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Seems like you, the OP, are being advised to estrange yourself from your those within your family who cannot act "appropriately" making them "hateful." Perhaps skip all gatherings where your grandmother and dad are present. The hug from the little old lady who brought an end to family gatherings. I suspect, OP, you have more common sense than this. A suggestion: maintain your 'boundaries' with kindness instead of outrage. Your grandmother arrives mid-meal for a hug, meet her halfway, escort her back to her seat, all the while promising her the best hug ever after the meal.
Perhaps at your age you don't fully realize how the elderly crave touch, how it is an expression of their humanness, of the love still embedded within them. Spouses may now be dead, little children and grandchildren now grown. The suggestions to put your elders on a behavior modification plan - "distance yourself until they can act appropriately" - that is so sad.
Your Dad being older no doubt gets it. For you a not terribly touchy-feely young man it's harder, and that's perfectly understandable. Still the appropriate psychological framework here is not 'boundaries,' your selfhood inviolate, the jargon of the current generation. If the old childish love for your grandmother is a phenomenon of memories past, and her current eccentricities now more present and irritating, well that's also understandable. Sometimes the elderly are a pain in the butt.
For generations functional familial groups have found concepts like respect and care for elders useful. Not to cater to them, but to help foster the concepts of basic trust and care that are found in the best but of course not all family structures. It's an ideal to strive for, and growth comes from at times putting others before yourself. Perhaps that's the lesson your Dad is trying to pass on. Not only to please his mom but see his son continue to grow into an admirable man.
We are never too old to learn lessons, and, of course, that applies to your grandmother: hence my suggestion for kind and gentle redirection as necessary.
This is clearly inappropriate and based in hate, sometihng I cannot support. Do not conjure up stories about myself or any other posters whom you know nothing about. Do not get personal. I did not read beyond your first sentence for obvious reasons as you don't know of what you speak. Posting lies about my family or any other posters family here is not acceptable. Stick with the OP who has given facts and requested advice about his circumstance.
Adults don't tell other adults who to hug and who not to hug, period. They certainly do not chastise another over it, we need to be minding our own p's and q's. This animosity is not necessary. If you are not a likeable person that others often shun affection, you may want to look inward. Commenting on other posters here who hug or don't hug their moms is getting too personal.
Op is a grown 34 year old man, who’s grandma was around him in childhood doting on him and she’s one of those clingy sentimental clannish women who clung to her son and her sons kids.
I certainly don’t know what it’s like to dote on your son’s babies from infant onward and watch them grow through stages of life, but I imagine their feelings will be stronger than your feelings, and you won’t understand those feelings until your kids ( if you have them) have babies, and you're a part of their lives for decades, as you yourself get closer to death. I mean this grandma is what, 80s ?
The kids in return want nothing to do with her. Could be she’s a little much, could be the typical kids who have way more important things than thinking about grandparents- better seen than heard, and not interacted with. I’m sure I didn’t see grands at op’s age, wasn’t that close.
Though I did have a grandma who I had a few sketchy interactions(corporal punishment) as a kid and she didn’t speak well of my mom and tended to push people away, yet needed a lot of attention.
It was sad. I saw her once years after she moved away and she was lonely. I didn’t blame her for her isolation as some sibs did, as being deserved. Deserved or not, isolation in elder years is very cruel. I can see it, feel it. Even though I didn’t feel close to her I felt sad for her. She was so hungry for attention like a caged animal. In my typical callousness of young adulthood, I felt uncomfortable and didn’t understand hey I’ll be old like that one day- never thought that would be me.
But it is, op, one effing day you could be grandpa/ old senior guy all alone, your years ebbing away. Maybe you won’t ask for hugs or attention. Doesn’t mean you won’t necessarily need a sign of caring from somewhere, maybe even your kids and grandkids you doted upon and shared memories you cherish.
For whatever reason, Op doesn’t really seem to care for grandma. She adores him based on history that it’s her grandchild, they shared memories that mattered to her and maybe she’s holding onto those as she gets older and older.
I think it’s best to just give the lady a hug and try to be compassionate, because she’s freaking old, like 80 probably and near dementia, if not already there. There may be a time she doesn’t even know who the eff you are. That’s pretty sad, unless you’re a stone.
I’d think you’d feel more regret standing there arms crossed to maintain boundaries, than one day realizing this woman tried to make special times and memories for you, and maybe one day you’d be a grandpa and do the same. Then you might realize that’s a special comforting love you have for grandkids carrying on the family line, a legacy one is a part of . Maybe it’s comforting to think of your grandkids living on after you’re gone. And them having kids and happy lives.
I think you're justifying by talking of Disney world views cuz you want no granny hugs. Geez Disney memories are cheerful compared to how complicated a hug is from someone who hasn’t done you any real harm. I’ve hugged people I barely know out of politeness and while I didn’t particularly feel anything I carried on.
I think granny earned a hug here and there even if unexpected. Jmo fwiw. You don’t need to ever hug her if you’re so sure of your correctness.
Go back and read - the OP does sometimes hug his grandmother - and he does see and talk to her.
For you to say he doesn't care for her is out of line and a story you made up in your own head.
I (34m) have not had a close relationship with my grandmother on my father's side for many years.
While there are several things I could point to, I think the main reasons are she some of the time looks at me, acts like, treats me like I'm still a little boy and in some respects does things that give the impression she expects to have the same relationship we did when I was a child and doesn't know what a relationship between a grandmother and 34 year old man should look like.
This may sound odd but whenever I am around her, I feel like she NEEDS energy from me.
In an attempt to paint a better picture of her, she loves the world of Disney, and in many ways, acts like/thinks real life should reflect the happy, loving, world that Disney characters and their stories exist in.
I've made it very clear over the years that I do not like when she tells the whole family stories about something cute that happened when I was a child, or when she professes her love for me to the family or when she randomly tries to hold me hand, pet my arm, hug me, all like I'm a child.
She has continued to do these things throughout the years, not respecting my boundaries. She doesn't seem capable of seeing me as an adult. I have continued to pull away more and more while trying to be cordial.
There are other things as well that rub me the wrong way but I'll stop here.
I will admit I'm not the warmest person in the world. Maybe it's a me thing, maybe I'm wildly cold hearted but being around her makes me want to withdraw. As additional context, multiple family members have issues with her as well.
This past weekend, at a family event, she got drunk, and started professing how much she adores me, which I just tried to ignore because I don't like when she does that. She then got up from her seat at dinner and came over to me basically begging for a hug. Maybe I should have sucked it up and appeased her but I had had a few drinks and decided I wasn't going to entertain it and ignored her.
My father called me the next day calling me out about this, saying that I was rude, mean, I humiliated her, and that I need to look at myself as a man and he doesn't understand why I don't like his mother. I initially was calm and told him he's entitled to his thoughts and feelings but once he called out my manhood I raised my voice and told him that his mother endlessly needs my energy and she always does this and I'm not doing it anymore. The call ended with him saying that he's not yelling at me but that I have no right to disrespect her, be mean to her, that it's his mother, and I should think about things. I just said ok a few times and he asked, "that's all you have to say?", to which I said yes.
Is this all in my head and I'm just an utter piece of **** for acting like this with my grandmother? Is she in the wrong for continuing to ignore boundaries of mine and being unable to have an adult relationship with me?
It's been many many years of feeling like this and this uncomfortable dynamic. Is there any way to repair this? How so? Should I even repair this?
I guess with my father, it might be best to tell him that this is why I've acted this way towards his mother all these years, but I'm not sure he'll understand that I feel like she needs my energy and attention and that makes me withdraw. Not sure there's another way to make up with my father but open to suggestions and advice.
Just have a respectful 1 on 1 chat with your grandmother to remind her that you want her to hug you less often and not make a scene. She isn't perfect (nobody is), drinks alot, and is a bit loosey-goosey/quirky or whatever but that's who she is. You don't get to pick your relatives. So just have periodic reminders, as she has trouble adjusting to current realities and/or reading the room.
I'm just going to say that nobody in my family abuses alcohol including myself.
My grandmother is a lightweight and 1-1.5 drinks gets her drunk. She doesn't get drunk often.
At family gatherings, almost everybody likes to have a few drinks. It's a social gathering and environment.
Nobody depends on alcohol. Nobody gets overtly sloppy due to drinking too much.
While socially drinking at family gatherings may not be commonplace for some of you and where you live, it's normal for where I am from.
Also, my grandmother never physically abused me, nor has anybody in my life.
Ok, so she is a overly needy woman but has things changed from in your say late teens to early 20's to now? She is in her 80's based on your Dad's age so early dementia maybe setting in. She is also considering that she is closer to leaving this world and wants to get in all the hugs she can. Or maybe she knows you hate it and she is just being a pain. So, how do you deal with it. Just lean into it. When she gets up and hugs you saying I know you don't like it, say I love it grandma and hug her or let her hug you. Don't wince, smile. If the reasons are the first in that she is starting dementia all the more reasons to do this. If the latter, you have called her hand and now she has nothing to torment you with. There could be worse things, she could be a real nasty woman.
OP did not introduce the theme of sexual abuse into this thread; indeed nothing in his description of the time he spent with his grandparents when younger suggests this.
To my recall he describes *himself* as not being particularly touchy-feely and it's not terribly unusual for a young man to no longer want to be so smothered by his grandmother. Still life is not always exactly what we want at any one moment in time -certainly not at the expense of a woman who appears to have been nothing but kind to him. Now sure, the grandmother may well be a bit persistent and not a good cue-reader - hence others sometimes find her a bit much. '
The OP may well have to develop an approach or technique to better deal with this grandmother without saddening and possibly embarrassing her and upsetting his father. Presumably at age 34, he has already learned how to avoid child predators.
You quoted me but yet I said nothing about sex abuse and OP. What I said (and what I stand by) is that when you teach children that they must always be compliant, quiet, obedient and teach them that they don't have any say over their own bodies, than you are setting them up to be taken advantage of.
Just have a respectful 1 on 1 chat with your grandmother to remind her that you want her to hug you less often and not make a scene. She isn't perfect (nobody is), drinks alot, and is a bit loosey-goosey/quirky or whatever but that's who she is. You don't get to pick your relatives. So just have periodic reminders, as she has trouble adjusting to current realities and/or reading the room.
Man ... it's crazy the way some people around here take any mention of alcohol as a sign that someone drinks too much.
... or let's give old people a pass for rude behavior because it might be Alzheimer's.
Man ... it's crazy the way some people around here take any mention of alcohol as a sign that someone drinks too much.
... or let's give old people a pass for rude behavior because it might be Alzheimer's.
Well, because alcohol was important enough to mention in the situation the OP initially described, taking that into consideration when suggesting how to respond to their behavior is appropriate. Their faculties are impaired, so trying to make them change that behavior is sort of wasted effort. Not to mention the lesson of the moment may soon be forgotten. However, I agree that extrapolating "being drunk" to assume they drink all the time or are an alcoholic isn't fair. I suspect people who take offense when anyone suggests alcoholism might be involved instead of overindulgence are overly sensitized about the whole topic. They're primed to feel insulted and just waiting for a chance to haul up their injustice banner. A look into why might be worth taking.
A cognitively sound person who is rude is a lot different from someone who's rude because of dementia. One is probably a deliberate choice. The other is not. So is how best to manage that rudeness in the moment.
This thread has gone a looong way into the weeds. Some of C-D's lurking conspiracy theorists took advantage of the platform and trotted out some of their pet hot buttons again. Only the OP could tell us whether they gained any useful insights about overindulgent grandmothers or not. Somehow, I suspect not, but no one here can change that.
Last edited by Parnassia; 05-17-2024 at 03:19 PM..
Thread is closed due to in-fighting and questionable problems family member has not supported by the OP.
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