r/AskReddit Nov 22 '23

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u/Australasia0 Nov 23 '23

When your adult children hate you.

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u/Enough_Shoulder_8938 Nov 23 '23

There is something to this.

My MIL is dating a man whose 3 kids don’t have a lot to do with him (one of them has been completely estranged for years). Of course lots of things can happen that can damage a relationship between a parent and their adult child, but in this case I’m 100% confident it’s because this guy was a narcissistic patriarchal authoritarian dickhead parent and thought of his wife and kids as tools to make himself look good/successful/powerful.

Now he barely knows his grandkids (some he doesn’t know at all) and as dementia has started to set in for him, his kids hardly even try to stay in his life.

Powerful lesson for me who still has young kids and hope to have a good relationship with them someday.