I (17FTM) have thought about this a lot and it’s something im genuinely curious about.
I don’t personally see a future with my mother, she has a personality.. it’s very hard to talk to her about anything that isn’t surrounded around her or something to do with her. Which is fine, it’s completely understandable but I don’t want to give up an entire relationship with my mother, she’s not my biological she stepped into that responsibility and raised me and my sister as her own. I am a child as far as im concerned but I don’t think I’ll be able to talk to her for awhile after I move out. It’s not something I want to put on my mental health because I can’t talk to her.
Im afriad I won’t be able to talk to her when im older because of the way she is, and I don’t want her to change because that’s just who she is. But when did you become friends with your parents in your adulthood?
I want a relationship with her, I want to be able to talk to her about my life and my future plans, etc, but she’s an egotistical narcissist.
(Context, my father is in the picture, they are married, no issues there, I have two siblings, one younger (17) and one older (18. I don’t have any issues with my father, hes gotten sober after 17 years which im proud of him for taking the right step, Im a lot closer with him)
Im not sure if this makes sense or if I got my point across, please ask questions if you have any!
Comments
Thank you u/not_thewintersolider for posting on r/AskParents. All post titles must be in the form of a question.
Posts that do not conform to the subreddit rules are subject to removal at the discretion of a moderator.
Remember to read the rules and report rule breaking posts.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
Our daughter is almost 22 and lives with us while she’s in college. We started transitioning to friendship after she graduated from high school, because the amount of “parenting” she needed from us at that point was really very low. We still help with things like filing her taxes, managing her $, teaching her how to cook, maintain her car, etc.—all that young adult stuff. But she doesn’t have a curfew, doesn’t ask for permission to make plans (but lets us know as a courtesy), and so on. But we have great talks about movies and books and what she’s studying in school, go to movies/watch TV together, and get along great. She shows no interest in moving out, and she’s welcome to stay as long as she wants.
My parents were much too emotionally distant for me to ever be friends with them. They could barely manage to maintain a parent/child relationship with me, even when I was a kid, so being friends was never a consideration.
While it’s great to want to be friends with your parents, don’t try to push your relationship to be something it’s not. If you become friends naturally, that’s great, but don’t put pressure on yourself or them, that may end up with you being disappointed and resentful that they can’t/aren’t giving you what you need.
You also say that she is egotistical and a narcissist. If this is who she is and how she wants to live her life, please don’t give her too much of your energy, it will drain you.
My situation is a little different because it’s my biological mother, but we have very different personalities. It wasn’t until my late 20s/early 30s that I really started opening up to her about life and everything going on. And it wasn’t until I had my kid in my mid-30s that I started turning to her more often for advice and wisdom. I think a big part of that came from my own personal growth. You do so much maturing as you navigate your 20s, and by the time you hit your 30s, you tend to approach relationships with a new perspective.