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Elderly parents
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Elderly parent and regrets

26 replies

Whatkindofdaughter · 20/07/2021 11:05

This isn't on the usual issues here but I'd love some comments.

Basically, I feel I've hurt my Mum a lot (now in her 90s) unintentionally.

When I left uni, over 40 years ago, I moved to the other end of the UK as that's where a job came up (it was a time of high unemployment in my field.) I went to a uni in my home town and lived at home.

However, I was also keen to get out from under my parents 'rule'. As a teenager (even up to being twenty) they didn't allow me to do all sorts that my friends did. I'm talking about boys/men. It was as if their sole aim was to stop me having sex . When I was 19 I wanted to visit a boyfriend who lived away and they told me if I did I could never come home. (My Dad said that.) I only had some freedom by lying and even now I'm not especially close to her where relationships are concerned.

I met DH some years later and never went back 'home'.

Now that 40 years have passed and I've only been able to see my parents a few times a year, because of work, distance and my own kids, I feel guilty.

I feel my mum especially has missed out on so much with me as a daughter because I've never lived close enough just to pop round for a cuppa, take her out, etc. I feel this much more now as she's very old. But now I'm older too and I get tired driving for 6 hours and sleeping in a strange bed when I visit her.

I suppose I feel I've not been a good enough daughter. But at the back of my mind all the time is this feeling of 'You made me do it' (move away) by your behaviour. I didn't intend to live so far away for ever but work and my kids schools etc made it a one-way street.

Does anyone feel the same?

OP posts:
MereDintofPandiculation · 20/07/2021 12:46

I think it would be helpful to ask, not "does anyone feel the same" (which sounds like wanting to validate your feelings of guilt and isn't particularly useful for your MH), but "is anyone in the same situation, and have you been able to turn it around?"

What's done is done. The important thing is to look to the future.

I had 11 years of a split life as my parents wouldn't accept my first partner, ostensibly because we were "living in sin". They didn't make the same mistake again when I switched partners, but I compromised by announcing up front our intention to marry in due course. I too lived a long way from them, and saw them only a few times a year, like you. But unlike you, I didn't feel guilty. I lived where I needed to because of my career. It's just how things were.

My mother died 30+ years ago, so she's never seen one of her grandchildren. My father moved to be near us 15 years ago, and has been a big part of my life ever since - sometimes too big, as he has required more support Grin

Going forward, you aren't going to be able to spend much physical time with her. But if you wanted to, you could write letters to her, send her cards and photographs. There's more than one way to create a close relationship.

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