Is it selfish to establish boundaries with ageing parents?

Hello. I lived with my parents till i was 25. I moved out despite of their resistance and have been doing well since then. During my entire time with them they fought with each other, to the point that my mom left suicide note but decided against it because she didn't want to leave me and my elder brother behind with my abusive father. My father had depression for almost 10 years and it showed. I remember his violent outburst at my mom and how much we feared him. He also suffered from insomnia for the better part of his life. As kids we were so scared of waking him up when we used to go to washroom that we would crawl on the floor and did not dare to turn on the light at night. Even then he would scream and hurl abuses at us. Also for cultural context, I'm from India and my parents weren't stoked about me being born as a girl because dowry and all that. They both had decent jobs though. My mom thought it was a good idea to tell a very young me that my father never wanted to have me (a girl child) and had suggested to give me away to an aunt who couldn't bear kids. But that fact didn't surprise me at all because i could feel that everyday in his behaviour. My mom too was a big time misogynist. Her family like most family at that time and even to this day had the culture of giving special treatment to male child and consider girls as liability because eventually they'd have to be married off.
Cut to the present, I'm 30 and live on my own and have a decent job. I'm also gay. The childhood trauma and being queer in a developing nation wasn't a great combination so i had my fair share of anxiety and depression. Currently I'm on antidepressants and they're working fine. I'm out to my friends but not my family. I don't feel close to my family, i never felt any support from them as a child and i don't think it's going to make any difference even if they knew. I just don't want to do so much emotional labor for no apparent result. So after being pushed again and again for marriage, I've told my parents that i don't ever want to get married. They're still trying for it though but since I'm independent and don't live with them, they know they can't make me do it. Now, my mom came with a brilliant plan that if I'm not getting married, the least i can do is get a house on loan and she would leave my father and start living with me. When i told her i can't live with either of them, she started pushing me. She told me to ask my flatmate to leave so that she could live with me if I'm not ready to buy a house on loan. Let me tell you my parents are well off enough to have some land and two houses. She can afford to live on her own if she wanted to, but she wants to wrap it under the garb of helping me so that society doesn't judge her for not living with her husband. I told her that she always had problems with me throughout my childhood and now that i can afford to live away from them, there's no way I'm going to mess that up. But she kept saying that she will live with me, no matter what i say. So i told her that i had a bad childhood with them and now that I'm a adult, i no longer want to be with them. I'm ready to fulfill all my duties as their daughter but what i can't do is also sacrifice my adult life for something that have so many different alternate. She was furious at this. She started ranting about what an ungrateful child I'm. How I'm blaming my failures on them now... How my brother lived in the same household and has no complaints... How children on the streets too have a difficult childhood but don't complaint....annnndd her favourite phrase that she has been using on me since childhood..."you can't adjust with anyone, that's your demerit". Which is funny because i can literally be friends with an alien... That's just how open to new experiences I'm. Infact they have this complaint that i talk to my friends and even strangers wayyyy for than i talk to them....i don't know when it'll dawn on them that it is them i can't adjust with.

ethereal · F

I’m sorry you’re going through that. I was literally nodding and relating to what you wrote. (Sorry for the long comment.)

I’ve had a similar childhood and my father still sometimes calls me ‘his son’, and it’s one of the reasons I still feel disconnected to my own femininity. I have been tomboyish and even after getting married, I stay away from all kind of ‘symbols’ and dresses women like to wear, even makeup. I think that while growing up, I ingrained his belief and stopped acting like a girl because he didn’t see me that way. I’ve had a lot of issues with my mother too. But somehow her issues got over with me the moment I got married. It was so ironic, I still feel her behaviour to be unbelievable. When in my uni, she once told me how she didn’t want to have me (she had me when she was 19) and I rebelled all the way upto 30 to not get married. They (meaning my mom, she always spoke to me on behalf of her and dad) kept telling me to get married all through my 20s and I just kept telling I’m not getting married. I got married at the start of my 31st when I fell in love and knew that he was right for me.

I came to this family section to post about feeling selfish to create boundaries around my in-laws (they are okay/good people but too much extroverted and together kind, and i love to be aloof), and reading your post, I remembered my parents and how I stayed firm in being true to who I was to them.

You don’t have to feel guilty or bad to live your own life. They are your parents, you are not a parent to them. Even in old age. You can give them some care, if they need it, but from your post, it sounds like your mom can live independently if she wants to. Help her move to another place. Explain to her that you’re an adult and need some space. Most parents (indian or not) think that they own their child and that since they helped the child grow up under nice roof etc, the child now owes them..which isn’t true at all. That’s such a crap belief to have!

Creating boundaries is sometimes much needed, especially for girls and women, because we are never taught how to create healthy boundaries, or to be true to ourselves no matter what. Society has glorified motherhood and crushed the individual femininity, individual womanhood. We either have to be married or mothers. (Right now I have clash with that, both in-laws and my parents want kids from us, and I know it deep within my heart that I want to be childfree, to never ever have kids.) We don’t need to sacrifice our lives for others, it’s our choice if we want to. Just remember that your life is your choice, it’s absolutely okay to live it in a way that you see fit, no matter what your parents say or think. They lived their lives, they chose whatever they chose, now it’s your turn to live. So just live in an authentic way.

:)

blasphemy666 · 31-35, F

@ethereal thank you so much for sharing your experience... It's sort of comforting to know that parents could be unreasonable across cultures. I often felt that i was more and more inclined towards the masculine side in terms of gender expression because i saw it being rewarded in my brother... So i guess sub-consciously I started imbibing his likes and dislikes (video games, violent shows, aggression and lack of expressiveness along with ofcourse fascination for women) I'm not saying that's the definition of masculinity since gender is an spectrum but that's the sort of gender expression by brother learnt from our society and that's what i thought was a safe option to grow up in my household. I remember beating myself about failing both the gender roles because i can't cook or drive😂
Now that you mention it, it makes all the more sense to me.

dancingtongue · 80-89, M

Really hard to fully appreciate the different boundaries across cultural diviides. But at the risk of passing judgment from a culture that doesn't respect the aged enough, what you are describing sounds more like child abuse (albeit, the child is a fully grown and self sufficient adult now) than any lack of respect for ageing parents. It is not like they are in dire straits (other than of their own making), are financially solvent and capable of taking care of themselves, and any threat to each other is not new nor different. In Western culture it would be considered bad parenting on their part to have shamed you in to living at home under them as long as they did. I see nothing to be ashamed about in setting reasonable boundaries as the independent adult you are.

It does seem somewhat dysfunctional for them to lament you being female because of the dowry issue, yet put pressure on you to marry. But I understand that is a cultural difference, carried to an extreme.