To be suffocated by my relationship with my parents since moving home?

[Willow79]

I am only child and because of that I have always been a focus for my parents. I am late 20s and have spent half my 20s living abroad. During this time my parents would visit me once or twice a year and we had a distant but pleasant enough relationship (well actually - my relationship with my mother was fine but I grew apart from my dad who stopped contacting me at all really).

I returned home to the UK last year to live. It was hard as I was just settling back in when covid struck. I live alone and I think my parents worried but I've mainly been fine. I have friends and dont mind alone time.

But since I've returned they crave closeness with me to the the point of suffocation. I was added to a family WhatsApp where my parents try to interact with me every day. My mum wants to talk multiple times a day every day mostly and wants to see me often. My dad phones for long phone calls every week.

I love my parents but I never wanted this level of closeness with them. I don't know how to broach this without upsetting them but it is starting to get me down. Any advice?

@Headfellofftheangel I think I have always wanted an apology from my mum. She has never given me one. She has even denied nasty things she said to me.

I do feel for you as my mum goes through spells of texting our group chat every morning to say good morning and ask how everyone is doing today and it does irritate me up a bit.

The day hasn't even started yet really and both myself and my sister are just working from home - there is nothing to report. I don't want to not respond as she would probably think something was up and I know she just wants to talk to us, but equally I don't need that kind of interaction daily. I am happy to chat on there if she sends a real message with something to it - like earlier she text to say she'd gone back to her first gym class and how it had gone - but I don't need a message every morning just to check in.

It's hard because you don't want the pressure of feeling the constant need to respond, but equally you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

Could you get away with saying you just don't keep your phone on you all the time?

Willow79 you are definitely not being unreasonable. Lockdown has made people so bored! It's not a new thing - my parents would sometimes call me to tell me that it was raining where they live; they lived a 15 minute WALK from me so yes! I've got rain too. Now they are both gone and I'm the mother of someone in their twenties. I do not message every day; I do not phone during work hours and if I want to phone I text first to ask if it is convenient. I know our only child loves us and we are so proud of their independence. My mother would use emotional blackmail sometimes; I hated being controlled and it chipped away at my respect for her.

I posted similar some time ago. I think it’s really hard for those who are close to their parents to understand this but I would never want to speak to my mum daily. There are similar issues to yours from the past and also while she’s a nice person we have nothing in common.
If she needs help with something, I help her. I am happy to text reasonable amounts and call once a week but she seems to have this idea that we should be super close mum and daughter best friends. She doesn’t do this with my brother who ironically has a lot more free time. Our relationship has never been like that and I have no interest in being her best friend or her mine.

I do get annoyed by the text bombardment. I reply when I can but somehow it still leaves me feeling slightly stressed when they’re flying in. I reply once, she jumps straight up and sends a barrage of four replies in a row etc.

I have focused on being busy with work but then still get bombarded at weekends and evenings.

Yes, I’m sure you do, and you deserve it. But you may never get it, it might just not be possible for your mum psychologically to take on the extent of the hurt and pain she caused you. Or if she was drunk she may well not remember a lot! I know it can cause a sort of intense rage when they then want to play happy families. But alcoholism is so shitty and unfair to the alcoholic as well as the people around them suffering collateral damage.

When I moved back to my home town I ended up having the serious rage with EVERYONE in my family. Even though they are like something from a Russian novel crossed with a repressed British drawing room comedy with a dash of mafia, they had bizarrely all found a way of living together that worked really well for them (Never. Discuss. Anything.) and so it was me who took myself off to therapy again. I felt quite guilty, as though it was a very first world problem. Sometimes my therapist and I roared with laughter. Sometimes I cried. Sometimes it was just a very safe space to discuss them honestly without it whizzing around the small town at the speed of light. Anyway, it just let me let go of a lot of anger and be more serene about their various shortcomings and peccadilloes. As indeed I’m sure they are about mine. And I could accept that there are just some things I might ‘need’ that I’ll never get, but that’s okay. I just feel a lot calmer and accepting, which obviously makes me a lot nicer to be around!

OP it sounds like your mum is the one who needs therapy rather than you.

I totally get where you're coming from. My parents both worked full time when I was growing up and I became very independent and spent most of my time with childminders/grandparents. Lived abroad throughout my twenties and now find it really strange that she's wanting this intense, codependent relationship from me.

I've definitely not got all the answers but you are doing the right thing by asserting some boundaries. Don't listen to the people trying to guilt trip you or telling you you're the one with all the issues!

Why don't you explain that with a full time job you're finding the constant messages a bit of a stress as you feel you should reply but can't at work and when you get home in an evening you enjoy your own quiet time and not so much screen time. You hope they're not offended but you might not always reply, you're just finding it a bit too much.

Be honest.

as a pp said mute your phone, dont answer all their calls and texts, etc.
thats what my dc did, it helps.

Oh Willow, I completely understand how you're feeling. I spent most of my 20s and 30s living abroad. Started before mobile phones and email at home, so a phone call at a set time once a week was fine. One or two visits each year. When I came back to the UK, my parents wanted to be involved in every little aspect of my life. I have a DC now, that's made it even worse. I'm very honest with them, but it's still taken years of trying to set boundaries, lots of emotional blackmail from them, attempts from me to explain, the occasional row. It's better than it was, but they're still very overbearing and I'm often cross that they're just disregarding my feelings about it all. My dad is also an alcoholic, although that's only in the last ten years or so but it does add more issues.

So yeah, I get it. It's tough. Letting them be as involved as they want to be just makes me miserable. But then I feel guilty doing things on my own with my DC that I know they'd want to do with us. It's better than it was, but they remain the main stressors in my life and it feels like a constant battle to get them to treat me as an adult rather than the 18 year old who left home 30 years ago...

Good luck. I hope you can find a way to set boundaries. You're an adult now and your happiness matters too. They shouldn't get to dictate the terms of your relationship.

You lived away they missed you, you sound spoilt and entitled. This pandemic and lockdown has played havoc with ppl. Mute the chat and speak when you can, but don’t hurt their feelings they love you and just want to look out for you

@OwlInAnOakTree thanks. I think I need to keep telling myself that my happiness matters too - not sure why I feel as though it is a such a big deal to simply tell them my boundaries and why they are important to me.

Most comments have been supportive but there have been some unkind ones. Not sure what is entitled about wanting to have a health non co dependent relationship with my parents.

Maybe you need to go over and give them both a gentle but firm chat about where you’re at with your boundaries. Explain that while you are very proud of her for her sobriety, she can’t rewrite your history or force an artificially-sweetened relationship upon you. If she wants a closer relationship with you, it must be allowed to evolve naturally. Forcing herself upon you like this is actually harassment and it is creating resentment instead. It is not your job to entertain her or pretend that her alcohol abuse didn’t happen just to make life easier for your parents. You had a whole lifetime dealing with it while people were pretending it wasn’t a problem and it was really difficult. However, it has made you the independent woman you are, and you would really appreciate it if they would respect that about you.

I would love that kind of relationship with my parents. They love you and they won't be here forever. Be grateful.

[quote LisaLee333]@Willow79

Blimey, I feel quite sorry for them. I mean, God forbid they should want a relationship with their ONLY child.

And as for "I love my parents but I never wanted this level of closeness with them." That's a total oxymoron. You claim you love them, yet don't want to be close to them.

Several other posters on here have the same cold attitude towards their parents. How depressing.

If you avoid and ignore and ghost them enough, maybe they will take the hint, and stop bothering you. Maybe you could move back abroad, so you're even further away from them, as they cause you SO much bother, by wanting a relationship with their only child.

Just wait til you have kids of your own though, and you have no parents around, because you've driven them away.

Be careful what you wish for.[/quote]
Wow it's interesting how people can read the op's posts and reach such different conclusions. I suppose it depends on different family dynamics. I come from a very close family, wr love one another very much, but we all give one another space and are not joined at the hip. And I think our relationships are all the better for it tbh. We hugely enjoy one another's company when we get together and are always there for one another in difficult times. But we don't suffocate one another.

Reading between the lines op , I was going to reply and say the total opposite to the above quoted post. Your family dynamic doesn't sound very healthy at all; it's almost as if your parents are using you to sort out problems within their own relationship, or at least deflect from it. (I would hazard a guess that there may have been a pattern of this when you were young and that you may have acted as a buffer between them. Also, because your mother was "functioning" and not falling over drunk, it wasn't spoken about openly, and there was a lot of unacknowledged tension or pretending to be "normal" going on?)

Anyway, it's evident that your parents have their issues, alcoholism doesn't just disappear after two years. And if it does, your mother will currently be confronting the reality of the issues that caused her to seek refuge in alcohol in the first place. That can be a very tough process.

Your role is not to sort out your parents' loneliness within their own marriage though. I think putting in some firm boundaries would be a very, very healthy thing to do. You are in your twenties and should have your freedom to forge your own path at the moment without FOG (fear, obligation, guilt). I'm no expert but I think children of alcoholics do grow up with a sense of having to be the one that sorts out or shields others from problems. Perhaps this is why you feel very burdened now by their demands, even though they are in
a better place than before? I think it would be very helpful if you saw a licensed psychologist who specialises in the effects of alcoholism on the family. They will be able to give you support to give you some more insight in to your past and the effects it is having on you currently. And will help you to put proper boundaries in place.

I think this is quite easy to resolve by not looking at the WhatsApp messages till a set time each day (say 5:30) and giving them 15 minutes reading and replying, then mute the conversation till the same time the next day.

Just apologise and tell them your exhausted, need some quiet time, been busy, with friends, cooking or whatever

@sassafras123

Just remember you only have your parents for so long. Wish I still had mine.

God I know. I lost my dad a few months ago and wish I could be hounded by him for long chats.

I understand your frustration op, I felt at times frustrated with my parents but looking back I'd do anything to have dad questioning me now and asking if I was back for dinner like he did every day. 😟😭

Organise in advance with them when you will see or chat to parents. If it can be a regular slot they will get into the swing of things.

Meant to add that my post below was not just in response to quoted post, but all the adversely negative and critical posts of the op here. Being the child of an alcoholic parent is a huge deal, especially when you have no siblings to share the burden. Op's instincts are absolutely right that she should be striving for a non co-dependent relationship with her parents; it's what all psychologically healthy parents should want for their DC surely?

Honestly, life is too short to people please OP, you need to live your life for you. Your mum wasn't thinking first and foremost of your happiness when she spent your childhood as a functioning alcoholic was she? Admittedly that's a simplistic view of what was no doubt a more complex psychological battle, but it doesn't make the impact any less true. If you feel smothered, tell your parents so. Tell them you're not going to respond to inane questions about what you had for dinner today or what you think of the weather. Their happiness is not more important than yours, keep reminding yourself of that.

@Willow79 Yes 30 years ago was no different except as there was no messaging, but there were phone calls. My DM would ring for at least an hour every day. As she had mental health issues, some of her calls were disturbing and upsetting, but I didn't avoid them. She died suddenly and unexpectedly, younger that she should have done. What I missed most of all was the phone ringing. I miss her painfully every day despite everything.

I think there are a lot of people on this thread who really don't understand how intense an only child/parents relationship can get.

I am in my forties and still struggling with mine atm despite 20 years worth (on and off) of therapy.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to put some healthy boundaries in place...I would start by muting the chat during working hours.

Also have a read about transactional analysis. It was the method of therapy I found most helpful in dealing with my situation.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_analysis

@LisaLee333
I agree. How sad.

You’re gonna have to be more assertive or your life isn’t going to be your own. They may get a bit shitty to begin with but they’ll get used to it.

Op

You ask what you would benefit from speaking to a therapist about? Basically everything you’ve typed here in your messages!

Your difficulties in setting healthy boundaries with your parents
Your anger at your mum for her behaviour in the past and how difficult it is to express this
Feeling responsible for their happiness and putting that before your own
Feeling unheard and like they don’t treat you as an adult

Mumsnet is great, speaking to an actual human being and learning / practising new ways to communicate how you feel is also a great way forward.

Btw I love m’y folks deeply, and we are quite happy talking one a week! Always have been, whether I’m living half an hour away or (literally) on the other side of the world. All of us would find the pressure of daily “chats” unbearable! But we happily catch up weekly, and spend holidays together.