My aging father just told me I am a disappointing daughter. I have a difficult relationship and this guilt tripping feels hurtful, how to deal with this?
I know this may not sound like an outright "aging parent" problem but it is for me in the given context. For a bit of backgrnd- I am an expat and don't live in my country of origin & over the years relations back home have gotten very difficult. I have always had a difficult (though not outrightly sour nor cutoff) relationship with my misogynist family (esp father which he denies that he is one) & have been happy to be be living away & has helped me create boundaries & stay a bit at peace. I have a sibling who loves close to my parents (in their 70s). Recently, we have been dealing with my mom's early onset MCI diagnosis & communication with my father on that front has been difficult. I understand that it is & will be hard on him to since he will be the primary caretaker (along with full-time household helps) for a while but today he told me how he has always taken care of his family & he thinks he has done well at that but he has not gotten anything back in return & has neglected himself and now he has to take care of my mom also. I was a bit taken aback at this. It made me feel like he is saying he has done enough & now wants someone else to take over & take care of things & logistics.
He compared a couple of instances with other families (of close friends & relatives) where he said they all do this & that together; it feels & looks good that they do these things together. He said he feels disappointed in people. He was communicating slightly indirectly but his point was very clear almost saying that he has done so much for his family that he feels disappointed that I as a daughter have not & do not pay back by being the "dutiful" daughter that I am expected (& tried to train me) to be.
In the past as well, he has always compared others with me & said how xyz's son or daughter has done this/ that for them; they go on holidays together; they visit their kids abroad & stay with them for 6 months etc. etc. There have always been set expectations from me as a "daughter" which I have never managed to fulfil & he has made it clear in these many words on my every visit back home, more so in the last 3-4 yrs. The passive aggressiveness & resentment are very clear to me.
I have of course resisted these "forced norms" as a child & even now as a 40 yr old but I was & am always told I am the difficult one for not "complying". He has made me feel guilty for living my life as a young adult & now 40 yr old so much that I have had to stop sharing my life & travel plans with him. I have tried to maintain boundaries even though they have never understood nor believe in it nor believe in why I may have wanted them in the 1st place. He is a dismissive person, has been & now with age is getting more like that. He also said how I should not take any of this negatively and that he is only telling me which clearly indicates to me he knows what he is doing- guilt tripping.
I have lived with a lot of similar guilt tripping from him all my life & now with both of them being in their 70s I am not sure how to handle this. I don't want to fight things out & be mindful of their age & health problems but my peace of mind & my life are also important to me. I feel if I really felt so attached & connected in the relationship, I would make more effort organically. I do things now but only as an obligation- a sad reality but true. At 40, I am going back to basic questions- what do our parents expect of us? How much can/should we do? Will we ever be able to please them? How do we balance our current lives with demands/ sometimes unfair expectations of aging parents? Am I being selfish?
I am hoping there are more in similar situations who have some ideas of trying to deal with this. I know I need to get into therapy & am working towards that but until then I need support & help in figuring this out from this community that I have been silently reading for a while!
Thank you for your patience on this long read!
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Fortunately, I followed my own instincts--yes, even though they hadn't always been sound historically. Although I was never in full compliance with 1950s norms, especially for women, what dad didn't know didn't hurt him. I had been a "golden child" in his eyes, so his rejection was a HUGE change. (We never spoke again.) It was what it was, and I have no regrets.
My suggestion? Do what seems right for you. Do what you reasonably can for your parents if you choose, but YOU (and your family if/when you have one) should always come first.
Disappointed children form the line to the right.
Disappointed parents form a line to the left.
The lines are long.
Hope he finds his place in them.
As to what our parents expect of us, that is quite beside the point. Not only is it beside the point, but it isn't in our control. Why waste time on it?
No one can help the unrealistic expectations of another, nor change them. Simply admit your limitations, form your boundaries, and get on with your own life.
You didn't cause illnesses and the problems that come with them and with aging. You can't fix it. Guilt requires causation and a refusal to fix things that you can fix. So guilt doesn't apply to it. You are instead dealing with the other g-word, which is grief. Grief that you have no way to please your parents and win their love. Grief that you must stand witness to your family aging, suffering and dying.
Get on with your life. Rumination and marination in all this "stuff" will never help.
You will not please a judgemental parent EVER. You are not responsible for his satisfaction, which is his problem. You are human and as a human you have your unique limitations; honor them.
"Yeah I know I'm a disappointment, but you and mom both made me that way, so you have no right to complain, because you weren't the best parents either". Then don't say anything else and stick to the task(s) at hand.
He's baiting you and wants you to respond with emotions, don't. Just don't.
Keep your boundaries firm. Live your life to the fullest. It is up to him to cope with any disappointment he feels. It is not up to others to change to fulfill his expectations.
What you said here "A complete lack of self awareness, oblivious to how their words and actions alienated us." is what I want him to understand but I know that's a lost cause. Thank you for listening & responding.
"You must already understand" - "No I don't".
Two objectives: If he does it, at adequate length, you can see it all and decide how to respond (perhaps a good laugh). If he doesn’t do it, you stop all criticisms ‘until he does what you have asked, so you can really understand’. It’s a quick way to justify putting the phone down.
.......
PS Thinking for a few minutes more, my guess is that your F always bossed your M about, and she propped up his ego by agreeing with him. Now with Mild Cognitive Impairment she is no longer giving him that ego boost. He is wanting you to come to the party instead. It's about him, not you and not her.
I wish our conversations went both ways but not anymore. It is more of him just speaking & me listening & not reacting to keep the peace. Every time I have said anything in the past it has been dismissed so I have overtime learnt to just keep my thoughts to myself. From past experience, asking him to tell me anything on email will be a pointless exercise even though I'd very much like to do it.
I wish the conversation was reasonable enough for him to even listen to me. His general disdain for me (a woman), my independence, my opinionated self, rubs him the wrong way & even though he won't accept it, I know it exists.
You have done well so far. Dad is from a different time and culture. He will never understand how you think and feel. Maybe ask him what he thinks he had done for you. You may want to tell him that to be loved and respected you have to give love and respect. You can't demand it. Tell him your sorry that your not the daughter he feels you should be. But living in another country you have been able to become the woman you want to be and are proud of that. You have found peace in another Country that you would never have found in his country. You are not and never will be a "dutiful" woman. Its just not who you are. He needs to except that.
Keep your boundaries. Never feel you need to go back and care for them. Others can do that. You can visit to give someone a break. Send money to help out. There are ways to be there from a distance.
Read this article:
https://lifelessons.co/personal-development/
I found it very enlightening.
Live your life and visit mom at your convenience. Let dad's rantings go in one ear and out the other. Welcome to the Parents Who Are Disappointed In Their Daughters Club. I was also disappointed in my parents, but apparently we don't get a say in that!
Good luck to you.
https://lifelessons.co/personal-development/covertpassiveaggressivenarcissist/
You don't need to manage this. This is his issue to solve all by himself. He starts the guilt trips, end the conversation. Eventually he will figure it out, if he complains too much the phone call ends. If he implies you are a disappointment, do the same back at him (they never see their own shortcomings).
He is lucky enough to have a housekeeper but doesn't feel it is his job to care for HIS wife. He is about 80-100 years behind the times.
How do you manage this? Stop being his audience.
Eventually, once I left home, I started getting bombarded by these weird calls especially around the holidays. Finally, I just started ignoring these nuisance conversations. It bothered me, but I must admit that I was pretty angry with him dumping all this on me while he ran off with another woman and later marrying her. I didn't find out until five months later. He made sure he kept his support system going and had everyone fooled. I had a love hate relationship with him and after mom died I felt like I was just a means to an end. I think his wife had a lot to do with this since Mom wanted me to have the family home. His wife talked him into making me pay for a loan along with getting free care for his daughter. I refused thanks to the tough love of my Al-Anon friends. I felt that I had done enough already and I needed to move on. I still hadn't pulled my life together from getting divorced a few years earlier and my daughter and I were still adjusting. True, I had choices but when you've been brainwashed to be the scapegoat and doormat; and being dumped on constantly you lose sight of your goals and life. One church counselor told me straight up that the situation was something I was manipulated into doing for him. Dad was a narcissist and was resentful of his wife and his daughters. It took years of therapy to get to this point. I'm sixty seven now. Take it from an old fool, don't allow this needy and narcissistic man to manipulate you. Trust me, all of my family members including my disabled sister were doing fine. I was left to start over in a roach infested apartment and a job with extremely long hours but it paid off in the long run. They refurbished these buildings in 2011, and I retired from that job in 2020. I wouldn't have been able to do any of this had I not gotten the proper counseling that my job provided. I took the leap of faith.
I think you should take the good advice of Margaret McKen in the comments and ask him to write everything down in a letter and explain himself because you really don't understand what you did to him that was so wrong. Then refuse any discussion until he does. That's good advice.
You are at an advantage in your situation also. You don't even live in the same country as your parents so you are the one who controls the communication. You're in charge of how much you see or speak to your parents. As for the guilt-tripping, you're in control of that too.
Becoming an adult and making your own life is not something to feel guilt over. This is what people are supposed to do. There are many parents (my mother among them) who believe the sole purpose of their childrens' life is living to serve them from birth to the grave. Often they expect their children to also financially enrich their lives along with the servitude. It may be hard to hear, but people are narcissists who don't love and respect their family.
It's not a generational thing either. When parents love and respect their children they want those kids to have a good and happy life. They don't want them to live out their lives in miserable servitude to them. I don't even think it's a cultural thing either. My grandmother was from Sicily and from the Vito Corleone generation. All her kids (even the girls) graduated from high school. She never expected her kids to live in misery serving her for life. When she was old and needed care she didn't get stubborn and she didn't fight her kids about it. That's someone who loved her family.
You haven't done anything to feel guity about. Your father is trying to use guilt to manipulate you into coming back to their home so you can become your mother's caregiver, assume her role, and he can go back to living his life like he did before your mother's decline. That's not going to happen though and it shouldn't.
Your parents made their life and now as they age it's changing. Your father now needs to learn how to hire homecare help and how to do things for himself. The alternative to this is they both go into assisted living.
Please don't let yourself be guilted into doing something you will regret like moving back home.
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