How do you deal with elderly parents being negative about life and their ailments?
Neither of my parents have great health, I do feel for them as the majority of their weeks are attending one hospital appointment or another. I’m a positive person and I’m very close to my parents, but I’m so drained by the constant moaning and negative comments about being in pain, fed up and then arranging to do things with others or booking holidays, only for them to often cancel nearer the time. I just don’t know what to say to them anymore.
There are people their age who are far worse of than them yet those people manage to soldier on, but they just don’t seem to get much joy out of life anymore. They’re mid 70’s so still should be enjoying life as much as possible. I’m finding myself distancing myself a bit to preserve my one mental health, but it’s heartbreaking as I don’t really want to be doing that.
Any advice please how I tackle this going forward. I don’t want to fall out with them as I love them dearly.