Fun offshoot story (sortof). Since my mom and dad split when I was so little, and I spent the majority of the time with my mom, I really only got one side of the story. After some time with my dad, I understood his side as well. While understanding both sides, he never bad mouthed her, but she bad mouthed him. A lot. I knew she was trying to bring him down to make herself look better. She was self-centered. I know she loved me more than anything, but it was always just words. She had some medical issues, and ended up getting addicted to painkillers. The person she was slowly started fading away. It was hard to watch, but I couldn't invest myself in her spiral. After I graduated HS and went to college, our communication was often non-existent. When we did communicate, it was always dire. She would tell me she had cancer, or that she was getting divorced, or they were going to have to put the dog down. Never anything positive. Never anything supportive. Just spread her pain to me. I decided low contact from then on.

After reconnecting with my dad a bit and him asking questions about her and specifically why we weren't that close, he gave me a speech. Basically along the lines you're talking about. He didn't want me to harbor guilt if anything bad were to happen to her and told me it would break me if she died, so I had to get right with her. I understood his perspective but also knew he was trying to get right with me, so it came across as self-serving. I viewed it through the lens that he wanted me to be good with her, so I wouldn't abandon him, as I did with her. I'm sure that wasn't his intent but that's how I received it. But I knew he was absolutely wrong.

Fast forward a few years and my mom ends up passing, partially attributable to the painkillers. The way I knew she would go. I got a call from my step dad, and he was absolutely devastated and I knew what had happened from the moment I picked up the phone. I went full GenX and took care of everything. Made arrangements with the funeral home, cremation, what kind of urn, what kind of flowers, all that stuff. It was a problem that needed fixing, so I handled it, like I always do. I was delaying my mourning period, so I could attend to the needs of others. When the dust finally settled, I opened myself up to grieve. But it never came. It was an empty hole where my mother had been, and I had mourned her fer years before she actually passed. I never shed a tear when the actual time came. That was what my dad saw, in me, and I think it frightened him, so now I think he's trying to hold on tighter, which is having the opposite effect than intended.

While agree that there is certainly a lot of complexity to the relationships with my parents, it boils down to two main points: they neglected me and my emotional development in my youth and expect me to fulfill their emotional needs as they age. But I'm just not capable, partly because of how I was raised. Ironic.