Is there any way I can help my parents?

[ObeseDenise]

My parents are extremely unhappy together.

My dad is a very active and on the ball 70, my mum is 57.

Ever since I was a teenager I've wondered how and why they got together. They don't communicate. Sometimes weeks go by without them talking. My mum hates talking openly and will do anything to avoid it. My Dad is as stubborn as anyone I've ever met so he just stops talking and resorts to monosyllabic grunts.

They want different things from life. My Dad is semi retired and wants to travel more and visit his kids and grandkids (we all live in different parts of the world). My mum works full time and enjoys it but uses her holiday allowance in the way that she wants and won't consider going anywhere new or taking unpaid days to have more holidays. They are very comfortably off and she could easily take extra days/stop working altogether. She is also, imo, financially abusive to my Dad in that she has always controlled the money and is extremely tight. My Dad sometimes gets paid in cash for his work and he has taken to hiding it from her . I know he has allowed this to happen through his passivity but it is still abuse.

They are living in the same big house but completely separately. They don't eat together (my Dad has disordered eating and has lost stones and looks awful) and spend evenings in separate rooms and then sleep in separate beds (something I realised when I visited home and my mum had obviously using a different bedroom).

They both ring me and bitch about each other. My Dad is (I think) depressed. He is worried he'll die soon or become unable to travel and feels that his life is slipping out of his hands. He is acutely aware of the limited years of activity he has left. My mum doesn't care about this and talks about when she retires not acknowledging that my dad is so much older than her.

My mum is also depressed and is drinking too much. This was confirmed when I picked them up from the airport at 8am one morning and she was hungover/still drunk and made a show of herself.

They would be better apart but for numerous reasons I know this will never happen (financial reasons, keeping up appearances reasons, inability to communicate at all reasons). I have told them bluntly that I think they should split but when I have they backtrack or change the subject.

In he meantime I (and my siblings but mostly me) am stuck in the middle seeing them both miserable but unable to do anything. I love them both and hate seeing them so entrenched in a miserable existence .

Do I just keep providing the sympathetic ear? It's so hard to do so .

I think the thing I find most fascinating about this thread is the weird double standard when it comes to buying in to offensive stereotypes about Irish people.

On the one hand, the very common practice of a wife taking an untrustworthy husband's bank cards (often suggested here for men who habitually lie about money) is roundly condemned as financial abuse.

On the other, lying to the lower earning partner about the marital assets and conspiring with one of the children to permanently deprive her of money In her old age that could mean she is properly fucking poor when she's old is totally fine.

Because he doesn't want his wife and mother of his children, who earned a lower wage for years, like women do, to benefit from the money he earned while she looked after the family they had together.

I guess you're OK with that, because you stand to gain.

But if you really love your mother, as you claim, have a closer look at what her life will be like with limited assets in Ireland 20-30 years after her much older spouse has died.

It sounds to me like your Dad has played Daddy's girl with you for years and you are happily buying absolutely bogus reasons for appalling treatment of your mother.

Crikey I'm 55 and if you were my daughter I'd tell you to mind your own business.

They are making it OP's business by ringing her and bitching about one another. She is doing her best in a very difficult situation and she doesn't even live in the same country as her parents.

Her other siblings live further away and the majority of the responsibility is falling on OP's shoulders.

I do think BF is making some important observations, op. It is not unheard of for the abuser to make themselves look like the abused... to get the kids on their side...

Anyway! Although they are valuable points that need to be made (imo) the immediate worry of your dad's established eating disorder is paramount at the mo. I'd contact his gp and also contact eg Age Concern who are very well clued-up on potential elder abuse, and will be able to give you some concrete advice, support and pointers. This needs to be in appropriate professional, unbiased (sorry, op) hands.

I appreciate the situation is fraught, op. I'm not having a go.

BathtimeFunkster has it about right. It seems that your father has taken great care to ensure that he is seen as the victim here.

I would he encouraging your dad to travel- are that Catholic? My parents stuck it out for a looooooonnnnggg time due to how they would be thought of.
Bath time you made your opinion clear the first time- like a rocky movie I am unsure why you are coming back repeatedly and I am glad op is choosing to ignore you.

Would they go to counselling, op?

I would say, op, that there are always two sides to every story. Your dad may have seemed like the better person, etc. But perhaps in a parental role, he did appear the better person to you. In a marital role, he may not have been.

Like others have pointed out, your father not eating is cause for concern. But I also think your mother drinking is cause for concern. Does your mum know you have a lower opinion of her? I hope your dad doesn't run back to your mum and regale the conversations you and him have had. I hope I haven't seemed critical, op, and of course you are entitled to feel the way you do. I just, personally, feel that your mum maybe needs some of your emotional support too.

Disclaimer: I could be wrong!

I hope you get it sorted out. Or, at least, they can get it sorted out

I think you should come up with a line to say whenever they bring this up to you.

Something like. 'In this situation you are the parents and I am the child. Your marriage has nothing to do with me. If you are unhappy, do something about it. If not live the rest of your life like this. In the mean time, do not discuss this with me. '

Then repeat or go shorter. 'This is not my problem, it is yours. I have said I will not discuss it with you.'

On the one hand, the very common practice of a wife taking an untrustworthy husband's bank cards (often suggested here for men who habitually lie about money) is roundly condemned as financial abuse.

Where has the OP said he was untrustworthy?

On the other, lying to the lower earning partner about the marital assets and conspiring with one of the children to permanently deprive her of money In her old age that could mean she is properly fucking poor when she's old is totally fine..

Because he doesn't want his wife and mother of his children, who earned a lower wage for years, like women do, to benefit from the money he earned while she looked after the family they had together.

No, if you read the thread, the OP's parents own two properties with no mortgage, both of which will automatically pass to wife when he dies. How is that denying her the benefit of his earnings? DF has also built a reserve of cash on the side - perhaps as a response to his wife's determination to control and spend what is, in large part, his money - although I not denying her own financial contribution - perhaps partly for himself and partly for his children.

If you want to invent your own narrative BF, why not start your own thread?

Where has the OP said he was untrustworthy?

When she said he was hiding money from his wife specifically so that she wouldn't inherit it.

Ireland is not like the UK.

If both parents end up needing residential care, all the equity in that house (and the housing market isn't looking too hot right now) and the Spanish property could be gone through.

A young widow who has always worked in low wage jobs (what standard of pension does she have?) could find herself very much in need of the large pile of cash that her husband handed off to their children.

I'm not making up a narrative, I'm seeing different things from you.

The OP is hoping to see some of this hidden money herself.

She prefers her father and seems to blame her mother for everything.

Maybe her perceptions of what has gone on in her parents' marriage are accurate.

But she's not objective, and some of the ways she talks about her mother make me wonder about what that woman's perspective on her marriage and her husband would be.

When she said he was hiding money from his wife specifically so that she wouldn't inherit it.

The OP makes clear that her father took to hiding money that he's been paid in cash because his wife controls the money, she does not allow him his own bank cards, and 'only tells him the pin if she approves what he wants to buy'.

Would you not advise a woman in that position to do the same?

The OP makes clear that it is abuse. Who are you to come along and say the OP is wrong? Do you know the family?

If both parents end up needing residential care, all the equity in that house (and the housing market isn't looking too hot right now) and the Spanish property could be gone through.

The prospect of both parents needing residential care and having to use all the property equity to pay for it is a general issue for all families.

The OP's mother is in a very good position as the OP makes clear her parents are very comfortably off, she is currently still working, and she will inherit two mortgage free properties.

If OP's father knows that his wife would sooner spend all her inherited money on herself than leave any to her children, he has every right to set some aside to ensure they inherit something from him.

A friend of mine's father left her, her mother and her sister one third each of his estate as he knew that if his wife (her mother) inherited everything she would spend it all and leave his daughters nothing. He was very wealthy and his wife was already wealthy in her own right, so when he died his wife was very well off indeed. Nonetheless, she took my friend and her sister to court to try and get hold of their portions. She did not succeed.

Equally a friend of mine's maternal grandfather left money in trust for her mother and herself because he knew if my friend's father got hold of it he'd use it for himself. Her father was always annoyed about this and felt the money was rightly his.

In short, if a family member can't be trusted sometimes wills have to be left to ensure children or grandchildren inherit.

I wholeheartedly agree with the posters who say to bow out of your parents marital issues.

Would you agree to one or both being overly interested in you and your partners affairs?

The choose to stay together and play these games but don't make your concern their reward for it though.

My parents did this to me all my life until I realised they were totally committed to the drama. The crazy thing is when I went to them for support at the end of my abusive marriage, they cut me dead and told me not to drag them into it, while secretly sympathising with my ex!

Their unsaid moto was lawful wedlock = awful deadlock and there is nothing to be gained by helping them perpetuate it. Listening is enabling.

I'm trying hard not to lose it with the irritating posters who are making up their own ridiculous and wholly incorrect narratives and those who are wrongly accusing me of wading into my parents affairs.

I'm not. I have both parents ringing me separately multiple times a week to moan and bitch about each other. When I go home they both corner me on the first day to have a marathon session of telling me how awful their lives are. I don't ask them to. I asked for advice on here because I don't want to spend the next 20 years listening to the same miserable complaints and nothing ever changing. My only intention was to try and find ways to help them. I want them to be happy and I don't think that will happen with them staying as they are now.

I've had plenty of great advice from the posters who actually read my posts and didn't extrapolate their own ludicrous versions of the lives of people they know nothing about.

I have spoken to my father today and we have put in motion some of the helpful suggestions the level headed mn-ers have made.

Thank you Twinkle and Browers. You've given me enough to move forward with so I won't be returning to the thread.

Bathtime try not to be a cunt all your life eh? It must be awfully tiring.

Don't lower yourself! Well done and I hope it all works out x

I'm not the one helping my dad to rip off my mum so I can get his money, but sure, I'm the cunt.

I think you and your siblings should encourage your father to take the pile of cash he has hidden and use it to travel or do whatever makes him happy.

They are inviting you to play, you are accepting!
It will hurt you.

Calling someone a c* is a bit much, op

You are not a child be an adult and assertively stop joining in their games. They are both likely to turn on you when it all comes out (and it will), your siblings will turn on you too.
You will get hurt but at least you will be doing it with your eyes wide open.
Carry on by all means if you have your heart set on it.

Oh dear. I must be a cuntette then.

Toxic families eh. There are particular narratives with toxic families and, from what you've told us so far, yours is ticking a fair few boxes, op. Some on here are knowledgeable about patterns in toxic families and are not 'extrapolating' but recognising. Toxic families notoriously have a 'script' which members very often refuse point blank to examine.

I can entirely understand the OP's frustration with some of the responses in this thread.

Me too...