Reply to Feeling hurt when other people fall apart over their elderly ailing parents while mine died young

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think it’s dysfunctional to be hurt be how other people feel about losing their own parents.

I get feeling envious, frustrated, regretful, needing space, and having your grief triggered by the experience.

But they aren’t doing anything TO you. They are just grieving their own parent in their own way. It’s not about you, just like it wasn’t about them when your parents died.[/quote]

This is OP here.

Just to put the story straight, my MIL is still alive. As explained in my first post she lives in her own house and she receives help from private caregivers and from her adult children.

My DH and his siblings may be grieving even before MIL has passed but she is definitely still alive and hopefully she will continue to live for several more years.

MIL and I get along very well. She is a lovely lady and she has always been good to me.

It's just that I feel cheated out of all the extra years my parents could have lived and I could have spent with them, doing all the parent/adult child and mother/adult daughter things that people with living parents take for granted. Celebrating birthdays and milestones, maybe going on vacation together, mother and daughter chats, just to name a few.

When mom died, DH and I had only been married 10 months. Our wedding day was the last time I saw her happy before her cancer diagnosis. We never saw this coming.

My DH kind of understands my feelings. My SILs do not get it and they are unable to relate to the fact that I'm still missing my parents after so many years, while at the same time stressing out about the thought that MIL aged 93 might die one day.[/quote]

Please understand I am saying this gently. I hear that you are hurting and grieving and I am sorry for your losses. I understood from your OP that your MIL is still alive. But I interpret your DH an this family's current feelings about her to be grief because that is what it is called when you see a loved one whose body and mind are starting to fail them and you know the end is probably near. Their grief is undoubtedly different than what you experienced with your parents. It's still grief.

You say you feel cheated out of extra years with your parents. This is totally understandable. But your DH and his family did not cheat you out of that time -- life did. It's unfair but they are not to blame. They didn't do this to you.

I am glad your DH kind of understands your feelings. I would encourage you to also understand his feelings about his mom and try to support him in that. And while difficult, I would suggest that you try to set aside your own experience for a time and not hold it up for comparison to what he's going through. I don't think it serves either of you. There is not grief contest (and if there were, how would one "win"?). I hope he was supportive of you when your mom died, and again when your dad did. And I hope you can find a way to be there for him now and not view what is happening with his mom as something that is always happening in the shadow of your own losses.

Also, at 93, she could die any day. She might die 10 years from now or she could die tomorrow. Again, this is totally different than what you experienced, but it's also an objectively difficult thing. It makes you think about your own mortality a lot. It makes you feel like time is moving very fast and very slow at the same time. It can cause a weird decision paralysis. Sometimes people are afraid to go on vacation or have a holiday away from their parent, because there is always this threat that it's the last. And that can compete with our own understanding of your own time slipping a way and wanting to make the most of it and not spend your time simply waiting for the day this loss will occur.

It's not the same as what happened to you. It's very different. They are very fortunate to have had all these years with a loved parent, and it is very sad that you did not have those years. But that doesn't make their current situation easy or mean that they should not talk about it or express sadness or difficulty. It is totally okay for you to need some space from what's going on with them if it's bringing up a lot of feelings for you. But it feels like you are asking them to simply feel differently than they do. That is not a reasonable ask. And it won't bring your parents back.[/quote]

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