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Does anyone else have adult children who don't like coming home?

75 replies

rethmyna · 19/07/2023 18:38

How does it make you feel?
I think dd doesn't come back much because she dislikes the area we live in (deprived northern town)

OP posts:
EmmaPaella · 20/07/2023 11:27

I love going home. My parents have always made me feel welcome. Clean sheets, lovely food, a glass of wine. Maybe that's the difference. I get spoiled and it's a nice break. It's my childhood home and I do still see it as my home despite having my own one.

EmmaPaella · 20/07/2023 11:28

To clarify, I did spend my twenties avoiding being at home and living my life which I think is fairly normal.

mindutopia · 20/07/2023 11:31

Dh hasn't been to his family home in years (at least 5 years maybe?) and not much before that. His mum's partner who is an abusive wanker has banned him from the house purely because he's an arse. I won't visit out of principle as won't be in the presence of partner, but even when partner was in hospital in HDU for several weeks, he was well enough to send dh abusive messages threatening him and his mum if dh was to visit his mum (who has a long term condition and was alone and potentially unwell as no one to look after her). That's why dh doesn't even go home. Not welcome (his mum would like him to visit but just wants an easy life). BIL is allowed to visit on occasion as he keeps his head down and tows the line a bit more. We are just waiting for partner to kick it and then we can visit again.

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Drumcircle · 20/07/2023 11:34

I haven't been back in years now, maybe 10. Dad remarried and felt pretty unwelcomed when I used to go back. Just awkward and stilted and cold.

Hbh17 · 20/07/2023 11:38

Firstly, it isn't "home", because "home" is where they now live.
But I always hated going to visit my parents, & couldn't wait to get away again - some relationships just don't 'click.
Whereas I enjoyed visiting my parents-in-law at their house. There are no rules, and everyone is different.

xogossipgirlxo · 20/07/2023 11:46

Lilacshade · 19/07/2023 21:29

Interesting that the majority of replies are from adults who don't like going home rather than the parents. Very sad how many people seem to despise their parents.

One of mine lives half an hour away and comes for a meal about once a week or sometimes we meet somewhere half way for a meal out.
The other is 90 minutes away and comes for a weekend about every 6 weeks.
We also have the occasional family weekend away.
I love their company and I think they like ours, but think a couple of nights is enough for them and us. We like our space and they lead busy lives.

Youngest has returned to live at home several times for periods of a few months. We made it work and would happily do it again but we have plenty of space which helps.

I think it really depends what kind of people you are. I really wish I had better relationship with parents, but we’re totally different people. I tried to gain a little perspective and asked myself question: would I like to be friends with my mum if she wasn’t my mum, but i.e. work colleague? When I understood the answer was „no” I just stopped trying. They’re my parents and I love them as parents, but I can’t handle their company more than 2-3 days in a row. My sister gets stomachache when mum calls her, so something is definitely going wrong, but I didn’t get round to go to counselling yet.
My dad’s sister is 65 and she never liked visiting her mum too, so it’s not just my generation kind of thing.

ImNotReallySpartacus · 20/07/2023 11:47

namechangee101 · 19/07/2023 21:19

Why would you not clean it for them or at least help them clean it?

Presumably because that is how they choose to live and it is not her business to change that. And guests are not usually expected to do housework, other than maybe washing up.

redskytwonight · 20/07/2023 12:53

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 20/07/2023 11:06

Can’t say that was ever the case here.

@redskytwonight , dds are long grown up and have their own homes, but our house will always be home to them too - their ‘other’ home, where they will always be welcome.

Well you may think that, but they may think differently.
My parents' house never felt like home once I'd moved out - even though that was initially to university and I lived there in the holidays.

My point was that if OP's children thought her house was "home" they might be more inclined to visit more often. They fact they don't suggests they don't consider it to be their home any more.

AsterixAndPersimmon · 20/07/2023 13:12

EmmaPaella · 20/07/2023 11:28

To clarify, I did spend my twenties avoiding being at home and living my life which I think is fairly normal.

I think living your life is pretty normal. And yes it includes not being at home and choosing to do things differently.

purposely AVOIDING going back home isn’t.

DramatisPersonae · 20/07/2023 13:12

There can be all kinds of reasons, but if a parent was sad about their adult DC avoiding coming 'home', I think they should consider whether it may be the environment/conditions. When I lived overseas and visited my hometown to see my parents and those of my siblings who lived there, I loathed staying at 'home' (the house I grew up in). It was a tiny house, and a very overcrowded environment to grow up in (we were very poor, several extended family members lived there as well as parents and siblings), there was no space, no privacy etc.

Obviously only two people, my parents, now live there, but they have absolutely no conception of how uncomfortable and unprivate a house it is to visit. It's not just that the rooms are tiny (one-storey early 20thc council cottage), it's that they all lead out of one another, and going anywhere involves walking through other rooms -- the only route between the front door and the kitchen involves walking through the only living room between the TV and anyone who is watching it, and one loo leads directly off that living room, and the other off the kitchen, meaning anything you do in there is audible to everyone else in the house, and to get there from a bedroom involves walking through one or both of the living room/kitchen. It's a horrible place to need to use the loo a lot, have a period, have an upset stomach, or to be remotely self-conscious about your toilet habits. If you wanted to be alone in your bedroom, which, you've guessed it, leads off the living room too, you are at most about ten feet from the people in the living room, and completely audible.

My parents, both from very deprived backgrounds themselves (and my father has lived in this house since childhood, while my mother grew up without any loo/bathroom at all), have no idea how difficult it is to be a guest there compared to other houses.

These days I live in the same city, so never stay over, but I know my brother's wife struggles when she stays there because of the lack of privacy. (We used to put them up but then had to stop because of ongoing house renovations meant we lost a bedroom).

RoyalImpatience · 20/07/2023 13:19

Ours is different house I'd too clean and spotless to be able to relax in at all.

I'd love to know if any of these houses are larger?
I have some challenging family members who have children around but I'm sure it's because they live in an extremely large beautifully property...

RoyalImpatience · 20/07/2023 13:21

@DramatisPersonae wow is that in UK?

RoyalImpatience · 20/07/2023 13:22

I'd be so upset if my dc didn't want to visit me...

I'd hope i could ask why and get a really honest answer.

EmmaPaella · 20/07/2023 13:34

AsterixAndPersimmon · 20/07/2023 13:12

I think living your life is pretty normal. And yes it includes not being at home and choosing to do things differently.

purposely AVOIDING going back home isn’t.

Yes avoiding is quite sad and not normal. My ‘avoiding’ was tongue in cheek as I did go home, especially for things like Christmas but at that point in my life preferred being in the pub!

Changes17 · 20/07/2023 13:40

I thought of it as ‘going home’ probably till I’d bought my own house (at about 30). But it’s easy to revert into the adult/child relationship when you do that. I think the trick as a parent is to treat your children as their own person when they become adults. Must be a bit of a shift to manage though.

raisedbygrizzlies · 20/07/2023 13:43

DD is currently home for 6 months, I love it and she's a homebird so hard to shift. She did study away in London and preferred to stay there but she was finding a sense of self and loved being on her own, so it may just be a phase?

Whyishewearingasombero · 20/07/2023 13:44

I'm finding this all quite sad. I wonder if, in 20 years time, adult DC's of current posters will be speaking in such scathing, transactional terms about their shortcomings.

Thirty5 · 20/07/2023 13:47

I love my mom can’t stand her cooking, but I find being back there very stifling and I can only stomach 24hrs, if I tell you where it is you would all agree, I think it was voted one of the UKs worst cities. 🐺

Happily, my mom is very eager to visit us.

RyvitaVonCheese · 20/07/2023 13:50

My Mum smokes indoors so I try to limit the amount of time I spend in her house sadly. Fortunately we live fairly close to one another so she can come here or we can meet elsewhere but, if visiting meant an overnight stay, I’d have to book a hotel and it would probably limit how often I saw her.

redskytwonight · 20/07/2023 14:41

RoyalImpatience · 20/07/2023 13:22

I'd be so upset if my dc didn't want to visit me...

I'd hope i could ask why and get a really honest answer.

If your relationship means that you can't ask why and get an honest answer, that probably explains why they don't want to visit you.

RoyalImpatience · 20/07/2023 14:43

Red..

Yes of course.

I hope with mine the could say... Mum you smoke us out... You drink us out.. House too clean or dirty.. Mum.. We don't want to watch east enders classic

redskytwonight · 20/07/2023 14:54

RoyalImpatience · 20/07/2023 14:43

Red..

Yes of course.

I hope with mine the could say... Mum you smoke us out... You drink us out.. House too clean or dirty.. Mum.. We don't want to watch east enders classic

And with mine I (and my siblings) have said "because you want to know every detail of our life and to control what we do and will lose your temper if we do something you don't approve of. But we're adults and it's none of your business."
And my parents have denied that this is the case, so consequently we've been unable to move on, and we all keep them at arms length.

So it's not only having the relationship to ask the question but to be able to accept the answer.

TedMullins · 20/07/2023 15:01

Another one here who avoids going “home”. I haven’t viewed it as home for a long time. I didn’t have a good time growing up, the town holds no good memories - bullied/the weird kid at school and an emotionally abusive dad. My mum was his enabler and always minimised his actions and their impact. I didn’t realise this until years of therapy, after which I told her honestly how I felt about their parenting, so she knows exactly why I don’t want to go back. She understands that I don’t like the location and or what it evokes and doesn’t push the issue.

We have an ok arms-length relationship now. My dad has several other issues (mostly untreated mental health stuff) that means he’s very insular and doesn’t do anything so he never visits me (I wouldn’t want him to anyway, tbh) but my mum does visit me and dog sit. I don’t want any more involvement than that. The times I have been at “home” for longer than a couple of days I have increased anxiety and feel generally miserable and my dad inevitably has some kind of meltdown so it really isn’t pleasant. I wish they’d divorced decades ago as we’d probably all have more pleasant lives but they’re too poor to run separate homes.

User894532765 · 20/07/2023 15:02

With DS I think the problem is that he lives a fair way away and has no car so he has to stay over, I think if he was local and could just pop in for an hour we would see him much more. He always comes down at Christmas Eve until the 27th as there are no trains before that but I can tell that if there was trains on Boxing Day he would be off home. DH and I used to be like that though and didn't like staying over with our parents

Ponderingwindow · 20/07/2023 15:12

I don’t visit my parent’s home. I used to try and travel there, but did not feel safe for many reasons, both emotionally and physically. Not because of the area, but because of the home and the parent. It’s better to meet somewhere neutral or where I control the space.

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