For a lot of people, family is one of the closest groups of people we have in our lives, so when we feel like they don’t really ‘get’ or know us, it’s natural to feel isolated or even disappointed. This is especially true for people around teenage years who start exploring and holding onto various values, beliefs, and life goals that might differ from their parents’. While it can be disheartening, it is sometimes an inevitable part of life that a lot of people must go through.
It’s very commendable for you to be able to see your parents objectively despite your unpleasant past: acknowledging they love you in their ways even though it’s difficult to spend time with them. It takes a certain level of self-awareness and maturity to be able to acknowledge the merits of someone who has hurt us in the past and give credit where it’s due. While it doesn’t compensate for the wrongdoings they might’ve caused, being able to say both the negatives and positives of the past shows your wisdom and emotional maturity.
When it comes to relationship counseling, maintaining relationships within family members and how we can live in harmony with our parents is different than in other types of relationships. Unlike romantic relationships or friendships where we can choose the people who we befriend or build relationships with, we were born into a family that none of us chose, meaning we must learn how to live with people that we spent a huge part of our lives with while at the same time we might feel incompatible, lack mutual understanding, or even dislike to begin with.
A key contributing factor which leads to emotional stress and strains in relationships is the discrepancy between personal expectations and reality. While it may seem clear-cut that your frustrations towards your parents are caused by their inability to understand you, this theory contend that your frustration is caused not merely by their lack of understanding, but your expectations that they should be able to understand you. For instance, you might feel like your parents are supposed to respect your privacy, which they may fail to do. Psychological studies claim that this unmet expectation is the direct cause of your frustration and mental stress.
While the reality of the situation does cause our expectations to fall short, we only have control over our expectations and not the reality. It doesn’t mean we should let go of our expectations towards others, especially if they are well-intended for both their and the relationship’s sake. However, by first being able to understand and accept that reality is how it is, it allows us to let go of the mental stress that comes with our expectations. By being able to see our parents the way they are instead of the way they are supposed to be, we can start to communicate our expectations without being frustrated. Knowing that parents might not be able to understand us (because that’s the reality) allows us to be patient when it does occur.
Once we’ve learned to acknowledge both our expectations and the reality, we then start to understand what we can control and cannot control. While we can’t control how our parents behave or treat us, we can control how we communicate our concerns, develop a healthy boundary, or express our emotions.
Ultimately, we are not our parents and while we want them to truly understand us, the reality is that it might not happen, just like how we might never be able to fully understand who they are. This principle can be applied to other aspects of your relationship with your family. For instance, when we express our love/kindness to our family, we can unknowingly expect them to reciprocate our kindness (and maybe rightfully so). However, the reality is that maybe they don’t reciprocate them back. We often feel betrayed and hurt when this happens, without realizing that the feeling isn’t caused by the experience itself but by our expectations of ‘what should’ve been’. This allows us to be kind to them regardless of their response. When we learn to live our lives based on what we can control rather than reacting to what we can’t, we learn to live a more fulfilling life.
We have also sent you a resources packet on learning more on family relationships, maintaining boundaries, and self-help tools to help you navigate the current challenges with your parents.