Elderly parent and regrets

[Whatkindofdaughter]

This isn't on the usual issues here but I'd love some comments.

Basically, I feel I've hurt my Mum a lot (now in her 90s) unintentionally.

When I left uni, over 40 years ago, I moved to the other end of the UK as that's where a job came up (it was a time of high unemployment in my field.) I went to a uni in my home town and lived at home.

However, I was also keen to get out from under my parents 'rule'. As a teenager (even up to being twenty) they didn't allow me to do all sorts that my friends did. I'm talking about boys/men. It was as if their sole aim was to stop me having sex . When I was 19 I wanted to visit a boyfriend who lived away and they told me if I did I could never come home. (My Dad said that.) I only had some freedom by lying and even now I'm not especially close to her where relationships are concerned.

I met DH some years later and never went back 'home'.

Now that 40 years have passed and I've only been able to see my parents a few times a year, because of work, distance and my own kids, I feel guilty.

I feel my mum especially has missed out on so much with me as a daughter because I've never lived close enough just to pop round for a cuppa, take her out, etc. I feel this much more now as she's very old. But now I'm older too and I get tired driving for 6 hours and sleeping in a strange bed when I visit her.

I suppose I feel I've not been a good enough daughter. But at the back of my mind all the time is this feeling of 'You made me do it' (move away) by your behaviour. I didn't intend to live so far away for ever but work and my kids schools etc made it a one-way street.

Does anyone feel the same?

Just found this as feeling the same and wanting comfort, safety in numbers. I always think it's just me, I must be odd as I don't have a relationship with my parents, I must be the problem. I did the same left the area to go to poly, met someone, stayed. Relationship started changing with dad when I became a teenager, had my own views and ideas, so moving away and living with somone was frowned upon. However, I came back to the area my parents lived, got married had child. First couple of years it made us closer, but dad wanted to move. They moved 200 odd miles away. I worked, husband away all week and had child, in the 8 years they were away, they visited twice. I made the effort to visit them, but they really didn't seem bothered. I started to stay somewhere close by so not so awkward, nothing really worked. My mum wanted to come back to live closer to me, I dealt with everything as dad not really interested. It took 4 months to sort out the buying and selling, I was looking forward to having mum closer. On the day of the move I made a funny remark, dad took it the wrong way and tried to hit me. I left in tears, no one called, I wrote to mum offering to meet/ collect her, she never called. Fast forward 18 months and the guilt got to me, I phoned, dad told me 'you've been like this since you were a teenager ' I asked him what he meant, he wouldn't answer, I asked mum, she told me to take no notice of him. I'm left in this perpetual anxious state, as I dint know what I've done. I now phone regularly, they don't, I visit occasionally with DH, as don't like going on my own. My daughter is now 16 and has no relationship with them and doesn't want one, I can't really make her now, she can see for herself what they can be like. They don't phone, they drive past my house most days and don't drop in. I asked them to come for Christmas, they declined. However, like you I am the one that feels guilty, why is that?! For my own sanity and for my daughter, I have to have boundaries, they're never be the parents I want them to be. I don't think I am the daughter they wanted either, but as nothing gets said there's nothing to work with. I think you've done the best you can, we don't ask to be born, but once we're here, we have to try and make the best life we can, the guilt is something we need to manage. Take care.