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“I know my parent probably isn’t going to change…but maybe this time will be different.”
I’ve heard countless versions of this statement in my psychotherapy practice. Sometimes it’s spoken after a painful holiday gathering. Other times it follows another critical phone call or interaction in which an adult child once again feels unseen, criticized, dismissed, or emotionally wounded.
Intellectually, many adult children recognize that their parent is unlikely to become the nurturing, emotionally available, validating person they have longed for. Emotionally, however, letting go of that hope can feel almost impossible.
There is a good reason for this. During childhood, hope wasn’t simply a wish—it was often a psychological necessity.
Hope Helps Children Survive
Children are biologically wired to seek closeness with their caregivers. Attachment theory tells us that children depend on their parents not only for physical survival but also for emotional regulation, safety, and the development of their sense of self (Bowlby, 1988). Unlike adults, children cannot realistically conclude, “My parent(s) aren’t emotionally capable of meeting my needs, so I’ll stop expecting it.”
Instead, they often arrive at another explanation: If I’m better—more successful, more lovable, less difficult—then maybe they’ll finally notice me, approve of me, or love me the way I need.
This belief protects children from an unbearable reality. Accepting that the very people they depend on may never consistently provide emotional safety is far more threatening than believing change is still possible.
From a developmental perspective, this adaptation is remarkably intelligent. Hope preserves attachment and promotes survival. The challenge is that what protects us during childhood can quietly imprison us in adulthood.
When Childhood Hope Becomes Adult Pain
Many adults continue approaching their parents with the same emotional blueprint they developed decades earlier. They hope this holiday will be different, this accomplishment will finally earn approval, or this conversation will finally bring understanding.
When those hopes are disappointed, the pain extends far beyond the present moment. Feelings of rejection, shame, sadness, or inadequacy often reflect not only today’s interaction but years of unmet emotional needs resurfacing.
In many ways, the nervous system is faithfully following a childhood survival strategy that once made perfect sense.
When Hope Keeps Us Stuck
Hope itself is not the problem. Healthy hope fosters resilience, perseverance, and healing. False hope is different. It repeatedly asks us to invest emotional energy in outcomes that remain outside our control. It suggests, “Maybe if I explain myself one more time, they’ll finally understand.” Meanwhile, years pass.
Adult children may tolerate criticism they would never accept from others, repeatedly overlook emotional abuse, struggle to establish boundaries, or spend days emotionally recovering from interactions that replay familiar patterns.
The suffering often comes not only from what happened today, but from today’s disappointment colliding with yesterday’s hope.
Grieving Someone Who Is Still Alive
One reason acceptance feels so difficult is that it often involves ambiguous loss, a concept developed by Pauline Boss (2021). Ambiguous loss occurs when someone is physically present but emotionally unavailable.
Unlike death, there is no clear ending. Your parent is still alive. You may still celebrate holidays together or talk every week. Yet the emotionally nurturing parent you longed for may never exist.
Attachment Essential Reads
Every interaction can rekindle hope while simultaneously reminding you of what has always been missing. Because there is no definitive ending, the grief often remains unresolved. The mind naturally continues searching for a different outcome, making it difficult to stop hoping even when decades of experience suggest otherwise.
Many adult children return repeatedly hoping for a different ending to a story that has rarely changed. What they are grieving isn’t simply a difficult parent; they are grieving the relationship they always believed was still possible.
This grief is often compounded by disenfranchised grief, a term introduced by Kenneth Doka (2022). Unlike bereavement following death, this loss is rarely acknowledged. There is no funeral, no ritual, and often little validation.
Instead, people hear comments like, “She’s still your mother,” or “He did the best he could.” Although often well-intentioned, these responses can unintentionally minimize a profound emotional loss. Healing often begins when we recognize that we aren’t grieving the loss of a parent, we’re grieving the loss of the parent we needed.
Acceptance Is Not Giving Up
Many people fear that acceptance means approving of their parent’s behavior or abandoning hope altogether. It doesn’t. Acceptance means acknowledging reality as it is rather than continually negotiating with it in hopes that it becomes something different.
It says, “This is who my parent has consistently shown themselves to be.” That clarity allows us to respond thoughtfully instead of reacting from the familiar cycle of hope followed by disappointment.
Paradoxically, acceptance often increases compassion—not because our parents suddenly deserve different treatment, but because we stop expecting them to become someone they have never demonstrated they can be.
Perhaps the most important distinction is this: False hope says, “Maybe they’ll finally become the parent I need.” Healthy hope says, “Even if they never change, I am worthy and whole and can still heal.”
Healthy hope redirects our energy away from changing another person and toward building the life we want. It reminds us that we can learn healthier boundaries, cultivate emotionally safe relationships, and become the nurturing adult our younger self desperately needed.
What Healing Looks Like
Healing often begins with grief, not grieving the loss of your parent, but grieving the loss of the parent you deserved. Although painful, grief serves an important psychological purpose. It helps you stop investing emotional energy in changing the past and begin investing in your future.
Several practices can support this process:
First, notice when hope quietly becomes expectation. Before seeing your parent, ask yourself, “Am I expecting them to respond differently than they consistently have?” If so, gently return to what history, not wishful thinking has shown you.
Second, practice radical acceptance, a core principle of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (Linehan, 2015). Radical acceptance means recognizing that fighting reality often prolongs suffering, while accepting it gives you sovereignty, and allows you to choose your response.
Third, establish boundaries that protect your emotional well-being rather than trying to change your parent’s behavior. Boundaries might include shortening visits, avoiding emotionally charged topics, declining abusive conversations, or recognizing when greater emotional distance is healthier than repeated emotional injury.
Fourth, intentionally cultivate emotionally healthy relationships. Research suggests that supportive relationships can foster what attachment researchers call earned secure attachment, allowing people to develop healthier relational patterns despite adverse childhood experiences (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2019; Siegel, 2020).
Finally, offer yourself the compassion you spent years hoping to receive from someone else. Kristin Neff’s research demonstrates that self-compassion promotes emotional resilience, healthier coping, and greater psychological well-being (Neff, 2015).
The paradox is that acceptance doesn’t make you love your parent less. It simply asks you to love reality more than fantasy. When you stop measuring every interaction against the relationship you wished you had, you become less emotionally captive to disappointment and more grounded in what is.
The child inside you needed hope to survive. The adult inside you needs acceptance to heal. Healing doesn’t require your parent to become someone different. It begins when your emotional well-being and sense of wholeness and worthiness no longer depends on whether they do.
True freedom comes from becoming that source of love, protection, and compassion for yourself, because you were and are always deserving.
To reinforce healing, listen to a Loving Kindness Guided Meditation led by me.
