How do I as an adult child in the family, to get my parents to realize their own good?

Hello

I study now and no longer live at home, I have a younger brother and our parents are still married.

Both my brother and I have always had a better relationship with our mother, she is more open and easier to talk to than our father. However, I believe that none of us doubt that he loves us as much, he shows it's just not the same.

Now that I no longer live at home, and my parents have grown older, I think I can see more and more cracks between them than I have ever done and this makes me incredibly sad. Dad is 70 years old and retired some time ago and my mother 10 years younger, she is well inside final years on the job. I do not think they really understood that they actually are getting older with the years.

Both mom and dad are home-loving and has spent a lot of time to renovate and fix the house and garden. They also are traveling and do some things together and often seem to be happy together. But the moments in between, I think I see, more and more, becoming longer.

Mother is the energetic of them and would like to see things happen quickly, but since the father is retired and at home will be the father she put the information on. Dad has always had their own will, even more now than in recent times, and do things at their own pace and with their priorities. This interferes with mom a lot, and she can stand and almost cursing and screaming at my father, who in turn closes again and becomes silent, as he always has been.

My father is not a person who easily gets upset or discuss things. Our family is no family that discusses things, Mom control and planning, for it is no one who has set himself up against her. Is there anything to say about my father, so it is that he's incredibly kind, for good and for evil. No one really knows what Dad is doing at home all day. Take for example the cleaning. Mum thinks that because the father is at home, he would be able to clean occasionally. But often it happens like nothing and it sometimes ends with the mother gets angry and grabs it in his day, when instead they could be out on the town, or get involved together in the garden.

Dad has a couple of times to say that now that he is retired. He phase do what he wants, and does not want to budge from that. He loves to cook, and do not hesitate to use very fatty products. It did not concern us as much as if he had spent more calories than what he ingests. He does not, Dad's condition is lousy. He has a gym membership that he never uses, and he is struggling to keep pace with us if we are out walking. He gets out of breath from walking the stairs at home. Yes, he almost always sounds as if he has a strained breathing. He goes to the controls on the Sofia-home and they said that his numbers looked good, but that fitness could be better.

The rest of the family are worried about Dad, but any attempt to talk to him met with deaf ears. It plays like no matter if we take up the whole family when we were sitting and eating dinner or if one of us tries to talk to him, the two of you, he makes it feel like it's not our problem and that we have not something to do with it. He simply do not want to talk about it.

This has been mother to realize she might not be able to do all the things she has been looking forward to with Dad when she becomes a pensioner. She has expressed desires to go out and backpacking with my dad, but I do not think he will cope with it in its present condition.

His unwillingness to change has led her to reconnect with old friends, which I am happy.

I want horrible well try to do something for them, but I do not know which end to start. How will anyone be able to sit down and get my father to talk about how he thinks about the future, as he seems to do everything to avoid it?

He has never really opened up, and I feel sorry for him, but do not know how I'm going to approach him but to make him feel uncomfortable or cornered. How do we get him to realize that we are worried for him and do not want to rubbish him?

I am will be grateful for your answer

Andy


Hi Andy

Thank you for your letter, you have over the years started to understand more and more about how it works between your parents. Surely you felt it even before, but it is now starting to be able to articulate go up to yourself what it is.

As an adult has you a different capacity to read and understand. Perhaps also the fact that you no longer live at home, and that is has received a certain distance. This has made it possible for you to see how it is.

You seem worried and distressed. I can understand that you are there. However, the fact is that there is very little you can do to influence to a changing direction. Your father has the right to choose how he wants to live. Sure, you might think that exercise is good for everyone - and that's it! - But you still can not get your dad to exercise however much you want. If he will not, he must not.

He is also right that he can decide for himself what he will do in his retirement. How your parents distributes work at home with shopping and cooking, cleaning and gardening concerns only them.

Your dad does not want to talk to you about these things, you mean. Maybe he feels the pressure and push him to do and be in a certain way that he does not want? Perhaps he himself, in different ways, concerned about their future.

Your parents must have the right to their own lives. Your dad wants to slow down and take it easy. Your mother is full of adventure and energy. So it is and there is not anything you can do about it. Possibly play the age difference now in a different way than before.

Let them have what they want both of you! Encourage them to live as they want.

Maybe your mom needs support and encouragement to do what she wants on their own or with friends. Maybe your dad relieved to get your support in getting to have it as he thinks feels good. There is only one way - to let people have the life that they feel they want - no matter what others think.

Difference makes it of course if there are adults living in a way that harms children living at home, but it's not for you. Let go and all responsibility regarding your parents' lives and focus instead on finding the life that you think feels good and right for you.

That is what we get the best feelings of in the end.

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