Realizing my parents may never like me again
I 32M(bisexual) am currently undergoing therapy for the first time since I was much younger. It’s brought a lot of things to light such as I’m likely undiagnosed PICA as a result of anxieties as an Audhd kid. All this to say, I’m struggling, and I’ve been struggling financially supporting my wife and our 3 kids on just my income. At least 3 years ago me and my wife split from our parents politically, socially, and myself religiously as well. Both sets of our parents are white boomers and very conservative. Before 2022 I lived in central Ohio briefly with my parents after I was married and I think that was the beginning of the end of their approval for me. We never cleaned enough, the felt trapped in their own home(despite inviting us to move in), we never cooked enough, etc. Then there were the comments about my wife, that she doesn’t work enough, that she’s relying on Joe Biden to not have to pay her student loans, she’s an entitled city girl. I explained to them that we can work on being better house guests, renegotiate on rent if they feel they need more. But that denigrating my wife was a hard boundary and I wouldn’t accept it. My dad kinda got the message but my mom didn’t. So we left in early 2022 and when my mom asked why I was honest with her. Cut to October of last year and my dad was hospitalized for sepsis down in Columbus for the 3rd time this decade and we didn’t expect him to make it. I was sitting there talking with him and he started talking about a guy he’s bowled with for well over 20 years that’s always been single. I mentioned it’s possible relationships don’t interest him or maybe it’s that women don’t. And that’s when he says it. “Yeah I don’t know what I would if you were gay, it’d be pretty rough on me.” Sure dad, sure. That’s the important thing. Definitely not that your other 2 kids couldn’t be arsed to be here for you. Or that I had spent days crying beforehand wondering how I’d tell my oldest she’ll never go strawberry picking with you, or riding rides at the county fair with you like we just did 3 weeks earlier. Cut to now and still every time they come down to visit us or we come up and visit them in my hometown they’ll play with our kids all day, well maybe go out for dinner once that weekend and that’s it. It’s so obvious to me now my mom and dad’s affection and attention was always based on me being just like them. They’ll probably die never knowing who I truly am or that I can’t express so much of my improvements with them because I don’t feel emotionally safe anymore to do so. And it just hurts to know that because I had kids, and I’m no longer a carbon copy of my mom and dad that they’ll probably never like me like they used to. Dinner pic in comments because I forgot.