Relationship changed with adult children. Is this normal? Please share your experience.

[Crystalcrazy]

Hello.

Im looking for advice please and other people’s experiences.

I have two adult children in their late twenties.

They both own their own homes and have partners. My eldest has a one year old baby.

We used to be so close. One lives local and we’d see each other every week for a nice evening together and message or call in between.

The other lives a few hours away and we kept in touch via phone weekly.

I now find contact is only when I initiate this and we now rarely see each other.

I understand they have their own family’s and both work full time (as do I) but it all feels so sad.

My daughter has been on maternity leave for a year.

I have mentioned how I feel and that I would like to see her and my grandchild more. But I’m just told she’s busy.

I don’t know what to do to make this better, I don’t think it will ever go back to how it was.

Do I ease off and wait for them to contact me?

Is this a normal part of life?

Do you get on with their partners?

typo

My husband has this relationship with his parents. He doesn’t see them unless he has to. He doesn’t answer the phone and promises he’ll call back but doesn’t. He’s seen them twice this year… we’re planning a December meet but only so we can control the length and when it ends.

He makes noises that he wants to see them but doesn’t like to reply to them or call them. He is busy, but he could find time for a phone call… but as he says, that’d be mostly taken up with his mom saying how much she misses him and that she wishes she could see him more, and it just becomes layers of manipulation. He’d rather keep them at arms length.

There’s a back story, of course, but there always is. Nobody chooses to minimise contact with a parent if it’s a healthy, enjoyable relationship.

I’m not sure how you can fix it alone; though. More contact with DH makes him start talking about moving and not telling them, or moving abroad for a bit, which he’s investigated and we could do. Less contact might mean it never gets better.

What a horrible comment and not what I said at all.

What I did say is I wish things could go back to how they were before with weekly meet ups.

Stop trying to portray things that aren’t true.

They need to establish themselves. I've got kids in the same and earlier stages of life. The ones still single and dating see far more of me than the married/coupled and baby-producing ones, because those are trying to sort out routines, work, home, people, friends etc etc. You only have to look at MN for five minutes to see how pushed to the limit working couples with children are. Parents are just another chore (it's not how they see us, but it's how it feels) to be fitted in to precious spare time.

Keep in touch, but uncritically. Give them space and time. When life settles down and they feel a bit more in control, they will come back to you. But you don't want to make them feel that you are another item on the tick list that has to be 'sorted' in a working week. Be a treat, not a chore.

I dont know .I think this is like lots of families really .Your daughter is returning to work with a young baby.Shes got a lot on her plate. Maybe if you send her (if you can afford to obv)some little gifts every now and then .Say some flowers ,A Deliveroo voucher , some nice smellies (Neals yard orange and gerainium is divine .shower gel)If you work FT as well that doesnt leave much time over .If you were very close then you will be again .

This is certainly helpful to the OP.

How do you do that when daughter is so busy?

OP what did this close relationship look like? What was it that made you think you were close?

Can I also suggest that you have no idea how they view their childhood and if they think it was amazing unless they tell you.

Does she respond better to messaging?

There's a few layers to why I don't have much contact with DM.
One is that she only uses the landline and it's hard to co-ordinate times to talk on the phone for 1+ hours. She doesn't do mobile phones which is hugely limiting now her hearing is very poor. She tends not to hear the phone now anyway.

When I do talk to her, she's very critical of me, DH and the DCs and tends to monologue about her cats and friends. It's not a mutually interested two-way conversation.

As I've got deeper into parenting I've realised how much everything revolves around her and her convenience, from my childhood to today; she'll present things like she's doing it for me, but it's very heavily filtered through her interests. Often it's the accumulation of many petty things like she wanted me to do dancing because it's pretty, but still moans at me 30 years later that she had to take me to it twice a week (ironic when I'm out umpteen times a week for the DCs).

I just don't have the combination of spare time and energy to meet her desires, and there's been no compromise from her side to make it easier. It's her inflexibility that's the core problem. She wouldn't recognise that view of things either.

Our sitiation is complicated by distance and her now being a fair bit older than working age, but the foundations of the problem were there when she was younger. Her hitting health issues that affected driving distances relatively young also hasn't helped, so I've already spent 20+ years always having to go down to her adding another 2 hours to any visit... added to being a smoker hoarder in an uncomfortable house with radio/ TV blasting. I haven't taken the DCs down for years because it stinks, is loud and there's not enough functional furniture to sit on.

She's also not the type to question why family relationships often hit difficult phases and various relatives have quietly faded away. It's not just me that's struggled.

This probably wasn't applicable to OP but thinking about the range of issues of this ilk might help think about what the glitch is and how to work around it to keep a healthy relationship as life pahses and their demands shift.

Being flexible and interested are important to healthy adult relationships.

Look on the bright side - you've done a good job of bringing them up to be independent adults!

This is just how it is, at least for the foreseeable future. A bittersweet thing, and I know how it feels.

Make sure you find things to fill the gap in your life, and keep on with fequent, undemanding contact.

I think it is normal.

Just in terms of time and commitments, your daughter has two other relationships that are (rightly) more important and to which she should be devoting more time: that with her baby, and that with her partner. She also has to fit in time for her partner’s parents, as well as you, to spend time with the family.

You, as you are still working, are not available when she probably does have time to fill - weekday daytime - and only available when she is prioritising time with her - also working - partner. The scant time they have as a new family unit us precious, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable that she’s prioritising that over grandparental time.

Ditto your other child - you are both working, and presumably both spending free time on hobbies, friends etc.

It’s normal.

I think some of it can be about vibes. My parents are always delighted to see us but never suggest we should be doing more. My in-laws, especially when the children were young and we were overwhelmed, were constantly on at us to do more. It was a real strain. We probably saw more of them than my parents (which I regret) but it still wasn’t enough

A bit of background info and to answer some of the questions.

My relationship with my own mother was not good. She had various mental health problems and was physically, mentally and abusive towards me.

Because of this, I’ve always been the complete opposite with my children, probably to the extreme.

When they were children we’d do lots of activities, I’d attend school trips, we’d have two holidays a year and every weekend days out. They always had friends round, sleep overs, film and take away nights.

I always tell them I love them, at the end of every phone call and when I see them.

As adults I pay for us all to have one family holiday a year, meals and days out as a family.

This last year the holiday was as different. I always plan things for us to do but they wanted to do things with their own partners on their own and I spent a lot of time on my own.

My daughter hasn’t returned to work yet and has been on maternity leave for over a year. She spends a lot of her time with friends who also have babies around the same age which I think is great.

Maybe I’m just feeling a little bit out of it and would love to be more involved in both of their lives.

@Crystalcrazy That background info is important. I would suggest you use this distance to focus on yourself and reflect. It is understandable that you'd like to spend more time with the baby and your daughter, but they don't currently want to and you need to stop trying to force it. Do all of you a favour and reflect how your upbringing may have affected your relationship with your children.

My hunch is you may be feeling insecure about the situation and that this is showing. Step back and figure this out on your own.

You told your kids you love them, which is so so important, but other than that you have only listed material things. How did you provide for them emotionally? How did you ensure they felt save, seen and heard?

I think - kindly - the time has come for you to take a step back, and know that this stepping back does not make you a bad parent, in fact it makes you a great one, one who has raised children who are ready to take their place in the adult world.

Think about what you will fill that space with: hobbies, friends, trips etc and build a life that is interesting and satisfying for you, and interesting for you to talk to your children and their children about. Ne there for them, but don’t make your expectations of what they will do ‘with you’ a burden.

Might be time to reassess the holiday situation- would they like a contribution to their own holidays? Would they actually prefer a break for a few years? A long weekend not a full holiday? Discuss it with them.

I don't think its what happens op, I saw more of my dm when I was on mat leave than before.

They probably take you for granted as you've always been the one to plan things and instigate. It must be hurtful that they don't reciprocate.

All you can do is carry on, message regularly and keep channels of communication open.

That is really sad OP. We live near my in laws and generally see them once a week, rare occasions it's less frequent and we do a video call with our baby for them.

My MIL has her moments of less welcome little habits* but she is lovely and a wonderful mother and grandmother. She's done so much to help us and she tends to give us a box of food when we go see them even though we don't expect it. We've asked her to look after our baby when I go back to work (there was one of my 3 days his nursery couldn't cover) and I'm so relieved she's agreed.

My own family is very dysfunctional for so many reasons, so I'm really happy my child has a stable loving family on this side. I'd say just keep being supportive without pressuring, there's a great Instagram account called @morethangrand which I really recommend. Hope it works out for you, I'd have loved a good relationship with my (now deceased) mum into my adulthood!

*Mainly around our baby who she adores, being pushy about some things - pushing formula when I'm breastfeeding, always holding him unless I had to feed him, a hovering anxiety like comments on his sitting up, did I need to change him etc. All done out of love but I'd happily skip them!

Kindly, you sound as if you have done your job brilliantly which was to love them and bring them up to be functional, independent adults. Sometimes, young people, especially with children of their own don’t want to hang out all the time with their parents-they want to establish themselves without parental input. Do you have your own interests? Or did everything revolve around the children when they were younger and now they’ve grown up and no longer need you it feels a bit flat. Maybe acknowledge to your dd that you know she is busy and it’s lovely she has made friends but can you set aside an afternoon every couple of weeks or so. Dial down the expectations of weekly phone calls and daily messaging-try to appreciate the time you have away from your job for you to invest in you and your interests. Your children love you-but take you for granted which is exactly how it should be. I have kids in their twenties too.

I think this sounds pretty normal. I do see my mom a couple of times a week however she doesn’t work and I’m a SAHM - if it was only weekends we both had free I’d probably only see her once or twice a month maximum. Completely understand how sad you must feel though

I think the issue is that you work full time during the week. Evenings and weekends will be when her DH is home and they will be doing things together as a family or just catching up on everything that needs to be done to keep a household running. It is a lot to expect them to see you on only one of their two days off together a week every weekend. Evenings are probably out too because she may be tired from looking after the baby all day and will be having a break when he DH is home, or they may both be getting on with things together once he is home from work.

If you didn't work in the week I'm sure you would be able to see your DD more in the daytime while she is off on maternity leave. If that wasn't the case then that would be more unusual than what your situation is currently with you working.

I adore my parents but im crap at keeping in touch. Sometimes im in the mood to talk and sometimes not.

Keep ringing and messaging weekly.
Keep inviting them every so often or ask to pop around.

Keep communication open even if they dont return it

This all sounds very suffocating and now that they have families of they own they are probably seeing this. Just take a step back and maybe find some hobbies, friends or other interests that don't revolve solely around your children.

I think all families are different
When my daughter moved out ,I was shocked at how little she seemed to need me ..
But as time went on ,I realised it was good she was confident and successful in life and busy getting on with things .
I don't want her feeling she HAS to visit mum ..
Children are only lent to us for a little while ,then they go off and have their own life .
That's why it's so important we mums keep other interests and friendship outside of family .

I experience this a bit with my mum. I see her a lot less than she would like.

In my case the issue is that she always wants to see us on her terms, which means us going to her house. She is reluctant to come to me even though it's so much more hassle for me to pack up the kids and travel to her than the other way round. She invites me round a lot and I decline because it's not convenient, but she doesn't accept many of my invitations either.

this may not be your issue but sharing just in case!

Agree with this.
My children will be leaving home in 10 years or so and that has made me much more conscious of what my leaving home probably meant to my Mum.
In my 20s and early 30s I just didn't think about it that much.
I think now I'm in my 40s my childhood is so far away that it's easier to think of my parents as individuals with their own emotional needs, which includes contact with their children. Sadly when I was younger that didn't really occur to me much.

My Mum did a great job of gently suggesting catch up phone calls every couple of weeks. We'd arrange a time that worked in advance.