Reply to I feel nervous talking to my Boomer parents about my life... not sure what to title this

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm sorry to hear about your fiancee.

For me, I expressed myself clearly and honestly to my parents so I knew with certainty genuine effort had been made on my side to connect and have a different kind of relationship.  When I did this, nothing changed and in fact, the conversations went horribly with one parent and with the other parent, they acknowledged everything I said but then none of the behaviors changed.  Once I did that, it was pretty easy for me to move on and have only a superficial relationship with them.

So my advice is organize your thoughts and have an honest conversation and then go from there.

Invest in other relationships in your life.  Family is the people you choose.[/quote]

OP here. Thank you for your reply.

I feel like I have tried to do this with my parents too. When you said that the behaviors didn't change after you expressed yourself openly and honestly, I totally related to that as I read it. I feel like I've been down that road with my parents as well. I think I see them giving more time and effort to their relationships with my siblings and wish I had that. And then when I reach out, the conversations leave me feeling pretty awful and I go down this cycle of bad memories being brought to the surface and feeling horrible about myself. Overall, I feel like my parents just don't "get" me at all.

I have tried to invest in other relationships and it has helped some. I guess there is just always that part of me that grieves that the relationship i have with my parents isn't what I wish it was.

For example, my dad was an only child. He would go to his parents' house often and have coffee in the middle of the day and sit and talk for hours. I can't even go to my dad's house because his wife doesn't like visitors... especially unannounced visitors. I've been to his house a total of once in the last five years. When they have Christmas at their house, they even tell my siblings (who have their grandkids) something like "It will be from 2-4"... lol. I just think it's bizarre. But it makes me sad. Growing up, we'd go to my grandparents' house on my dad's side on Christmas eve and we'd leave when we were done... which could be at any hour.[/quote]

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