I understand a lot of you here and how hurtful or irritating these kinds of relationships are but when the parent says to you, "I love you. Always remember that," after treating you like shit for 20 years...I'm sorry but that is not love. I spend time with the family that acts decent and loving. The family that goes out of their way for me and whom I go out of my way for. Don't let these "people" walk all over you just because you are related to them. If I called my mother and she would never talk to me and give the phone to someone else or would just sit there not saying anything I would never call her again. Why put yourself through an emotional roller-coaster with someone like that? You know how it will end up and you know their love is conditional. Conditional love is not love at all. My advice is to lay down the law about the way that you feel and say that if you can't talk to me like your son/daughter then I dont want to speak to you. It might be such a slap in their face that it might wake them up. If not then you have just freed yourself of all of your emotional baggage. And when they are on their death bed at 80 years old they will see the error of their ways and they will really start to regret all the bridges they've burned. But you know what? THEY burned them, not you. It was all THEM. Then in their moment of need no one is around for them, especially the "loved ones" they wronged. And those are the ones they want more than anything. That's when they realise what a schmuck they've been and how they can't take it back.
THAT"S when you step in and say, "Yeah, doesn't this suck. Here you are in your hour of need and no one is here for you. Sucks doesn't it? NOW you know how I felt all of those years when I would call you because I needed you and you turned your back on me. NOW you feel the pain you've given me for years on end. If you treated me like a human being you would already have me here. But you didn't. Only now do you see the error of your ways. Only now it is too late." Dying alone sucks...but for those that do die alone there is usually a reason for it. And it's usually a good one.