year-old civil servant whose immature, Using father got her birthday toys he wanted to play with, tries to focus on forgiving her internal rather than actual parents: “The parents in my head may not be the actual parents I had, but they’re the archetypes. I may never be able to entirely forgive my actual parents but I can do anything I want with the parents in my head. They are the ones I can forgive.”

  Potential Risks of Forgiveness:

  If premature or forced, can emotionally reinjure you or slow your healing

  Can be a form of denial, rationalization, or minimizing

  Can lead to disappointment over lost illusions and unfulfilled expectations

  Cannot prevent future attacks or control by parents

  Potential Benefits of Forgiveness:

  Can help you let go of hurts and emotionally move on

  Can lead to greater peace, energy, and freedom

  May open the way for a better relationship with your parents

  Can lead to greater self-acceptance

  20

  CAN I ACCEPT MY PARENTS?

  Parents…are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don’t fulfill the promise of their early years.

  —ANTHONY POWELL

  Acceptance is another choice in relating to controlling parents. This doesn’t mean accepting continued control, nor does it mean forgiving past parental hurts. But none of our relationships in life is perfect; all have limitations. Acceptance means seeing your parents accurately, honestly viewing the positives and negatives in your relationship, and choosing to continue the relationship.

  Part of acceptance is understanding how different your parents’ viewpoints may be from yours. Monica McGoldrick in You Can Go Home Again imagined how even Cinderella looked from her stepmother’s perspective—“her Goody-Two-Shoes behavior could drive you to drink”—or from the perspective of Cinderella’s stepsisters—who didn’t match cultural dictates that women be “small, beautiful, gentle, long-suffering and unassertive” like Cinderella (279). You may not agree with a parent’s perspective, but it is helpful to understand it.

  As with confronting and forgiving, accepting tends to be most powerful when done primarily for yourself. For some people, acceptance can bring peace, since most of us want to honor, love, and esteem our parents. Casting parents out of your life may thus leave you feeling less than whole. For others, however, accepting or honoring an abusive person may feel like it repeats the abuse. Like confronting and forgiving, accepting is optional.

  Events can facilitate acceptance: You become a parent; one of your parents dies or becomes ill; or there is a confrontation or rapprochement. Forging a better-defined sense of yourself can expedite a transformation. Yet events and time don’t always make acceptance easier. Your relationship may get worse as your parents edge closer to death—the ultimate reminder of their lack of control. “Age is not renowned for improving the personalities of rigid, unhappy people,” Steven and Sybil Wolin write in The Resilient Self (104).

  Accepting often includes multiple recognitions: Your parents are flawed; you are flawed; your parents have hurt you; you have hurt your parents; you sometimes resent them or feel angry with them; and you sometimes feel love or closeness with them. Holding all these feelings and denying none can be a healing balancing act, especially for those from families in which conflicting feelings were not tolerated.

  As I’ve said, no parent is all bad. Every mother or father, no matter how controlling, had moments of courage, sacrifice, responsibility, and love. Many controlling parents, despite the incredible damage they may have inflicted on you, also gave you a great deal. If nothing else, they gave you your life. It may be difficult to see your parents as both hurtful and caring rather than as seeing them as only hurtful, but a full-palette view of others tends to make you feel more whole as well.

  It can be hard to accept that you cannot change your parents or their ways. If they are depriving or critical, you may be tempted to try and beat them at their own game. Yet trying to change them or beat them at their own game is a losing proposition for you since their game is one of winning, controlling, and not needing others. You can’t change them, you won’t beat them, and you probably won’t get them to see the “error of their ways.” But you can individuate, and this may open the way for greater acceptance of your parents just as they are.

  Acceptance is based in reality, not on wishful thinking. Remember: Many controlling parents cannot maintain a stable sense of their own or their children’s identities. Expecting a Using parent to be wholeheartedly generous without strings attached—like expecting a Smothering parent to respect your differences or expecting a Perfectionistic parent to have compassion when you are less than perfect—is like expecting a hungry grizzly bear not to eat you. Sometimes the bear will pass you by, just as your parents may sometimes pleasantly surprise you, but this is not the norm. Part of acceptance comes from having realistic expectations and protecting yourself accordingly. It’s best to assume that bears will be bears.

  Stories of Acceptance

  Here’s how some of those interviewed faced the issue of acceptance.

  A New Understanding: Celina

  Celina, the thirty-seven-year-old teacher whose schizophrenic mother raised her in a terrifying, chaotic home, reached a new understanding in her late thirties about her mother, whom she had not seen for years. Teaching, working in a psychiatric hospital, and doing magic shows for children helped Celina heal from her nightmarish childhood. Especially helpful was a women’s support group. Through the women’s group, Celina found “my heart began opening to my mother.”

  At about the same time, Celina gave birth to a daughter, and became a single parent like her mother: “When I was pregnant, I realized how much my mother must have loved me. That was a turning point. I was alone with my baby and I could see how hard it must have been for my mother with two kids, no husband, and mood swings—and they didn’t talk about mental illness then.”

  When Celina finally located her mother on the New York streets through homeless advocates, “She wouldn’t even lo
ok at me at first. She pushed me away. But the killer control she’d had was gone. She had softened. She had lost that vicious, I’m-going-to-force-you manner.”

  Celina spent twenty-two hours with her mother, taking pictures, making tape recordings, staying up all night talking. Her mother sent her away with a bag of flyers on UFOs that she’d been collecting. Recalls Celina, “I felt this great love and forgiveness. I tried to get her to go to a shelter or senior housing but she refused. It was so heartbreaking.”

  Celina created a dance piece from her visit with her mother: “I found a respect for her lifestyle and choices. She was going through life in a way that made sense to her.” Sometimes when Celina thinks of her mother, she dances. It brings her a measure of peace.

  In Her Best Interests: Samantha

  After years of estrangement, Samantha, the forty-year-old artist whose Depriving, Abusing mother threatened to leave her behind in stores for asking to go to the bathroom, decided that it was in her best interests to resume contact. “I realized I’d never have a successful relationship with a man until I reestablished a relationship with my family, so for selfish reasons I began writing letters to them,” she says.

  In recent years Samantha has begun visiting her parents: “They take me to dinner and we actually have fun sometimes. My mother is no more nurturing than she ever was. She’s still overcontrolling. But she’s not mean anymore. There is a definite wall there, but my parents are trying. They say, ‘I love you,’ and I don’t really care if they mean it or not. It’s nice to hear it.”

  Part of Samantha’s acceptance has come from letting go of her hopes of having nurturing parents: “There’s always going to be a little girl in me who wants loving parents, but I know it’s stupid to try and get nurturing from them. I would never call my mother and say, ‘Mom, I don’t feel well.’ I’d be inviting her to abuse me once more.”