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How do I deal with my parent?

4 replies

LOveLaughToasterBath · 19/07/2025 18:55

How do I deal with my parent?
We share a jointly owned house with the aged parentals.
One of them is incredibly clingy, doesn't appear to have an independent thought, and is generally crowding us.
Everything I do, they copy. Everything I buy. If we go out, they want to come to. My husband and I have a child, we want to do things as a family. We do things with the parent too, but we need our own space.
Ww3 started this morning. We were going to a niche event that applied to us, but not to them. They knew this, and asked to come along too. When told no, they got angry. Accused me of cruelty, being an unkind person to them, the whole guilt trip.
This happens quite often. Im often an introvert, I like to be alone. My husband works, the child is in school. They turn up, and start picking holes in stuff. I put up with it, but I'm not going to be joined at the hip. I have a few things I do outside the house, a few friends, and hobby or two, and I'm required to share everything.
Its getting really wearing. We dont want to move, despite everything I love both my parents, but they need to get their own life.

OP posts:
shellyleppard · 19/07/2025 18:59

@LOveLaughToasterBath can you possibly move out?? Appreciate it might be difficult financially just now but if you can't get any peace or space....

LOveLaughToasterBath · 19/07/2025 19:02

shellyleppard · 19/07/2025 18:59

@LOveLaughToasterBath can you possibly move out?? Appreciate it might be difficult financially just now but if you can't get any peace or space....

Sadly not.
We all own the house. It would be a massive upheaval. Also, I really don't dislike my parent. They just dont really do boundaries.

OP posts:
shellyleppard · 19/07/2025 19:05

@LOveLaughToasterBath difficult. It would personally drive me batshit crazy 😧

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Sweatybettyinthisheat · 19/07/2025 19:29

Do they have any friends/other family nearby? Do they drive/have hobbies? Were their expectations that when you all lived together you'd be their entertainment/carer?

We struggled when my MIL lived with us for 2 years. She was a good MIL but had no self confidence to join a hobby group and meet people (she enjoyed doing crafts but they were solitary), and her only weekly outing was driving to the hairdressers. Dh and I did the school runs, I worked ft and did all the cooking. She only babysat if we went out (rarely) in the evening. It sounded like a good idea at the time for us to share a house but the practicalities of her deteriorating health and unwillingness to make a life outside our home made the pressure unbearable. No privacy on phone calls or having friends round. In the end a health crisis meant she went to live with SIL (who lived alone) and then a nursing home as even SIL struggled with her. Looking back it should have been obvious to us that she would struggle as she had no social life outside work when bringing up her family as a single parent.

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