The same could be said of the game that so many of us continue to play: trying to get toxic parents to change. We struggle to do whatever it takes to get them to become loving and accepting of us. This struggle can drain our energy and fill our days with turmoil and pain. Yet, it's futile. The only way to win is to not play.

In the movie War Games, a U. S. government computer was programmed to start a global nuclear war. All attempts to alter the computer's program were futile. However, at the last second, the computer stopped itself, saying: "Interesting game. The only way to win is not to play."

trying to get your parents to change so you can feel better

It's time to stop playing, to let go of the struggle. This does not mean you have to let go of your parents; it does mean you have to let go of:

trying to figure out what you are supposed to do to get their love

Like many adult children of toxic parents, you may know, on an intellectual level, that if you haven't gotten emotional nurturing from your parents by now, chances are you're not going to get it. But this understanding rarely filters down to the feeling level. The striving child within you probably still clings to the hope that someday your parents -- no matter how limited they are -- will see how wonderful you are and will give you their love. You may have a heartbreaking determination to make up for your crimes even if you're not sure of the charges, but when you go back to your toxic parents for the nourishment and validation that you missed as a child, it's a lot like going back to an empty well for water. Your bucket is going to come up dry.

being so emotionally reactive to them

the fantasy that one day they are going to give you the caring support you deserve

Letting Go and Moving On

For many years, Sandy -- whose religious parents relentlessly harangued her about her abortion -- had been locked in the typical determined struggle to get her parents to change. It took great courage for her to recognize the hopelessness of her hope that she might somehow unlock her parents' love and acceptance.

All these years, I believed that I had really wonderful parents and that I was the problem. It was really hard for me to admit that my parents don't know how to love me. They know how to control me, they know how to criticize me, they know how to make me feel guilty and bad, but they don't know how to let me be me, how to respect me. They give or take back their love depending on whether or not they think I'm a good girl. I know that that's not going to change. They are who they are, and I have better things to do than to keep trying to get them to be different.

Sandy had come a long way from her need to deify her parents. She had confronted them about their reaction to her abortion and had received some minimal acknowledgment from her mother that they were not as supportive as they might have been. However, they continued to make excessive demands on her time and her life.

Sandy asked me to help her work out some things to say that would allow her to set limits on her parents' visits, her availability to them, and their attempts to control her with guilt and criticism. Here are a few of the statements that Sandy and I came up with:

Mom and Dad, I know that it means a lot to you to spend time with me. But I have my own life now and I'm not willing to make myself available to you whenever you want.

I'm not going to let you attack me anymore. You have a right to your opinions, but you don't have a right to be cruel or belittling to me. If you start, I'm going to stop you.

I can appreciate that this will upset you, but I'm going to be saying "no' to you a lot more than I have in the past. I'm not going to spend every Sunday with you. And I'm no longer willing to have you come over without calling first.

I know that all this means there are going to be a lot of changes, and I know changes are scary. But I believe that they're healthy changes. I know we can come out of this with a better relationship.

One of the most difficult parts of letting go of the struggle is letting your parents be who they are. You don't have to lie still while they ride roughshod over you, but when they try, you do have to learn to tolerate your anxiety and control your reactions.

Sandy had been expending a lot of energy on her struggle with her parents. Now that she had let go of the struggle, she could redirect that energy toward her marriage and her personal goals. She and her husband actively set aside time to talk, to make plans, to make love, and to give their relationship the attention it needed. She also started to work toward her goal of someday owning a florist shop. About two years after she left therapy I was delighted to receive a flyer announcing the opening of Bouquets by Sandy.

Sandy was truly transforming the destructive interaction between herself and her parents. She set reasonable limits on their intrusive, controlling behavior while at the same time making no attempt to change their attitudes and beliefs.

As Sandy expected, her parents were very upset with her new behavior. They didn't acknowledge that they had been intruding in her life and treating her like a child, but Sandy didn't need their acknowledgment. She had taken control of her life. Over time, her parents grudgingly accepted her new ground rules.

Most adult children of toxic parents grow up feeling tremendous confusion about what love means and how it's supposed to feel. Their parents did extremely unloving things to them in the name of love. They came to understand love as something chaotic, dramatic, confusing, and often painful -- something they had to give up their own dreams and desires for. Obviously, that's not what love is all about.

Love involves more than just feelings. It is also a way of behaving. When Sandy said, "My parents don't know how to love me," she was saying that they don't know how to behave in loving ways. If you were to ask Sandy's parents, or almost any other toxic parents, if they love their children, most of them would answer emphatically that they do. Yet, sadly, most of their children have always felt unloved. What toxic parents call "love" rarely translates into nourishing, comforting behavior.

Redefining Love

You may continue to behave as if you were little or helpless because you are waiting for your parents to give you permission to be an adult. But the permission is within you, not them. When you truly let go of the struggle, you will find that you no longer have a need to sabotage your life.

Loving behavior doesn't grind you down, keep you off balance, or create feelings of self-hatred. Love doesn't hurt, it feels good. Loving behavior nourishes your emotional well-being. When someone is being loving to you, you feel accepted, cared for, valued, and respected. Genuine love creates feelings of warmth, pleasure, safety, stability, and inner peace.

Trusting Yourself

Once you understand what love is, you may come to the realization that your parents couldn't or didn't know how to be loving. This is one of the saddest truths you will ever have to accept. But when you clearly define and acknowledge your parents' limitations, and the losses you suffered because of them, you open a door in your life for people who will love you the way you deserve to be loved -- the real way.

When you were young, like all children, you used your parents' approval or disapproval as a gauge to determine whether you were good or bad. Because the approval of your toxic parents was so distorted, that gauge often required you to sacrifice your own version of reality in order to believe in something that didn't seem right to you. As an adult, you may still be making that sacrifice.

However, through the exercises in this book, you are shifting the source of your gauge from within your parents to within yourself. You are learning to trust your own perception of reality. You will discover that even when your parents don't agree with you or don't approve of what you're doing, you will be able to tolerate the anxiety because you don't need their validation anymore. You are becoming self-defined.

The more self-defined and independent you become, the less your parents are going to like it. Remember, it is the nature of toxic parents to be threatened by change. Toxic parents are often the last people in the world to accept your new, healthier behavior. That's why it is so important that you trust your own feelings and perceptions. In time, your parents may accept the new you. You may even develop something resembling an adult-to-adult relationship with them. But they also may dig in even deeper and fight to maintain the status quo. Either way, it's up to you to free yourself from the destructive rituals of your family behavior patterns.

As you gain more control over your past and present relationship with your parents, you will discover that your other relationships, especially your relationship with yourself, will improve dramatically. You will have the freedom, perhaps for the first time, to enjoy your own life.

Becoming a true adult is not a linear process. It will take you upward, downward, forward, backward, and inside out. Expect to falter; expect to make mistakes. You will never be totally free of anxiety, fear, guilt, and confusion. No one is. But these demons will no longer control you. That is the key.