My parents are complainers, naggers and always yell and fight

[orangetree]

Hi,

 

I was wondering if anyone feels this way too and if so, how you handle it.

 

Basically I do love my parents, but often I don't feel comfortable around them. I've been living abroad for four years now and I visit them 2-3 times a year. Before moving abroad, I never realized how miserable my parents actually are. I've been with my boyfriend for 2.5 years and his family is exactly as I would love my family to be- They're super close to each other, they never fight, they always laugh when they're together, they're always happy when around each other and his parents are supportive to anything he does etc. It's just pure harmony and love, just wonderful.

 

My parents on the other hand are.. how can I put it.. very complicated. Let's start with my mother. My parents fight a lot. Not just about important things, also about nonsense. Well, my father doesn't, but my mother yells at him for basically everything. He doesn't find the wine glasses in the closet, she yells. He asks her how she is feeling today and she yells, saying that she has told him before. He eats slower than her, she yells. Or sometimes she doesn't yell but says it in a very nagging tone. My father takes it relaxed, but obviously he doesn't like it. She does that in front of me, it doesn't matter if I'm there or not. She's also the biggest complainer I've ever seen. She complains about literally everything. There is a line of 5 people at the bank office, she complains. The cashier at the bakery doesn't directly pay attention to her, she complains. Not to him, but to me. Or to any other person who's with her. Every day she's complaining multiple times about having a neck ache, head ache, dizziness or things like that. She even does that when I say for example that I have a headache, instead of commenting on that she just says 'Since this morning I've had the worst headache bla bla', without even saying anything to my own headache. I've told her before that she always does that and she never changed it. She also complains about me, for example today I offered to cook and when she came home she complained first that I didn't make any rice as a side dish (she hasn't told me she wants rice) and a few minutes later she said I should have bought bread as a side dish. It really annoys me so much. Also, she has behaved like a complete bitch in the past. When I moved abroad for the first time, she got so angry that she didn't talk to me at all for two months. Then she visited me abroad two years ago, where she also met my boyfriend for the first time. She extremely misbehaved, completely ignored my boyfriend even though we let them stay at our apartment, yelled at my father non-stop, started crying and freaking out without any reason and behaved like a spoiled little child. My boyfriend of course has the worst impression ever of her. She's also against me living abroad and tells me often I should move back here. I visit my parents 2-3 times a year and I spend in total around 4-5 weeks at their house per year and it's still not enough for her.

 

My father- He's less complicated, but he's also driving me mad. All the mail I get (addressed to ME) that still goes to our house (like bank statements, I still send them to my parents address because I'm worried they get lost when they send them abroad) he always opens, always, often even calls me and asks me why I bought this and that on that certain day. Basically he's controlling everything I buy and asks me about it. I told him many times to stop, he won't. Also, when I'm at my parents house on the computer, he keeps walking by to see what I'm doing on the computer and constantly asks me what I'm doing. It really gets annoying to the point that I'm writing a message on FB to a friend and he' directly like 'Who are you messaging?'

 

 

 

Well, I also have to say that my parents have their good sides of course- My mother can also be very sweet and nice when she wants to and she can be quite funny. My father is extremely warmhearted and would never do anything bad.

 

To be honest I feel a bit guilty about feeling this way about my parents. I love them, but sometimes I wish that my boyfriend's family was my own family when I'm around them. I wish my family was like that. I sometimes don't even like to be around my parents because of all these things (constant complainers, nagging, yelling etc.).

 

 

Is is normal to feel that way? Does anyone here have similar problems with their parents? How do you handle that?

 

Thank you.

[Els]

Oh, very similar - my parents' quirks aren't exactly the same as yours, but they drive me nuts in a different way. I'm also in a similar living situation as you are, in a different country from them. Are you Asian by any chance?

 

What I do is spend only the obligatory few weeks a year with them, and the rest of the time I live my life as normal. I don't cave to many of their demands, because from sad experience I know that nothing I do will ever be enough for them - they will always find something to nag me about. They are good people in their own ways, and I have no doubt that they love me (in their own ways), but at the end of the day I have to live my life for myself, and not them.

 

If you figure out a better solution, let me know.

Edited December 19, 2014 by Elswyth

[Art_Critic]

I seriously doubt there is anything you can do with your parents, why you have your mail delivered to their home and then complain that he opens your mail is beyond me, not that him opening is okay but if he won;t stop then the inaction lies on your shoulders.

 

Get a post office box and then put in a change of address at the post office and have all your mail diverted to the post office box..

 

easy peasy...

[Els]

Also, re: the bank account statements, IMO if you are residing permanently in another country you should be keeping and handling most of your finances there. Open a bank account in your current country and handle most of your expenditure from it. Why is your paycheck going into an overseas bank account anyway? Or are your parents supporting you financially?

[orangetree]

No, I'm German.. I assume you're Asian?

 

Yes, I hate that it's never enough for them. I'm always at home two weeks for Xmas, another week in Spring and another 1-2 weeks in summer. And they have visited me additionally once in the last two years.

My mom even said 'If you're smart you come back to live in our city'. That means she thinks I'm not smart I guess because I didn't oblige. She thinks I'm nuts to choose any other country over Germany because for her it's the best country in the world.

 

I know people who live much much closer to their parents and only visit them once a year for a week or so. They really cannot complain at all but they do.

[orangetree]

Also, re: the bank account statements, IMO if you are residing permanently in another country you should be keeping and handling most of your finances there. Open a bank account in your current country and handle most of your expenditure from it. Why is your paycheck going into an overseas bank account anyway? Or are your parents supporting you financially?

 

 

No, they haven't supported me financially since I graduated from my degree a couple of years ago. I work self-employed and I have most of my clients in the country where I'm from- So for them it's much easier to transfer my money to my bank account in the same country.

[Els]

No, they haven't supported me financially since I graduated from my degree a couple of years ago. I work self-employed and I have most of my clients in the country where I'm from- So for them it's much easier to transfer my money to my bank account in the same country.

 

Ah, okay.

 

I think in general you just need to take steps to set up boundaries between you and them as far as possible. I'm sure there is a workaround for the bank account, perhaps you could cancel paper statements and rely on online ones, or just set up a recurring transfer from the overseas account to your local account, so all the individual expenses are done from your local account. Frankly I wouldn't even be happy for my parents to have access to an account that my pay is going into, so I would do whatever is needed to work around it, even if it meant paying a bit more in terms of fees etc.

 

You can't change your parents, but you can change the ways you let them affect your life. It's easier said than done, I know, but you could start with the bank account and then work towards the trickier boundaries.

[orangetree]

By the way, since everyone is just addressing my bank statement problem, this is one of the small problems. I'm much much more annoyed by my mother complaining all day long and yelling for no reason.

 

She just yelled while I passed the bathroom, she was in the shower, yelling in a very aggressive tone that there is no shower gel and why I always take it somewhere else. I told her I did not (I really didn't, I guess they just forgot to buy new shower gel) but she was already mad and didn't wanna hear anything.

God.. 'just' 7 days more to go.

[mrs rubble]

How do you respond to her yelling?

I have a very loud son, who's talking voice is a yell, I use a very quiet voice when I talk to him and it makes him lower his tone in response.

Also, how about pointing out positives to her, before she has a chance to complain? If you hear enough positive stuff, the negative is likely to be left behind.

[pink_sugar]

My family is full of drama and bs. My mom and stepdad yell and fight all the time and it has been that way for 20 years. I try to be scarce and my husband and I are working on moving out asap.