Support thread for those with unhappy, bitter, lonely parents.

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Am hoping I'm not alone, would like to hear from others how they manage
and support parents who are unhappy and lonely.

Here's my story:

I'm an only child, my father went off with OW when I was a few months old and mum was in her early twenties. He was a useless and absent parent and I don't see him.

The problem is mum never seemed to get over this. She's late sixties now and never had another partner. She's still very angry at father and doesn't trust men. She has zero hobbies/interests since retiring and has lost most of her friends through being difficult/sulking/argumentative (never her fault of course). She is always right and everyone else is wrong. These character traits are intensifying / becoming more ingrained as she ages.

She loves my DC (she tolerates poor DH and is generally ok towards him) and is helpful and often nice but I'm just finding her such hard work of late. She's overly anxious/worrier and this has worsened now she has so much free time. She projects a lot of this onto us and makes me anxious. She scoffs at people having interests and is above everything. She won't join clubs or do things on her own. She's also always hinting to come on holiday with us, we have tried this several times but she's even harder work on holiday, wanting to control everything and having a go at DH all the time. She now sulks when we say we're going away. She occasionally says things which make me realise she's lonely and prefers company. But she is too difficult to be friends with!

She makes me feel so responsible for her happiness and social life. She has a couple of friends left and 2 siblings. She drives them all potty too and I'm constantly trying to placate her / get her to see the other side to stop her falling out with them and being even more unhappy.

Would be interested to hear the stories of others and how best to manage unhappy people.

God, yes!
We lost my dad last July and it's been horrific :(
Mum was utterly dependant on him.
She is angry, bitter and has no interests at all and gets very annoyed when I try to suggest things she could do/try. She thinks everyone should come and see her/phone her but when I suggest she should visit/phone she looks at me like I am mad.
She came on holiday with us in august...never again :(
I wish I had an answer for you op...but you are not alone x

I can't recall ever sharing any of my feelings with my mum growing up. I can remember dealing with quite difficult things as a teen on my own and keeping all my feelings in my head. As I've grown older I've learnt to share with friends and family but growing up had to be terribly self-reliant emotionally. I've never really felt 'close' to my mum, in some ways I don't like her at all.

I'm sorry to hear that Badvoc and I wish I could say it gets better. Do you think she'll adapt once the initial grief is over or has she always been this way inclined?

Code you are exactly right, my mother has no realisation of the impacts of her own behavior. She had some therapy recently and told me in all seriousness that she was trying hard to accept that everything others did was not her fault. I'm not sure how I didn't tell at her that actually it largely was her fault! But I don't want to fight it out or go NC as hardly see her anyway so feels like an unnecessary trauma for me.

I have spent the last ten years trying to work out a way of dealing with my parents as an adult. I'm not sure I really have any answers.

In my case DF was unfaithful when I was small, they nearly split up but DM was persuaded to stick with for my sake. According to DM DF is emotionally abusive (her best example is something pretty minor from over 30 yrs ago), was an alcoholic (nonsense) and is generally the shittest person in the entire world and has ruined her life. This is bullshit. DF is fairly rubbish but on a reasonably harmless scale.

DM has agoraphobia, is permanently 'ill' in one way or another, is very anxious, doesn't sleep and has been taking tranquillisers since I was a child. She was a controlling, violent and abusive mother. She hit me frequently. The entire modus operandi of the family has always been terrible violent screaming rows, often on and off for days, followed by seething, sulking silence and DM taking to her bed. Then suddenly pretend fake happy families.

Neither can leave- DM can't function by herself and DF feels too guilty (I think).

Things have deteriorated in the 10 years since I left home. I no longer provide the incentive for the periods of pretend normality. They're both chronic hoarders and their stuff- attempting and failing to clear it- has become the sole obsession of their life for years. They refuse all help. DF has developed memory issues which has been seized by DM as another thing to control him over, blame him for, and generally have hysterics about. DM hates their house but refuses to consider moving. She would rather moan for 30 years about something and blame someone else for it than even try to do anything to change it. They have no friends. They used to go for days out but that has stopped almost entirely, and holidays are reducing as well.

My mother has successfully bullied and guilt tripped me into living close to them - she likes me there as a comfort blanket but only physically sees me a few times a year. I call her less and less because I cannot deal with the stress of picking up the phone and not knowing whether I'll get a reasonable half hour chat or two hours of repetitive wailing about how awful my dad is and how everything wrong with her life is his fault. I have to nod along. Any disagreement- I have tried frequently over the years- results in such vitriol and hysterics it's just not worth it.

So far the only ways in which I have learned to deal with it are:
I have trained myself to realise I am not responsible for their happiness.
I am now able to be happy myself regardless of them. I was very codependent previously.
I detach during the moaning. I offer practical advice and actual help where relevant. I know it will be ignored, by then I feel I have done what I can. It also helps to stop me getting sucked into the madness and getting frustrated by it. Otherwise I try to stay sympathetic but non committal.

However it's only going to get worse and it terrifies me. I am an only child and there are no other relatives- v small family.

I should add, for clarity, the basic dynamic is that mother is textbook abusive narcissist and my dad is enabler.

That's the thing turkey the problem with being honest with them is 1. they won't have it that it's all them! 2. all it does is create a shitstorm and more drama for them to feed off. A couple of times some while back things blew up over something truly trivial and mum apologised to me but to be honest I didn't want to hear it as the damage was done. I think the apology was because of what she might lose rather than her truly being sorry. In fact I knew it's that because after a while she reverted to form and then repeated the behaviour.

Blimey Woozlebear that's some madness. It must have been so hard for you growing up as an only child in that house. I'm glad to hear you have found ways to protect yourself and be happy despite them. I wonder how they will be when one eventually dies and they no longer have that co-dependency?

Code- exactly. Calling them on their behaviour never ever ever has a good outcome. But it took me 30 years to realise that NOT fighting with DM about how bat shit crazy she is does not make me complicit. I used to feel like a failure if I didn't try to make her see the error of her ways, and I'd feel unbearably frustrated.

By actually withdrawing and distancing is the only way to maintain my own sanity. Nothing I can do or say will change anything, but keeping the peace is the best thing my own life and mental health.

She has always been "difficult" but she has also had MH issues which aren't her fault, although as a child and young adult I was more often than not her carer (dad had to work)
I am the eldest female child of an Irish catholic mother.
I will leave you to imagine the level of guilt that encompasses my life :)

And, no, I can't see it ever getting any better :(

That's good to hear. I agree- rows with mum never end well for me, I hate loud arguments and feel it just feeds her. I will try to detach psychologically as physical detachment isn't possible (although we see her less often).

i often dream about moving away. Mum's always commenting on those families who "selfishly" move away from elderly parents and all I feel is envy. Would love some distance.

Code- thanks. Yeah it was a shitty childhood. It still continues to present itself in new and surprising ways- the grieving and healing process doesn't start, in some ways, until you're out of it, and I hadn't bargained for how much of my life would be spent recovering. Or how it would affect me.

I fear I will be dragged back in as the codependent when one goes. It's awful but I hope DM is first as I cannot begin to imagine how difficult dealing with her will be otherwise. DF would be ok.

At least she'll always have the Priest Badvoc I suspect even he is sick of hearing about it all.
You're no longer her carer but maybe she doesn't see it that way. Same as I'm no longer my mother's property.

Well no wonder it affected you Woozlebear , a childhood like that couldn't not have had an impact. You sound as though you have enough resources now not to slip back into old habits even when one is left on their own.

Mum also takes great delight (without being happy- she just becomes more animated) when there is drama in other's lives. She is almost gleeful in her enthusiasm to discuss someone's misfortune.

She doesn't go to church.
She feel out with God too :)

Woozlebear it's horrible to be told that DM stayed with DF for 'your sake' shifting the blame for her unhappiness onto you.
I can't understand why anyone would want to live their whole life being so miserably unhappy. It wears me out just thinking about it...
Why would you choose that?
Isn't it so much easier to enjoy life? Maybe it's down to undiagnosed depression, but why wouldn't you visit the doctor if you always felt so rotten?
I just know I'd never make my DC put up with a mother who did nothing but moan, was never satisfied and made nasty comments about other people's happiness, even begrudging the happiness of her own daughter which sums up my mother.

She is almost gleeful in her enthusiasm to discuss someone's misfortune. Yep, that's my mum too. She once told a lengthy story about my cousin, who's a surgeon, who was treating a woman who kept having surgery, just for something else to go wrong and she'd have to have another operation, and another operation etc. Eventually she stopped talking and I said, so what happened? Her response - 'Oh she died'. Any normal person would only tell a story like that to show the skill and care of the surgeon involved, and to have a happy ending with the woman fully recovered. But no, the whole point was the misery and pain this woman went through, and then she died.

"Mum also takes great delight (without being happy- she just becomes more animated) when there is drama in other's lives. She is almost gleeful in her enthusiasm to discuss someone's misfortune".

I would read up on narcissistic personality disorder re your mother and see if any of that information has any resonance with you with regards to her.

she fell out with god too

This just goes to show there is no arguing with these people!

What d you think stops their psyche from recognising they have a problem and seeking help? I'm always painfully aware of the effect I have on others and how I come across. So many parents on here seem the opposite! Mother seems to take delight in being outspoken and 'saying what I think' no matter the consequencies.

Attila I did look it up, I think she would be quite mild on that spectrum in all honesty. But some of it did resonate.

badvoc snap! Irish Catholicism has a lot to answer for.

I recommend emigration to anyone in this situation. But I end up with "woe is me" comments on Facebook endlessly and lectures from my sister (who seems to be trying hard to make mum my problem) about what an awful daughter I am. My mother also loves a good misfortune story so it's a common theme clearly.

Should really go do some work now, wishing us all strength in dealing with this.

While we're on a roll...I've just remembered after reading about narcissistic traits- even losing my virginity was made into a big drama all about mother. I had a long-ish term boyfriend and mum found my pill packet snooping though my bag on holiday when I was back late one night. Came back to find her vomiting with anxiety while her friend rubbed her back and shot me evils for worrying my poor mother. No conversation about was I ok, no it was all about the impact on her. Getting cross now...