Being close (in feelings) to your parent(s)

[Night Elf]

Just now, I was thinking about the old poem/saying:

 

A son is a son 'till he takes a wife,

A daughter is a daughter the whole of her life.

 

Stereotypically, a daughter generally stays close to her parents, whereas a son is expected to break ties. Do you find this to be true?

 

My DH says he feels as close to his mom as he can considering we live 850 miles apart. He likes his mom and enjoys spending time with her. She is a smart woman who never interfered with her sons' lives as they became adults. While the kids (all boys) were growing up, she talked with them and listened to them. She included them in decisions. (His dad wasn't around much and then he left when DH was 16, so he really doesn't remember his dad being a major part of their lives.)

 

Then there is me and my mom. We're close although we haven't always been. She's got some mental issues that she refuses to address. When they caused a problem, I pulled way back. Now we talk on the phone a lot, and when we do, we can easily chat for a couple of hours. She's a good lady that had to make some hard decisions in her life and I think she did a pretty good job with what she had. She's having a hard time right now and I want to be a part of her life in case she needs me. A year ago, I was writing on this board that I would never allow my mom to move in with me but now things just seem so different between us. She's more like the mom I remember growing up and we were super close. She's fun and makes me laugh. We live just over an hour away and I now wish we were closer so I can spend more time with her.

 

So now to my kids. I have a pretty good relationship with my kids. So far, dd20 and I are still very close. Dd14 has pulled away from me. We still have a good relationship but she no longer shares lots of little things with me. This is a normal part of being a teenager, I'm sure, but her sister never went through this so it feels a bit sad. And my ds15 and I are very close, but I can't make a fair assessment because he doesn't have any friends. I hope an pray that he gets married and enjoys life and doesn't always remain as isolated and lonely as he is now. (He has Aspergers so it's a struggle for him.) And when he does get married, I wonder what our relationship will be like because he's a boy.

 

Anyway, I think about what life will be like in 5 years, or 10 years. Where will they be? What will they be doing? Will they still feel close to me? Will I talk with them daily, weekly, bi weekly, monthly? I will not be the kind of mom that interferes. I'm already experiencing some of that with dd20. I know how to step back and keep my mouth shut. I like being a sounding board. Instead of giving just my opinion about something, we always talk about all options/choices/points of view. Maybe that's one reason my dd20 does still talk to me about everything.

 

I hope we all remain close, but if I use my relationship with my mom as a guide, I am realizing I may not be a big part of their daily lives. With my youngest being 14, it's hard to think about it because it feels like it's right around the corner.

[The Girls' Mom]

I don't know.

 

My mom passed away when I was 19. (I had been married for 3 years by then, so we did have a small taste of an adult relationship).

 

My dh is much closer to his parents that I ever was. He talks to his mom nearly every day. When my mom was alive we only talked once a month or so. My dad and I only talk about once a year.

 

I really think it has much more to do with family dynamics than gender. I'm just not close to ANY of my family, whereas my dh is very close to his.

[Elinor Everywhere]

And my ds15 and I are very close, but I can't make a fair assessment because he doesn't have any friends. I hope an pray that he gets married and enjoys life and doesn't always remain as isolated and lonely as he is now. (He has Aspergers so it's a struggle for him.) And when he does get married, I wonder what our relationship will be like because he's a boy.

 

 

This sounds exactly like my ds14. I think he'll want to be close, but he's not much of an initiator. He thinks he may want to go into the military, which will mean he won't live near by.

 

My dd14 and I are very close, and I think overall that will stay. If we live in the same town, I think we'll see each other quite often. But I do think she'll move away, and then it'll be phone calls. I hate thinking about it.

[Impish]

I'm the only dd, and frankly when I've had that quoted at me, it's felt threatening, as in my brothers could leave and have their own lives, but I'm not allowed.

 

But, as I've mentioned in another thread, my mother is very, very far from normal.

 

Wolf being an only child of a nutbunny doesn't give me any normal insights either.

[NicksMama-Zack's Mama Too]

Beth:grouphug:

 

I am very close to my mother. I can't imagine my life without her. She lives with in driving distance to me and has been a second mother to my dh and children. She is very close to my children and has remained a confidant to my oldest in his teenage years.

 

She went out of town to stay with my brother for 3 months and I missed her so much. My heart hurts to think of my life without her.

 

However, I still have the diary I kept during my teenage years. It reflects a whole different relationship. I was a self-centered, emo teen. I really didn't like her much, didn't need her much (in my teenage mind), didn't seek out her opinion, etc. I was very critical of her even though she was very supportive and non-judgemental of me. I can hardly read it without feeling shame.

 

So, I guess I'm saying that the relationship you have now with your dd is just a snapshot in time. She has time to grow up and grow back towards you. Try not to take anything she says personally and continue to love her.

 

Hth,

K

[Danestress]

(edited title because I accidentally wrote we don't have to accept distancing, which was the opposite of what I meat to say).

 

Sorry. It's sad, isn't it?

 

We live less than two miles from both my Mom and my MIL. It's great. I see them both regularly. DH takes his mother to lunch every week or two. He stops by her house sometimes on the way home from work. I see my Mom a bit more. She drives one of my children to an activity twice a week, and drives the other when needed.

 

So they are part of our daily lives in that we are available to them and they are available to us. I can have a glass of wine at my Moms pretty much any day I want. I would say we have a pretty perfect set up. My adult son lives about two miles away too. I see him maybe once a week - he tends to come looking for dinner and company when he has a couple of days off in a row. I feel quite close to him. I'm sure he doesn't tell me everything - and I don't want to know! But depending on what "close" feels like, I would say we are close to both our mothers and our adult son. We certainly love each other and have low levels of conflict.

 

I think for some women, though, this wouldn't feel close enough, because "close" includes a great deal of talking and information sharing. I probably am like your middle daughter. I was compliant, but I definitely pulled away from my parents emotionally at that age. I tell my Mom what I want her to know, and tend to avoid topics I don't want to talk about. I find myself at times resenting that being a daughter is supposed to involve so much talking and sharing, while you can be a star son by just showing up and changing the light bulb, lol.

 

I really hate the saying about a daughter being a daughter for life and a son until he takes a wife. First I resent the presumption that I am expected to be close for life (even though I am!). I am only close to my parents because they are reasonable, pleasant people. I also hate (even though it's often true) that a son's wife pushes him away from his parents. I would say that in most marriages, I do see the bride really needing to create space between her in-laws and her husband, in a way that new grooms don't seem to need to do. I didn't realize how much my DH meant to his mother, though, until I had a son of my own, so I probably wasn't a model DIL in the beginning. But I hate that our culture actually expect and excuses sons to ditch their parents. Not every cluture is that way.

Edited June 13, 2012 by Danestress

[Just Kate]

I am very close to my parents. Right now, my little family lives in my hometown and having my parents near by is such a blessing! We see them multiple times a week and they are a lifesaver to me since dh works out of town often. I have lived away from my parents and was still very close to them. As a matter of fact, when pregnant with ds, my mom came and stayed for two weeks prior to ds being born (he was 2 weeks late) and then another two weeks after he was born to help out.

 

My only sibling is my brother and he is also quite close to my parents.

 

My husband's family, on the other hand...we live very far from his family, but I don't think it would matter if we lived next door, he just isn't close to them. He loves his parents and doesn't think badly of them, but it just isn't in his nature to be close with them. He has a sister and a brother that do live near them and they aren't close either (although MIL thinks that they are).

 

It makes me sad thinking of my kids someday. I know I have to let them go, but I certainly hope we can still be close.

[Denisemomof4]

i have found this to be true so far, but it also may be growing pains with ds20. He and I were very close and he shared everything with me. He is now in a serious relationship, two years strong, and his loyalties have transferred to his gf. Things are different now.

 

My dad was very close to his mother and called her all the time, but he chose to move far away for a job. Most of their relationship was his calling her, her visiting him. My dad didn't go see her when she was really sick because he couldn't leave my mom who was caring for both her parents with Alzheimers/dementia.

 

Dh has Aspergers. He had friends but mainly a lonely childhood. His mom had him 16/18 years after his sisters. His dad was sick a long time before he died when dh was 11. It had always pretty much been the two of them. She was always really mean to me and even screamed to dh she won't call him if she has a need, she'd call 911. Of. Ourse she was threatened by me. I tried for 17 years to be her friend but she was always awful to me. I had enough (when she told me it would be ok for dh to have a girlfriend..... ) and she is no longer welcome in our home. But for all25 years we have been together, 23 married, dh's loyalty did transfer to me. I was his #1 and he saw her less and less.

 

I know some men stay very close to their parents. I find it much more common for dauters to, even among my adult friends. There are exceptions to every rule, but generally it is how I see thi gs play out.

 

A lot depends on the girl who ends up with the guys. Ds's gf is self centered and is most comfortable in her own setting. I have really tried with her but nothing is going to change the fact that she has huge walls put up and doesn't let many people in. I tried with mil but she will always hate me for taking her baby away. My grandmother and aunts never liked my mom. Notice the pattern?

[fairfarmhand]

my dh comes from a family of 3 boys. One of the three strives to be close to mom and dad. The others, while they enjoy family, don't seem to NEED that closeness like the middle son does.

 

I think it mostly depends on personality and other factors, like the family dynamics of the son/daughter's marriage.

[Nakia]

It's pretty much opposite for my husband and me. My husband's mother passed away when he was 12, but he is EXTREMELY close to his father. They are the best of friends. It actually caused a lot of problems when Patrick and I first married because his dad thought he could come and go, in our home and in our "business", as he wanted. He had to be corrected. Now he is pretty good about respecting our privacy. We see him often, and he lives a couple of miles away.

 

My father abandoned us when I was 6. We have a very limited relationship at this point in my life. My mother and I used to have a very unhealthy relationship where she spent her time manipulating me, and I spent my time going between anger and guilt. About 3 years ago, I had to confront her, fix a lot of damage, and break that codependency. Now, we speak on the phone maybe once a week and rarely see each other though we only live 15 minutes apart. In my mother's family, there is not one single healthy woman-to-woman relationship. It is very sad, and I work hard to break that chain with my own daughters.

[Impish]

LOL (not funny, but either I laugh or cry)

Yeah, I know.

 

Nakia, I'm hoping and praying to break the mold w/my dds too.

[Denisemomof4]

Oh, and I want to encourage you about your son. I never knew dh had Aspergers (neither did he) when we met. Like most Aspies, he married an extrovert. Through the years he has grown into a very talkative guy with a great sense of humor. This because he married me. He still has guys ask him to do things with him all the time but it is me he wants to be with. He is such a loyal, dothing husband. We have had our issues, like any married coupke, and recently went through a major upset. We don't have mores struggles due to AS, they are just different. Some marriages with an AS spouse are very hostile because the neuro typical spouse doesn't understand AS. I have done quite a bit of reading and also belong to online support groups. It helps me to understand how dh works.

 

I can say for certain that he is the best thing that ever happened to me, and he is an EXCELLENT husband. My friends remind me all the time how lucky I am. I do know that.

 

Please consider helping your son's future wife get educated. It is SO important. Sometimes the online groups infuriate me because the hostile spouse is ranting about the AS again as if the aspie can help it. There are also a LOT of resources, groups, etc. Out there. I can honestly say that for the most part AS has been more of a blessing than anything in our marriage.:001_smile:

Edited June 13, 2012 by Denisemomof4