My parents, Dad 97 and Mom 92, are currently living with my husband and me. We are retired. Assisted living was not a good match for my parents. We decided to have my parents move in with us. It was working out ok in the beginning but I have developed resentment forwards Dad. Especially, when is sarcastic and behaves in his holier than thou attitude. He battered my Mom, had at least 3 serious extra marital affairs, of which I at age 10 witnessed him doing her and he introduced me to another. We had bill collectors come to the house and Mom had to go to work when I was 9. My sister and I were “latch key kids”. He didn’t work for about 10 yrs., our house was foreclosed on, and he went to prison for fraud for a year. Between all of this chaos were some good times too. Mom divorced him and took him back. I thought I had forgotten/forgiven him as we have had an ok relationship since 1980 or so. Now that they are both living with me, when my Mom gets angry with him, she brings up the past. She is making me relive my childhood, and I feel a lot of hate and resent him. I also have a rage, where if he is his sarcastic self, I will remind him of his past and how ungrateful he is to mom, and where I feel I can finally say what I could not as a child. It’s not good. I have tried making him a stranger, but when he knows he is pushing my buttons, I lose it. Out of the goodness of my husband and me. Why do I feel like I am being punished by having to relive my childhood into retirement years? I did not realize or even thought this would happen. The whole reason we had them come to live with us, was to make them happy, eat good food, be comfortable and with family. Moving Dad away, is not doable. How do I stay centered and focused on the present?
"Assisted Living was not a good match for my parents" you say. Why on earth not???
Being with family wasn't enough for "dad" the first time he had the privilege and abused it. Why would it be enough now?
Good food is available in Assisted Living.
Why are you making all these excuses to keep your parents with you in your home?
How do you stay centered and focused on the present, you ask?
Read the book, The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle.
https://a.co/d/j9YtIKP
I'd wish you luck, but I don't think it's luck you need as much as the courage to do what's right for YOU now. At 97, dad's already had his life.
You decided they could move in.
You can un-do that decision.
My mom was born in 1906 and got married in 1929 (great year!). She was trapped in the "housewife myth" of the post-WWII era. While my dad wasn't abusive, he wasn't the best husband either. My mom overlooked a lot of problems to keep the family together. She never worked outside the home so was always financially dependent.
Her situation taught me a HUGE lesson early in life. I held P/T jobs from age 17. Starting at 21 (post-college) I held full time employment until age 72, when I decelerated to P/T until just short of 78. I was able to provide for myself completely as an adult female, even if I didn't always have to. I earned my own fairly generous Social Security benefits, for which I am very appreciative as an old woman of 87. Many women of my mom's generation weren't so fortunate.
You did not sign a contract, written in blood, that you would let them live with you until their dying days.
Give them 2 weeks. Tell them to be packed and ready. In the meantime, you arrange for Assisted Living, again.
Since when was ANY apartment a perfect fit?
Out the door, they go.
A: Because you are.
Q: How do I stay centered and focused on the present?
A: Determine that staying centered and focused is your goal and make a list of steps that will achieve it. One of those steps needs to be to get both mom and dad out of your home permanently. If you can't see that, there's no hope here, and you continue to live in a home where no one is happy until two people die. And even then you've got the residue of what's happening now added to what happened long ago. You'll be trudging through that mental sludge forever.
If you really don't want that, YOU need to change. You can't change your tormentors. You've tried long enough.
it’s all a big greedy business.
You tell us you feel you are being "punished". If so, you are doing the punishing yourself, as it was you who created this unhappy situation.
It is also you who can end it. If you choose to do so.
As adults we must be responsible for our own decisions. Even in taking in parents who are loving, organized and agreeable there should be:
1. An agreement drawn as contract for privacy, for re evaluation monthly about whether the plan is working for all (and if not working for one it is out of the question).
2. An agreement for payment of shared living costs and their reevaluations.
If this was not done it is too late to get it done before move-in, but not too late to do it now.
If this was not done and the situation is not working for you then you will need to let your parents know this, help them find other places to live (whether a good fit or not) or evict them.
Again. You are an adult and you made this decision. We often, in life, make wrong decisions and the reasons are quite unimportant. What is important is that we CORRECT them and LEARN from them.
People do not change. Basically we die as we lived. And others cannot change us.
Truly I wish you the best. I understand this is harsh but I feel that sympathizing with people who do these things holds them back both from addressing the awful situation and from learning from it. Lessons for us all come the hard way. Sadly. I wish you good luck. Discuss first with your family and then have a HARD but HONEST discussion with your parents.
It is never wise to move abusive parents into your home. But if you are willing to continue reliving your past with dad and mom and all that trauma, then what can anyone on this post say to change your mind? It's time you chose yourself and told your parents they will have to live with the consequences of their choices and decisions and that may mean a sub par facility. After all when you were a helpless child it did not seem to bother either one of them that they were abusing you (each in their own ways). Those emotional scars heal over but they never disappear. Save yourself. Choose yourself. I really hope you do because you deserve it.
I had a father like that as well minus the nastiness of sarcasm. He had his way of getting his digs into you. Both of my parents played siblings against one another.
This behavior among older married couples was the norm for their generation since women were more dependent on men for their survival back then.
You saw older couples sleeping in separate rooms. That was considered a separation back then. An older therapist told me this. A lot of women wanted space of their own and stopped sharing the marital beds. Some of the men moved out and never came back. Some of them did come back home eventually.
I won't elaborate on the horror stories.
I think you should start shopping around for an assisted living for your parents. This setup is not working for you and your family. You should be enjoying your retirement and not focused on the pain of the past even though bad memories do crop up from time to time. Sometimes I wonder if this mess ever gets resolved in our heads at all. It is very difficult to deal with very selfish people even though they are old. You remember the pain and the heartache you felt.
Dealing with childhood pain and learning to separate it from your adult ego would be the place to start. Easier said than done.
They are miserable and taking you down with them . I know all about this . I had a lifelong miserably depressed narcissist of a mother . You can’t make these people happy . I know this because I tried . Your mother made her bed by staying with this man as well .
It is 100 % your right to put your own health and happiness first . This is not fair to you or your husband to live like this . They will not change how they behave and you should not put up with it . Take back your life !
Your parents need to move out . It is doable . Tell your parents this arrangement is not working and they need to go back to assisted living . You can visit once a week if you like and bring them a meal .
My Dad was a good man, he loved my Mom and his kids, but he felt he was the man of the house. He was not easy to live with. Confidence he did not instill in his kids. There was alot of "truth said in jest". He would start out kidding and then cross that line. He pushed buttons. Two siblings ignored him, 2 it effected and I was one of them. I told my brothers (my sister passed) that if Mom died before him, he would go into a home. I was not caring for him. Because as my husband says "I let him get to me ". And I thought I had gotten over it until one Thanksgiving he made a snarky remark to me and I walked out the door and went home. It got worse as he aged. I cried when I got home because I was mad that he could still get to me.
Do not allow Dad to live with you. The AL was not a good fit, either is living with you. Talk to Mom privately. Tell her Dad has to go. You can't take this fighting because it brings up bad memories. She is welcome to stay with you but Dad has to go. This is your retirement and you need peace.
Look up "gray rock method". This is where you literally ignore someone.
Your comment resonates with me so much and it breaks my heart. I actually have tears in my eyes reading what you wrote here. My family normalized abuse and cruelty too. I've heard the 'don't let it get to you' and ' they were joking' since I was a little kid. I often went into the bedroom closet to cry when I was a child. If anyone saw tears it would only get worse.
It was only when I met my first husband and his family did I see that cruelty and abuse is not normal. One time I cooked dinner and had my parents over along with my in-laws. My parents' behavior was deplorable. No one was impressed by their sarcasm or snarkiness or by their constant instigating with each other. Not at all. I worked so hard on that dinner too. I went out onto the porch and cried a little. I didn't want anyone to see because I thought that was shameful and acting like a baby.
My MIL came out and in her own combination of Polish and kind of broken English told me it was okay because I had new parents now who loved me. Then she ripped my parents a new one. She was right.
I only disagree with you on one point, JoAnn. The OP should tell both of her parents they're moving out.