How are you managing your relationship with aging parents?
Hi all,
I just want to get some advice regarding my situation. For some background im a 26 (M), and I’ve been thinking a lot about my parents as they age recently.
I’ve never had a solid relationship with my parents growing up and even now mainly due to the fact that my father was always working and I dealt with a lot of abuse/neglect growing up from my mother.
I never had my parents at any events growing up whether it be school, graduation etc. and it always made me feel like there was just something wrong with me. I saw how they’d treat my older sister and the contrast was stark.
As my parents age and I’ve come to age I’ve accepted that I just can’t change the past, my father was always working all the time and still sort of is, most of our interactions boils down to saying goodmorning or happy birthday. I’ve noticed they’ve slowly been trying to mend our relationship by asking surface level question, but honestly it just irritates me whenever they try to speak to me or show any sort of affection.
I feel terrible about this and I do want our relationship to get better now that they’re 68 (dad) & 52 (mother), and I feel so guilty about not trying to do this sooner. I don’t relate to them in any regard, but I don’t want them to die thinking I hate them.
How did any of you manage a similar situation?