The Currency of Love

From the moment we are born, we have a profound need to be loved and cared for. Our survival as infants depends entirely on our primary caregiver’s willingness to care for us (I covered this aspect of human existence in a previous post). This creates one of the most powerful bonds in human experience that can be a source of much confusion and suffering in later life.

As we grow up, many of us find ourselves still chasing that feeling of being cared for, sometimes to such an extent that we’re willing to abandon our own needs to secure it. We go to great length to receive approval. We crave external signifiers of success and achievement, such as promotions at work, financial success, awards and prizes, when all we really crave for the parent to notice us and say ‘I see you, you are doing really well’. The other day I saw children playing around a playground slide. One of them climbed on top of the slide and paused there looking for the mother. ‘Mum, look at me, look at me’ he shouted. It was a moment that crystallised for  me one of the greatest drives of life. Perhaps we are all, to some extent, that child who wants be seen doing something hard, who wants to be told that he is doing really well.

Meanwhile, our parents often acutely sense this need and, perhaps unconsciously, use it to meet their own needs for love and validation. Parental love can become a kind of currency – dispensed in return for emotional attachment, and withdrawn when we’re not sufficiently devoted.

This dynamic creates a dependency that’s extraordinarily difficult to break. Even as fully grown adults with our own lives, careers, and families, we may find ourselves still craving our parents’ approval, still making decisions based on their anticipated reactions rather than our own values.

What Does “Divorcing Your Parents” Mean?

The term is intentionally provocative, but let me be clear: divorcing your parents doesn’t necessarily mean cutting off contact or ending the relationship entirely. Instead, it means divorcing the dynamic. Ending the unhealthy patterns established in childhood and creating the possibility of a new kind of relationship.

It’s about psychological emancipation: discovering your own strength and courage to make your own choices, to validate yourself, to stop abandoning your needs in exchange for approval.

Paradoxically, this separation often creates the space for a healthier, more genuine connection. Many people find that only after “divorcing” can they finally meet their parents not as a frightened four year old or rebellious fourteen year old, but as an adult.

 Help! I’m Becoming a Child Again

Clients often tell me that the most difficult aspect of visiting their parents is the feeling of regression – of suddenly being a child again, unable to escape that old role. You walk through the door and all your adult competence seems to evaporate. The British Sitcom Friday Night Dinner explored the commic potential of that dynamic.  The patterns established decades ago reassert themselves: the peacekeeper, the scapegoat, the good child, the disappointment, or whatever other script was written for you.

This regression isn’t weakness or failure on your part. It’s the result of deeply embedded relational patterns, reinforced over years. Recognizing this is the first step toward change.

Recognizing Unhealthy Dynamics

One of the clearest signs of an unhealthy parent-child dynamic is the unspoken hierarchy: my needs are more important than yours, always, automatically, without question.

Consider these common scenarios:

Your parent expects you to pick them up from the airport because “a taxi would cost a fortune” without considering that you’ll have to give up a day’s wages to do so. Your time is treated as free; theirs is valuable.

Your parent calls in a panic about a billing issue or customer service problem, fully expecting you to drop everything immediately to help with their emergency – regardless of what you might be in the middle of. Your work commitments, plans, or even rest are inherently interruptible; their crisis takes automatic precedence.

These examples might seem petty or minor, but they’re not. They reveal a fundamental assumption: that your needs, your time, and your plans are less important than theirs. That you exist, in some sense, in service to their needs.

The hurt comes not from the inconvenience itself, but from what it communicates: I don’t see you as a person with a life of equal importance to mine.

Ask, Request, or Command?

One tool I offer clients is to evaluate the implicit power relationship in their parent’s communications. Consider the difference between these three approaches:

An ask respects your autonomy: “I’m wondering if you might be able to pick me up from the airport on Thursday? I know it’s a busy time, so no worries if it doesn’t work.” There’s genuine space for you to say no.

A request narrows that space: “I need you to pick me up from the airport Thursday. A taxi would be so expensive.” Now saying no feels difficult because you would be forcing them to spend money, refusing a stated need. But technically, you could still decline.

A command eliminates the possibility: “I land at 3pm Thursday, I’ll text you when I get my luggage.” Or the guilt-laden version: “I suppose I’ll just take a taxi, never mind that I’m on a fixed income and you know how hard things have been…”

Commands treat you as though your consent is irrelevant. The implicit power relationship is parent speaking to a child: “I don’t need your permission because you don’t have the right to say no to me.” Or even more starkly: “you are mine, you belong to me”

Many of my clients have been so thoroughly trained in this dynamic that they don’t even notice when a command is being issued, for them it just feels like the norm when a parent announces that they will be coming to stay for a week, taking it as given that you going to accommodate them.

Try reviewing recent interactions: When was the last time your parent actually asked you for something in a way that made “no” feel like a genuine option? When did they last acknowledge that you were doing them a favour, rather than treating your help as automatic?

The Complexity of Different Situations

The path to healthy separation looks different for everyone. A person who is financially independent from their parents will have a different experience than someone with strong financial ties to the family.

This is crucial to recognize: financial ties are practical realities, not the same as emotional dependency. You might rely on your parents financially while still working toward psychological independence. Or you might be entirely self sufficient financially but still emotionally enmeshed.

Don’t confuse the two. Someone might think “I cannot set boundaries because I need them,” when what they really mean is “I need their financial support” or “I feel I need their emotional approval.” Those are very different problems requiring different solutions.

Whatever your situation, the first step is seeing clearly what you’re actually dealing with.

Concrete Steps Toward Freedom

Recognition

Begin by noticing when you are making decisions based on anticipated parental reaction rather than your own values. Identify the “hooks” your parents use, such as guilt, obligation, the threat of withdrawn affection. Recognize your own patterns of putting your needs behind the needs of your parent.

Small Experiments

You don’t have to make dramatic gestures. Start small: don’t immediately return every call. Make a minor decision without consulting them. Notice what feelings come up. These experiments help you practice inhabiting your adult self.

Boundary Setting

This might range from small boundaries (limiting phone calls to certain times) to more significant ones (making major life decisions without their approval). Expect pushback; the setting of boundaries often triggers increased pressure or guilt from parents who are accustomed to unlimited access.

A note about boundaries: People are not going to respect your boudaries, you have to protect them. Do not think that setting a boundary means notifying the parent and expecting them to respect it. This does not always work. Your boundaries are yours to respect and maintain. Remember: a boundary isn’t about controlling their behaviour or expecting them to respect your limits; it’s about defining for yourself what you will and won’t accept.

Disentangling Practical and Emotional Ties

Make a realistic assessment of actual dependencies. If you rely on your parents financially, what would it take to change that? Create a plan, even if it will take time. Understanding that accepting help doesn’t mean accepting control can be liberating.

Internal Work

Develop your own internal validation system. This is perhaps the hardest part: learning to approve of yourself, to trust your own judgment, to feel worthy without their affirmation.

Grieve the parent you needed but didn’t have. This grief is real and important.

Build chosen family and supportive relationships that model healthy adult connection.

Find ways of caring for yourself, rather than chasing that elusive parental care. Physical and somatic activities that recreate early sensations of care can be powerful. For instance: sauna, massage, hot tub, dance, singing.

Permission to Feel Ambivalent

Many people feel they’re doing something wrong or ungrateful when they step back from unhealthy family dynamics. You might love your parents deeply and still need distance from them. You might want a relationship with them and still need to protect yourself from their patterns.

This ambivalence is normal. You can hold both truths at once.

The guilt that accompanies setting boundaries is often a sign that you’re doing something new and necessary, not that you’re doing something wrong.

The Goal: Adult-to-Adult Relationship

While sometimes physical separation or going no contact is the healthiest choice, the goal of “divorcing your parents” is often not permanent estrangement. Instead, it’s creating the possibility of meeting them as an adult: as a whole person with your own life, needs, and boundaries.