Q: This fall, our parents will be celebrating their 30th anniversary but lately Mom and Dad have not been getting along. They fight frequently and complain about each other constantly. It was not always like this. Mom and Dad used to have a wonderful relationship. They worked hard to provide a loving home for the three of us and together they built a productive and profitable farm. What went wrong? What can we do to help our parents capture the love they used to openly share with each other?
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A: You cannot do much to directly intervene and help your parents rebuild the relationship they seem to have lost. What is important for you and your siblings to remember is that what is going on between your parents is their problem, not yours.
Chances are that one or both of your parents is going to start confiding in you and either complaining about the marriage or criticizing the other person. Don’t let them. Your parents need to work this thing out for themselves.
If you get involved, the probability of your parents resolving this thing diminishes. When they approach you, remind them that you love both of them and suggest a competent marriage counsellor.
Chances are pretty good that one or both of your parents is struggling with a mid-life crisis.
For the first part of a person’s life, survival is the name of the game. The primary concerns are food, safety, shelter and love.
Responsibilities are having an income, building a house, raising children and contributing to the well-being of the community.
Those responsibilities wane over time. The children grow up and leave the home, the house is paid for and the need for excessive income diminishes.
Enter the second part of a person’s life. For lack of a better term, this can be called spiritual time. The primary concerns are death and dying and the real meaning of life.
This is the time in life when many people start to take their religious commitment more seriously.
Responsibilities include personal reflection, meditation and coming to terms with the question of God.
The transition from the first part of life to the second can be difficult. Sometimes feeling good about yourself is hard when your children no longer need you, when the house is paid for, the farm is established and younger people start moving into your regular community activities.
An element of dissatisfaction is there, and if allowed to fester, can get in the way of otherwise loving and rewarding marriages.
Perhaps that is what is happening. If so, your parents need you to support them. Whether or not their marriage will survive the mid-life transition is uncertain. But, as I said, that is their decision.
Your job is to remind both of your parents that you have a wonderful collection of memories in your family legacy and that you have them to thank for many good times.
Love and appreciate what your mom and dad have done for your family and respect their right to resolve their mid-life crisis in whatever way makes sense to them.
