How to Have Healthy Boundaries With Parents Who Have Harmed You
When you think of an ideal relationship with your parents as an adult you probably think of someone you can go to for support, advice and wisdom. We all want similar things from our parents; emotional intimacy, mutual respect, and hopefully the same stability we grew up with. Sure, we might be asked to help them around the house, support them with learning to navigate their smart phone or be there for them as they age and medical issues come up. And we’d mostly be happy to do those things and think of it as returning everything they did for us as children. Unfortunately, we don’t get to pick our parents and many of my clients are not lucky enough to have that ideal relationship with one or both of their parents. Many of the people I work with have parents who are difficult, needy, critical, manipulative or are downright abusive. Parents who are simply unable to have healthy relationships with their children in spite of the many years some of my clients spent bending over backwards to try to form a positive connection with them. The best thing to do in this situation is to choose a different path by creating healthy boundaries with their parent. If this sounds like your experience let’s explore how to form healthy boundaries with parents who are hurtful, toxic or abusive.
Why are boundaries with parents so hard?
There are a lot of completely valid reasons why creating healthy boundaries with harmful parents is really hard. If it was easy, you would have done it already. Maybe some of the reasons below have made this a challenge:
We love them: First and foremost its hard because we still love them. In spite of everything you might have gone through with them you are biologically wired to love your earliest caregivers and love makes us crave closeness. Accepting the reality that this person isn’t able or willing to make changes that would allow them to have a healthy relationship with you is hard when you love them.
They love us: It might not often feel like it based off how they treat you, but the vast majority of parents really do love their children deeply, this is also biologically wired. However, that love is being covered up or expressed in very unhealthy ways. Sadly, love is not always enough for a parent to overcome long-standing, dysfunctional relationship patterns. However, that love your parent feels for you makes them continue to try to keep a relationship with you, or maybe even disrespect the boundaries you may have already tried.
Because of feelings of guilt or obligation: As a society we value family relationships and are expected to care for our parents as they age. In some cultures this is highly emphasized and women are especially expected to put their family’s needs ahead of their own. This can result in feeling obligated to continue high levels of investment in a relationship with parents, even if it’s harming us. Strong feelings of guilt might come up for you if you even consider stepping back. You might have been told by family and friends to just let it go, that family is more important, or that we only have one mother or father. It’s true there is an unspoken social contract that adult children will be there for their parents. However, there an even more necessary social contract that parents will be there for their children when their young. If your parent already broke their part of the contract during your childhood ask yourself if you are still obligated to keep to your end of the bargain as an adult.
We think they’ll change: I’d be in the wrong line of work if I completely disagreed with that! Its true, maybe they can change. I believe everyone has the capacity to change. However, if you or others have given them feedback, they have bad relationships with multiple people, and they haven’t put much effort into accepting responsibility or trying to change its not likely to happen anytime soon. It is not your responsibility to change your parent and you don’t have to suffer in an unhealthy relationship with someone who is harming you while waiting and hoping they’ll be better in the future.
What Boundaries Should I Have?
There is not a once size fits all to this question. It will vary widely based off how impacted you are by your parent’s behavior, how able and willing you are to tolerate the stress they cause when you set a boundary, and if there’s a reason you want or need to continue some form of relationship with them. Here are some changes you might consider as you think through what is best for your unique circumstances:
Keep contact more brief.
Only use certain forms of communication ie: phone, text, email vs. in-person.
Only connect at certain times of day when you know they’re more likely to be in a positive head-space; this is especially useful for my clients who’s parents abuse substances.
Communicate to your parent that you won’t discuss certain topics with them. Some common ones are politics, religion, the past, gossip about other family members or putting others, including you, down.
Keep conversations surface level: You might only bring up topics such as weather, pets, or light/unemotional information about your life. This often feels unsatisfactory, but keeps the stress level low.
Go no contact: This is an extreme level of boundary setting but in certain situations my clients sometimes decide this is healthiest for them. This can be especially true when parents are physically or emotionally abusive.
How Do I Communicate My Boundaries With My Parents?
There is also not a solid right or wrong answer to this. It depends on your particular situation and what type of boundary you’re setting. There does tend to be a few different ways to do this, and its helpful to think through the pros and cons of each ranked from most indirect to most direct:
Just let it naturally happen: With this method you don’t directly communicate that you’re setting a new boundary, you just make the change and see if your parent brings it up. If they do, that’s when you can opt to have a conversation about it. Some emotionally immature parents either don’t seem to notice the new boundary or avoid talking about it directly.
Communicate it by finding another reason that the boundary has changed: If you need to communicate the change some of my clients find it less stressful to blame the change on something other than their parent’s behavior. Common reasons people will use is being too busy to connect, not having the money to travel for a visit, being ill, or not wanting to stress the parent in some way. The pro here is that it likely reduces drama in your life to be less direct, however, sometimes these excuses only work in the short term. Especially with parents who tend to keep pushing for more.
Be direct: This can create a lot of short term stress for my clients, but typically it decreases stress in the long run. If you take this approach be brief and be clear about what is changing. You don’t owe them an explanation. Don’t fall into a long, drawn-out conversation about it. And you don’t need to apologize for taking care of your mental health.
Be consistent: Many unhealthy parents won’t respect the new boundary immediately. As guilty or obligated as you might feel about sticking to the new boundary, the more you give in to them, the more you’ll stay stuck in the unhealthy pattern. Their lack of ability to respect your needs just gives you more information about who they are as parents. If you stay consistent in spite of their pushing hopefully they’ll start to understand and better meet you where you’re at.
Expect this to be a process:
Setting new boundaries with parents who have harmed you is rarely a one and done experience. You’ll likely have to communicate to new boundary multiple times, experiment, learn what works and readjust. Keep in mind that just because you’re setting this boundary now, doesn't mean you can’t readjust and either tighten the boundary even further, or loosen it later.
Even though you’ve decided some boundaries are healthier for you doesn’t mean that your feelings of love and longing for a deeper connection with your parent will just go away. Its normal for sadness and grief for the relationship you wish you could have to come up during this time, but you don’t have to go through this process alone. If you would like support as you navigate boundaries with a parent who is toxic, unhealthy or harmful feel free to reach out here.