I just want some perspective of whether I’m acting like a manchild or not.
I’m a 30M who recently visited my grandmother for the holidays. She was expecting me to stay long-term with her, something I initially agreed upon but I quickly realized our lifestyles don’t match.
Some background:
I’m currently unemployed but I’ve saved up a lot during the time when I work, enough that I can support myself and cover all my expenses independently.
My grandmother is rather elderly and has very poor eyesight. She can live by herself but she has some trouble with doing chores. I helped her out during the weeks when I lived with her but she usually criticizes me or ends up not needing my help.
For example: I buy or cook food for her but she doesn’t eat it, preferring to eat her own food. However, I always try to help if she asks me explicitly.
What’s driving me over the edge is that she finds something to criticize me about everyday. Sometimes it’s about the fact that I’m unemployed and that I’m lazy (which I find very grating). Other days it’s about me messing up a chore or placing something somewhere she doesn’t want (she’s very nitpicky about things).
I decided today that I wanted to move back to my own apartment, which she did not take well at all, calling me disappointing and ungrateful, and that she will be moving into a retirement home if I move out. I just thought that since I can’t really help her very much (I feel like I’m causing trouble even) and I dislike being criticized by her constantly, it would be best for us to just live separately.
I do come from an Asian culture where filial piety is emphasized, so I am facing some pressure to take care of her in her old age. She does worry and care about me quite a lot (she raised me when I was a young child), but I think she is thinking that I do owe her in some way in that regard.
I will drop everything to take care of her when she does become too old to take care of herself, but as of now, I just want to move out.
AITA?
NTA.
Family favors should never be a granted thing.
To my eyes what you owe her:
– physical help when you can.
– making sure she’s receiving care and help when you can’t.
What you don’t owe her:
– giving up your life and freedom.
– tolerating constant insult and complaints about you and everything you do.
100% this. NTA.
I am currently trapped in a similar situation.
Both of my parents are elderly and have numerous health issues. My oldest brother and I live with them.
The constant criticism, disregard for my physical and mental health, time, and finances (despite the fact that I work full time) has taken a tremendous toll on me physically, mentally, and emotionally.
I am currently *desperately* seeking any way to escape.
Nothing I do is ever ‘good enough’.
OP, please don’t let yourself be pressured into this.
NTA
If she decides to be insufferable, then fair enough. Now you are 30, if you have better options you should go for them.
How far from her is your apartment?
I don’t know how it is to live in Asian culture, but where I come from expecting a 30yo to move in with their grandmother would be really weird.
I fully understand why you don’t want to keep living there. To me it sounds like a rather hostile environment.
Perhaps you can reach some sort of compromise. You visiting her a couple of days a week to help her with chores and keep her company. It might be an idea to help her join some sort of senior center to get her out of the house and socialize with someone more her age and situation.
I think the family need to do more, sounds to me they are guilt tripping OP to look after her, because they don’t want too.
I live maybe a 2-3 hour train ride away.
And yea I do see that it’s pretty weird for me (a grown ass man) to live with my grandma but I think it also has to do with me being unemployed so I have the time to help her. And yet even if I have the time I choose to not live with her, which makes me a bigger asshole than normal (if I’m being one)
NTA the people putting pressure on you to look after her, let them do the job.
Based on whats given. Let her move to a home. Don’t let anyone guilt you. No one asks to be born, and a kid shouldn’t owe anyone anything for raising them.
That said, has she ever contributed financially to you in a significant way (to YOU directly, not to parents thats supposedly for you)? She may have reason to expect that back, depending on your agreement.
before judgement, INFO: where do you live? where does grandma?
[why would she assume your visit was meant to be long-term? – nevermind I remembered you agreed but changed your mind. which is valid.]
She has not but she frequently offers me cash and is in general very generous with her money with me. However, I have generally not accepted any of that.
NTA
However this is a sensitive situation. Older people get set in their ways and because of that they are harder to live with but they also have a harder time accepting the stage they are in in life which does come off as her criticizing your life which isn’t cool. It seems she doesn’t have enough going on in her life to keep her busy and focused so she is hyper-focusing on your life and what you do in the house. I would see if there is something she can do that she can look forward to that gets her out of the house or a new hobby she is capable of doing.
She is feeling lost on what her role is now in life and helping her might help your situation if you move out or not.
Why does this fall on your shoulders and not an older adult in the family?
I think I’m expected to have more responsibility because that I’m unemployed and therefore I have the free time and also the freedom to relocate. All the other adults are busy with work
Filial piety should not mean you becoming a doormat to someone else’s whims. Your only moral responsibility is to make sure she’s well cared for and financial responsibility for that would fall on her children well before it falls on you. Otherwise you’ll find yourself being the doormat for every generation up the chain. I get the cultural pressure. But it has also shifted heavily from the intent of respecting and caring for your elders into Asian shaming and blaming. Don’t fall for it. NTA. Smile and nod at the crazy old lady while she walks into the retirement home and visit her once in a while.