I don’t see my childhood and adolescence as very happy. I was physically, verbally, and emotionally abused by one parent while the other one was emotionally unavailable, and permitted the abuse. It was also a very strict and demanding household, and the bulk of the verbal abuse came from not performing perfectly in academics. (Like getting screamed at for getting a B not an A.)
There were many times where I felt like my parents only cared about money; they saw me as an expense and as someone who could make them money. (Hence why I was pushed to always perform best in academics in order to get accepted into a good college/medical school. My interest in art was constantly shit on, with my dad even calling artists “losers and failures.”) This situation continued until I was around 20 when I tried to commit s-icide.
I did go to therapy afterwards and tried
to mend ties with my parents. Deep down, I desperately wanted a normal and healthy relationship with them. The abuse did stop drastically, but after years of therapy, I’m still unable to forgive my parents for what they did. Eventually, I realized that it’s okay to not forgive everyone, and I at least could say I tried and failed to make a change. I want to go minimum or no contact with my parents as soon as I’m able to be completely self sufficient.
In comes my bf. He’s one of my closest support systems, but everything he’s said about my situation seems extremely unsympathetic, and that bothers me. My bf wants to be a counselor or therapist one day, and that worries me because he invalidated every one of my points. (As you read on, imagine if a therapist was saying any of this.)
He understands that this is my decision, but doesn’t agree with cutting off my family because then I’d be “throwing out an important support system.” He says that everyone has difficulties with their parents growing up, but are able to move on from it. He hesitates to label my childhood as abusive because “every parent yells at or hits their children at some point.”
My bf also says I have no right to say that I felt like I was raised by a single dad because my mom still provided for us. Of course I know that I was actually raised in a 2 parent household, but I said I felt like only one parent looked after me because my mom rarely talked to me (I rarely if ever spent time with her because she was always either working or with friends) and emotionally neglected me.
He claims that he’s “frustrated” and it’s hard to sympathize with my situation because I come from an upper middle class family. (By comparison, my bf is from a lower to mid middle class family.) This made me feel like he was saying that I didn’t “truly suffer”, or that I’m exaggerating about what happened, because my parents were able to provide me nice things.
As for the physical abuse, my bf told me he knew a classmate who came from a broken home with 4 siblings and a single mom who physically abused them. Years later, that classmate was able to say he “loves his mama” and “understands why she did what she did.” Bf doesn’t know why I can’t also “reflect” upon my parents’ parenting decisions in order to understand that there “must have been a reason” for what they did.
He finds it concerning and disturbing that it’s hard for me to say I love my parents because he was hit as a child too, but is now a person who wants to give back to his family. If he believes that his parents hitting him was justified, that’s for him to decide, but in general I don’t believe a parent should hit or yell at their kids unless they did something undoubtedly terrible.
All of what he said made me feel like he’s saying that I don’t have the right to feel deeply hurt and scarred because other kids have suffered worse. He claims he’s not saying that, but how else would you interpret it?
The difference in opinion is seriously making me reconsider the relationship. It sounds like to me that he’s normalizing or minimizing childhood abuse in general. I think he’s the type of person who thinks that “blood is thicker than water” but I’m someone who believes that being biologically related doesn’t mean crap, and that you should cut family off if they don’t/didn’t treat you well.
Tl;dr- I was abused as a child until I was 20. BF seemingly normalizes childhood abuse (or doesn’t call it abuse at all) and we’re butting heads over it. He claims that he finds it hard to sympathize with me because my parents are upper middle class.
EDIT: Forgot to mention, I did try to understand why my parents chose to treat me this way, but learning what they said didn’t change my mind or make me feel better. My mom was very hands off because she thought that being independent would make me happy. My dad was very demanding and abrasive because he thought it would “toughen me up” and he didn’t want me to have low standards for myself. Well, these methods didn’t work, and it doesn’t provide any comfort to me to learn that “they thought they were doing the right thing.” It’s beyond forgivable because I can’t just “get over” an entire childhood of feeling miserable and afraid to “step out of line.”
29 comments
So…why are you with someone who is trying to make you deny your lived experience?
Why are you with someone who is normalizing child abuse?
What happens if you have kids with him and one of them makes him mad?
What is so great about this guy that you’re even remotely thinking of staying?
This man is wearing a red flag as a cape. His opinion on your relationships with your parents is so out of pocket. Why is he trying to minimize what you went through? My first instinct is he wants to make those experiences feel not so bad because they “provided” so he can do something similar. I could definitely be wrong on the other hand if his gfs relationship with her parents is so important he can date someone with that background. He’s trying to mold you at the very least to be what he wants not what you are.
edit: spelling
>The difference in opinion is seriously making me reconsider the relationship.
Having differences of opinion is just part of life. But this sounds like a lot more than just a difference of opinion.
Your boyfriend is the problem, OP. He is *not* a support for you, because support begins with believing the other person about their experience. He quite simply doesn’t trust you to accurately report or interpret your own life, which drastically limits his ability to support you in responding to it. He just doesn’t have what it takes…and should probably reconsider his career choice, too.
You boyfriend sounds terrible, honestly.
No, it’s not normal for parents to scream at kids or hit kids. Not normal AT ALL. Period. I’d break up with someone who believed this, because I’d be worried there was some situation in their brain where they think it is ok to scream at me or hit me. NO. That shit ain’t allowed ever- not with me, not with kids, not with anyone. No.
Also: people we date don’t get to tell us what our childhoods were like. This dude is straight up trying to tell you what YOUR family dynamics are like?? Excuse me? Was he your sibling? Did he get raised by your parents? No?? Ok then he can shut up about what your relationship was like with your mom.
Seriously what on earth. This guy is so out of pocket. Why are you dating him
It sounds like your boyfriend needs more time in therapy himself, definitely before he considers becoming a therapist. Everyone’s journey is different, everyone’s relationship with their parents is different, and comparing yours to himself or others is extremely fucked. If you feel safest keeping your parents at a distance, that’s your right, and he should accept that decision and support you in it with compassion.
Also, physical abuse is *never* okay, study after study has shown it damages children psychologically and deals irreparable harm to the love and trust a child has in their parents and all authority figures. Has he even taken a single psychology class? I would rethink your relationship with him, and definitely consider if you would want to have children with a man who thinks it’s okay to raise kids in this manner.
This might not be someone you should confide in. It’s not helpful. Neglect is still neglect if you have a silver spoon. It’s unclear if his classmate really worked through his issues or if he’s rather choosing a path still influenced by fear. Knowing an existing enemy means you can predict their bad behaviour making them tolerable vs going out and having to find out who is and isn’t an friend.
It really sounds like your BF doesn’t understand certain situations and/or has been privileged enough to not encounter them. You don’t have to have bruises or be constantly physically hurt to be defined as abused. Emotional abuse cuts deeper and is a lot harder to prove. There’s also the part: when people choose to have offspring, they are obligated to provide for them. A child does not owe that to them. If one wants to save money, one should invest in contraception and religiously use that.
Yikes his lack of empathy is astounding. I would reconsider if he is going to give you a healthy relationship.
You are clearly in a much stronger and healthier place emotionally than your boyfriend. You have worked really hard to try to come to terms with not having the parents you deserve, and you are well within your rights to cut them off. Your boyfriend has such a different outlook, and I don’t think he is healthy for you specifically.
If he trains to be a counsellor he will need to very quickly learn not to bring his own history and baggage into the room – which is exactly what he’s doing here. Ironically it’s because of his own conditioning by his parents, but that’s not your fault. He’s an adult now and needs to be open to the idea that everyone has a different lived experience of their own childhood and the right to make their own decisions in adult life.
Through your therapy, did you happen to learn about our tendency to “date our parents” aka seek out partners who reflect the positive and negative traits of our parents aka be attracted to partners who help us recreate our traumatic experiences?
>There were many times where I felt like my parents only cared about money
>
>He claims that he’s “frustrated” and it’s hard to sympathize with my situation because I come from an upper middle class family. (By comparison, my bf is from a lower to mid middle class family.) This made me feel like he was saying that I didn’t “truly suffer”, or that I’m exaggerating about what happened, because my parents were able to provide me nice things.
Perhaps this is one example of how you picked a partner who reflects the value your parents placed on financial stability over emotional wellbeing.
>My bf also says I have no right to say that I felt like I was raised by a single dad because my mom still provided for us.
>
>because my mom rarely talked to me (I rarely if ever spent time with her because she was always either working or with friends)
Perhaps this is another example of your partner prioritizing being a provider over being emotionally present just like your mom.
>My dad was very demanding and abrasive because he thought it would “toughen me up”
Is this not also a variation of the same message your partner is trying to get across? That your past wasn’t that horrible and if you could just stop seeing yourself as a victim you’ll realize your parents are cool people?
You describe your parents constantly invalidating your feelings, and here you have a partner who invalidates your feelings in one of the worst ways possible – your own trauma. I’m not sure about you but having someone invalidate my past that way feels re-traumatizing.
I suspect if you really take some time to reflect on what attracted you to your partner and his general qualities, you’ll find a lot more similarities (both good and bad) between him and your parents. Chances are you missed some of the red flags for the bad qualities since the behavior has been normalized from your childhood.
Maybe he finds your pain hard to deal with and/or it might go against personal views (‘you must love your family no matter what’, maybe). Therefore, it might be easier if it doesn’t exist/is not too bad. That is of cause not okay but it might be an explanation. Something he is doing unconsciously. No matter what it is important that you stand your ground and hold on to your truth, OP
I come from an abusive household, and the harsh reality is “like parent, like child”. We gravitate to behaviors of how we were raised, and for some people their abusive parents had a greater impact than anyone else.
Outside of intense therapy, any victim that tries to reason that the abuse they suffered was as a consequence of something they did, is likely to continue that pattern into their own lives.
He’s looking at it all wrong. He’s trying to justify the abuser’s behavior rather than explain it. Explaining something doesn’t mean you have to justify it. Your parents need therapy, your boyfriend needs therapy, they can be helped and shown how the choices they made was not favorable to what they tried to accomplish. But it’s not your role to be part of their lives even if realign their thought process. In fact it’s better if you aren’t.
Your boyfriend has a very concerning view of abuser-abused relationships and I would move on if I were you.
Build a support system of friends, friends that respect you and your choices.
He’s telling you to prepare to forgive his abuse.
Learning to cope and navigate as an adult when you have lived through an abusive childhood is difficult ( I am speaking from experience). You’re definitely on the right track with therapy and I hope you continue making progress as you are able process and unpack what you’ve been through. I have been in therapy for the majority of my adult life and all I can say is that your feelings come in waves and that’s okay. When I started working through my childhood abuse I was very angry and then very sad. A lot of people in my life had a lot of opinions on how I felt. Ultimately, I had to process my feelings in my own way and my own time. Even now as I’m older it isn’t a linear path to healing. Maybe you’ll get to a point where you can forgive your parents and maybe you wont and that’s okay. Your parents may have done the best they knew how to do AND you can be hurt and traumatized. Both of these can be true. It isn’t anyone else’s place (even your therapist’s) to dictate how you navigate and feel throughout this journey.
Your boyfriend does not get to decide how you choose to deal with your feelings with this subject. Maybe he had a similar childhood and maybe he wants to be a therapist, but he isn’t and what he is doing is creating more harm than good for you. He is not being a good partner or a supportive partner to you. It sounds like he has a lot of unresolved issues from his childhood that he needs to work though and is projecting on you under the guise of “knowing what’s best”. He can kick rocks. Listen to what your licensed therapist recommends and I would consider establishing some boundaries with your boyfriend in terms of his opinions around your relationship with your parents if you choose to keep him around. Good partners can disagree with you while also respecting you and your feelings and discussing things in a healthy way, which your boyfriend is not doing here. Wishing you a healthy healing journey and all the best.
>“every parent yells at or hits their children at some point.”
So he’s told you that he would hit your future children, and he thinks that’s okay to do. Immediate dealbreaker. I’d be out the door already.
He’s going to be a terrible therapist…yikes
No, it’s NOT normal for parents to hit their kids. Imagine if you stayed in this relationship(which…yeah no), and you had kids. Are you willing to accept that he will hit them?
Your bf is projecting onto you. Even if he disagrees, he has no right to push his world view on you like this
Friend, your boyfriend is a terrible person and I sincerely hope he never becomes a therapist.
First of all, he does not need to understand why you are making the decision you’re making about your parents. He just has to respect it. He’s “frustrated” with you? He has no right to be, because this is none of his goddamn business!
Secondly, he is dead wrong with this: “He hesitates to label my childhood as abusive because “every parent yells at or hits their children at some point.”” NO THEY DON’T! Is he saying he plans to hit your kids one day if you two became parents??
Your boyfriend is a bad person who is trying to force you to be close with your abusers. You deserve better than him.
People who forgive their abusive parents or who still ‘love them’ due to trauma bonding are not people who have “gotten over it” they are people who are still actively suffering the ramifications of that childhood abuse and are potentially still actively victims of emotional abuse. Anyone who can’t see that has absolutely no business going into counselling or psychology.
What. The. Fuck. Your boyfriend should not be a therapist. Or your boyfriend. His attitude is disgusting and makes me so sad.
i’m sure it feels very invalidating to hear that from him and that’s the last thing you need on your healing journey. sounds like he has his own issues. best of luck and i’m sorry you had to go through that as a child
Jesus, your boyfriend is totally out of line. I came from a similar situation to yours, with abusive and emotionally unavailable parents. Your bf has failed to listen to you, he has failed to validate your feelings, he has failed to support you in any way. I am so sorry that after all you have gone through, this is who you have chosen to be with. (Might want to rethink.) You deserve much better. You take care of you.
My mom provided for me but I’m an adult now and she won’t take any responsibility for the trauma in my life and is overall a shitty person and guess what – she is no longer in my life and thank FUCK for that, because I would not be able to grow as a person with her toxicity in my life.
If your boyfriend can’t see the seriousness in your situation and you’ve tried to make it clear, I think it’s best for you and your mental health to split from him. One day you’re going to find someone who will listen to your story, understand, and not fight you on this.
Also, family is any damn thing you want it to be, and that’s no one’s damn business to say how you’d like that to be <3
TLDR; This isn’t on you. You shouldn’t be faulted or blamed and even at the part in my life I’m in, I still struggle to completely get over my trauma. And that’s fucking normal and part of being human. I would really look into the fact your soon-to-be-ex is probably a robot or lizard person because no one in their right mind who is emotionally mature would be like that.
Yikes. If you’re planning to have kids, is this a person you want to raise them with you?
OP, I would bet a thousand dollars that your boyfriend’s family is abusive and he doesn’t even realize it. He’s not safe for you because he’s stuck in desperately trying to pretend his own childhood was okay.
Fucking hell. Most parents dont hit their kids.
Your bf is wrong, providing for a child is the bare minimum a parent is supposed to do.
Guess who’s gonna be abusive soon
The reasons I’m jumping to this relationship should be over.
1- He’s studying to be a therapist, anything you could learn in couples counseling he’s already learned and he doesn’t give a fuck.
2- completely invalidates and minimizes real trauma from your childhood which means he CANNOT ever be a true safe place for you.
3- You’ve just gotten a really good look at how he would treat your future kids. If you’re not going to have kids, this is how he is going to treat other children as a counselor.
4- His assessment of your childhood and your reactions to it mean that he is looking down on you. He doesn’t respect your experiences or feelings. Hes full of condescension, and lacks any ability for true empathy and insight.
5- He sees no reason to change.
Why would you stay?
Your boyfriend has a disturbing misunderstanding and lack of empathy for abuse; I really hope he never becomes a counselor. The fact that he supposedly wants to be one and he still says these awful things is just upsetting, more so than if he were just totally uninformed.
You’re right to consider ending this relationship and I hope you do. He completely disrespects and invalidates your feelings, because…you weren’t poor? Parents of every income level can be abusive and just because you weren’t in financial danger doesn’t excuse that.
He was hit as a child though…yeah, he is super overcompensating because he doesn’t want to see the reality that he was also abused. And I don’t say that because I think you should try to fix that or tolerate what he says because of knowing that, because it’s not something you can fix for him.