Difficult Relationships With Parents: Understanding the Impact on Adult Life

Our relationships with our parents can shape how we see ourselves, how we relate to others and what we come to expect from relationships. Even as adults, difficult experiences with a parent can continue to affect our confidence, emotional wellbeing and sense of identity.

Perhaps you find yourself feeling guilty after speaking to your mother, anxious before visiting your father, or questioning your decisions after a family conversation. You may love your parents and want a relationship with them, while also finding that being around them leaves you feeling hurt, frustrated or emotionally drained.

Difficult relationships with parents can be particularly confusing because they often involve conflicting feelings. You may feel love alongside anger, loyalty alongside resentment, or a desire for closeness alongside a need for distance.

Understanding these feelings can be an important step towards changing how you relate to your family and yourself.

Why can relationships with parents remain difficult in adulthood?

Becoming an adult does not automatically resolve the emotional patterns established in childhood. Family roles and expectations can persist long after we have left home.

Perhaps you were expected to be the responsible one, keep the peace or avoid upsetting others. You may have learned to prioritise a parent's feelings over your own, or felt that approval depended on behaving in a particular way.

These experiences can influence how you respond to your parents today. You might find yourself slipping into familiar roles, becoming defensive, seeking approval or feeling like a younger version of yourself whenever conflict arises.

Sometimes, the difficulty lies in what was missing rather than what happened. A parent may have provided practical care but struggled to offer emotional warmth, curiosity or reassurance. As an adult, you may still long to feel understood by someone who has difficulty recognising your experience.

These patterns do not necessarily mean that your parents intended to cause harm. Understanding the impact of a relationship does not require you to judge someone's intentions or overlook your own feelings.

When you feel responsible for your parents' emotions

One common difficulty in parent-child relationships is feeling responsible for keeping a parent happy or emotionally stable.

You might worry about disappointing them, feel guilty when you make independent decisions, or find yourself managing their reactions before expressing what you really think. Even setting a simple boundary can leave you feeling selfish or disloyal.

Over time, you may become so accustomed to considering everyone else's needs that recognising your own becomes difficult.

This pattern can continue into other relationships, where you might struggle to say no, avoid conflict or feel responsible for other people's feelings. You may appear accommodating and capable while privately feeling exhausted or resentful.

Learning to recognise where your responsibility ends and another person's begins can be an important part of developing healthier relationships. As we say, where do you end, and where do I begin?

Why is it so difficult to set boundaries with parents?

Setting boundaries with a parent can feel different from setting them with anyone else. The relationship carries history, emotional significance and often a strong sense of obligation.

You may know that you need more space, want certain subjects to remain private or wish to make decisions without seeking approval. Yet the thought of disappointing your parent may feel unbearable.

Sometimes, guilt is interpreted as evidence that you are doing something wrong. But feeling guilty does not necessarily mean that a boundary is unreasonable. It may reflect how unfamiliar it feels to put your own needs alongside those of your family. Guilt says, “I am doing something bad”, and not putting your family’s needs before your own might be something you learnt is bad to do.

Boundaries are not necessarily about rejecting a parent or ending a relationship. They can involve changing how often you speak, what you choose to share or how you respond when conversations become hurtful.

The aim is not to control how your parent behaves, but to recognise what you need and decide how you want to respond.

The grief of wanting a different relationship

One of the more painful aspects of a difficult relationship with a parent is recognising that the relationship you long for may not be the one you have.

You may wish your parent could listen without becoming defensive, acknowledge past hurt or show an interest in your inner world. You might keep returning to the same conversations, hoping that this time you will finally feel understood.

When that understanding does not come, it can bring sadness, anger and disappointment. There may be grief for the relationship you needed, as well as uncertainty about how to move forward with the relationship that exists.

This grief can be difficult to acknowledge because your parent may still be present in your life. You might feel that you have no right to mourn something you never fully had.

Yet it is possible to care about your parent while acknowledging what has been painful or absent. Recognising these feelings does not mean you have to give up hope. It may simply allow you to approach the relationship with greater clarity about what is and is not possible.

How psychotherapy can help

Psychotherapy offers a space to explore difficult family relationships without having to defend your feelings or decide immediately what to do.

You can begin to understand how your experiences with your parents have influenced your sense of self, your expectations of others and the way you respond to conflict, guilt or rejection.

An existential approach to therapy may also invite you to consider how you want to live as an adult, separate from the expectations and roles you inherited from your family. This can involve exploring the tension between belonging and independence, loyalty and authenticity, and accepting the past while taking responsibility for your choices in the present.

Psychotherapy is not necessarily about blaming your parents, confronting them or cutting contact. It is about developing a clearer understanding of your experience and finding greater freedom in how you respond.

For some people, this may mean working towards a closer relationship. For others, it may involve firmer boundaries or greater emotional distance. There is no single solution that fits every family.

Finding your own way forward

Difficult relationships with parents can leave us questioning whether our feelings are reasonable, whether we are asking for too much or whether we should simply try harder.

You can appreciate what your parents have given you while acknowledging what has hurt. You can care about them without agreeing with them, and you can value family without sacrificing your own wellbeing.

Perhaps the most important question is not how to become the son or daughter your parents expect you to be, but how to develop a relationship with yourself that allows you to make choices with greater confidence and self-understanding.

You may not be able to change your parent or rewrite your shared history. But you can begin to understand how that history affects you and consider what you want your relationships to look like from here.

If your relationship with a parent continues to affect your emotional wellbeing, psychotherapy can offer a space to explore these experiences and find a way forward that feels right for you.

How Sara can help

As a BACP member, Sara Allahverdi is an integrative psychotherapist offering psychotherapy in London and online. Her integrative approach draws on many different approaches to explore relationship conflits including family issues, boundaries with parents and identity. She works with people or couples seeking to better understand their relationships with their parents and navigate through them. As a couples therapist and individual therapist in London, She can support you to explore the challenges you might be having with your parents.