To feel a bit fed up of this…

[Maybethisallthereis]

Bit of a long one.. sorry if it’s boring!

My parents have never been happy together. They are now retired and this is clearly even worse now. My dad doesn’t want to do ANYTHING or go ANYWHERE! My mum needs to make a life for herself and seems not to be able to. She has a friend she sees occasionally and my siblings and I make the effort to arrange things but with young kids and jobs this is hard as we don’t have much time. Let me add she has never offered help with childcare or looked after them once! (They’re 9 and 6)
This is where the issue comes in.. she’s jealous when we do things without her. If she thinks I’ve seen my sister without her she gets annoyed. We saw each other at the weekend to watch the rugby (not my parents thing) so didn’t invite them… she then told us she was upset she couldn’t come. We have a meet up for my DH’s niece this weekend (nothing to do with her.. it’s my DH’s family) yet she said she feels left out and not included! I could tell when we were talking about it today she went mute so had to confront her.

She said whilst nearly crying that she feels left out and it isn’t fair. She never does anything etc. But that’s not our responsibility is it? We see her regularly and we are going out in a few weekends time for lunch as a family yet it isn’t enough!

I already have a lot of resentment towards my parents for my upbringing, they made me very insecure and given how unhappy they were, this really rubbed off on me. I’m stable and happy now and have made a life of my own with lots of nice friends and I feel proud of myself.

When I see her she brings me down as is negative about how miserable she is and now she’s making me feel even worse that I am apparently leaving her out. I feel it’s pressure on me as her child to make her happy.

What is your advice.. how would you deal with this?

I would gently say that you have been thinking about things. You are upset that she is upset, but while you want to include her in things you equally want to be able to do some things without having to worry that because she isn't included, she will be upset. You are also worried that she says she never does anything and you want her to go and do whatever she fancies doing. You could then chat through a few new things she could do without you.

As your Dad doesn't want to do anything she is effectively free to go and do anything she pleases. She may feel that he won't approve of her doing something without family present or something she hasn't done before, whether consciously or not. She may need some encouragement to just go off on her own. I would focus on what she can do and make sure she doesn't feel you are criticising her for being timid about it.

You can suggest things like what would she advise a friend to do. Alternatively channel her inner child who I bet would have wanted to go and do X and either made sure they did or were too worried about doing so but now as an adult with finally go and do it as life is just too short.

Not sure if any of this will help, but good luck with it.