🍋 Your parent refuses to change: why does it make you suffer so much?

If you suffer disproportionately when your parent refuses to change, it is because a wound is being activated in you, and it has not healed. Your parent is only the trigger: we cannot demand that they change for our well-being.

“Get up. Try.” That is what Camille shouts at his father, in anger. His father has given up on everything.

He does not move anymore. He refuses to try. He is wasting away.

This father was a basketball coach, and a football player at the highest level. For a third of his life, he told Camille over and over to get back up alone.

As a child, Camille would get a bag of frozen peas held tight in a bandage, and the order to grit his teeth.

Camille speaks harshly of the father he was. It does not matter, Camille writes: let him try, that is all.

You may have already let out this cry.

Here is the real problem. As in a couple, we would have liked the other person, as proof of love or out of clear-sightedness, to adapt to us to meet our needs.

And if they do not, then they are a bad parent, a bad spouse… They do not love us enough. So, because they do not want to meet our needs, we judge them as selfish.

Seen from this angle, it seems obvious: why should the other person change to meet my needs?

And that is the problem. We feel bad, powerless. We judge the other person's behavior as irrational, and that may be true.

But from our point of view, and from the point of view of logic, our reasoning holds up.

The truth is that we cannot demand that the other person change for our well-being, so that we feel better, so that we stop suffering. Even if their reaction, their behavior, may seem unfair, exaggerated, sometimes even idiotic.

A parent's behavior can be unhealthy: if they refuse to bathe, for example, or to turn off the TV. But if they refuse to change, should they do it out of love for me?

I am not saying that your parent is right, or that their behavior poses no danger to themselves or to others.

I am simply saying that what happens inside us, our emotions, our feelings, is our own business. Demanding that they change because it batters us emotionally is not fair.

We are suffering, so they have to change? That is one possibility. But there is another way.

Your parent would be only the trigger for what is happening inside you. Their words, the way they look at you, their behavior awaken something deep in you. Something that was already there, and that belongs to you.

Asking them to change is asking the rain to stop because you forgot your umbrella.

It is a subject I address in the book 👉 Help! Who's Going to Take Care of My Parents?.

The path is demanding, but it is freeing: taking responsibility for your emotions, your feelings, your wounds. Without blaming the other person for them.

That does not erase what the parent has done: they bear responsibility for it. And nothing forces you to forgive them in order to move forward.

So what do you do? Understand one crucial thing: if we suffer disproportionately (tears, fits of anger, deep sadness…), it is because we have a wound that is being activated and that has not healed.

We have two possibilities:

1. Distancing ourselves from our parent so as not to suffer: the wound in us has not healed, it will be activated on a future occasion, trust life on that.
2. Healing the wound. We will hurt, because we love, but it will not be disproportionate.

In a couple, it is the same thing: asking the other person to change so that we no longer suffer is missing a chance to heal our wounds.

But to heal your wound, you need a method… We will talk about it in an upcoming guide.

Until then, a first step, one that asks nothing of your parent.

The next time you cry or lose your temper with them, you can ask yourself a question: is my suffering proportionate?

That is where the small change lies: no longer waiting for your parent to change in order to feel better.

What your parent gains from it: they are no longer judged as selfish because they do not meet your needs.

And since it is the same thing in a couple, this guide may speak to a brother, a sister, your spouse. You can share it with them.

This subject deserves much more than a guide. Would you like us to dig deeper into it together? Let me know: 👉 contact@help-press.com

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Sources used (2)

#	Fact cited	Link
1	Camille's message to his father, who has given up on everything	👉 The post on the Reddit forum r/AgingParents
2	The book addresses the parent as the trigger and taking responsibility for your own wounds	👉 Help! Who's Going to Take Care of My Parents?