problems telling parents that i love them

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hi

My parents tell me from time to time, that they love me. Mostly i don't answer anything. Only last time, they were very sad, and so i told them, that i love them too. But it was hard for me to say so, I had to fight to get it out, and it was exhausting.

Does anyone know why? I don't understand that.

Seems i have problems telling my feelings. How can i improve that?

byebye,
anton

I've always had trouble telling my parents I love them, but that's because I don't like lying.

I always had this problem, especially when I was younger. I just could never say “I love you too". I am terrible with reciprocal emotion, but I am better if I initiate the emotion. I have found that if I get a "feeling" and I say it first, I am OK. So, as it may be hard to say you love someone when you were not feeling it at the moment, you can wait for a time when you do feel something and say it then.

I couldn't do that, though I remember being able to when I was about 3 or 4 years old. There was a lot of ill feeling went down after that, first with Mum and later with Dad, so by the time I was a teenager I kind of hated them. We reconciled to a fair extent later, but there remained a lot of space between us.

They're both dead now so it's too late to see if it would still be a problem. My sister's still alive, can't say it to her either. Even by email.....she sometimes puts it at the end of her emails to me, and I feel guilty about not reciprocating, but somehow I can't, not even in writing.

I'd like to know why. It's obviously nothing to do with the demand for an immediate response - I can take a couple of days to reply to an email if I like. Just doesn't feel right. Maybe it's the pedantic Aspie thing, being unable to define it.......to me, "I love you" is usually a pretty meaningless thing to say, and I've heard partners say it to me but then go and do stuff that makes me feel they didn't mean it. Some people are too glib with it, and seem to try to use it cynically as a placebo or an ingratiation strategy, so I suppose I might be seeing it as unworthy of me.

On the other hand, I'd hate to say "I don't love you" to anybody I particularly cared about. It just seems so hurtful to say that. Curiously I can say "I love you to bits," though I reserve it for people I'm not particularly close to....it means that I dig them because they amuse me, which is nothing like so heavy as "I love you," and some people really do cheer me up wonderfully, so it feels right for me to tell them that I love them to bits.

I've never said to my parents "I love you". Come to think of it, I've never said that to anyone. It's just something that's very hard to say, and also I don't understand what love is.

I struggle saying it to my family even though I do love them. All of them. My defense is that love is something that you do rather than feel therefore there is no need to be continually re-declaring your love if it is clearly present

I feel exactly the same way. I even hate when they tell me that. I get very angry like they're invading my privacy (emotional space). I can see if you love me, you don't have to make me feel uncomfortable by telling me. I assume they feel the same way, which is why I prefer not to tell them.

I have difficulties putting emotions like that into words, too. In fact I think that my last girlfriend broke up with me because I didn't tell her often enough how I felt towards her.

If words are too difficult to use, I have found that touch can at least help a bit. It needn't be a full hug; by now I've established a quick pat to the shoulder or upper arm with my mother. She knows I don't usually like to be touched by her (though she doesn't know about my AS) and for her being allowed to touch me in this small way obviously means a lot.

When I'm talking to people I prefer to say things like "I enjoy spending time with you" or "I really feel at ease when you're around". It isn't the same thing, but it's at least something and I don't feel like I'm bending the truth out of shape when I say those things. (In German we usually use different verbs for romantic love and love between good friends or family members, that's where part of my attitude comes from.)

For the 40 years I have been alive I have never told my parents or anyone else for that matter that I love them. My parents told me when I was a baby I would cry when they picked me up and stop crying when they put me back down. I have had an aversion to affection my whole life from day one.

oh shut up player! I feel the same way.