Feel like a disappointment to my parents

[DamnitImTired]

My parents and I have lifted fairly far apart for many years, since I was in my early twenties. We had annual holidays and we (my husband and I) shifted our work responsibilities around (we work for ourselves) and we took them on amazing holidays and they really got involved in our lives for the short period that there were here. It was real holiday mode and intensely focused around them and including them in our life. I’ve never had a particularly close relationship with my parents because I’ve always been a pretty closed book (it’s just the nature of who I am and most people know this about me). When we lived apart we could go for weeks without talking to each other. I just don’t like interference and I’m fiercely independent and I don’t seek out approval or advice from them (or anyone except my husband tbh). And we’ve built a very successful life on our own.

Anyway, in the last 2 years my parents have moved closer to us and now live within a few minutes of us. They have retired from work and I feel like their decision to move here was largely based around this life we offered them whilst they were here on holiday. I feel like I disappoint them now because our real life isn’t actually a holiday. We work and we both enjoy our lives with our friends and our time together with each other and pursuing our hobbies together and separately. It doesn’t mean we don’t have time for them but it’s not the intense togetherness of a holiday. It’s more what I would consider as a normal relationship between an adult child and her parents. Ie tea on the weekend, supper once a week …

I just feel like they expected more. And I feel terrible for thinking that I didn’t ask for them to move here. It’s not like I was missing something in my life that needed them to plug a hole in my life. I was happy with the annual holidays. My dad is not the most social person and would quite happy sit in my husbands or my company day in and day out. I feel guilty for having a function at our house with friends and not inviting my parents. If we do something that they would have been involved in had they been here on holiday eg going to watch a sport event then I feel terrible for not including them.

if I had to talk to them about it I know they would say there isn’t a problem but deep down I think they are disappointed that this move is not all they thought it would be. I feel like they long for a deeper closer relationship with us but I’m happy with how things are or at least were. This may be all in my head… perhaps I am just feeing the responsibility of the pressure to look after them.

What were your parents like towards you when you were younger?

Do you not think your parents can organise their own retirement? Do they have any interests or friends ? Why do you feel responsible for for providing a full on 'holiday style' retirement for them? I'm sure you are overthinking this. Retirement is always a bit of a shock after a lifetime of the routine of work, I'm sure you're parents have made their own plans and knew it was going to be like this.

My parents were good parents and I cannot complain about my childhood at all. The age gap between me and my next sibling is 6 years and then a further 15 to my youngest sibling.
The years apart and my independence at determined nature to make my own path have ultimately led us to be quite different in terms of how we see the world but it’s never been a contested issue more just a generational gap which I’m sure a lot of people find with their parents.

I think partly the reason I feel guilty is that there time with myself and my husband influenced their retirement plans and the reality is a bit of a disappointment for them.

im sure I am overthinking this.

Whilst being fiercely independent and happy with my own company we do tend to take on a lot of responsibility for other people’s well being and happiness and I’m probably just putting them in there with the other people we care for.

So, you feel that they thought the dynamics of your relationship would change once they moved closer? That you'd suddenly be spending a lot of time together and they would be invited to join you in your social activities? I sense your parents don't have a very busy life and aren't seeing friends, playing golf, travelling etc?
They are expecting you to fill the hole that work used to fill? I wouldn't feel guilty about not wanting to be in that role. You have never had that close relationship so why should you feel you have to entertain them? They are adults and can make their own decisions, don't feel obliged to include them in your plans. Their retirement may be a long one, don't set yourself up to be be their social secretary.

@Harvestfestivalknickers
you've just said exactly what I feel I am not allowed to say as a dutiful daughter. 😂😂😂

caught between expectations and other peoples closer relationship with their parents and my own reality that I’m happy with and didn’t ask to change.

@Harvestfestivalknickers
they do have friends but are not hobby traveling kind of people and I think they thought our life would provide that in their retirement.

I am well aware that I am not responsible for them in their entirety but can’t shake the feeling that they thought it would be different.

What @Harvestfestivalknickers said, but also, OP, you keep saying you’re fiercely independent and determined to forge your own path in life, but that’s not how you’re coming across on this thread. You sound rather enmeshed and guilty, and feel unduly responsible for your parents’ independent decisions — and you say yourself that you take on undue responsibility for other people’s health and happiness. Why is this?

Where are your siblings? Can they go and stay with them for extended periods?

@InheritedClock
i don’t know! That is a good question.

my husband suffers from the same sense of guilt and responsibility to his family.

neither of us come from wealthy or successful families and have both chosen (consciously I don’t know) to change our fortunes. My husbands late mother always told him a job was safe and self employment was too risky (obviously her own fears) and his brother has made a proper meal out of his life. My parents chose security and a career with an end.

my husband and I will likely never retire in that sense. We are both a type achievers who Jam Pack our days with activities and very seldom have nothing to look forward to.

the sense of guilt we have to provide the other people in our family with a piece of that is a burden. Perhaps a burden we place on ourselves.

@PrincessOfPreschool
my siblings are now me…. Far away and having annual holidays with my parents.
perhaps the other reason I feel responsible now that’s it all on me.

Something that might be worth looking into in therapy?

I don’t not sympathise — my parents are vulnerable, poor and isolated, I made a decision to get educated and make very different choices, and I’ve lived in another country for most of my adult life till a few years ago, when DH and I moved back to be closer to both sets of parents.

And yes, I’m definitely also a disappointment to mine, who would have liked me to leave school early, marry locally and be a SAHM to lots of grandchildren, doing lots of popping in and out, whereas they got a careerist who has one child by choice.

Do you have dc, or plan to? Be careful any you do have don't become their hobby, as is all too often the situation.

For you, your relationship with them isn't close but you made the effort once a year to do a lovely family holiday. They KNOW you are independent, have made a life without them and have lived away from them since your 20's. You can't force a 'closeness' that isn't there naturally. Don't feel guilty about encouraging them to move, they are adults and responsible for their decisions. I would encourage them to make new friends, join local groups etc but make it clear you and your DP have your own lives to lead. The relationship they feel they need with you was NEVER there and you can't force it. Other than these big holidays once a year, you lived separate lives, they were content with that as we you. It's the sudden change of retirement that they are struggling with and it's not up to you to fill the void that work used to.

@Commonsenseisnotsocommon
no DC and it’s too late for that. We tried but were not successful.
my husband has two kids from a previous relationship but they are young adults now.

@Harvestfestivalknickers
thank you for that. It is exactly the conclusion I come up with every time I think about it.

Well at least that isn't a factor to consider then. I'm slughtly confused as it sounds like you live very independent lives but this sense of guilt really needs to stop. You are not, nor should you be expected to be, entertainment for your parents. They really need to be building their own lives or accepting that life is quieter than they'd have hoped but that you are still generous in seeing them when you can. If I may say, it sounds like there is some emmeshment there too and you need to pick apart your feelings about the situation from theirs. I understand your situation but this ongoing dynamic and self blame isn't going to help you long term.

I guess to put it into a visual picture.

I already had a full pie that was divided up into various pieces. There was not a missing piece of my pie.
Now my parents expect to be a piece f
of that pie. There piece was always there it was just quite small due to the distance and the nature of our relationship.

in order to give them a bigger piece of pie something else has to give and I quite like what my pie tastes like as it is …

You are right. I am not responsible and need to stop feeling so responsible.
maybe the guilt is that I could do more if I wanted to but I don’t want to do more and that doesn’t seem so nice.
I often ask my friends what their relationships with their parents are like and most of them centre around grandchildren and even then it’s a few hours a week. So I really do give my parents my time but maybe the quality of the time is what disappoints them.
gosh. You would think that you would outgrow this sort of guilt but it just seems to get worse as you get older.

I was thinking that these intensive holidays in the past were in part a way of allocating a manageable, self-chosen in timing, slice of pie, annually, to your parents. Now that slice is no longer an intensive couple of weeks once a year or so, it involves incorporating your parents into your lives in much smaller but far more regular amounts, so it’s more diffuse and unlimited?

What is it that makes you so sure that they’re secretly disappointed with what you can offer in normal, non-holiday life? Also, did these holidays take place overseas/away or in the geographical place you live in and that they’ve moved to?

Please try working on this for your own sake. You may have years more of them being alive and then the years after they've gone, don't let these guilt feelings tarnish it all. They decided to move, end of. It is not on you to look after their happiness at the cost of your own. Go easier on yourself and let go.

Holidays were always where we lived but would be something that my parents would never do for themselves either because it would be completely out of their comfort zone and or budget.

My husband and I still holiday quite frequently as we did before but we are not that wealthy that we could take my parents with and also this is a part of my life I really enjoy, time away with my husband as it has always been, bar the odd year when my parents visited.

My siblings are visiting later this year and we will all holiday together then.

I don’t know perhaps I am overthinking it all. Right now I am sitting at home alone, my mom has called to see if we want to do anything and I just am quite happy to be at home by myself. My husband and I will probably have a bbq at home alone this afternoon as he has been out all day.

makes me feel terrible because there is just no reason why they couldn’t be here with me except that I don’t want them to and when they lived far away it just wasn’t even an option so I never had to say no.

I think this is really pertinent. Stuff like this is generally linked to how you were parented (not always of course) I wonder if your “forge my own path etc” is actually I’ve got normal boundaries, wanted as any young adult does to evolve and get away from parents and they made me feel bad so now I’ve been conditioned that I’m a disappointment for not making them happy.