AIBU to stop indulging elderly parents' constant complaints and demands?

[CantSayThisToAnyoneElse]

DH and I are in our 50's and have DC. We had them late so they are still at school/ living at home. We have one GP on my side and both my DH's parents are alive.

All 3 of our parents are in their early/ late 80's. They have all had great lives. Bought nice houses, go on loads of holidays, nice restaurants, very sociable, and none of them has ever had anything wrong with them that warranted serious medical intervention. They have lived long, healthy lives.

DH and I (and our siblings) have got to the point where all 3 of their behaviour has become intolerable. Every thing is about them. They are on the phone constantly complaining about their lot, that they see no one (not true!), and weekly visits and phone calls to the GP about every twinge. A lot of it seems to be panic about being old.

My issue is that whilst they are doing everything in paragraph 3, the generations below them are having real issues. I have just had the worst 12 months of my life where both DS and I had to go to numerous hospital appointments for investigations (still not sorted), one of my close family members died (suddenly at 50), and working FT and dealing with family life.

My DH's family are in some parts worse. Their irrational behaviour has always been unbelievably attention seeking since the day I met them 30+ years ago. With their latest misadventure, they have my DH and sibling running round after them like staff. It now turns out that my DH's sibling has some major life issues going on, and is really stressed, but hey, let's not upset the Grandparents!!!!

My AIBU is that last night I told my DH that both my parent, and my in-laws have had the luxury of great, long lives with no illnesses and spare money to splurge on luxuries and don't really have anything to complain about and I am not listening to or tolerating it any more. I really do feel that they cause a lot of stress, and that we (me, my siblings, DH and his sibling) are spending so much time on their comfort, and dealing with their minor issues, that important things are being missed.

AIBU to say to my parent, and my DH to his parents that they are all fit and healthy, and the complaining and demanding behaviour is not being indulged any more. We all are literally on the cusp of nervous breakdowns over their behaviour.

Drop the rope. When they ring tell them you're really busy with something and you'll ring them later (don't).

Stop running around after them. Say "Sorry, No" to demands

You can't change their behaviours but you can change your responses.

@BMW58 is spot on.

The thing is, they have had long and healthy lives. Those lives are continuing to shrink, and they forget that your life continues to be busy.

They assume what they want is a priority as it’s what they are focused on.

You just have to be strong and tell them ‘Sorry, but I can’t help this time’

I lived through similar with my dad and MIL. They are gone now, and my only regret is that I did not say no earlier , before resentment crept in.

You don’t need to tell them that (and from personal experience it’ll only provoke worse behaviour).

what you do do is step back.

they start whinging, you listen and go “uh huh” occasionally and do absolutely nothing to fix it.

Sorry to hear this. MiL is the same.

Very much woe is me if she hasn't seen people for the weekend, but she knows a lot of people locally - some days she'll see a few different people.

Another friend could say the same about his mum. He's pushing 70, retired but run ragged as his mum wavers between moving into more suitable housing near him, and staying put .

I think it's hard because we're conditioned to do what our parents want, even if they are being unreasonable.

This.

Focus on your immediate family first. Good luck, the spoilt ones will take time getting used to.it.

I agree.

They are focused on what they want. The other day I was driving back from hospital, bleeding from invasive prodding and pulling (ouch), and I was on the phone to my relative. They knew I went to the hospital, spent 20 seconds on the topic, then spent 1/2 hour on about the bowls and how Roger said this and Beryl said that.

I do feel resentful toward them. I’ve cut back on my relative, but now DHs are in full throttle.

I agree with previous posters about saying no and stepping back a bit.

After six years of similar behaviour from my DM I finally hit breaking point yesterday. I told her that my DH has cancer and after a couple of platitudes she launched into how hard her life is. TBF, her life isn't great now due to ill health and a move to a care home and I genuinely sympathise but have turned myself inside out trying to support her emotionally.

After 15 mins of complaints she said "and the food is awful" and something in me just broke and I made a weird involuntary sound that I managed to turn into a "no" and told her that she'd spent the entire time complaining and that I was having an awful day and was under a lot of stress and wasn't the right person to unload upon. Her response? "Well I've got it out of my system now."

I said I had to go and she burst into tears (a usual response to being called out on something) and I said bye and got off the phone. I won't be answering it if it rings again today.

I have to go and visit her this weekend and every fibre in my being is rebelling against it. I feel physically ill at the thought of it. I know that sounds awful.

Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to show you that I get it and urge you to put some boundaries in place now because when people like this become incapacitated life gets a lot harder.

I don’t get why healthy people behave like this. As an eighty year old couple, we don’t want to be reliant on our DC unless absolutely necessary. Like the OP, they have teens at home, and busy jobs. I’m hardly at home most days, (off to the local pool soon) and DH who does have some health issues has a home based hobby that he enjoys. If we genuinely needed help they’d be there for us.

The other day I was driving back from hospital, (...) and I was on the phone to my relative

WHY?!?! Why be on the phone to ANYBODY while you are driving? Apart from it being well known that your attention is not really on the road and therefore being dangerous (although legal) you should be usinge that time for you, whether it's a school run, or food shop or whatever. Get some boundaries and no calls when in a car, whether driving or as a passenger, is a very good starting point.

Solidarity and sympathy OP. My parents are like this. I've dropped our weekly visits down to fortnightly. I used to message my mum every day to see how she is and one day I had to search for something in our text chat and realised she never once messaged me first. Not once. So I decided not to bother, 5 days it was before she messaged me. Every conversation is a complaint or a gossip about completely random people I've never met and have no idea who they are. My dad just grunts hello before getting back to reading the Daily Mail (another source of contention with his "overly liberal" daughter!) I've had loads of gynae appointments in the last year that they know about because I needed help with the DC a couple of times, they never once ask how I am or what's going on. I got a new job last year, they don't know because they never once ask me but don't have any issue asking for lifts to appointments or to pick up prescriptions. It's exhausting.

Just tell them to jog on OP. They do it to you because they know you’ll put up with their behaviour. Just be honest with them and say what you have here. I had a very similar conversation with my parents once. I told them I wasn’t their butler or their court jester, and they couldn’t just pick me up and put me down according to their needs. That’s not a relationship. They don’t want a relationship with you. They don’t want to spend time with you. They don’t care about you. They just want free care and entertainment at your expense.

So either your mother phoned you whilst you were driving, and therefore shouldn’t have answered, or you rang her whist driving. If so, why?

Your parents are trying to have conversations with you and all they have to talk about is their lives. My mother was like this - I used to just let her chat on and nod along whilst mentally doing my shopping list. My dad wasn’t like this. He was fully engaged in my and my children’s lives, rarely sharing anything about himself and health issues he had. We only found out that he had a ruptured aneurysm from a nurse in A+E who rang us as he was in emergency surgery. Turned out he’d known about the aneurysm for 6 months and not said a word. I’d have much preferred that he’d told us about it.

You don’t have to be on call 24/7, but neither do you have to be so brutal. Hopefully one day you’ll be in your late 80s, you wouldn’t want your dc to think the same way about you.

Your final paragraph is incredibly emotionally manipulative. I hope you don’t speak to any of your own relatives/friends like that.

I entirely understand @CantSayThisToAnyoneElse. I've had a chronic pain condition for the last two years that has put my job and sanity in danger yet my mum keeps going on about the dead shrubs her neighbours have. I struggle to be sympathetic to say the least!

YANBU I also had to just drop the rope on my parents. They expected me to do a 4 hour round trip at weekends to mow their lawn because the gardener that I was paying for didn’t do the lawn either stripes! WTAF! DH and I had 2 school age children and both working full time - of course I couldn’t dedicate a Saturday to go drive down, mow to their specific instructions and drive back, plus whatever else they contrived for me to do. We fell out about it - but actually the demands did decrease overall.

This. My parents and I are no contact. Completely. But I had 40 years of them whining about how poor they were - they had 3 houses (£1 million each), one main one and two huge holidays homes. Constantly moaning about how much the maintenance was - but they didn’t rent them as we don’t want other people in them. Both retired on full pensions at 50 and talked about ‘we’ve worked hard ALL our lives’. I went through a difficult period divorce, losing my job etc and I was the only one who phone them and then o listened to them off load on me as an emotional punch bag. I once broke my leg and was looking after two small children and working on my own and my mother moaned for an hour about stubbing her toe and how useless the GP was!

I once had my mother complaining to me about how she’d wanted more bedrooms in her TWO homes. She had a beautiful semi-detached (no mortgage) in one of the best market towns in the country, and a seaside apartment (again, no mortgage) abroad, and they just weren’t big enough! I guess a single person needs more than 6 bedrooms across two houses to be truly comfortable?

At the time she was telling me this I lived in one of the worst parts of a city (people literally OD’ing in the street), was dealing with a rat infestation in my house due to my neighbour’s chickens, and my neighbours on either side had been robbed and I was terrified of it happening to me. Needless to say that conversation changed our relationship forever.

Honestly get some boundaries in place because it just gets worse as they become frail.

my dh is run ragged by his parents. He will do a 12 hour shift at work and they will ring to ask him to go over urgently. He gets there and they are flapping about a small window being open in the bathroom. And don’t get me started on their constant complaints about the cost of things! While sitting on a very nice nest egg with three pensions coming in, no mortgage. While we are cutting down on the basics to afford the petrol for dh to go over every fucking day.

sorry the heat making me angry lol x

I think sometimes you need to have first boundaries, especially for something like mow lines! lol

My DW’s GM relied heavily on us at the end. She lived two hours away and she wouldn’t accept a food shop delivery so we drove a 2 hour round trip every weekend to take her shopping. We would beg DW’s sister to take a turn occassionally and she would visit but order a delivery and DGM would accept but then call DW asking when are you coming? I need to go out shopping. DW was like SIL was there to take you shopping and DGM would say ‘Don’t be silly she was here to visit! When you coming?’

What sent us over the edge was when her washing machine broke, she flat out refused to order one online. We went down a second time in a week, we went in to the shop, they handed her a tablet, she picked one and they ordered it online for her! 🤬

It was relentless, I so wanted to put in boundaries. Although when she died I think my DW was really glad she had gone above and beyond. But when you’re in the thick of it, it does breed resentment so you have to balance it to protect your own wellbeing before you explode (DGM did have cancer so we had obviously made way more allowances then we would of if it was just her being cantankerous)

I get it. I had it with my own parents and inlaws. But now I'm mid-60s and can feel my life gradually getting smaller and worrying more about issues which to younger people might seem trivial. Fortunately I don't have children or grandchildren so nobody to sort them out for me or complain to except DH!

Try and cut them some slack. People generally only see what is right in front of them and it's easy to blow things out of proportion. Add to that being frightened of aging and feeling yourself slowing down even if you are in good health and having a good old moan can be cathartic. Nod and smile and don't offer solutions unless they genuinely are asking for help.

This. Take a massive step back. If others want to run after them, so what, that’s up to them.

You don't have to go and see her, it's a choice. If she chooses to be unpleasant company and emotionally manipulates you, put in some natural consequences.

MIL once complained DH wouldn’t make a 7 hour round trip to pop to the shop for her.
I don’t know why age makes you think that people younger than you are literally sat doing nothing all day and have no need to go to work, or raise children etc.

Wow. They are super selfish. Start saying no and not engaging as much. Don’t lose out on time with your kids to suit their whims.

My mil never asks about anyone the phone calls are always about her .
I realised I was phoning her up and just listening to what she had to say about the neighbours , other family members , her ailments , her shopping etc etc .
So I stopped and she doesn't seem to phone us either . So it's much better .