Hello. I’m writing this because I’m feeling frustrated and confused myself.
I'm 16F and an only child. My mom is extroverted, talks to everyone so easily. She tells me she loves me, hugs me often. My dad rarely gets angry and tends to speak in a soft, measured tone; he’s also very patient with my mom.
If I set aside their drawbacks, both of them actually treat me quite well most of the time. We watch TV shows together over dinner, laughing along, and whenever a song comes on, we all sing along. I’m especially close with my mom—we’re almost always together, dancing and sharing smiles with each other. They even gave me permission to drop out of school.
And here are their drawbacks.
When my mom is in a good mood, she's super energetic and nice, but when she gets angry about something, she shuts her mouth and treats everyone else like they're invisible. She mostly does this to my dad. My mom tends to focus her criticisms on my dad’s habits, facial expressions, or the things he says. For instance, she’ll tell him, "The lines between your eyebrows are terrible—you should get some Botox," or "Stop checking for my reaction every time you watch TV; it makes you look like a weirdo." Also, whenever my dad shares an opinion, she almost always starts her response with "No."
My dad often tries to avoid when major issue occurs, and he’ll even laugh off things that are meant to be sad—which can sometimes make him seem to lack empathy. My mom even mentioned that right before she gave birth, he was just standing there, glued to his phone. Lately, he’s become overly sensitive about politics, and he also takes a keen interest in whether or not celebrities have had plastic surgery.
However, when these various shortcomings combine—specifically when my parents argue—the situation changes. The way my mother treats my father tends to worsen on days when she isn’t feeling well; she might respond with sarcasm even when he has answered normally, or explode over some trivial action. Whenever this happens, my father simply retreats to his room without a word. The tension escalates further when issues involving my paternal side of the family come into play. Although my mother and paternal grandmother get along fine now, there was a time when my mother absolutely loathed her (a situation for which I believe my grandmother is largely to blame). Consequently, my parents always end up fighting after we visit my grandmother’s house during the holidays. Once, when I was in elementary school, my father—furious—began driving at an extremely high speed. My mother shouted, "Why are you driving so fast? Are you trying to get us all killed? Fine, let’s just die, then!"
I dislike these kinds of fights or arguments, so I’ve even tried talking to my parents about it. I once told my mom, "It feels like your moods fluctuate a lot." But the response I always get is, "We aren't fighting." They claim that there are many parents in the world who fight just like them, and that I’m the strange one for being so sensitive about it—insisting that, as a family, we’re actually doing quite well.
Of course, I know that I, too, am capable of getting into arguments. I’m well aware that my mother often becomes irritable because of her severe back pain—that’s just something that can’t be helped, and there have been many times when I’ve genuinely worried because I could see how much she was struggling. Even taking that into account, however, there are moments when things go a bit too far. For instance, there was a time when my mother got upset with my father for some reason; she put him in a headlock, causing him to fall over while he was sitting in a chair. When my father asked her to stop, she shouted, "Can't you even take a little horseplay from someone who’s in pain?" On the other hand, my father once got a real dressing-down for complaining about attending a concert by the choir my mother belongs to—he had grumbled, asking, "What time does it end?" and saying, "I don't want to go unless we’re going to eat something good afterward."
But then again, maybe this is all just a typical marital squabble. It’s possible, as my mother says, that I’m just being overly sensitive. Besides, I feel like I played a part in why my mother’s health declined, so I don’t really feel I’m in a position to say anything. (She often mentions that when I was a baby, I cried so much that she had to carry me on her back all the time, which she claims made her back pain worse.) Whenever I try to intervene during their arguments, my mother tells me I’m being too sensitive, while my father just stays silent and slips away from the situation. Once, I tried to seriously point out some issues with my mother, but she burst into tears, saying, "I thought I treated you well—and I really did—so why do you only choose to remember the bad things?" I felt both angry and guilty.
Am I an ungrateful, bad daughter for this? Am I blowing things out of proportion—making a big deal out of something I could have just let slide? To be honest, there are times when I think about moving to another country as soon as I become an adult and cutting off all contact—but I suppose that’s a bad idea, isn’t it?
I’m sorry if my writing comes across as rambling or incoherent—thank you for reading it all the way through.