I wont go into the whole back story but I am 46 and have been living in the middle of my parent's shit marriage my whole life. They make each other miserable and have no qualms about dragging myself and my sister into it.
Both are very high maintenance and seek high levels of contact from us.
My mam is very unhappy in her life, she is bored all day and looks to us for company. I have tried over the years to get her to improve her quality of life but she isnt interested in putting the work in.
My dad is unwell ( late stage emphysema) but still has some mobility and has friends who visit everyday and take him out. He gets honestly about 20 phone calls a day from friends. Despite this he acts like he is very lonely and miserable. He tells us he is depressed, bored, he cant do anything. You would think he saw no one from one end of the week to the next.
He also puts huge pressure on us to visit. He rings me everyday but rings my sister about 5/6 times a day.
Their expectation is that I would telephone daily and visit 2 times a week.
I work 50/60 hours a week, I have 3 children, I am in the middle of a house renovation and am struggling with an autoimmune condition.
I have come to accept that their contact drags me down. Two nights ago I rang dad and he spent the whole time complaining about his illness and my mother. I came off the call feeling like shit, it took hours to fall asleep that night as I was thinking about all the crap over the years and I had loads of nightmares that night.
We have tried telling them how upsetting all of this is but they dont care. They are so caught up in their own needs.
I dont want to cut contact completely as dad is unwell and liable to die in the next year or so. I want to keep some contact for my own sake so I dont end up feeling guilty or regretting it when he does die.
Any advice please from going from such high levels of expected contact to much less without the drama of having it out with them?
To be honest one call a week and a visit every second week would be sufficient for me. I get nothing from the contact.
I have cut down the calls to once every 2/3 days and visits to once a week claiming other commitments but then every call is all about how little they see/hear from me :(