Have name changed for this as it’s possibly outing, but I need to run this through a focus group of human beings and not ChatGPT.
I’m a mid forties woman with two siblings a few years older/younger.
Fifteen years ago we lost our DM in a very brief and traumatic way, nobody saw it coming, the ending was harrowing, no calm goodbyes. Just awful. But still, we continue, like she taught us.
DF, within a couple of months of losing DM, had a new partner and pretty much moved her into the family home. Siblings and I were still v traumatised and raw at the time, but loved DF and had to accept the fact that he had ‘moved on’ (his words).
Our parents raised us to aim high, see the world. Further education, living abroad, professional qualifications etc but v much if that was what we wanted and they’d be cheering us on no matter what. Consequently, siblings and I are all in different places in the UK owing to professions and time spent working in cities. We all get on well and speak and see each other regularly.
DF moved to a new place with the partner a few miles away from the place we’d lived as a family years ago. His partner has a big extended family that all live within a five mile radius of each other, they phone each other several times a day, pop into each others houses most days, could probably tell you what the others were having for tea tonight as they’re all very enmeshed. I sound judgemental putting it like that but it’s just fact, they run their lives differently to the way our parents raised us. It isn’t our normal but it’s theirs and they’re all happy enough so each to their own.
The issue is they’ve completely swallowed DF. He’s allowed them to swallow him. He’s at every birthday. Every football match of the partner’s grandkids. Every single Christmas. We ask him every year, gently, quietly ‘would you consider spending Xmas with us’ and it’s a no because partner won’t budge and be away from her family so he feels torn and stays to keep the peace. They go on holiday with her family every year.
My siblings and I have tried to get DF and partner to talk about possibly coming on holiday with us one time, but every suggestion is shot down very quickly - for example we offered to holiday at a place two hours from DF’s house and include him and his partner, they said it was too far to drive and that they’re too nervous driving that far or in the dark. A month later pictures pop up of them holidaying in Devon, which they’ve driven over eight hours to get to. And of course they can holiday where they want with who they want but it’s always always never with any of us.
We visit DF at his home, used to be two or three times a year but we sensed that it was causing tension in his relationship so we now go maybe once a year. DF finds it very very difficult to be with all of his children together, at a funeral earlier this year - the only times apart from weddings where he sees us all together, he just seemed to be deeply deeply uncomfortable and sad. I think the sight of us all together, interacting with each other and using childhood nicknames etc kind of forces him to see the gulf that he’s created between his partner’s family and his own - and I think it makes him very unhappy. Very occasionally, in candid moments where he's with one of us 1-1 he will tell us about how hard he finds life and how unhappy he is.
I guess my AIBU is - should I try and explore this further to get my DF to a place where he feels more connected to us or should I just step back and let him live the life that he’s chosen and maintain this strange distant contact that is so alien to the relationship we had with him growing up. He’s in his seventies now. He is slowing down a bit. Im not sure change or progress is a realistic expectation any more, but I do feel a bit haunted by the sight of his sad face the last time he was with all of us, I don’t really care about my own comfort in all of this, I am very mindful of not adding further emotional pressure to DF as he probably isn’t equipped to deal with it.
But AIBU to try and do something, say something, to bring him into the fold a bit more that hopefully won’t make him feel like he has to compromise his relationship with his partner? I don’t feel like I can add more detail to the OP at this point really, without it being 60,000 words long.
Has anybody been through similar? I want his last years to be happy and will step forward or backwards to try and help him feel like that.