It's hard to "Honor thy father and mother", when I feel like I don't know them and have abused us in the past.

[without_you]

I know it's a commandment to "Honor your father and mother", basically parents. 

It's just really hard to honor them when they have been missing all my life. It's like they are there but not really there. My father, who was very abusive to me in the past, also threatened our family to leave us to divorce(but never did), who beat up my siblings and me and also was emotionally abusive to us. Everything has calmed down now but time to time, he has his own tantrums. My mom is basically missing on my life. I never had a meaningful conversation with her all my life. It's like we are there but we are so far apart. It hurts so much to know that they just exist and we don't really know each other. I am about to be independent now and moving out, but I feel like this has put a lot of burden in me. I've always wanted a family but they are just not there. We don't talk, we work, come home, do our thing, and when we do talk, we argue....

[Backroads]

I've known others in similar circumstances. 

I don't know if I have any real advice, but I think there comes a time in adulthood when it's just not your job or even duty to seek those kind of relationships. You can still honor any good that came from the relationships. 

[Grunt]

I also think it's important to remember that people aren't perfect.  They often take themselves down these paths and don't know how to get off them.  Others have horrible life experiences that made them this way and can't break out.  People are just people.  We often do crappy things.

[NeuroTypical]

Honor - what does it mean, and what doesn't it mean?

When it's a noun, honor deals with "adherence to what is right or to a conventional standard of conduct".  So you find something they're doing right, and you honor them for it.  Your dad was going to divorce, but didn't.   He used to be violent, but he stopped (if I read you right).  It doesn't mean giving a pass to bad behavior, it means honoring the good behavior, even if there isn't much of it, even if it isn't the sort you want or need.

When it's a verb, honor deals with "fulfill (an obligation) or keep (an agreement)".  In your sort of parent/child contract, you honor your part when you don't lie/cheat/steal/break stuff.  You honor your part when you get educated and work hard to become a fully functioning adult - even if they make it hard.  They're supposed to be honoring their end of the deal too, and if they aren't (or aren't honoring it as well as they could), they'll be held accountable for how they've used their stewardship over you. 

How old are you, without_you?

[Sunday21]

@without_you Been there. About 14 years old started hanging around church. My parents:violent, cruel, spiteful.

The revulsion that you feel towards your parents and their behavior is: justified, realistic and comes from the ‘right thinking’ part of the universe. This revulsion is how you SHOULD feel.

This revulsion is your friend. It is warning you of danger.

When you commit a violent crime, ideally you are caught and removed from society. Sadly this removal from society thing rarely happens with abusive parents. Instead you need to reduce the influence of your parents on you and your life. If you cannot evict them physically then you must mentally shut yourself off from them

Anyone who tells you that you should feel guilty about erecting mental barriers between yourself and your parents, is wrong. You need these barriers to protect yourself. You are the priority, not your parents. Let Heavenly Father sort out the ‘Honour your parents’ thing in the next life. Your job with respect to your parents is to focus on you because they have not been parents to you. 

What helped me a lot, once I was physically safe from my parents, was to find the funny side of my parents. I changed them into cartoon characters in my mind.

It will take a while for some church leaders/members to get the ‘abuse is wrong. The abused child is the priority’ message.  Some will never get the message. This does not mean that these people are bad people. Some people lack the ability to unlearn bad ideas. It is just part of social change in any group of people that some never unlearn wrong information.

The prophet, the first presidency and the brethren completely support the approach of prioritizing the welfare of the abused child. They feel your pain.

 

[Alemmedial]

Oh boy. This might be a lot less severe case but my mom is so annoying to me.  She tries to involve herself in my life so much but I can't deal with her. This poor woman.  I feel like all she needs is some attention but I feel like the way she neglected me as a child has made me resentful.  I forgive her for everything but she erks me to no end and she's not even that bad, i wish I could hug her every day and tell her I love her.  One day I'm going to overcome this.  I've heard you should treat people like they are the best versions of themselves or who they have the potential to be at their best.  My poor mom.😔☹️😭  

[prisonchaplain]

At the barest minimum we can honor our parents for being the vessels God used to bring us into the world. Sometimes there's not much more than that. Abuse, molestation, abandonment, weakness in the face of abusiveness...the list of human stumbles, fumbles and failures can be long and sad. Still, they are who Heavenly Father chose to bring us into mortality. I come from them. I am who I am because of them. Perhaps much of the result is difficult and broken. BUT... not all of it. So, yeah...try to discern the good in you that they influenced, and be thankful for that. In the end, when we honor our parents in whatever ways we can that are true, we declare our trust in God. After all, OP is disappointed. Perhaps most of us are, to some extent. Nevertheless, we honor our parents and thus say, "God, your ways are not our ways, so I will trust that you brought me to this place in my life for your good reasons. I will serve you as I am, with my roots as they are."